On the Instagram of the brand COF&, Óscar Quintero, from Santander, who lives in the United States, you can read a post that says: “A coffee has the power to give you new ideas”. And so it is.
Coffee, one of our most iconic products, also a pride of Santander, is one of the most versatile drinks capable of conquering every palate.
And with this product, Óscar Quintero has fulfilled his dream by realizing his idea: to drink a coffee, a physical point of the drink, in the United States.
The United States is a land of opportunity, but it’s not an unreal place where money is wasted every second like the image they’re selling us.
Óscar Quintero, one of the creators of COF&.
“My mother has lived in this country for 20 years. I used to visit them every year, but the pandemic made me take a break in my life and reorganize everything. With my family we decided to change our lives completely and we came to the conclusion that if we lived in another country we would make a real change. We chose the United States because we already knew them and this country offered us new opportunities,” the Santander businessman tells Vanguardia.
Oscar immigrated to the United States on an L1 visa, which is something like a business visa.
This visa obliged him to run his own business and stay legally in this country.
A few months before his trip to the United States, Oscar teamed up with Camilo Méndez, a friend who had developed the idea of a “COF&” in Bucaramanga, a business model based on “special Santanderean” coffee drinks.
“In Colombia, COF& doesn’t have its own coffees, so we decided to start with Camilo with our own coffeeshops “COF&” in the United States to take advantage of the strength that Colombian coffee has worldwide and even more the new trend of Coffee consumption “especially” worldwide.
COF& is currently a business model for entrepreneurs looking to migrate to the United States.
Óscar Quintero explained to Vanguardia, based on his experience as a businessman in the United States, what would be the recommendations for opening a business there: The first is that from a social point of view the advice is that if you want to live in another culture you must be willing integrate and enjoy. There is no point in taking Colombian customs with you to live in a Colombian community in the United States and you suffer because you long for what you left behind. In addition, the experience of living together and getting to know another culture that nourishes us as citizens of the world, learning a new language, etc. is limited.
The second recommendation is to live in states that aren’t saturated by the Latino community, as there are more options because not as many people are looking for the same thing.
As a third point, you must have “zero fear of English”: the language is “learned because it is learned”, there is no other way. Finally, from an economic point of view, the truth is that this country offers great opportunities, but it doesn’t give anything away: you have to work hard, but you will see the results with time and perseverance. The image that you will arrive in the United States and be rich in a month is very far from reality and when it is not clear it generates frustration and disappointment.