Who are the Finegan Bros Where do you come from and where do you work?
We are a small Irish start-up company based in Skryne providing premium quality bespoke coffee that is
sustainably sourced from around the world.
Finegan Brothers consists of two lads, both with a passionate love of coffee. Josh and Fiachra both
represented Skryne in underage Gaelic football playing with some of the greats past and present.
Alongside the coffee we both work full time respectively - Fiachra 22 years old is currently working full time in Boston Scientific as a biomedical engineer and playing rugby with Navan RFC. Josh who is 25 years of age and is working in Research Insights with Qualtrics as a Senior Sales Development Representative in Dublin and plays soccer with Robinstown.
What is your business?
We’re in the coffee business. Ground coffee, whole beans, and brew bags.
Our philosophy is good vibes, great coffee and this is empowered through our products. Our mission is to
have great tasting coffee in every kitchen in Ireland.
We provide a premium washed and natural blend of ground coffee sourced from Kenya, Brazil and
Sumatra, we also provide whole beans of the same blend. Recently, we have launched our brand new
product ‘brew bags’ & corresponding new blend ‘Arabicas of the world’ which features a new bean from Colombia which have been a massive hit. We have received a lot of great feedback from our customers so far.
How did you get the idea?
Starting a business together is something we had always wanted to do and we originally started talking
about last year. During lockdown we weren’t able to play sports or meet friends, and we had a lot of time
to think. We were trying top brand coffees for as long as we can remember, and coffee is something that
we are both incredibly passionate about. One day at the kitchen table while sitting down chatting over a
fresh brew we had the epiphany moment; We wanted to create our own blend which gives you a real
authentic premium at-home experience. So we took it into our own hands and started our own coffee
company. Six months later, here we are! The lockdown helped, we put in every minute we had to spare
and it was in this environment that innovation flourished. We saw an opportunity to take our dream to
market which gave us the extra bit of motivation we needed to get going.
We both showed a passionate love for coffee and had been experimenting for the past 6 to 8 months with
various brands from around the world. We noticed that there is a huge growing interest in artisan coffee in
Ireland, and we wanted to make our mark on it. We also found that many people settle for instant coffee
over ground and whole beans and we wanted to change their perspectives on how good coffee can taste.
Quite frankly, we believed that we could create a blend of coffee with a truly unique taste and profile, that
matches & surpasses the standard café style coffee – something that we felt was missing from the market
What is your target audience?
Our target audience is everyone that enjoys a good cup of coffee or has yet to be converted!
How did it start?
We spent many long weekends and late nights contacting suppliers, tasting different brands and getting
beans in from different parts of the world. We then conducted our own cupping sessions here in the
house. When we found the right supplier, bean types, and roast we knew we were onto a winner and
began the process of trying to figure out how to set up our business.
Covid-19 was an opportunity that we used to fully understand the fundamental processes involved in
formulating a unique blend, sorting out supply chains, designing websites, and organising packaging.
When did you set it up?
We set up the business mid lockdown and have been in operation for just coming up to 6 months. We
were about three months into lockdown when we fully committed to the idea, but we had been planning
to launch for a considerable amount of time beforehand. The opportunity cost of the lockdown was that
we were able to invest more time into the business then we would’ve been able to previously. We
launched our social media pages in July – and the rest is history.
How are you delivering your products?
We are stocking a couple of stores around Meath and Dublin. For anybody that lives locally in Skryne we
are available in Swans pub and grocery store, and in Sweet Planet home bakery in Dunshaughlin. You can also find our coffee available in the Muttonhead Butchery in Slane and will be in ODE Navan in the coming weeks. For any of those that are travelling a little bit, we are available in Naul, Dublin from Clonanny farm foods, and Sage and Stone in Duleek. We also have a domestic delivery service available through our courier partners Fastway and we do local dropouts within Meath.
How are you going to grow your business?
The million-dollar question! At the moment our main priority is developing our brand locally, and to try to
maintain the support that has been so rewarding and fantastic to us. We want to start small and make sure
that we grow our roots successfully before casting our net out too far. We’ve been very successful so far in
that the three batches of freshly roasted coffee we have ordered, which have all completely sold out. This
is fantastic on one hand but it certainly puts us under pressure to get stock in at times! All a learning
curve.
Our Next step is to revisit our packaging in January and develop a more sustainable and economic
packaging solution. We are hopeful that we will be able to order in higher volumes of coffee due to the
demand we have generated.
Once we have well-established roots in place we plan to get in contact with more local stores and cafés
and hopefully hit the shelves by the end of 2021 start of 22.
What is the reaction on social media?
The support we have received on social media has been phenomenal. We couldn't have asked for better
local support. We were nervous when we were starting as we weren’t sure if people would be interested in
our idea, but the reaction has been awesome. Everyone we spoke to has been so supportive of the idea.
We would especially like to thank Swans Pub for being so supportive and being the first shop to support us
in selling our product. We’ve had to drop into Paula and Alan with boxes of stock because the support from the community has been superb.
We have developed a large social media following over a small space of time we average about 7000
interactions a week which is phenomenal and have built up over 3000 followers across all platforms not
bad for six months work.
What products do you have?
At the moment we have three products listed on our website. We have our signature blend which is
ground coffee perfect for French presses. We have the same blend in whole bean also. We have recently
released our flagship product brew bags, which is 10g of our ‘Arabicas of the world’ blend in a bio-web bag
ready to brew in three minutes. In theory, it’s just like a teabag, and we get a good laugh when people
constantly remind us of that. In fact, it’s full of beautiful ground coffee and it’s helping us change the
coffee game one bag at a time.
Innovations of the future
We hope to eventually get a little coffee truck on the road or perhaps attend a few farmer's markets. It’s a
little hard to put a realistic strategy into place at the moment due to COVID-19, and the uncertainty of
conditions but we will definitely be making waves in the coming weeks and months. We are also constantly
looking out for ways to become a more sustainable business - as we feel it's very important to be
constantly innovating ways to reduce waste and our footprint. We have already implemented a few
strategies to promote sustainability - our coffee bags and labels are fully recyclable, and our brew bags are
fully compostable.
Advice to any young entrepreneurs in skryne that want to start their own business?
If any young people in Skryne are looking to set up a business we would be delighted to have a chat at any
time over a brew. We are local lads who are pretty down to earth, and we would be really happy to share
any knowledge we can.
The one piece of advice we do have is to just do it!! The last six months have been an amazing time for us,
and an utter rollercoaster. We have learned so much already, and have only really started.
If it doesn’t work out and it fails that’s probably one of the most important life lessons you’ll ever learn,
and if it starts to be successful then you just keep building on the little blocks you have put in place.
Think of it like a jigsaw, the project can only start to form a beautiful image once you figure out where the
small parts fit in.
What’s the best thing about starting a business?
It has to be the whole process of starting with nothing but an idea at the kitchen table over a cup of coffee
and then spending hours and hours developing concepts, chasing leads, and trying to figure out what
works and what doesn’t. Making loads of mistakes along the way getting valuable feedback, getting
compliments, and then being criticised somewhere along the line when things go wrong (Which they do!!).
It’s the whole learning curve that we’ve enjoyed, we built the website from scratch, we designed the
products and packaging. We are still developing a brand and we had to learn quickly about how to do SEO
and online marketing. We feel that we learned a lot of life lessons in the last six months. We love the
support we get locally and from friends, colleagues, family, and everybody in between. Starting a business
while being back home has also been a blast. When it comes to a startup business, it truly is all hands on
deck and it definitely brought us closer together as a family which is an awesome bonus.
Anything you’d like to add?
A big part of our brand is the motto ‘brew your coffee not your problems’.
Recently, we fundraised for the Movember Foundation, raising over €2500 for men's mental health. Josh
bleached his hair blonde because he can’t grow a moustache and ran 20k each Saturday through wind or
rain. Fiachra grew the best whiskers that Skryne has ever seen and completed weekly fitness challenges.
We have a wonderful gift a brew service on our website, if there is someone you miss and cannot see, give
them the gift of coffee. Add a note and we’ll wrap it up and deliver it. Make sure to stay in touch with
friends, family, and anyone you haven’t seen in a while.
We’ll see you at Swans, Foxes, and Mrs. O’s when this is all over.
Josh & Fiachra.
www.fineganbrother@gmail.com
Facebook - @fineganbrothers | Instagram – finegan_brothers_co
