How To Make a Great Cup of Coffee with Carl Churchill

Dec 13, 2025

Carl Churchill, co-founder and Chief Coffee Officer of Alpha Coffee, is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who pivoted from military service to the coffee industry. He shares his journey of founding Alpha during the Great Recession, emphasizing leadership lessons from the military. Carl explores the importance of culture over strategy in business and discusses the significance of resilience. Additionally, he offers expert coffee-making tips, detailing the impact of bean quality, grinding, and brewing techniques for the perfect cup.

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ANECDOTE

Burning The Boats To Start Alpha

Carl and Lori cashed out their life savings and turned their basement into Alpha Coffee after the 2008–09 recession bankrupted Carl's startup employer.
They 'burned the boats' and ran years of uncertainty before opening a shop and finding sustainable revenue nearly a decade later.

ANECDOTE

Years Of 'Ranger School' Before Profit

For six years Alpha ran alongside other jobs and near-misses before opening a first shop in 2017 and finally reaching livable revenue around year ten.
Carl worked a daytime advising job while running Alpha nights and weekends to avoid losing his home.

INSIGHT

Hardship Built Entrepreneurial Resilience

Military training and tough experiences inoculated Carl against stress and taught perseverance during entrepreneurial uncertainty.
He credits Stoic practice and hard challenges with shaping Alpha's origin and refusal to quit.

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Alpha Coffee co-founder and retired Army lieutenant colonel Carl Churchill joins Joe for a candid conversation on leadership, resilience, and what it really takes to build something that lasts after the uniform comes off.

After serving more than two decades in the Army, Carl found himself facing an unexpected second career shaped not by careful planning, but by crisis. In the wake of the Great Recession, he and his wife Lori cashed out their savings and took an all-in leap to build Alpha Coffee from their basement—navigating years of uncertainty, near-misses, and hard-earned lessons before the business finally found its footing. Drawing on his military background, Stoic philosophy, and a refusal to quit, Carl shares how discipline, culture, and clarity of purpose carried him through nearly a decade of struggle.

In this conversation, Joe and Carl explore what leadership looks like when there’s no rank to hide behind: how military lessons translate into entrepreneurship, why culture matters more than strategy, and how leaders must adapt their style as contexts and generations change. Along the way, they reflect on stress, perspective, boundaries, and the quiet confidence that comes from having faced truly hard things before.

In this episode, Joe and Carl also explore:

Tips for making great coffee
Why Carl chose to walk away from promotion to keep leading people, not staffs
What “burning the boats” looks like when your family and future are on the line
How military hardship inoculates leaders against stress and uncertainty
Why culture—not strategy—is the true differentiator between great and failing teams
Leading younger generations without abandoning standards or expectations
The challenge of setting boundaries when you genuinely love your work

Whether you’re navigating life after military service, building something from scratch, or leading people through uncertainty, this episode offers a grounded reminder that the habits forged in discipline, humility, and persistence still matter—long after the mission changes.

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