How Kenyan Margaret Nyamumbo is making millions from her coffee business in New York

U.S.-based Kenyan entrepreneur Margaret Nyamumbo has shared her journey to building Kahawa 1893, a speciality coffee company based in New York City which raked in $3 million (Ksh.387 million) in 2023.

Nyamumbo, 36, grew up in Kisii a child of coffee farmers before she later moved to the United States in 2007 to attend college.

She studied economics at Smith College and later proceeded to Harvard for an MBA, whereupon she worked with the American multinational investment bank Citigroup in 2016.

In a new interview with CNBC, Nyamumbo narrates how she founded Kahawa 1893 in 2017, a company named after the Swahili name for coffee and the year coffee was first grown commercially in Kenya.

Initially designing the venture as a side hustle alongside her well-paying investment banking job, Nyamumbo says her day job was very demanding and she opted to take a year-long sabbatical to focus on her company.

But she never went back; in 2018, she quit Citi to focus on Kahawa 1893.

“The first year was fully self-funded from my savings and reinvesting the profits that we got. We did not raise any money or debt for the year,” Nyamumbo tells CNBC.

“I learned how different brands had been started and realised even Fortune 500 companies that are household names at one point had very humble beginnings. Coffee to me was a natural match because I had the experience of growing up on the farm,” she adds.

Fortune 500 is a prestigious annual list of 500 of the largest U.S. companies ranked by total revenues each year by Fortune magazine.

Nyamumbo’s company sources coffee from women farmers on the African continent – with Kenya as its main source but otherwise from Tanzania, Rwanda, and the DRC. They then roast and package it for sale.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, she says the company began struggling, until the American retail store chain Trader Joe’s contacted them seeking Kahawa 1893’s supply to stock in their outlets.

“That was the first time we needed outside investment,” she tells CNBC, adding that she got about $285,000 from friends and family

Kahawa 1893’s coffee hit Trader Joe’s shelves in May 2021, the first Black and woman-owned coffee brand in the retail chain.

The entrepreneur says the deal opened the company to increased attention and soon enough, they started sourcing coffee for other American retailers like Target.

Last year, a video of Nyamumbo at Shark Tank – the popular American TV show where founders pitch their business ideas to a panel of investors and persuade them to invest money in them – went viral.

She says she eventually got a $350,000 offer for an 8 per cent stake in Kahawa 1893.

Kahawa 1893 made $3 million (Ksh.387 million) in 2023, a large chunk of which came from supermarkets and wholesale distributors ($2,170,089), followed by their website ($790,907), Amazon sales ($108,133), then small wholesale stores cafes like cafes and offices ($29,279).