Mesh Gelman: Founder & CEO of Cumulus Coffee

Episode 674

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, we’re joined by Mesh Gelman, Founder and CEO of Cumulus Coffee—the brand behind the first-ever solution for creating specialty cold brew, nitro cold brew, and cold espresso at home in seconds. After years leading innovation at Starbucks, where he played a role in the rise of cold brew, Mesh set out to disrupt the space once again—this time from the inside out.
During our conversation, Mesh shares the backstory behind launching Cumulus Coffee, how years of R&D led to their cutting-edge cold brew technology, and what it takes to bring café-quality coffee into people’s homes. We explore the shifts in consumer behavior around cold coffee, the future of at-home beverage innovation, and how his experience in coffee, design, and retail all came together to fuel this game-changing brand.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. So excited to have my next guest with us. We have Mesh Gelman, who is the founder and CEO of an incredible new company called Cumulus Coffee. And it’s it’s funny, mesh and I were just talking about his previous life at Starbucks. And as many people know who have listened to the podcast, hint, had a partnership with Starbucks many years ago, and I met mesh and was so impressed with everything that he was doing at Starbucks at the time, and I’m so excited to see him go and launch Cumulus Coffee now, and you are going to be so excited about this product too. So after years of leading brand partnerships and innovation for Starbucks, mesh set out on a mission to crack the code on making premium cold brew at home instantly. And he has done that and definitely, definitely it. I cannot wait to have just some insight into how he decided to do this. He’s blended tech, taste and convenience into the first ever solution for making specialty cold brew, Nitro Cold Brew and cold espresso in seconds and mesh is entrepreneurial journey just is getting started. September 2024, right before the holidays, got this launch. So if you have not had a chance to purchase one yet, get ready, because you definitely should right after this podcast, or maybe even before, if you’d like, start getting ready to experience this incredible, incredible session. So Mesh, welcome to the show.

Mesh Gelman 2:35
Hi, Kara, thank you so much for having me, and I’m actually going to reverse the script for a second. Okay, talk about impressive journeys. I had the for when I was at Starbucks, I had, like Starbucks attached to my email address, right? And that did a lot of the hard work, but you did, at hint, was impressive, right? Taking something, fighting the entrepreneurial fight, getting up there, all the wind in your face versus in your back, and what you’ve accomplished and what you did with hint, was remarkable. So I think you get the real congratulations over here, and you’re an inspiration to many. And as I begin kind of the next year of my entrepreneurial journey as a founder, I looked at people like you for inspiration, and just really Congratulations on all your success to this point. Thank you. Well,

Kara Goldin 3:30
that was such a nice, unnecessary and an unexpected, but thank you. I really, really appreciate it so, so let’s talk about Cumulus Coffee. And how would you describe it to somebody who has not had a chance to hear you talk about it or experience it yet?

Mesh Gelman 3:49
Cumulus Coffee, I think the simplest way to think about it is that if you crave amazing cold coffee, if you’re an iced coffee drinker, you’re a cold brew drinker, a Nitro Cold, whatever it is, if it’s a cold cup and you want the best, highest quality, most amazing cup of cold that you can get, you need Cumulus in your life, I think that’s like. It starts with you. You’re a cold, cold coffee lover, iced coffee cold brew lover. This is for you.

Kara Goldin 4:22
I love it so you helped lead cold brews rise at Starbucks. It’s, you know, really, I guess, what was the first point where cold brew started really becoming a topic of discussion

Mesh Gelman 4:39
back in 2014 Starbucks launched cold brew with this fantastic blend, neurinho 70. And it was this wonderful blend of some of the most beautiful coffees delivering an amazing, you know, cold brew. I think it’s like for those who don’t know what’s so beautiful about. Cold brew is the complexity of making it is what really makes the product so delicious. A regular cup of coffee, you know, you pour some hot water in it, or you put it into an espresso maker, and you get out that coffee instantly, right? Very quickly. But when you apply heat and pressure to coffee, it creates that acidity, that little bite in coffee that sometimes people find like it hurts their stomach or they need to put in a lot of sugar or milk to overcome it. Cold brew is brewed over time, and the flavor leaves the coffee beans into the water to create the cold brew over an extended period of time, and as a result, it doesn’t get like, all volatile. It’s very smooth and it’s balanced. It’s just really a fantastic cup. And it’s like it was that moment for Starbucks back in 2014 when they introduced nourinho 70, is when the rapid climb started happening on everything cold. That’s

Kara Goldin 5:59
incredible. Okay, so at the time when Starbucks was launching cold brew, were there multiple versions of cold brew, or did they just have just one version of cold brew?

Mesh Gelman 6:10
That’s such a fascinating question. I’m so happy you asked it, because actually 11 years later, they’re still using the same blend that they made originally, which is naurinho 70, because cold brew is really hard. Think about if you’re running a cafe and you want to have a light roast, a medium roast, a dark roast, let’s say you want a specialty blend. You want a decaf. How do you brew yesterday for today? Right? You have to brew today in advance, and what if you get it wrong? What if you make too much of one, too little of the other? Think about all the complexities that you have, all the waste the end of the day comes. You didn’t finish all the coffees. You spill them out, right? So it’s just not so cold because of the way it’s processed. Really creates this limitation in choice, which is so strange, because who doesn’t have an offering today, like, you know, a light rose, a dark rose, something, and none of that exists in cold, which was, like, it’s crazy to think about it that way. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 7:15
no, it’s, it’s so interesting. Well, I’m sure we’ll get into that aspect of Cumulus as well, but so talk to us about the launch story. I mean, this was a big deal like here, you’ve got this incredible role, a lot of fun, very, you know, inspiring for sure, meeting with lots of people around innovation and making lots of decisions, seeing kind of the cool side of Starbucks. Not that Starbucks, the brand, isn’t cool, but the, you know, the good stuff that is all up and coming, and you decide that you are going to go and do this incredible venture. When did that all come about? And can you talk to us about, you know, the early days of of the launch. How long did it take for you to sort of pull all this together?

Mesh Gelman 8:06
So it was very interesting. So my journey at Starbucks had a few phases to it. The second, the last phase of my journey was I started a division called siren ideas. Siren is the Starbucks logo. It’s all about ideas for the siren. And when you think about a company as large as Starbucks, right, seeing hundreds of millions of people a week, 100 million people a week, billions of cups a year. Right? 2530 35 billion in revenue. How do you innovate on such a large platform and to continue grow. And, you know, Wall Street, they just want to see more innovation, more growth, growth at scale. Super, super hard. So the idea for siren ideas was, how do we look externally, identify great disruptors, great innovation, and see, can we marry that innovation to the platform of Starbucks to bring step change in the incremental growth to the company at scale. So if you kind of like, leverage the two. On one hand, you have the growth and innovation, and the other, I’m sorry, the innovation and the other hand, you have the scale. You put them together, you can have these great moments of growth, and that was the idea behind siren ideas. And what I realized was that Starbucks has always been kind of one of the most innovative companies in the world. And despite, you know, being such a large company, they were always able to remain so innovative, and yet they felt the need for this kind of like disruption. There got to be many companies out there, in many categories that aren’t as innovative as Starbucks on a day to day basis, that is also struggling with growth and innovation. So I said there’s an opportunity here to play matchmaker. I. Identifying great innovation, great companies that have challenges at scale, and let’s make something out of it. So I left Starbucks and I started a venture studio with the idea being understanding the big problems of growth that large companies have, and then trying to find solutions for it, and by identifying those solutions to help these companies grow at scale. Inevitably, coffee is a very, very, very addictive product, and you can’t get away from it. And a few months after I left, I was just could not get this idea out of my head. I kept on coming back, and I’m like, No, I don’t want to be involved in coffee. I stepped away, having to focus on other things, and just kept on coming back, kept on coming back, until I finally said, All right, I got to do something about it. That’s

Kara Goldin 10:51
awesome. So what was the first step you, you know, wrote initial business plan. You decided I’m going to just go do this. How long did it actually take? Yeah, so

Mesh Gelman 11:02
late, I would say, late, 2018 I began tinkering. And kind of like the way, the way our venture studio approach innovation was we went from this, I something from like a project to a company, from a from an idea to a project to a company. It starts off with an idea. Is there something behind that idea? Does it have any teeth to it? Will it go somewhere? If it does, let’s invest a little bit. Let’s put some let’s make it into a project. Let’s, let’s take this idea and bring you a little bit into the world, into somehow, in some way, that we could actually start seeing, does this make sense? And if it kind of passes that second stage gate, right, maybe it becomes a company. So it was late 2018 and I’ve been here at this point. For me, on a personal level, I completely switched to cold coffee somewhere along. I can’t even tell you when it was I stopped drinking hot coffee, right? And the challenges of getting great coffee, great cold coffee, were so enormous. And by the way, even in a cafe, sometimes, like I said, they could be out of coffee. They could have like, you know, maybe it’s not the same way it tasted the day before, because it’s being made manually. And just all these little different issues with cold coffee, of like, it can’t be that there is no great solution for cold coffee like that, like that standard bearer of excellence, of what cold coffee needs to be about, and that it’s like such an important beverage. And that’s kind of like, was the insight. I’m like, Okay, let’s, let’s think on this. What do we need to do to make this happen.

Kara Goldin 12:41
So interesting. So the science behind the Cumulus system, I would imagine, sort of came from that aha moments as you were thinking about this. Can you talk a bit about this?

Mesh Gelman 12:55
Yeah, so if you think about, kind of like, what were some of the complications, I think it’s, I think the place to start is, what is a great cup of cold coffee like? I think once we understand what a great cup of cold coffee is, we can understand where the gaps are, and that what lead towards the innovation of creating Cumulus to what it is today. So I think, like, kind of think about, like at the core foundation, a quality cup of cold right? Needs to be coffee that is, is right for cold brew, right? Number two, that is made properly. Number three, that’s actually cold, right? You want cold and but I think the the most fascinating part, and if you haven’t had it, and yet you must have it. And you have a Cumulus, I’m sure you have, but it’s the Nitro Cold Brew. When you infuse nitrogen into a cup of cold coffee, you get that sweetness and that creaminess without the need of sugar and milk. It’s transformative, right? And the idea that you don’t need to do anything to your cup, and you can have this like really premium, delicious product, a delicious experience. That’s like the pinnacle of cold right? So, like, you kind of think about all that, and then you say, Okay, well, what do we need to do to make that happen? And as soon as you start thinking about it, just the process of making cold brew already becomes complicated, so we have to solve for that. Then the next part of the problem. How do we make sure that it’s consistent? We have to solve for that. Then the next part of the problem, how do we make sure it’s actually cold and crisp, delicious when you drink it, right? So many times you put ice in coffee, it dilutes it and it messes it up, right? I like but I need the ice because it won’t be cold. How do I have a beverage that’s crisp, cold every single time. And then ultimately, do I have the ability to actually even make something better? And can I figure out a way how to have a cup of coffee that could be with nitrogen in it, a nitrogenated cold brew, a Nitro Cold Brew, which has that deliciousness, that velvety and. For vessel flavor that happens with it. And that’s kind of like this thing. If we could do all that, there’s something here, yeah.

Kara Goldin 15:06
Well, you’ve done such a nice job with this too, and I love listening to you describe this. And also, prior to describing this, you talked about when this started right in 2018 so that’s a long time ago, right? Entrepreneurship takes a lot of guts and fearlessness, but it also takes patience, right there. I mean, that’s what you just described, right? That there’s a lot of steps that need to go into this. I always talk about the puzzle and how the puzzle needs to be built. And often there’s no picture for you to follow. And I mean, clearly you had great experience. You You know, worked with an incredible mentor. You know that at Starbucks that Howard Schultz, who is a founder and is crazy, like all the rest of us founders who want to go and do something. So that was incredible. But it’s it’s complex, and I think that when I think about what you’re saying, too, I’m curious. You have the tech meets beverage aspect of it, but it’s the hardware, the flavor, the consumer education. I mean, there’s a lot that you have to get right, right, and so what has been the most difficult? Well,

Mesh Gelman 16:35
I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s figuring out what the picture is, and then what are the pieces of the puzzle and how they interact with each other. It is like, not only do you have to be comfortable and gray, you have to be comfortable not even knowing that it’s a color, not even knowing that it’s gray, it’s like there’s so many things, and you have to have like this, like fortitude that I’m walking straight into something where I know that I’m going to be constantly learning every minute, and something new is going to happen. But what you hold on to is that end picture in mind, right? This picture that you made in your mind, and that puzzle that you talk about as it starts becoming clear as you start making it in real world. It’s trying to match back to that idea, that image that you have in your head, of what you’re imagining, right? And there’s so many layers to it, right? There’s like supply chain, there’s your customer adoption, I’m going all over the place. There’s brand, there’s marketing, there’s technology, this flavor, this sensorial, this all this stuff. And like, wow, there’s a lot, right? Each one is, like, a whole deep story, exactly like you just said, each one is a whole pillar of work, and it all has to come together in a symphony. One of them’s missing. The whole thing falls apart. So it’s like, gotta, like, start figure out which plates you want to spin, how you get them spinning? And then, like, Okay, do I have everything I need to get this right to get to that next point, and then go to the next point from there. So it’s it’s for us. When that journey began in late 2018 The first thing we needed to do was say, Hey, before the coffee before anything do we have the ability to actually design a device that we can scale, that can reach and when you scale a piece of device, it’s different than a piece of software. You write some code, and then you could just disseminate it right with this, you have to make something that is a piece of equipment that could be replicated over and over and over and over again, 1000s and 10s of 1000s of times at a price that it could be commercially viable, right? And it has to be reliable, it has to be safe, it has to do as promised, and it has to be affordable, it has to look great, right? There’s so many things that have to go into that decision. So for Cumulus, that was the first hurdle that we needed to address. Was that here’s this idea we kind of like blueprinted, what we believe is the journey that this piece of equipment needs to go on, and can we get there? And what are those milestones that we need a hit in order to give us that level of confidence to keep on going further. And once we solve for that, then we could start layering in and adding in the other pieces of the puzzle to create the full story. Which is why it took us from the end of 18 when we started this concepting it all the way until q4 of 24 it’s almost like five years, almost a five year journey before we were able to unveil to the customer and actually serve a great quality cup of coffee. So like so many, things had to come together for that. To happen.

Kara Goldin 20:01
I love it. So you had run innovation inside of Starbucks and and worked on some amazing, amazing opportunities. But how different was this? You doing it on your own. You didn’t have the backdrop of Starbucks. My dad was in innovation inside of ConAgra, and he used to say, you know, I don’t have the guts to actually go and launch my own thing, although he was doing it over and over again. But it I didn’t. I think he lived vicariously through me when I launched hint, because he said it’s very, very different, because you you know you can tell your boss that you’re gonna miss a little timeline, versus, you know, the buck stops with you mash on this like you know you’re you’re telling yourself it’s gotta get launched before the holiday, and then things are slipping. It’s just you know you’re now, Howard Schultz, right? Where you’re like, No, it cannot go right? So tell me about those experiences, if you had any of those.

Mesh Gelman 21:11
Yeah, that’s such a interesting thing. It’s, it definitely is. You need a certain DNA and a certain makeup to be, I mean, you said it to be crazy enough to do this, right? It’s, there’s no, there’s no there’s no time boundary to it. It’s, it’s all day, all night. It’s on your mind, your problem solving, you’re thinking, and you’re challenging, you’re trying to figure out, and you have like all this happening also again, all pinned to that vision of what you’re looking to create, right? And obviously that’s your motivation. Your motivation is, at least for me, it’s kind of like where we see this opportunity could go right, and that, I think, ultimately, is what is like, probably the North Star, more than anything, is this realization is that I know where I want to go. I know where this needs to get to. And I think by understanding that that becomes more precious than what you’re actually working on, because what you’re working on is of service of that moment. So I think and having that mindset allows you to kind of do these gentle adjustments. I hate the word pivot, you know, it’s like, no, that sounds like, almost like, you don’t know what you’re doing. You’re pivoting and but I think when people use that word, it’s these adjustments that you make, where you have to make some adjustment based on real world things that you’re discovering in the journey, right? That’s not going to allow you to get to that vision and that that that that image of that North Star, of what you’ve identified as the opportunity, and why you actually set on that journey. So I think it’s having the ability to hold that true the entire time gives you the ability to, like, deal with the challenge that you’re coming and say, Okay, this wasn’t as expected. Or, you know, positive or negative, right? It’s almost indifferent. But like, something goes this way or that way, and like, I didn’t consider this, or I didn’t consider that on a micro level, on a macro level, or whatever it might be. And what do I need to do to make that just ever slight change or adjustment to get me back on that path, to get to what is, was that conviction that made me take that step? I think having that nimbleness and that fluidity within these guardrails of holding on to your North Star is the kind of like the red thread that you need going through the whole process in order to get there, definitely.

Kara Goldin 23:46
So it Cumulus is so simple, you know, I just love what you’ve created. So can you describe to people who haven’t had an opportunity to use it yet, what you’re most proud about, and why should people invest in this? What

Mesh Gelman 24:05
I’m most proud of, more than anything, is the reaction we get like yours. If you have a Cumulus and it’s like you see it like the physical machine actually looks like the pictures. And when you watch this beautiful nitro coming out of the cup, it’s actually what it looks like when it’s in your home. And when you put it to your mouth, and you do that like that, wow, moment that happens, right? And that facial reaction that, like visceral response that happens to people when they drink the cup for the first time, because they’re coming in with a lot of biases based on all their previous experiences. And when you take a product that’s actually exceeds their expectation, because there is no benchmark for them what they’re expecting, because it really is such a phenomenal quality cup. Cold coffee, that it’s just that that moment, like, I live it’s like, that moment I because, like, seeing your reaction talking to people, that’s like, the most rewarding. It’s like, and it’s like, Yes, this is why we built Cumulus. This is exactly why we built it. The fact that you could stumble out of bed, be in your pajamas go downstairs without any complication. You know, one of the, one of the key design elements about Cumulus is that we want, we want this to be about you and your cup and not about the machine. So we don’t have an app. We don’t have a smart screen. You can see the machine behind me. It’s the interactions really, really simple, right? You just like, tap it, twist it. So easy. Yeah, you know what? This is, how easy it is. We’ll even do it. You just go, like that. And then you just like, press the button. That’s it

Kara Goldin 25:56
so easy. But you know right

Mesh Gelman 25:59
now it’s pulling the nitrogen from the ear. I’m going to make a Nitro Cold Brew. It’s pulling the nitrogen from the ear. It’s doing its magic, and in under a minute, one of the things, and the other part that is so rewarding is actually up fill up and watching that process of the nitrogenation. It’s like so beautiful here. I almost have to be quiet, because it’s about to happen? Definitely.

Kara Goldin 26:21
Speaking from the founder status, I always say that you can always tell the founders, right, that getting so excited about about their product, I love it. I love it. I

Mesh Gelman 26:32
can’t even pay attention to you when Cumulus is making the cup because I have watched the clouds in the cuff. It’s like, it’s so like, there’s no like, how

does that happen? It’s so magical. And it’s, I love it, you know, that’s,

Kara Goldin 26:46
that’s so it’s so great, and so so tasty. So until you’ve experienced it too, I think that that’s my big problem. You touched on it earlier, but that’s my big problem with cold iced coffee, is that it gets watered down, right, and it just doesn’t taste very good after a little while. And you guys have really solved that problem. So it’s, you know, it’s, you guys have done a great job with that. So the all the pods, do you want to talk about that a little bit, because the sustainability aspect of what you guys are doing is, I think, cool. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Mesh Gelman 27:25
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, single serve coffee systems get a lot of flack for the waste that’s being created, and we were well aware of that as a modern company launching in an age where, you know, being it’s not about being mindful, about sustainable it’s just like just doing the right thing, right? So what does that mean, and how do like, so is it incongruent with what we’re trying to do with, kind of like, a good way and a smart way of doing it, right? So how do those two things coexist? Just because I have a way of making something that’s amazing, right? But if I’m doing it and through the way, I’m compromising, right, what is the cost involved to get that done? And that was something that was front and center as we were building Cumulus. And so the way we address that actually, I wasn’t planning this demo, but, you know, hey, conversation came out. I love it. These are aluminum cans, right? Little aluminum capsules, and they come out empty and clean, so you just toss them right into the recycling. Now, what’s beautiful about aluminum is that it’s actually what they call an industry upstream recycling, which means it’s a forever material, right? So there’s no end of use. Certain things, you could recycle them, but there’s only one or two uses, like, for example, plastic could be reused, but the second use is not, right? It’s a downstream recycling process, aluminum. This can just go on and on and on and on forever. So but there was two parts. Number one was identifying the material that we were going to use that can actually work that way. And the second thing is that making sure that we deliver it back in a way that could be put into the recycling stream, really easy. You just take this capsule and you toss it into your recycling bin. That’s done right. And because the machine does this right before it returns it to you, it cleans it out so it’s perfectly clean. It’s like an empty soda can. You just toss it and recycling. You’re good. So sustainability is inevitably a very important part of having something No pun intended. That is sustainable.

Kara Goldin 29:41
Looking back, what’s, what’s one thing you wish you could tell yourself at the very start of the Cumulus journey,

Mesh Gelman 29:50
there’s a lot of decisions that you’re going to have to make. Don’t be scared to make them. And if you’re wrong. Yeah, you’ll adjust, right? So even there’s been 1000s of decisions but, but don’t be scared. Don’t hem and haw if it feels right. It feels right that you need to do it. You make that decision, you’re wrong. Adjust later. The same thing that made you able to develop and build and do all this will help you get out of a situation where you made the wrong decision, so don’t be afraid to make the decision, because the biggest friction to success right is the delay and the time it takes. It’s not the time it takes to develop things at the time of procrastination or inactivity or deliberation move past those quickly, and you’re and like I would tell myself, you’re you’re resilient. The same thing that made you make this leap of faith to do it right, if you made the wrong decision, you’ll adjust, you’ll figure it out and trust, trust in yourself and do it and don’t ever slow down. That’s like the key thing, I

Kara Goldin 31:01
couldn’t agree more. So mesh Gelman, founder and CEO of Cumulus Coffee, where can everyone purchase Cumulus Coffee?

Mesh Gelman 31:10
Cumulus Coffee.com that’s the best place we do have, also in Williams, Sonoma, in some limited stores, but for the full experience, Cumulus Coffee could enter the world of cold you could learn about how to make delicious ice shake and espressos, espresso martinis, Nitro Cold brews, decafs, everything we have something for everybody.

Kara Goldin 31:35
I love it, and it’s absolutely awesome. So mesh, so excited to watch you grow this incredible brand company. So proud of you. So very, very cool. Thank you everybody for joining us today and mesh. Thanks again for coming on and sharing all that you have, of

Mesh Gelman 31:55
course. Thank you, Kara. It’s great to see you again. You

Kara Goldin 31:57
too. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now you.

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