Corporate Culture Inspires New FL Coffee Brand Founded By 2 College Friends

Inspired by their post-college 9-to-5 grind in corporate America, two friends who graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers have teamed up to launch a new ecommerce coffee brand.

Corporate Menace Coffee Co. offers high-quality, specialty-grade blends with names like Hostile Takeover, Morning Hustle, Liquid Courage and Quiet Quitting.

Founders Nathan Wilson, a marketing and events strategist in St. Petersburg, and Michael Patella, a corporate consultant based in South Florida, launched the brand in January. They’re joined by longtime corporate executive Matthew Patella in the initiative.

The college friends are longtime self-described “coffee connoisseurs,” Wilson told Patch.

They also both got their start in sales, spending a lot of time on the road for work over the past several years. During their travels, they had a hard time finding a good cup of Joe.

“We kind of learned that there is not really great coffee in the hotels, and even Starbucks isn’t that great,” Wilson said.

Coffee plays a key role in the corporate culture and the friends decided to create their own brand to reflect that world.

“Getting up every day and the successful feeling of closing a deal, signing new clients or meeting deadlines,” he said. “We wanted a coffee brand that captures those feelings specifically. It’s not only a taste in a cup; it’s about those feelings.”

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While developing Corporate Menace over the past year-and-a-half, they spent time learning about the coffee business whether it was about different blends to how to ethically and sustainably source beans.

The startup will present their coffee at upcoming festivals, the Florida Coffee Festival and the Tampa Bay Coffee and Art Festival.

While coffee lovers can buy ground coffee and whole beans directly from their website, the duo is also targeting coworking spaces, restaurants and coffee shops across the greater Tampa Bay area and South Florida.

In the meantime, the two continue working their day jobs.

“I like to joke that we didn’t want to leave fully. We want to make sure we keep one foot in corporate America,” Wilson said. “We want to stay relevant to the brand and our customers.”

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