THE MISSION: 
DO WHAT YOU LOVE.

We love the outdoors. We love the adventure, the dawn patrol, and the adrenaline of the drop-in. But we also respect the hustle. We are business owners, marketers, product developers, and salesmen. We play hard, we work hard, and we are unapologetic about it.

Vertical Grind wasn’t started by cafe critics; it was built by a crew of high-velocity operators who left corporate gridlock to build something real.

As a serial entrepreneur (read: glutton for punishment), Mitch is always looking for big, high-torque ways to help small businesses win. An expert in digital retail and brand scaling, Mitch brings a passion for growth tempered with a love for the hang. A former ski coach, Mitch loves nearly everything outdoors. Sure, he might not risk the absolute steepest lines like he used to, but he still loves hitting the slopes and reveling in the wild. Especially when he's carving the mountain with his kids. 

A veteran marketer, product developer, and gluten aficionado, Andy has been roasting coffee over 20 years and loving the craft for even longer. Coming from a Swedish family where afternoon Fika was mandatory, coffee was never just a drink—it is a daily ritual. A true coffee purist, Andy drinks it black and velvet-dark ignoring whatever berry laden flavor profile TikTok claims is "trendy". His ideal fuel? A high-altitude Sulawesi or a sun-baked Guatemalan Huehuetenango, pushed right past the edge to a Full City+ roast where that heavy-bodied sweetness and dark chocolate notes come out.

After launching and building marketplace brands at Amazon, Shawn jumped ship to found an agency that helps brands scale both online and off. He is all about finding the flow-state—whether casting a line, setting up camp, carving fresh powder, or running the soccer pitch. But his most extreme sport is working the "5-9 shifts bookending the 9-5" by wrangling a chaotic roster of dogs, ducks, geese, turkeys, and chickens. To survive the pre-dawn farm chores, he greets the sunrise with a heavy-hitting, bold dark roast. By the afternoon, he swaps the coffee for matcha for a clean energy boost.

Chad is a driven operator focused on launching and growing brands. He’s built a career engineering go-to-market strategies that help companies launch fast and scale with accelerating momentum. But that high-torque energy doesn’t stop in the boardroom. You’ll find Chad chasing the same grind outside — carving switchbacks on a mountain bike, navigating steep lines on skis, or pushing deeper into the backcountry. Whether he’s building a brand or chasing the next summit, Chad thrives in the climb. For him, the grind isn’t just part of the process — it’s the point.

The difference between a critic and an artisan is simple: a critic sits on the sidelines. An artisan engages in the process and earns the right to judge because they get their hands dirty. We are artisans. Maybe saying we're artisans is just an excuse for being critical, but hey... We all need to justify, right?

We love the craft of coffee. Are we methodical? Absolutely. We say: "We are sticklers. Sometimes." We know the craft. The rules. The processes. And then we break them. It's all fine and good to strive for an ideal but at the end of the day, we want to free you from the pretentious "rules" of coffee culture. You don't have to do things the "correct way" if you prefer to go off-trail.

Above all, we want people to DO what they LOVE to DO. And if that means drinking a heavy-bodied dark coffee when the rest of the world says light roasts are "better", send it.

We are connoisseurs without the pretense. We love our heritage-grade, artisan coffee. But let's be real: if we are stuck in a hotel lobby at 5 AM before a flight, we’ll absolutely drink that generic rainforest blend if there is nothing else to fuel the start.

But we draw the line at hazelnut-flavored coffee. (Well, except for Mitch. Mitch loves it).