Cases Introduction

4.1.1 Founder A1 (Lightened Café)

Founder A1 is the (majority share) co-founder of Lightened Café located at Taipei City.

Prior start-up her current FT business in 2014, founder A1 has more than two years working experiences in both IT industry and NGO field.

Growing up from a middle class family, founder A1 did not face too much obstacles in her early life. When she studied in politic department in NCCU, she founded her passion of caring international issues and also wanted to do something about it.

After completed her master study in USA, founder A1 joined an international high tech company as a project manager and later joined a NGO to pursuit her personal fulfillment.

Because of certain fundamental disagreement with her superior, founder A1 decided to quit her position in the NGO and decided to continue her doctoral study in USA.

Just before the terms of her doctoral program began, founder A1 got an opportunity to participate in an international justice conference at LA. In that conference, she inspired by the sharing of many world-wide well-known NGOs founders, and later she re-considered her study plan and decided to jump in and do something that can change the world.

According to founder A1, the hardest and most frustrated challenges, which included withdraw of investment, cheated by vendor and lack of support from close friends, are all happen during the beginning stage. At that time, founder A1 fell very frustrated and insecure.

Luckily, with the supports and helps from family and friends, founder A1 eventually survived through the hardest period.

Even facing many challenges that could bring down her business, founder A1 stated to us that in fact she never thought about giving up. She told us that what she is doing right now is not for herself but for her god and for those small farmers in third nations.

Currently, the business of founder A1 has already on track. When ask for her plan in the future, founder A1 told us that she has plan to expand her role and activity into the upper FT value chain, because she would like to work more closely with small farmers and contribute to them more directly.

4.1.2 Founder B2 (He Ping Café)

Founder B2 started his FT coffee business in 2007 and it made him one of the pioneer in this field. As a child from a mid-low income family without well materially life, since very

young age, founder B2 has already got the sense of social justice. Founder B2 always wondered why rich family’s life is different from his family and he think that his sensitivity characteristic of social justice is the main reason of why he became an activist of social movement and founder of social business.

After graduated from Philosophy Department of Tung Hai University, founder B2 began his career as marketing executive in a retail coffee chain and sales in a music instrument company. Because extremely dissatisfied with the life before start-up, when a close friend of him offered the opportunity to do business together in 2007, without serious consideration, founder B2 decided to take the chance.

At the beginning, founder B2 only wanted to offer a space for students to discuss social issues and in fact he did not have any idea about what to do at that time. By chance, a friend introduced him the idea and concept of FT coffee, and he liked the idea very much, then he decided to start his business as a FT coffee house, a place where he could sell justice products (FT coffee), promote social justice and allow people to discuss/debate social issues freely.

For founder B2, the biggest and hardest challenge to run the first FT coffee house in Taiwan is how to get secure and stable supply FT coffee bean from supplier. Without a stable supply of FT coffee bean, it not only affected the quality of the products, but also very much affected the business. In fact, founder B2 never overcome this problem and this issue also become one of the key reason for him to quit his FT coffee business in 2010.

In 2010, after long time struggle and facing bottle neck of growth, founder B2 decided to take a long break. During the 6 months holiday in Australia with his girlfriend, founder B2 got the opportunity to rethink his FT business and his life planning. After long and deep consideration, founder B2 realized that the real passion of his life in fact is playing rock music and advocate social issues, and therefore he decided to quit his FT coffee business and jumped into his music career.

4.1.3 Founder C3 (Rain Forest Coffee)

As the only FT coffee trader in Taiwan who direct involving in producer side’s community development, the story of founder C3 not only is one of the most successful one but also one of the most touching one.

Because founder C3 doing very good at his study, he successfully get into NTU Law School after high school graduation. Somehow, due to lack of interest in the legal subject, after graduated from the NTU Law School, founder C3 decided not to pursuit a career in law.

During his service in the army, first time in his life, founder C3 found strong feeling and passion for Nature. After participated the rebuilt of 921 earthquake, the feeling for Nature within founder C3’s heart became stronger, and also since then he started to rethink the relationship of human being and the environment. Because of the passion for Nature and wanted to gain the professional knowledge that could help him to pursuit his dream, after several years of working, founder C3 decided went back to school to study environmental

engineering.

In 2004 during the time of South Asia tsunami disaster, founder C3 and his friends organized a volunteer aid group to Sumatra Indonesia to offer support and aid for the local victims. During his time in Sumatra, after witnessed the miserable situation of victims, founder C3 said that he feel the revelation from god, and with the encouraged of his advisor, he decided to initiate something that could help the people suffering there.

After came back from Indonesia, founder C3 started his preparation for the FT coffee project. At the beginning, due to lack of financing support, founder C3 initiated a cloud founding pre-order program, in which he collected pre-payment from consumers for two years FT coffee supply. Because of the success of that program, founder C3’s FT coffee business grew stably and breakeven within two years.

At the moment, founder C3 is the only Taiwanese FT coffee entrepreneur who involved in the producer side development, and therefore he needed to spend at least 3 months in Indonesia every year for his local development program. Although founder C3 focusing mainly on his development project in Indonesia rather than his FT business market development in Taiwan, after all the hard works since 2008, founder C3’s FT coffee business has already become the second largest FT coffee business in Taiwan.

According to founder C3, even though he facing many ups and downs during the startup journey, he believes that the passion for Nature and his faith are the key to support him to move on. For the future plan of his business, since his FT coffee business in Taiwan has

already become stable, currently he is planning for new product development and deeper local development project at the producer side.

4.1.4 Founder D4 and E5 (Oko Green)

Founders D4 and E5 are equal contribution co-founder of the largest FT coffee chain and also the only FLO certified importer in Taiwan. In the reality, they are not only partner in business but also partner in life.

For founder E5, as a social activist, after graduated from university, he longtime works for NGOs and government to advocate the environmental issues. During the time when founder E5 studied his master degree in UK, by an unexpected opportunity, he was inspired by the concept of FT and FT movement in UK,.

For founder D4, because she is a guy with strong sense of social justice and her previous working experiences as a marketing executive in an international organic cosmetic company also let her understand the truth behind the environmental problems, it made her started to care about environmental issues.

In 2006, after observed and involved in the agriculture and social issues for a long period, founder E5 decided to bring in the concept of FT into Taiwan in order to make some chance.

Initially, founder E5 had no plan to get any direct involvement, and he just wanted to be a promoter of the idea. After several failed attempts to promote the idea to existing coffee traders, at last, founder E5 and D4 decided to do it by themselves.

Because founder D4 and E5 not only want to promote the idea of FT, but also want to bring in the international FT standard and system into Taiwan, at the beginning stage, it take them about one year to obtain the official certification from FLO.

According to founder D4, the first five years is the toughest period for both of them. Not only family and friends were not supporting them, but also the concept of FT is still relatively new and not accepted by most of the customers, they facing many challenges and struggle to survive in that time.

Through the relentless promotion and public education (more than 500 public speeches in 5 years), founder D4 and E5 overturned the situation. In 2014, Oko Green not only became the first listed SE in OTC venture board, but also became the largest FT coffee channel in Taiwan.

Beside FT coffee trading business, through cooperated with other FT companies, they also co-founded Fairtrade Taiwan Association in 2010 to better promote FT in Taiwan. Founder D4 and E5 hoped their actively involvement in many local and international FT advocacy activities could help improve Taiwan’s international visibility and speedup the FT development within the island.

4.1.5 Founder F6 (Hoard In Job)

Before founded his current FT coffee business in 2010, founder F6 already has more than 15 years working and startup experiences. Begin his career as a pop music performance, due to serious pirated problem in Taiwan, founder F6 giving up his beloved music career became a coffee machine trader.

After enjoyed successful career in the coffee machinery industry, in 2008, during a visit trip to his supplier’s coffee farm, an unexpected event changed the life of founder F6. At that time, when founder F6 self-guided tour in a coffee plantation, he saw the real life and suffering of the small farmers. After came back from the tour, founder F6 feel very uncomfortable within his heart, for two years period, he lost his direction, feel depression all the time and refused to work.

In year 2010, after two years of thinking and reviewed all the failures in his life, founder F6 decided to do something matter. Because he wanted to achieve something in his life, founder F6 decided to go to Africa, looking for small coffee farmers, offering help and writing his own coffee story. At that time, founder F6 also made a wish that he will not leaving Africa in the next 10 years.

Currently, with four retail shops and a roasting factory, founder F6 is the owner of the largest franchise FT coffee house in Tai Chung city. Although it is not an easy task to purchase directly from small coffee farmers in Africa, founder F6 still insisted to do so.

According to founder F6, as a coffee trader, he thinks he has certain kind of social

responsibility and therefore even selling FT coffee is a very tough job, he still willing to continue to do that.