How This Coffee Caterer Went from a Garage Startup to 1300+ Events a Year

In this episode of the Flashquotes Podcast, we sit down with Michael Craig, founder of Creature Coffee, to uncover how he scaled his business from a scrappy garage operation to executing 1,300+ events a year across multiple cities.

 

Michael shares his raw, unfiltered journey—from taking on his first gig with zero equipment to mastering the art of coffee catering and building a thriving brand in a competitive industry. If you’re an entrepreneur, coffee enthusiast, or service business owner looking to scale and streamline operations, this episode is packed with golden nuggets on business growth, team-building, and expansion.

 

🔥 Want to scale your coffee or catering business? Get access to the Mobile Catering Accelerator community: https://www.skool.com/mobile-catering-accelerator/about

 

 

Growth Playbook: How Creature Coffee Scaled

💡 The power of saying yes—how a single event changed everything
🚀 The growth journey from one coffee cart to a multi-city business
⚡ The systems & processes that allowed Creature to scale efficiently
🔑 The toughest lessons learned—failures, pivots, and game-changing insights
🏆 The future of coffee catering—why it’s a massive untapped opportunity

 

 

Resources & Tools Mentioned

📌 Flashquotes – The all-in-one software that powers Creature Coffee’s operations: https://flashquotes.com
📌 Creature Coffee – Book them for your next event: https://creaturecoffee.co

 

Timestamps

X:XX - Intro
X:XX - How Michael stumbled into coffee catering
X:XX - Scaling a coffee cart business: Key turning points
X:XX - The moment Michael knew it was time to go all-in
X:XX - Building an amazing company culture that attracts top talent
X:XX - The systems challenge—switching from HoneyBook & 17Hats to Flashquotes
X:XX - Expanding to Seattle—the biggest lessons from opening in a second city
X:XX - The biggest failures & how to recover from setbacks
X:XX - The future of Creature Coffee & advice for other service-based businesses

 

Why This Episode Matters

⚡ Learn how to scale a service business beyond one location
☕ See why coffee catering is booming while cafes struggle
📈 Discover the exact systems that make high-volume event businesses work

Notable Quotes:
👉 “The best thing I ever did for my business was stepping away.” – Michael Craig
👉 “You don’t build a business, you build systems. The systems build the business.” – Justin Goodhart

📢 Subscribe & turn on notifications so you never miss an episode!

Follow us for more insights:
📍 Twitter: @FlashquotesHQ
📍 Instagram: @FlashquotesHQ
📍 LinkedIn: Flashquotes