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a pinch on the wiser side, but I am certain it would not have been worth it. The strength and growth that has come out of taking chances at Handsome has reformed my approach to pretty much every decision- making process. DO UNTO OTHERS… The obvious interest the three of us shared from the beginning was easy to see: a passion for amazing coffee. The almost equally valuable, and quietly surprising one, however, was business theory. From building our company around a Seth Godin quote, which says in part "We can't please everyone, in fact, we're not even going to try, " to finding motivation in Bre Pettis's Cult of Done Manifesto, we all geeked out on finding smarter/ better/faster ways to "get things done. " One of the reoccurring themes found in many of these business books and blogs from the last few years (Trust Agents by Julien Smith is a great example) is the idea of how businesses' interaction with their consumers has changed in the 21st Century. The old, one-way megaphone method of marketing is disappearing; it's becoming more of a conversation. A business's message is not spread wisely through simply yelling about it at the top of your lungs. Customers know a great deal more about the companies they buy from in the information age. We believe, building one-on-one relationships with folks, doing the best job we can and simply being nice to everyone we meet creates true advocates in a way old marketing never did. It is strange to think that being friendly, offering help when you can and doing a good job is a progressive business strategy, but in all honesty I think it has been the backbone of much of our success. MEET YOUR NEIGHBORS One of the first questions everyone asks when they walk into the coffee bar is "So why here?" and I have to admit, it's a reasonable one. Handsome Coffee Bar is located in a rather industrial area of Downtown Los Angeles with little life immediately visible around it for newcomers to see. I actually had the same question myself the first time Tyler drove me through the area. The answer is, however, that there are people there, and they are people that we love. Artists, designers, musicians, tech nerds: the Arts District has tons of great folks; we just had to figure out how to get a chance for them to find us and try our product. Enter the ICP. Once we had some gear in house to work with, we set up the ICP (Illegal Coffee Parlor) out of the back of our space. This was probably the single best way for us to meet folks in our brick and mortar neighborhood and join the community. The way it worked was simple: We opened up the back garage door to our space and anyone intrepid enough to make their way back there was treated to free drinks and smiles. We were open five days a week from eight to four, and it was fantastic. We knew getting baristas trained up and ready for our impending coffee bar would not be an overnight affair, and the ICP was the perfect training grounds for a fresh staff. At the beginning it was just a trickle of folks, five or 10 a day, half of them friends. By the end though, we had 40 or so people coming into our little coffee speakeasy every day, most for their first time. Over this timeframe, we met many people whom we would eventually work with on projects, bring into the Handsome family or simply grow to know as the first regulars to walk through our doors 74 barista magazine The ICP—Illegal Coffee Parlor—in all of its glory. When we set up this cart to serve coffee while we built out the café and roastery, we had no idea how essential it would be as a means for meeting our neighbors in the Arts District. when the actual coffee bar opened. The environment the ICP provided helped folks to try a progressive menu (and a much more simple one at that) and created a type of advocacy we never could have realized otherwise. The ICP never directly made us any money, but that was not its intention. What it did do, however, was allow us to build relationships, practice our craft and make some truly great friends. It was easily one of our best decisions. GREAT IDEAS ABOUND Handsome Coffee Roasters is very closely associated with Tyler, Chris and myself, as it should be. We put a considerable amount of our heart, blood, sweat, tears, and resources into it everyday. It is built off of our ideas, and in virtually every action we try to define and build it further. At this point however, it has to be said that Handsome is bigger than us. We have over 15 people working here between the coffee bar and the roasting /production team, the number of folks that walk through our door every day is increasing, and our internet family (the other founders in a sense) is bigger than I had ever imagined. Handsome, as a being, to some extent belongs to all of them in some way shape or form. This easily gives rise to the warm fuzzy feeling of having one big happy family—that's easy to see. The more intriguing thing, however, is that it also means Handsome does not have to live off of the strength of just three minds. Realizing that we have talented people all around us and finding ways for them to share ideas is our secret strength. It takes a little bit of an ego check to accept that the three of us may not be the ones to come up with the genius idea that changes the company overnight, but if that's a step that is too big for us then we become a limiting factor for Handsome's ultimate potential. Whether it is listening to a new hire's idea about how to change bar flow, one of our production guy's suggestion about shipping or even an email from a customer about our coffees, it is safe to say that understanding the importance and use of our human capital is one of the best lessons we've learned yet.