The fact that we can all access Google Docs and communicate with the team in almost real time is one of those simple things that’s just so extremely helpful.
Joel Zuniga
Owner
As a boy, Joel Zuniga moved with his family from downtown Reno to the remote mountains of Nevada’s Hungry Valley, where they lived among fellow members of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. As an adult, after a chance encounter with a coffee harvest on a visit to Costa Rica, Joel returned home, learned to roast beans in the artisanal spirit of the Great Basin, and co-founded Star Village Coffee with his twin brother, Josh, in 2018. Today Star Village sells world-class coffee online and wholesale, and in their Reno cafe they blend it with indigenous ingredients, as in their pine nut spice latte with handmade pine nut milk. For Joel, coffee is both a passion and a way to practice “Rezonomics,” the philosophy of investing time, talent, and love back into the circle of tribal life.
Joel and his team use Google Workspace to update orders and inventory in real time, so the roastery can get orders out faster and fresher. Google Analytics shows them where their e-commerce pages can be better optimized to increase sales, and their Google Business Profile gives customers easy directions to their retail cafe. “We saw requests for directions shoot up 129% this month, which tells us we’re having a good month,” Joel says. Star Village Coffee serves over 20,000 customers annually and roasted over 26,000 pounds of coffee last year, an increase of 40 percent year-over-year. Revenue is growing 30 percent annually, and Star Village recently secured contracts to provide its high-grade specialty coffees to a well-known portfolio of casinos. Star Village employs local native residents and hosts tribal students each month, teaching them about roasting, entrepreneurship, and optimism. “If you’re curious about wanting to start a business yourselves, there's a place for you,” Joel says. “If we can invest in ourselves and invest in one another, we can truly uplift our own people.”