Super Coffee.
The brothers
behind the bottle.
Somebody had to make the first batch.
A finished bottle makes a young company look much more inevitable than it ever was. The label is straight. The cap fits. There is a place for it in the refrigerator. It is easy to forget the earlier version, when somebody was still deciding what to put in the blender.
For Super Coffee, that somebody was Jordan DeCicco. The company traces its beginning to his college dorm room in 2015, when he was balancing basketball and school and experimenting with a coffee drink of his own. His older brothers, Jake and Jimmy, joined him in building the company.
I like that the origin contains an actual object you can picture: a blender in a dorm room. An idea had to become something another person could try. Before there was a company story, there was a drink to make and a reaction to listen to.
Three brothers. A lot of bottles.
Jimmy later wrote that, for the first two years, the brothers made every bottle by hand and handled their own deliveries. That is a useful detail to sit with. It puts work back into a story that can otherwise become a quick jump from a dorm room to a supermarket shelf.
There is a particular kind of belief in agreeing to do that with someone. You are saying yes to the repetitive parts as well as the exciting ones. Another batch. Another case. Another delivery. Your brother’s idea has become something all three of you are responsible for getting out the door.
The family connection makes that commitment interesting to me. They had a history with one another before they had customers. Building a company gave them a new kind of shared experience, one measured in ordinary work as much as milestones.
That is the part of entrepreneurship I respect most: the willingness to give a promising idea the labor it needs.
8
Eight cases is a beginning.
In a Brandeis podcast about the company’s early days, the first Whole Foods opportunity has a wonderfully tangible scale. The brothers brought their drink to a local store, and an order for eight cases followed through the retailer’s local program.
Eight cases can fit inside a story. You can imagine counting them, getting them ready, and knowing that unfamiliar shoppers will be the next people to decide what they think.
A first order carries a different kind of encouragement from a compliment. Someone has made space for the thing you made. There is a shelf to fill and a reason to keep working.
In his 2018 conversation with Pat Flynn, Jimmy also discussed finding early production space by taking the night shift. Those details belong together: the order and the work required to fulfill it. The opportunity mattered because the brothers were prepared to organize their lives around making it real.
A football story with a friend at its center.
Super Coffee’s public voice centers on positive energy. One of its most memorable examples is a September 2021 interview with Dillan Gibbons, then an offensive lineman at Florida State.
Dillan had started a fundraiser to help his friend Timothy attend a game in Tallahassee. The company’s interview explains that the campaign passed its initial goal and that additional money could help with the family’s medical expenses. It also introduced Big Man Big Heart, the nonprofit Dillan created to encourage college athletes to use their name, image, and likeness for charitable work.
The detail I keep coming back to is the invitation behind the fundraising: I want my friend to be there. A large stadium can be full of people, yet one person’s presence can still matter enormously.
I appreciate that Super Coffee made room for that story. An athlete’s public profile can carry attention toward someone else. Publishing the conversation helped readers see the person and the friendship behind the uniform.
Give the word something to do.
The company’s 2021 Add Something Positive campaign encouraged small acts of kindness, volunteering, and helping neighbors. Employees and partners also assembled a music playlist. The invitation was broad enough for people to participate in their own way.
I like an encouraging idea that leaves room for an ordinary person with an ordinary afternoon. Calling a friend, doing a useful errand, or sharing a song does not require a new identity or an audience.
Dillan’s story gives the same idea a larger expression. The scale is different, but the attention still begins with another person. That is where the word positive becomes interesting to me: when there is somebody on the receiving end of it.
The shelf holds more than the bottle.
Super Coffee now offers several forms of coffee, including ready-to-drink lattes and protein coffee powders. The assortment has grown far beyond that first dorm-room experiment.
What earns the company a place in this collection is the human effort that remains visible behind it. Jordan tried making something. Jake and Jimmy helped turn it into work they could share. A local retailer placed an order. Later, the company used its own space to introduce people doing thoughtful things.
I admire that combination of initiative and encouragement. The brothers’ beginning is a reminder that an idea can become more useful when other people put their hands to it.
Somewhere along the way, a bottle that three brothers had to make and deliver became something a stranger could simply pick up. There is a great deal of work, trust, and hope inside that ordinary convenience.