David Myers

Expertise: roasting, entrepreneurship, consulting and education

Coffee insight: The price of green coffee is one of the most important factors in pricing packaged coffees.

Fun fact: David’s working on his certification to become an adult learn-to-swim teacher.

When David started his company in 2006, after years working as a commercial photographer, the craft roasting industry was still small. David saw a clear opening in the market. “In our town, there were only two,” he recalls, “and it seemed like there was an opportunity for a local brand.”

He launched his roasting business, Mighty Good Coffee Roasting Company, part-time—purchasing his equipment (and inheriting his first customer list) secondhand, honing his craft on nights and weekends while balancing other projects to pay the bills.

Click here to find Might Good Coffee’s Almighty Blend in the U3 Coffee Exchange!

David is the founder of Mighty Good Coffee Company, a small-batch roasting company focused on ethically sourced coffee and long-term partnerships with their farms, mills, and co-ops.

After taking on leadership roles in the Specialty Coffee Association (SC) and the Coffee Roasters Guild (CRG), his passion for education led him to create his own consulting firm, Working Title Coffee, which he founded in 2019. Today he offers courses, workshops, and training to everyone from coffee enthusiasts to industry professionals, and hosts his Roast Profiles podcast, where he interviews industry insiders about their own coffee journeys.

But David quickly recognized that if he wanted to continue to progress, the traditional path forward might not be the best for him: “I realized that the fastest way to grow is to keep opening retail locations. In terms of finance, that’s a great playbook. In terms of my own business strengths and management skills, it’s not a good tactic.”

Instead, David followed the advice of one of his mentors, Ildi Revi, a former head of education for the SCA and current Director of Learning at Ally Coffee and Chief Coffee Officer at Purity Coffee, who’d encouraged him to get involved in teaching. David says participating in conventions and mentorship helped him develop a community beyond his own local area, which helped his business thrive.

David emphasizes that it’s important to never lose sight of the people behind each cup of coffee.

“I tell people, when they spill coffee in my shop, somebody’s hands touched that before it ended up on the floor, and we should try to be respectful of that,” he explains. “I try to remember that, whether the coffee is good or bad, that there is a human interaction involved almost everywhere in the world. Just try to keep that in mind.”

David says that the most impactful moment in his journey was he was able to travel to origin, visiting the farms where his coffee was grown. Those interactions helped him fully grasp the global connection between his local business, his wider industry community, and the immense network of farmers and producers who allowed him to bring his product to market.

Reflecting on that experience, David says, “If you haven’t traveled to origin, and you haven’t stood on a hillside picking your own coffee for an hour, you don’t fully understand what it means to get one coffee cherry into a basket, into a machine that takes it all off and ends up eventually delivering it to your cup.”

Roasting company: mightygoodcoffee.com

Consulting business: workingtitlecoffee.com

Instagram: @working_title_coffee