Episode 04: Ian Williams
Ian Willams - Founder and CEO of Deadstock Coffee | Interviewed by Rashad Floyd
I've always been a person who understands that my life is a little bit different than everybody else’s. I used to be a janitor at Nike and one day I asked the guys in the Skateboard category if I could work on a shoe with them and they said, “Yeah”. And sho we created a shoe inspired by my day job as a janitor. It was the beginning of something special. That’s why we do what we do.
I started the coffee shop because I wanted to be able to do whatever it is I wanted to do. I was like, what makes money every single day? Coffee! So, I opened up Deadstock. I didn't know anything about coffee, but I understood that I wanted to be good at it. Mochas are kind of what we do. That's what we're really known for. I had to understand the industry of coffee first in order to be able to influence it, change it, or be successful in it. And that was the best way that I knew I would be able to be in control of my own future.
If you don't understand the sneaker culture or the street, Deadstock doesn't make sense to you. The Reebok Question is the greatest sneaker of all time. Do you what I'm saying? People like Jordan, LeBron, Kobe, and whoever, but Iverson is the reason why basketball is popping from my perspective, and my perspective is a fact! I've never been ashamed to try something new or to do whatever makes me happy. We have a sneaker wall in the shop and this is where it begins. Sneakers make me happy and they’re the way I express myself. So whenever I would try to explain the concept, like well its shoes, and Portland's the sneaker capital, and blah, blah, blah, people would have a hard time understanding. Finally, I was like, coffee's really boring, and coffee should be dope. But really what I wanted was the community aspect. That’s what the drip whip is for. It’s a mobile coffee shop I can make coffees out the back. It’s a fully operational coffee shop. So I could literally stop anywhere and serve coffee and that's pretty dope. It’s a vehicle for us to stay connected to the community, everywhere, all the time.
I opened up another location called Concourse and it's the new version of Deadstock. The entire inspiration for this space is actually just community. I wanted to be able to hire whomever I wanted to hire. Do whatever it is I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to collaborate with brands. To be able to talk to people about shoes. We are essentially making it a home for us, and trying to make it home for anybody who wants to come in. I want to welcome everyone. Those who have been with us before, welcome back. Those who are new, welcome to the family. The coffee shop, or the things that we serve, are really just the vehicle to get people together.
We started a run club. No, I am definitely not a runner. I'm a person who understands that I need to exercise, and I know that everybody else probably needs to exercise too. We have a consistent 50 to 60 people every week joining us. We hate saying that it's the most diverse run club in the city, but it definitely is. It's another piece of the community and we're very proud of that. We have this motto, we say Deadstock doesn't close because people need something consistent. Something that they can always count on. So, it is important that we are there.
I was fortunate enough to partner with Adidas and create a Deadstock Coffee and Adidas collab. It’s called the Adidas ZX 5000. Product can be a feeling. Product can be an emotion. Product can be the people that you're around. We were able to make a product that was inspired by coffee. That was made for coffee people, but that the streets will be happy about. We're gonna do one at a time. One pair per person. If we got you, that's tight. If we don't, sorry we are sold out. I’m successful and my business is successful because my team is tight. We show up every single day. We're passionate about what we do, and I'm proud of where I am and where I'm trying to go, and where everybody else who sticks with me is trying to go. So, that's the motivation. The rest of it can be figured out.
