You Never Forget Your First Customers
When you create your own company, it is easy to dream about what it might one day become. Many customers. Large orders. A name people recognize. But when you truly begin, that great future does not yet exist. There is only the first customer. Then perhaps a second. I still remember how DOROMA's first orders made me feel. They were not large at all. On paper, they may have represented very little.
But to me, they meant everything. Because someone had tasted my coffee and then said:
"Yes, I want to try it."
That little word, yes, meant far more than an order. It meant someone trusted something I had built myself. DOROMA. And therefore, a little, me as well. Whenever another order arrived, I felt the same joy again. The brand that had first existed only in my mind was slowly beginning to find its place in the real world. Package after package. Customer after customer. Café after café.
Of course, things did not always go that way. I heard the word no far more often than a beginning entrepreneur likes to admit. I entered somewhere. Introduced myself. Spoke about my coffee. We tasted it together. The customer listened. Sometimes everything seemed to go perfectly. Then came the words:
"We will think about it."
I learned quickly enough what that usually meant. No order. At first, it could affect me. When you believe in your own product with all your heart, a refusal can feel almost personal. On the road to the next customer, I replayed the conversation in my head. Had I said the wrong thing? Had I spoken too much? Should I have listened better? Why had they not chosen DOROMA?
But I could not stop at every refusal. Another door was always waiting. So I got out of my car again. Took my samples. And began once more. Perhaps that was one of the most important lessons of those early years. An entrepreneur must be able to accept the word no. Without bitterness. Without becoming angry.
But while continuing forward. Because today's no does not necessarily have to be no forever. I later saw some people again who had not wanted to order at first. I greeted them exactly as I had before. Without reproach. Without pressure. Because I believed trust needed time. And sometimes a first order came after all, a few months later. Those orders may have been even more beautiful. Not because they were larger.
But because I knew patience had done its work. Little by little, DOROMA began to build a customer base. Not a great empire. Not spectacular figures. Simply people who bought our coffee and ordered it again. And to me, that was precisely the proof that we were doing something right. A first order is wonderful.
But when a customer orders a second time, you know they are satisfied. Perhaps that was even more important to me. I also began to discover that behind every order was a human being. A café owner who rose early every morning. A restaurateur who worked long days. People who themselves had taken risks to build their businesses. People who, like me, had to pay bills and hoped tomorrow would be better than today.
Perhaps that is why I understood them so well. We stood on opposite sides of the counter. But in reality, we often shared the same worries. Some customers simply remained good customers. Others became acquaintances. And a few, over the years, true friends. Those are things you will not find on a balance sheet. There is no accounting column for friendship. No invoice for trust. No revenue figure that indicates the value of a human relationship.
And yet, those were precisely the things that marked me most deeply during that period. Today, I no longer remember every order. I do not know exactly how many packages of coffee each customer bought. And many figures have faded from my memory over the years. But I never forgot the feeling those first customers gave me. The joy when someone chose DOROMA. The disappointment when someone said no. The hope on the road to the next customer.
And above all, the gratitude toward those who were willing to give an unknown brand a chance. Without them, DOROMA would have remained only a name. An idea. A dream. They were the ones who allowed that dream truly to begin living. Later, I would work with larger companies. With factories. With international contacts. With projects far greater than DOROMA's first orders.
But perhaps that is precisely why an entrepreneur never forgets the first customers. When you have a hundred, one order is one among many. When you still possess almost nothing, a single order can make it feel as though the entire world is opening before you. My first customers gave me that feeling. And I remain grateful to them, even after so many years.