- Hannah Mendoza, 29, is the cofounder of the instant latte company Clevr Blends.
- The brand counts Meghan Markle as an investor, and Oprah as a fan.
- To Insider, Mendoza talks about her entrepreneurial beginnings and launching her company.
When Hannah Mendoza was nine years old, she had an idea: a smoothie bar for kids.
She set up shop in her home economics class and organized a group of classmates to help sell her creations. It was something she loved, Mendoza told Insider. She didn’t know it would foreshadow the business she would one day run.
Today, Mendoza, 29, is CEO and cofounder of two-year-old Clevr Blends, a company that sells instant, “SuperLattes,” infused with “superfoods” like goji berries and probiotics, which help with digestion. Priced at $28 a bag (each bag makes around 14 lattes), the company told Insider it saw a substantial increase in sales last year and is expecting the trajectory to continue throughout 2021.
On Tuesday, it launched its latest product, a Rose Cacao mix, infused with calming herbs.
Instant coffee has a bad reputation, Mendoza said. However, in her view, it works for next-gen consumers who are always on the go. By marketing her instant coffee as a healthy form of self-care, Mendoza is attempting to tap into the intersection of the billion-dollar coffee market and the trillion-dollar
