#keba konte

[yankeeblue]

Master P in VIBE Magazine September 1996 issue. Written by Tony Green. Photographed by Keba Konte.

[garadinervi]

Angela Y. Davis, The Meaning of Freedom. And Other Difficult Dialogues, Foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley, Open Media series, City Lights Books, City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, CA, 2012

Cover Photograph: © Keba Konte

[cwsanfrancisco]

Learn The Art Of Cupping With Keba Konte, Owner Of Red Bay Coffee

[entmagazine]

Since launching in 2013, Fund Good Jobs has invested more than $2 million in five startups, unlocked $6 million more in outside capital and created more than 100 local jobs. Here’s how one of those businesses grew, using the right tools at the right times. 2011: Oakland-based Keba Konte is accepted into an ICA 10-week business class. At the time, he owns and manages Guerilla Café, an organic coffee shop in Berkeley, but he dreams of building his own small-batch coffee roaster business and a chain of cafés. 

 2012

Konte opens a second coffee shop in San Francisco, Chasing Lions Cafe. The shop does well, but he still wants to roast and sell his own coffee in his shops. 

2013

Over the summer, Konte builds a roasting lab in his garage, where he experiments with coffee blends and roasting techniques while getting pro bono advice from ICA’s advisers on launching Red Bay Coffee.

2014

Red Bay Coffee opens in Oakland as a micro-roaster, roasting less than 130 pounds of coffee at a time. Now that Red Bay is an official business, Konte joins ICA’s accelerator program and spends the rest of the year developing a fund-raising plan and financial and job-creation projections.

Summer 2015

Konte works with ICA to construct a Kickstarter campaign with optimal prizes and prices, then raises $87,000 on the site to fund a coffee bar -- and, with the organization’s help, also begins negotiating a sizable seed round with several of the philanthropic fund’s financial partners.

Fall 2015

Red Bay Coffee closes a $725,000 investment round of debt and equity; ICA Fund Good Jobs contributes $300,000, and the rest comes from a handful of angel investors. Konte opens his dream 7,800-square-foot roasting facility in East Oakland.

Today

Red Bay Coffee employs more than 25 people, most of them minorities, many of them formerly incarcerated. Wholesale customers include Uber, Salesforce, Twitter and Instagram. By year’s end, he’ll have opened his Kickstarter-funded coffee bar and another one inside the roasting facility.

Written by Michelle Goodman Photo by Cody PIckens

(page 57, June 2016 issue)

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