Roast #48: 2025 Year-end wrap up

Damn, we only wrote 4 posts this year – we slacked off.

Past years wrap-ups:

• 2024 year-end wrap up
• 2023 IG video
• 2022 year-end wrap up

I guess we've been doing this for 3-4 years now? I've mistakenly been telling people we've been operating for 2-3 years. Oops.

Quick numbers:

• We roasted about 1338 pounds on the IR-5 (2x from last year)
• We offered 24 coffees this year.
• We finished with 72 coffee club subscribers.
• We sampled XXX coffees.

Maybe only 10 were shared with us as roasted samples, everything else was green so I had to sample roast.

A little deeper:

some more context behind the above numbers.

• Non-subscription retail bag orders increased 2x. Total orders are still small-ish, so every order makes some impact. Notable thing is I don't have a strong understanding of why this happened. We did less marketing/social media/events this year, so I'd have guessed it'd be more flat.
• Wholesale made up 25% of revenue. Margins are obviously much slimmer, but the intake is still surprising.
• The Finca Milan Nitrogen Washed Caturra was our best selling bean.
• Coffee club subs show slow growth, but it's there. I'm not too worried about its pace.

getting sales is hard. :\

2025 Goals Look Back Reflection:

Note – I looked at this list maybe a total of 3 times in all of 2025, so my actions definitely weren't guided by these goals. I'll print out my 2026 goals and tape it to my door to keep them top of mind.

link to 2024 goals

1. Better implementation of design throughout the brand. [miss]

This miss is on me. I've started a packaging redesign, but it's been slow because I've been slow to provide needed copy/feedback. :|

Other than the repackaging, I haven't spent too much time thinking about design throughout the brand. One big-ish realization is that I should rename our customer-facing branding from "thoughtfulcoffee" to just "thoughtful".

This change comes from seeing people continue to refer to us as "thoughtful".

From Falcon

From Osito

From Unblended

2. Be more strict logistically and financially. [done-ish]

I've made improvements, most of which were bolting on additional tooling on the admin side.

Some changes we've made:

• Acuity (booking software) for in-person pickups. It's way expensive for how we are using it, but it's made managing in-person pickup much easier.
• Quickbooks for invoicing/handling wholesale orders. It's also made viewing our numbers a lot easier.
• Started a public wholesale interest form/offering sheet. I guess that'd make this year our first year doing wholesale. 👀

our offering list - look how ugly it is

Then financially, it's been more of a shift in mindset. It used to be like "it's okay if we lose money", but now, with the possibility of borrowing money, we have to prove we are a viable business by making money.

Then coffee-wise, a few notable changes:

• Tracking moisture levels of green to better interpret roast weight loss.
• Tracking color readings. These don't mean much without a consistent procedure, but it's another dimension to analyze when comparing roasts (for consistency).

green moisture details registry

Put out more social media content [miss]:

We did less social media content this year. I'll do better in 2026. More on our content strategy later.

Figure out how to bring new customers [done-ish]:

I have two guesses why this happened.

The first is that our wholesale cafe partners brewed our coffee so well that their customers became curious about other coffees we had and bought them directly.

Subliminal Coffee putting us on

Nako putting us on

I have seen a minor influx of orders/traffic from our cafe partner regions, but the numbers aren't large enough to explain the 2x result.

My second guess is that it's from you all sharing with your friends and them making a purchase 👁️.

Start a home cafe series [done]:

We did it-ish. We positioned it as a slow-coffee-bar sort of experience. I cleared my living room and hosted 4-5 people at a time while brewing a set menu.

the aftermath

It was a fun experience! I enjoyed the conversation, and it was humbling to see how many people came out for it.

Kenneth brought his friends, Sara brought her family, I got to meet a few out-of-town members: Martin (from Boston) and Whitney (an OG member from the west coast). It means a lot that all of you were willing to go to a stranger(-ish)'s apartment for coffee.

the milk brew — with finca milan nitro caturra

Lastly seeing everyone's feedback and fascination on the milk brew was eye-opening. Signature drinks will absolutely be something to look into moving forward.

Goals/Changes for 2026:

Time for the fun stuff.

Easy ones that aren't as easy to measure:

0.) Continue prior goals:

0.1) Refining our logistics:

The easy ones I'm hoping to knock out are implementing a strict and consistent roasting schedule.

0.2) Have a strong understanding of our financials:

• All our products/pricing should make an acceptable margin. Wholesale prices are currently being reworked. As is, if you order two 5lb wholesale bags, I'm losing money on that order. We have a roasting rental fee to work in, and there's currently not enough margin to properly cover that and free shipping (which goes up with more weight).
• We should have a better understanding of how much money we have, how much remaining inventory is left, how much we are growing/contracting, etc. This is really looking like an office job now. 😢

1.) Wholesale:

I want to better figure out our workflow here. I'd say things are still pretty adhoc here.

PDX Coffee Club putting us on

Some quick wins I'm hoping to look into building:

• A more visual way to showcase our offerings
• A better way to take in interest
• Some way of capturing notes on our cafe customers. What samples we've sent, what sort of beans they like, etc.
• More push-like communications, maybe a newsletter announcing releases to keep us top-of-mind.

2.) Tweaks in coffee program:

I want to pivot our sourcing strategy to focus on coffees that are more approachable in price. This year I tried pushing our program towards pricier coffees, and it didn't really work as expected, I don't think these buyers are my audience.

The now deprecated fancy coffee club

We'll still have a few fancy coffees ($40+/lb) from farms (Hacienda La Esmeralda, Hacienda Copey, etc.) we've bought from in the past.

They've all been such a pleasure to work with, I know their work is great, and I would love to grow those relationships. :) But I don't think we'll be actively reaching out to other farms that price or operate in that realm – at least for now.

2.1) Release one medium-to-dark roast offering

thoughtful dark roast

I'm keeping this number small to start.

I don't have a palette for dark roasts, I don't know the nuances to look for when sourcing, and I don't have a mental model for roasting dark. So there's a ton of research, learning, and calibration before roasting to sell.

If this works, this could help us better serve cafes by providing a wider spectrum of coffees. Figuring this out would give us our core espresso coffee. We'll still have a separate option for light roast espresso/coffee drinks.

Don't kill me, but I do love a sweet, rich, chocolate-y cortado.

I'm going to treat this as a small side-side project for now.

2.2) Release 1 light roast blend:

This past summer, Paolo, an old customer, came back in town and mentioned an idea that has stuck with me. Every coffee roaster can buy the same lot of coffee, but where they can differentiate is by creating their own unique blends.

This totally makes sense. I know of more than 5 roasters who have offered the Finca Milan Nitrogen Washed Caturra, but none of them are showcasing it in a blend.

Blends usually get a bad rep, but if you approach it from a profile composition perspective, it can get really interesting.

2.3) Release 1 decaf:

Many of you have asked. I'll keep an eye out for this in my sourcing next year.

3.) Create more social media content (continuation, but more specific/actionable):

coffee club v13 release video

I'm learning that content shouldn't be forced. I know there's the thought of creating content to play the "social" game, but I think that'll result in inauthentic posts. So for now, I'm going to create content that I feel would be comfortable and easy for me to produce:

• Pair all substack posts with a shorter IG reel summary.
• For every coffee club box release, create a release video that talks about and describes the coffees.
• Have quarterly reflection videos.

4.) Sign a Brick&Mortar lease.

I think 2026 is the year. But I won't force it.

and I think… that wraps it up.

I think the above goals are actionable, and aren't too loaded to give room for #4.

Final thought:

The deeper into this I get, the more discouraged I get.

I'm realizing how difficult it is to make this work. Specialty coffee doesn't scale well, margins are thin (profit margins are 2-4x from cost? like, that's it), and is financially risky (cash hungry).

I'm still going to move forward with everything, but man, it feels I'm risking a lot for what may be little.

Nevertheless, the risk must be taken.

Thank you's:

There's likely many, many more people to thank, but these are the ones I can think of at the moment.

Cafe partners:

From including us in your advent calendar, to keeping us in your rotations, and to referring us with your customers, it means a ton that you believe in our work. I'll do my best to continue sourcing/sharing yummy coffees. 🙇

Gian [@apassageforms]:

You've been there for all my urgent, last minute design needs. I know I've sucked at getting you things you need (copy/feedback), so thank you for putting up with working with me, and I really appreciate it. 🙇

Alyson [@bunsblooms] + Emmy [@emmytrg]:

Thank you for work with us on our one-off designs. Our customers loved/will love your artwork. 🙇

Corey [@corydross] + Mandi:

Both of your excitement and support for thoughtful's success is just so humbling. Thank you for dedicating your weekends to work with us. I absolutely can't wait to see the finished product. 🙇

Helpers: Austin [@austind.17], Nick [@nlarrea26], Claire [@clurtado], Wendy [@wendycameraclicks], Wilfred [@wilw1124]:

thank you all for giving up your time to help us brew/pack. I'd not be able to serve as many customers without your help. 🙇

Exporters/Farmers:

Thank you all for sourcing/growing such amazing coffee greens. Without you all, there'd be no coffee for us to serve. 🙇

Customers:

The biggest "thank you" goes to all of you for taking a shot on us.

Before coffee, I tried selling candles, and the demand was just never there, and working on it was so hard, it always felt like an upwards struggle.

Thank you all for supporting us, buying from us and keeping the thoughtful dream alive. 🙇

Thank you, thank you, and thank you.

To 2026 we go.