An NBA player started a non-tech business

Estimated Reading Time: 4 Minutes

Tonight, the Denver Nuggets will look to finish off the Miami Heat in game 5 of the NBA Finals. This 7 game series marks the end of an 82 game regular season and multiple 7 game playoff series’.

In a league of mega stars like Lebron James, Steph Curry and Kobe Bryant, many traditional NBA fans might be disappointed with the lack of perceived stardom. But as our loyal readers know, here at The Steel Road we love to showcase the hard workers, the ones who don’t seek the spotlight but put in the work, find a niche, and become successful.

Today we’ll be debuting the first of a two part series, where we showcase Jimmy Butler and Nikola Jokic, the two stars of the NBA Finals.

We know this is a bit off-brand for us, but there are stories from each of these players’ careers that can provide great insight to entrepreneurs.

---

Jimmy Butler

At 6’ 7” tall and 230 pounds, Jimmy Butler is an incredible athletic specimen. You’d think that being that big and athletic would automatically give you a free pass to the NBA from high school. At least according to Michael Scott:

The truth is, Jimmy Butler came from less than ideal circumstances. Shortly after his birth his father left, then at age 13 his mother kicked him out of the house saying “I don’t like the look of you, you gotta go.”

Jimmy started couch surfing and staying at friends’ houses until he was eventually taken in by another family in a real life Blind Side story. He was pretty good at basketball, and racked up some decent statistics at Tomball High in Houston.

No major colleges came calling for him, and he ended up going to Tyler Junior College, a less than glamorous location for college basketball.

Through more hard work and solid play Butler was able to transfer to the University of Marquette, a division one basketball program in a great conference. He was a solid player, with great athleticism and scoring ability, but he never led his team to a national championship or was a particularly great standout.

After his senior year Jimmy was drafted at #30 by The Chicago Bulls in the 2011 NBA Draft, which seems like a really glamorous position. He was playing for one of the world’s most famous teams, making $5,000,000 over the next few years. It seemed like Jimmy had “made it.”

If you were handed $5,000,000 at the age of 22 what would you have done with it? Would you ever work again?

But Jimmy Butler knew he could be great. In 2014 he had his breakout year, where he made the NBA all-star team and won the award for the NBA’s most improved player. It wasn’t until after his breakout season that everyone found out the reason for his success.

Jimmy intentionally made himself a basketball madman. He went all in on the thing he knew he could be great at. Was it discouraging to put in all that work and not see any results? There’s no way it wasn’t. But Jimmy Butler was working on melting his ice cubes.

(If you don’t know what we are talking about see this previous newsletter)

If we just stopped right here, this would be an incredible story. But there is icing on the cake. In 2020 Jimmy Butler started his very own boring non-tech business.

When the NBA playoffs were held in the bubble at Disney World during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jimmy brought a fancy coffee maker as one of his personal items. Sources are mixed on whether it was a french press or cappuccino machine, but regardless he was making some solid coffee.

Jimmy knew 3 things:

1. The coffee in the bubble was garbage.

2. NBA players had cash to spend

3. There was nowhere to spend their cash

Big Face Coffee was born.

He reportedly made $6,000 from this little side hustle during the playoffs.

Now Big Face Coffee is a legitimate brand that sells coffee beans and merch. The site feels pretty messy and we’re not big fans of the branding, but hey, he’s an NBA player, we shouldn’t expect it to be incredible.

---

If you like this edition, be ready to get tomorrow’s newsletter about Nikola Jokic, the star of the Denver Nuggets!

Also, you can help us in two ways.

1. Fill out this 2-minute survey. This helps us write better content.

2. Share The Steel Road.

   Thanks for Reading!