Pura Vida Coffee
Eight years after their 1989 Harvard Business School graduation, friends and former roommates John Sage and Chris Dearnley met for a casual pool-side reunion in San Diego. What started as a time to reminisce turned into a planning session for Pura Vida Coffee, a business that would sell gourmet coffee over the Web and donate its net profits to social welfare projects in Central America.
After graduation, Sage had become a Microsoft marketing executive and then a vice president of a high-tech company. He had achieved financial success and felt ready to leave the corporate world and become a full-time philanthropist. After graduation, Dearnley had answered a calling to do Christian ministry in Costa Rica and was working as a pastor in San Jose, focusing mostly on helping homeless children in the tough neighborhood of Alejuelita. The inheritance that Dearnley had used to support his urban ministry was almost depleted and he wanted to brainstorm new sources of funding.
Sage would supply the start-up money for their new coffee company and run operations and marketing from the company's administrative office in Seattle, Washington. Dearnley would select the coffee suppliers and continue his ministry work in Costa Rica. One hundred percent of net profits from sales would go directly to support Christian ministry and social services in Costa Rica and Central America.
Set during their third year of operation, the partners were grappling with the challenges of running the small company - which had employees spread across three states and two countries - as revenues and operational complexities grew. The Pura Vida multimedia case puts students into the difficult decision-making position of John Sage, who was contemplating such issues as human resources management, supply chain operations, ramp-up of e-commerce capability, and pricing, sales and marketing strategy.
While commitment to mission is a critical driver for the social enterprise, it is difficult to convey on paper. The multimedia case includes video vignettes that allow students to see social services in action. Through the use of video story-telling, students are able to see the excitement, fulfillment and social purpose that Sage and Dearnley experience as they build their social enterprise.
The Pura Vida Coffee multimedia case which was produced by Professor James Austin has been taught in Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector and in several of the Executive Education courses sponsored by the HBS Initiative on Social Enterprise.
For more information and to purchase the Pura Vida coffee multimedia case, go to HBS Publishing.
