For five years, Crooked Pine Coffee was a farmers’-market business: two markets every weekend, cash-heavy, weather-dependent, and entirely reliant on the founder showing up. In 2024, founder Dev Okafor made the deliberate decision to shrink his margins.
Why take a worse margin?
A bag sold at the market nets nearly twice what a bag sold through a grocer does. But market revenue caps out at what one person can carry, brew, and charm in eight hours. Shelf revenue scales with distribution, not stamina.
- Markets: ~$1,900 per weekend, 16 hours of founder time.
- Retail: ~$1,400 per week per 8 stores, mostly delivery driving.
- Retail reorders arrive whether or not it rains.
The unlock: treating grocers like wholesale customers, not trophies
Okafor’s pitch deck was one laminated page: three SKUs, case pricing, a guaranteed swap of unsold bags at 60 days. The swap guarantee — which has cost him fewer than 40 bags total — removed the only real objection a small grocer has.
Eighteen months in, Crooked Pine is in 23 stores, the founder works Saturdays at exactly zero markets, and revenue is up 70% on margins that are, yes, thinner. Strong businesses are sometimes built out of worse unit economics and better systems.
