Local entrepreneurs Samantha Meis and Connor Riley will be swimming with the sharks this Friday.
The two will be featured on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” a show where entrepreneurs are introduced to extremely wealthy potential investors and will have the opportunity to pitch their business in hopes of gaining funding.
Meis and Riley, who are both 23 years old, are the cofounders of a company called MistoBox, which launched last May. Based out of Phoenix’s warehouse district, MistoBox is a monthly coffee subscription service that’s delivered right to customers’ front doors.
Once-a-month subscribers will receive four hand-selected whole bean samples in the MistoBox box, and if they’re particularly fond of a certain coffee, it can be ordered on MistoBox’s website.
Meis and Riley met when they were working abroad in Barcelona the summer after their sophomore year in college at the University of Arizona, Meis said. “We actually ran with the bulls together,” she said.
But according to Meis and Riley, being on the ABC hit TV show was 100 times scarier.
“There are these five, famous, really wealthy millionaire and billionaire investors, and what you do is you go in and pitch your business idea and they can either invest or not invest,” Meis said. “They can also bid against each other. Some people don’t get any deals and it’s really tragic, and some people get these great deals. It’s a really dramatic show.”
“It was the most nerve-wracking, thrilling experience of my life,” Meis said. “Every emotion to it’s maximum potential at one time,” Riley added.
“It was the best and worse day of my life,” Meis said.
Meis and Riley said that while they already know the outcome of the episode that was filmed about six months ago in California, they are not allowed to share.
The two came up with the idea for their company during their senior year in the entrepreneurship program at the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship. Both graduated with the class of 2012.
“We were tasked with this assignment to get in a team of four and come up with an innovative business idea,” Meis said. “The entrepreneurship program at the U of A was fantastic. It was unlike any other college experience that we had.”
Meis said their company is modeled after Birchbox, which is a similar company except the monthly subscription is with makeup and other beauty products.
Meis said after coming across Birchbox they then brainstormed on what they could apply that same business model to and decided on coffee. “There were a lot of similar characteristics between coffee and cosmetics that made it successful,” she said. “And we both loved coffee, so it was a really great fit.”
Meis and Riley said their biggest competition is Craft Coffee, another monthly coffee subscription company, but they are still confident that they can thrive in their business.
“They’re the most similar to us,” Meis said. “But we have different offerings and we’re at a lower price point, so our products are more accessible to everyone.”
“How it works is we reach out to the roasters, evaluate the coffees, and then pick which coffees we want to include in our subscriptions,” Riley said.
And in the 11 months the company has been up and running, they’ve already acquired subscribers in an impressive geographic spread.
“We have customers in all 50 states and eight different countries,” Riley said.
Riley said up until last week it had been just the two of them — with the occasional help from friends and family — repackaging coffee, printing labels and shipping it all to their costumers, but that they realized they would need extra help a few months ago.
“It’s been just Sam and I up until last week when we hired our first customer service rep, and we just outsourced all of our fulfillment to a company in Chicago,” he said.
Meis said that among the biggest challenges they’ve faced so far with their company, fundraising and hiring their first employee were the top two.
“Hiring was difficult for us. We wanted a really fantastic fit for the company,” she said. “Your first hire is always a really important hire.”
The first addition to their team, Samantha Belli, was chosen for her positive attitude. “We like to say that two Samanthas are better than one,” Meis said.
Belli, 24, is an ASU graduate with a degree in design studies and has been working with the duo for about a week and a half.
“I found the job listing on LinkedIn,” Belli said. “I looked up the company and it seemed like a lot of fun. Also, I was really interested in getting involved in a start up.”
Belli said she does anything from customer service to order fulfillment. “But it’s all really a team effort, and I help with anything Connor and Sam need me for,” she said.
While Belli’s degree could have taken her in a very different direction in life, she said she’s happy she decided to apply for a job with MistoBox.
“They’re not intimidating and they’re offering a great product,” Belli said. “I used to only be a casual coffee drinker and now I drink a cup a day.”
But Belli said that’s nothing compared to the multiple cups of coffee her coworkers drink. “I’m really enjoying learning about the different types of coffee,” she said.
If you’re interested in subscribing to MistoBox’s monthly coffee service, the first box is only $5 and after that will be a monthly fee of $15. You can also pay twice or once per year for a reduced price.
Tune in to see Meis and Riley on “Shark Tank” on ABC Friday at 8 p.m.
Contact the reporter at jasmine.barta@asu.edu
