This article is part of Bísness School, a series that highlights one of the fastest-growing groups of entrepreneurs in the United States, Latinos. You can hear or watch the full conversation with Melissa Ortiz below.
Some of Melissa Ortiz’s biggest successes have been accompanied by the smell of coffee.
“We’ve always loved coffee,” the former professional soccer player said about her family. “My mom drank coffee all the time.”
There was the coffee that helped her parents’ auto repair boutique business stand out in West Palm Beach, Florida.
“[My parents] got to a point where you offer clients coffee, but you go to a regular dealer and you're getting like this gross coffee,” she said. “So one of the things that they implemented into the business many, many years ago was actually offering not only good coffee, but cappuccinos or a latte or an espresso.”
Then there was the coffee in the locker rooms before the Colombian-American represented Colombia in the U-20 Women's World Cup.
“A lot of locker rooms actually served like big bins of coffee,” said Ortiz.
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So in 2017, when the then-27-year-old closed the chapter on her pro soccer career and wasn’t sure what to do next, she went back to one of the places that smelled like coffee: her parents’ auto repair boutique.
“I started working in marketing and accounting,” Ortiz said. “I enjoyed it. enjoyed working with my family for sure. I saw this tremendous potential of not only where the business is but where it could be, too — and the growth that it was going through. But as I sat down at the desk right after, you know, being at the Olympics and all this stuff, you're kind of pondering who am I? What am I doing?”
She liked the job, but she was not passionate about it. She and her dad were watching soccer on TV one day when her dad looked at her and asked her a question.
"There weren't many former players that that were broadcasting, especially women and Latinas during that time. And he says, 'You know what, Meli? You should be up there. You know so much about the game. You always talk about it. And I feel like you have a bubbly personality and, you know, speak well. So like, why don't you do that?' And I sat there and I was like, you know what? Yeah, I think maybe you're right."
The Olympian has managed to carve out a career in sports broadcasting, analyzing MLS and NWSL games on TNT Sports and covering World Cups for Fox Sports.
The career had her zig-zagging the country, but during the pandemic she started having a desire to build something of her own, a business.That's when her brother came to her with an idea.
“He said, ‘Why don't we create a coffee brand around soccer?’ And my brother is the type of person that has always had kind of crazy ideas. And many times I would say, ‘Yeah, let's let that one marinate for a little bit.’ But this one for me, it really stuck out.”
That idea became the foundation of Kickoff Coffee Co, a coffee brand whose roasts have names inspired by soccer. Roasts like “The Playmaker” or “Matchday” are sold mostly through e-commerce but also available at select retailers around the country.
Melissa Ortiz spoke to NBC's Bísness School about why she decided to end her professional soccer career, what it’s like being business partners with her brother and sister-in-law, and how she’s using her coffee company to help young soccer players. The answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Bísness School: What connection did you see between coffee and soccer?
Melissa Ortiz: If you're a soccer fan and you watch a lot of soccer, people get up at 4 or 5 in the morning to catch some matches. You could watch soccer, well, so many days of the week, one, because there's so many leagues in the world. But if you watch the weekend games, they're usually in the morning hours. So you're thinking 6, 7, 8 a.m., so coffee is already part of that experience of watching an early morning soccer game. And so there had never been a brand that associated and connected the two passions and two cultures.
BS: What was the reception when you launched?
MO: We posted it, and all these sales started coming in. I was like, my gosh, this is amazing. You hear all these like [sales] notifications. I was like, wow, we're really onto something. It's not easy to be part of a family business either. And I know that just because of my parents and what they went through and, we go through it too. You're not going to always agree on stuff. But at the end of the day, like you need to have the passion and be passion-driven about your product.
BS: A big part of your company’s DNA is that it gives back to soccer. How does it do that?
MO: Through our bags, you know, we donate 10% of our coffee profits to foundations around the world. [We give to] foundations that use football for opportunities for immigrants, for many things. We've worked with foundations in many countries around world, from Colombia to Nepal. We know how much soccer has given to us in our lives, especially as first-generation Americans that, you know, soccer could really be used as a tool for so many different things.
Watch the full conversation with Melissa Ortiz to learn how she ended up in sports broadcasting and how she leverages her active personal social media presence to boost her business.
