In 2013, I landed in Kigali with two bags, a UCLA degree, and a conviction that I could build something meaningful in Africa through specialty coffee. I was right about the last part. About almost everything else, I had a lot to learn.
Twelve years is long enough to have watched ideas fail, partnerships dissolve, seasons collapse, and prices crash. It's also long enough to have watched seeds become trees. To have seen children of farmers we've worked with since the beginning go to university. To have cupped coffees that genuinely moved me to silence. To have built something I'm proud of.
Here is my honest accounting.
"The thing I was most wrong about was time. I thought this would move faster. I thought quality would be recognized faster, relationships would deepen faster, impact would compound faster. Twelve years in, I understand that the timeline was exactly right — and that anything faster would have been shallower."
What I Got Right
The coffee is extraordinary. This I knew instinctively and have now proven empirically, season after season, cupping after cupping. Rwanda's Southern Province and DR Congo's South Kivu produce specialty coffee that can compete with the world's best origins. The terroir is exceptional. I was right about that when I knew almost nothing else.
Community first, always. Every time I faced a decision between short-term commercial gain and long-term community investment, I chose the community. This was sometimes uncomfortable. Buyers wanted lower prices; farmers needed stable ones. Investors wanted faster growth; communities needed slower, deeper roots. Choosing community every time was the right call. The relationships we have today are worth more than any short-term margin we might have captured.
Presence matters more than capital. I could have tried to manage LetSequoia remotely. Many people assumed I would, eventually. Staying in Kigali, being physically present at origin, being there through difficult seasons as well as good ones — this was the single most important strategic choice I made. There is no substitute for it.
What I Got Wrong
I underestimated how long market perception takes to shift. I assumed that exceptional coffee, once in buyers' hands, would change the narrative about African origins quickly. It doesn't work that way. The specialty market has entrenched preferences and established supply chains, and shifting buyer behavior is a multi-year process even with a compelling product. I should have started marketing and buyer education earlier, and invested more in it throughout.
I tried to do too much myself. The sequoia metaphor that defines our brand is also advice I had to learn to take personally. I cannot be everywhere. The team we've built in Rwanda and DR Congo — Josee, Estella, Eric, Abdoul, Roger, Patrick, Pascal, Sebastien — are not support staff. They are LetSequoia. Trusting them fully, delegating real authority, building their ownership of the mission — this took me longer than it should have.
I was too cautious about expanding to other origins. We now work with coffee from nine African countries. I should have built those partnerships earlier. There is extraordinary coffee across the continent, and the relational infrastructure we've built over twelve years in Rwanda and DR Congo is directly transferable. I left years of quality sourcing on the table by staying narrowly focused when I could have been building a broader network.
What Surprised Me Most
What surprised me most wasn't a failure or a success. It was the depth of what the community gave back.
I came to Rwanda thinking I would contribute something. That I would bring resources, connections, and market access to people who needed them. That the flow of value would be, primarily, from me toward the community.
The reality is almost the opposite. The farmers who trusted us, the team members who built their careers inside LetSequoia, the communities that let us put roots down alongside them — they gave me far more than I gave them. They gave me a home. A vocation. A way of understanding the world that I could not have built anywhere else.
The sequoia model says that roots intertwine and nutrients flow in both directions. After twelve years, I know this is true not just as a business philosophy but as a lived experience.
What Comes Next
More of the same, done better. More origins, more community investment, more quality programs. The Digital Centers. The Pre-Finance expansion. The Coffee Commons — a shared marketplace that has been a long-term vision and is finally close to launch.
And more buyers who understand what they're holding when they buy a bag of Rwanda Inzere or DR Congo Mivona. Not just coffee. Not just a product. A twelve-year commitment made visible in a cup.
We're just getting started.
— Anna Kim, CEO & Founder, LetSequoia. Kigali, Rwanda. May 2026.