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Starting Your Business Overseas: Glenn Coggeshell

 

Glenn Coggeshell’s Story: Glenn Coggeshell became an entrepreneur at age 16, with his own window-washing company, and never looked back. Now his latest company, Black Dot Coffee, is bringing quality coffee to Russia. And Glenn is in what he describes as a neck-and-neck race for domination in the Russian market with none other than Starbucks!

Glenn developed early confidence in his entrepreneurial instincts by making a killing in local real estate while most of his contemporaries were still racking up student loans in college. On top of that, he has owned a music studio for the last 14 years, where he’s cut albums for all sorts of A-list musical acts.

“I’ve always been the kind of person who, when someone says something is difficult to do or I won’t be able to do it, I say, ‘Well, OK,’” Glenn says. “And then I usually set aside a bit of money and look into that venture!”

That’s exactly what Glenn did with Black Dot Coffee. It may seem like an exotic venture, but Glenn took advantage of his entrepreneurial smarts and his worldly savvy to start a business that has the potential to win the brand-name coffee race in Russia.

Yet as much as he hopes to make Black Dot a household name there, Glenn is trying to parlay Russian success into a market presence in the good old U.S. of A. as well. “Right now,” he says, “we’re trying to meet all the requirements to get into Wal-Mart.

Glenn’s Key Move: Starting a Business Overseas

Most Americans wouldn’t start a business focusing on a market abroad. There are just too many extra obstacles. Glenn tackled an international market first, he says, in large part because the U.S. premium-coffee market was saturated.

“Every American is inundated with Starbucks, Seattle’s Best Coffee, and nine or ten microbrew guys, and everyone is just out there pounding the pavement all day long.

“My view is – great! Let them! I wanted to go to a market that is untapped so that I can gain market share and revenues there, and then use that money over here to market my product.”

But the gamble was carefully calculated, because he had the knowledge and background necessary to give Black Dot Coffee a good shot at success. His previous entrepreneurial accomplishments had afforded Glenn the opportunity to pursue his great passion for travel abroad. Russia became one of his favorite haunts, and over the years, he had built up a network of casual contacts, multimillionaire friends and penny-ante trading partners over there.

“I would do small trades from auto parts to clothes to baby products,” Glenn says. “I just kept a list of things they needed over there from us, and things we could  use here from them.”

Glenn acknowledges that Russia is one of the most difficult international markets for entrepreneurs to penetrate. “With the structure of their government, you can’t just send suits over there and think you’re going to leave with a contract,” he says. “It’s about building relationships with all aspects of the chain of command and the network you need to establish,” including not only government officials but also local buyers, distributors, retailers and agents. “You’re always chasing around someone who can make a decision on what you need to get done. You have to have persistence.”

All the Russian connections and camaraderie came together in one memorable evening last fall, Glenn remembers. “We had a big jam session,” he says. “There were three Russian multi-billionaires in their Gucci suits, strapping on strats and playing Purple Haze. That’s what set the stage for Black Dot’s success!”

Still, it was only by chance that Glenn settled on coffee as the vehicle for his major entrepreneurial gambit in Russia. Through his years of Russian travel and trade, he already had reached the conclusion that “it could be a good market for coffee,” he says. “All they had was garbage. Nescafe was king!”

It helped that Starbucks had been stymied in Russia until very recently by a trademark dispute with a Russian company. After settling the dispute, the coffee giant finally opened its first Russian location in 2005.

Meantime, Glenn’s father, who owned a commercial-boiler company, had begun building some coffee roasters for startups in the Pacific Northwest. “That lit the fire,” Glenn says. He established a company to broker deals for small U.S. roasters in Russia, but he found that his customers weren’t up to the challenge of dealing with the Russian market.

These and other American entrepreneurs, Glenn found, think especially small when it comes to the former Soviet Union. “There’s a stigma to it,” he says. “I think part of it is that they think there’s more risk, or they think everyone over there is poor. I know more multimillionaires over there than I do here -- and it seems that everyone who lives in my neighborhood is one.

Finally, Glenn decided – in a “Duh!” moment – that he should just export his own coffee to Russia. He lined up a major roaster to supply his wares. By late 2004, he had used his Russian contacts to secure the first approval for an American company to export coffee to Russia. He dealt with special packaging requirements, such as listing a Russian distributor on each Black Dot product. Glenn worked hard to make sure he could build up the Black Dot brand in Russia, by getting it specified in menu listings. By the time he actually began shipping Black Dot to Russia in April 2005, Glenn had invested $150,000 in the launch.

One year later he’s generating monthly revenues of about $225,000, and Black Dot has fifteen employees in Russia and five in the United States. Black Dot is already distributed in some supermarkets and casinos in Russia, and Glenn expects to open three Black Dot coffee drive-through outlets in Russia sometime in 2006. He’s also probing other potential foreign markets, including Saudi Arabia.

Glenn’s Bonus Insight

What makes Glenn an excellent networker is that he doesn’t quickly dismiss new people he meets if it isn’t obvious right away how they might benefit each other. “People will shoot themselves in the foot by saying, ‘I’m not going to get anything from talking with this guy,’” he says. “But I like taking more time and learning about someone. About 99% of my success has come from the fact that I spent another minute with that sort of person.”