Today we’d like to introduce you to Nolan Hall.
Nolan, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
During my third year at Georgia Tech, I started roasting my own coffee on the stove in a cast iron pan. After realizing how inconsistent the stove would make my coffee, I started to think about ways to build my own coffee roaster.
Soon after, I received some grant money from GT to build an invention so I decided to build a customizable coffee roaster. I started sourcing coffee from around the world, roasting it on my machine, and selling it to friends and family. When I got close to graduating, I had an opportunity to turn my hobby into a business, so I put together a team and got started on TopTime.
Now, I’m a partner in Docent Coffee, the founder of TopTime, and I’m roasting for shops and consumers all over Atlanta. TopTime will be opening a storefront or two on the Georgia Tech campus in the next couple months, and hopefully, have more to follow. Docent Coffee is doing some exciting things too, opening our first brick & mortar shop very soon.
Has it been a smooth road?
Starting a company at 21 years old is a bit challenging – sometimes people don’t take you seriously, sometimes they think they know more than you since you’re so young, and other times people just don’t believe in your idea.
Luckily, the coffee industry is a very hospitable and welcoming community, so I’ve made a lot of friends along the way. Navigating through some of the more complex business processes gets a little tricky for me since I have limited business experience, but I like to learn as I go, too.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the TopTime Coffee story. Tell us more about the business.
TopTime Coffee is a technology-driven coffee company. We started by building our own coffee roasters and are now opening storefronts around Atlanta. We focus on bringing specialty coffee to our customers in ways they’ve never seen before. How many people can say they’ve tasted coffee roasted on a handmade machine before?
If there’s a chance that my team and I can build a machine, we will definitely forego purchasing one and build one from scratch instead. We are all Georgia Tech engineers, so we love to geek out over technology just as much as coffee.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
If you’ve ever been to Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco, you know how much potential there is for craft coffee in Atlanta. This city has such an amazing food, music, and entertainment scene but it’s missing the glue that holds a community together – craft coffee shops. I have a lot of respect for the craft coffee shop owners here – it’s a big risk to start a business in a city that has not historically supported their industry, but I think we are headed in the right direction.
In the next few years, I hope to see several other specialty coffee shops pop-up around Atlanta and hopefully push out some of the money-driven franchises that don’t put as much effort into their craft.
Pricing:
- Uganda (12oz) – $16.00
- Guatemala (12oz) – $13.50
- Colombia (12oz) – $15.00
- Tanzania (12oz) – $16.00
- Nicaragua (12oz) – $15.00
- Espresso (12oz) – $16.00
Contact Info:
- Website: toptimecoffee.com
- Email: nolan@toptimecoffee.com
- Instagram: @toptimecoffee
- Facebook: @toptimecoffeeco
Image Credit:
Anna Belle Preece, Mika Munch, Travis Sadler
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