Meet the next Liquid Death
The story behind Wimp, a new decaf coffee brand fueling the anti-hustle revolution
If you’re reading this, you’re probably “mid-grind” (pun intended). That’s what a day in the life looks like for most of us. But for world-class designer Matthew Smith, this hustle led to an awakening he calls “a very chill revolution.”
Matthew is the founder of Wimp—a decaf coffee brand about more than just what you drink; it’s about how you live. His mission? To show that slowing down and focusing on what matters can be as powerful as any hustle.
Having led teams as Creative Director, Chief Creative Officer and VP of Product at startups like Zaarly, Relay Foods, and Assembly, Matthew shares how his personal transformation inspired Wimp. We dive into his approach to countering the grind, and how to strike the right balance between content and design.
Conversation Outline
How his personal growth and sobriety journey inspired the creation of Wimp.
Building a brand that challenges hustle culture.
Why content should be prioritized as fiercely as visual design.
Matthew, it would be great to learn more about you and your life before starting Wimp, your coffee brand.
I’ll start with my personal story.
I started my sobriety on June 19, 2016. The beginning of that sobriety was the most painful thing I've ever experienced. When it first occurred, I went through a divorce, I got kicked out of the church that I had been a part of for 20 years. I lost community, I lost friendships, and really the entire scaffolding of my life just was destroyed. And, I was responsible for a lot of that.
But that kind of destruction ended up being the absolute best gift that I could possibly imagine. I had to rethink everything from the ground up which was just really sacred and special.
It took several years and the first couple of years of sobriety were just insane. And they were so hard, not because of not being able to drink, but because I was feeling feelings for the first time in my life. I've always been an emotional person, but being emotional and recognizing emotions and processing them are two different things. And so I began to actually own the emotions and needs I was having to build my world in a different way.
Then, about three years ago, I wanted to address anxiety and depression. I wanted to understand my trauma narrative better. I knew psychedelics were coming on this scene in a pretty interesting way. I'd read The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, as well as In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts, by Gabor Maté which is another incredible book. And I was watching people who knew a lot about addiction recommending psychedelics combined with therapy as an approach to recovery from addiction and cessation of anxiety or depression.
After a lot of research, I'd carefully started microdosing. During that time I began noticing I was having trouble breathing and I was like, “What is this?” So I do all this research thinking it's mushrooms. Nothing out there suggested that mushrooms increase blood pressure or that they create these problems and it suddenly dawned on me: even just the 12 to 16 ounces of caffeinated coffee that I'm having each morning are affecting me and causing these breathing problems.
Now, that's not the case for everybody. I must have a caffeine sensitivity. But I'd already given up alcohol and was like “Man this sucks, do I have to give up coffee too?” I didn’t want to miss out on the morning ritual and the social aspects. So, I started hunting for good decaf. And it was hard. It is hard to find stuff out there that tastes great and doesn't have that chalky, overdeveloped, overroasted character that you usually have to douse with a ton of milk to make it taste good. So I was just really bummed, but I just kept hunting with very few results.
Well, concurrent with that, I was watching what was happening with Athletic Brewing Company. And I noticed that they were taking off — a company that was totally dedicated just to non-alcoholic beer.
I'm thinking, wait a second, there's not suddenly more alcoholics. What's this about? And, my hypothesis was that people are starting to become really curious about what's happening in their bodies, they're wanting to dial it in. The big health podcasters like Tim Ferris, Aubrey Marcus, and all the Huberman Lab for example are always looking for new ways to improve the mind and the body. That narrative is growing. People are just trying to make better decisions.
I’d also heard that the non-alcoholic arena of alcohol is the fastest growing sector of in all of alcohol — which is insane. Then I was watching what Liquid Death is doing thinking: “How is this company marching up toward $2 billion?” as a group that has just taken LeCroix and given a different face and a lot of personality. I thought: “This is incredible. Is this something I could try on?”
I took all those data points and said well, “What if there's a company that just focused just on decaf? That would be insane. That would be so sick.” I thought, damn it, this is what I have to do. I know how to put a personality on a product so I just got excited about that.
How did your career in design evolve from your early beginnings to where you are now?
My design journey began as a studio artist. I started a blog using Blogger, which is now defunct after Google bought it. Big names like Jeffrey Zeldman, owner of Happy Cog, and Doug Bowman, creative director at Twitter, had templates on Blogger. I didn’t know who they were, but I fell in love with code and CSS, manipulating templates. Soon, I made websites for friends, and eventually, I was earning more from websites than my recruiting job and I realized I could turn this into a business.
Within two or three years I’d started a career in design. Then I was suddenly speaking at South by Southwest. Then over the years I was running multiple design agencies, and becoming a Creative Director, Chief Creative Officer, and VP of Product at startups like Zaarly, Relay Foods, and Assembly. It was an incredible, wild, and educational experience, though I was unknowingly riding a "trauma train."
Agency life was like a drug: approval from clients was exhilarating, but disapproval was terrifying. The adrenaline rush of approval and shame took a toll on my body. Only recently did I start to see the effects, but I kept repeating the cycle. I got really good at understanding client needs, articulating them, and selling ideas to both clients and teams. I co-founded and ran Bunsen for three years, collaborating with amazing clients, including those changing the face of humanity. It felt significant.
But I was still chasing approval, still dealing with urgency. So I joined Shawn Blanc’s Focus Like a Boss course, where we discussed personal and business values. I realized my five-year plan didn’t align with my current priorities. I didn't think agency life would get me where I wanted to go, and I wasn’t willing to take the risks required. I questioned whether I wanted to try a different business.
I don’t believe in divine purpose or destiny, but I found myself drawn to an idea with an almost irresistible excitement. I’d recently sold Really Good Emails. It was time to invest in myself. I hired an experienced e-commerce operator and a legend at roasting and started a decaf coffee company called Wimp.
Yes Wimp is a decaf coffee company. But under all that it’s about transparency, the underdog story in all of us, and heaps of fun. I named our coffees after people who many of us love, but who had compelling underdog stories like Stanley Kubrick and Frida Kahlo. I relate to their drive and their doubts. Wimp wants to be real. We want to tell hustle culture to take a hike. We want to have real impact here and with everyone along the chain of the coffees we’re creating.
We’re building something special, launching on August 16 with nearly 450 people on the waitlist. Life is good; I’m more relaxed and playful than ever, and I’m excited (in the calmest way) about what’s ahead. I’m still freelancing while this grows, and eagerly awaiting the day.
You mentioned that Wimp is more than just coffee—it's about positively challenging hustle culture. Could you share more about how this concept became the foundation for your brand and how it influenced your approach to building Wimp?
I knew that fundamentally I had been built by hustle culture. I tried not to be, but essentially so much of my thinking was shaped by urgency and scarcity. But what Shawn’s course taught me is that if everything is urgent, nothing is a priority. That shifted my perspective significantly. I wanted a different outlook. I needed more margin in my life so I could create more of the impact I’ve always wanted to have on the world — on people.
I was also influenced by Yvon Chouinard's Let My People Go Surfing and Patagonia's philosophy of avoiding self-promotion, focusing instead on values and facts. I’ve often felt brands tend to be narcissistic, always talking about themselves. I noticed this in emails from many brands—constant self-focus. I thought, "I'm not that interesting. I want to hear about others' stories, their experiences, and why decaf is even on their radar."
This became important to weave into Wimp from the beginning. The brand needed to feel big, countering the perception of decaf as weak, but also calm, not noisy or hectic. The goal was to create something that felt big but calm, joyful, buoyant, and simple—a fine line to walk. Being neurodivergent, I tend to trim down and simplify, which played a big part in this process.
Every day, we ask our team, "How are you doing?" If someone isn't calm AF, we address it by asking, "How do we change that?" or "What do you believe is stuck, and can we move it?" Often, it’s about deadlines. But our approach is to ask, "What’s the better deadline for what we truly believe in?" We aim to stay calm while avoiding laziness. Laziness and hustle are opposing forces but share a common root. Neither is rooted. The key is to keep moving forward, doing the "next right thing," and prioritizing authentically.
I still struggle with urgency and the feeling that everything’s important, likely due to ADHD. But I’m enjoying the process of rethinking our culture along with the brand—it all seems to fit. Branding is fascinating. In a studio, you have to create a brand quickly, but it’s amazing to watch it evolve over time. If I weren’t a designer, I’d recommend hiring an agency for a year-long contract, working with them in cycles to adapt the brand. It’s a continuous process of learning and evolution.
I've been thinking a lot about how the best brands today are more than just products—they celebrate and champion a lifestyle.
You mentioned this in your announcement, and it's clear that successful brands often align with a broader movement. What lifestyle do you hope to champion and celebrate with Wimp?
I think the way we want people to think about Wimp aligns with the idea of "do less, better." You might have seen our sweatshirts and other swag, like the illustration of Kuma, a big, thick bear. "Kuma" is Japanese for bear, and my fiancée is Japanese, so that's where the inspiration comes from. I'm deeply influenced by Japanese culture, particularly the emphasis on simplicity.
We want to encourage people to question the hustle mentality and choose a softer, more intentional path. Ultimately, Wimp is about decaf coffee—good decaf, because it’s often been subpar, and we want to change that. But we also want to remind people to focus on their real lives.
When it comes to our social media, I’m interested in telling underdog stories, much like Humans of New York. I want to share stories of people recovering from hustle culture, finding themselves, and doing less but better—choosing quality over quantity. If anyone in the audience is interested in helping us with social media, I’m open to collaboration. The goal is to promote a message of finding balance rather than constantly pushing harder and faster.
What’s so interesting about that is how it makes a specific person feel seen in a way that copy often misses. What you’re doing is more than just selling coffee—it's about helping people feel recognized in areas where they haven't always felt seen.
What do you hope the brand brings out of people in the next few years?
A silly dream is that in a year, when people ask, "How ya feeling?" the response would be, "I’m good. I’m chill. I’m super decaf." That would mean we're winning—promoting a lifestyle that reminds us to pay attention to what matters.
Boundaries are often misunderstood. They’re not about telling others what to do; they’re about deciding what you will do. For example, a boundary isn't saying, "You can't speak to me that way," but rather, "If you speak to me that way, I may leave." Boundaries with yourself are about not letting work take over your life.
I'm really interested in fostering a culture that understands you don't have to be unsuccessful to stay sane. You can choose a path that balances both, and I want to find, celebrate, and promote that path.
One of my favorite lines from your website is, "Decaf is like having a friend with benefits. And although decaf's benefits are uniquely different than FWB, we think they're still pretty dope."
I'm curious, how did you develop this brand’s tone and personality? What should founders consider when it comes to writing? Design and aesthetics often steal the spotlight, but let's talk about the magic of good writing.
I’m so glad you brought that up. My fellow designers might not like this, but to me, content is so much more important than visual design. I’ll say this with a caveat: just good typography and solid content can crush a marketing campaign, while poor content, even with slick design, will fall flat on its face. So, it’s crucial not to neglect content. Now, a lot of people say, “content first,” but I don’t buy that either. I’ve always approached it by creating an essential design first—thinking about how I want it to feel and flow—and then building the content around that. Otherwise, content can feel a bit unwieldy.
My process is to design with dummy copy, just to get the right feel and structure. Once that’s set, I go back and focus on the actual content. My method involves going for a walk, using a voice-to-text tool, and just ranting about what I care about. For me, walking is when ideas flow. Even better is having a conversation like this, where a question sparks something new. Then, I’ll take that content, transcribe it, and drop it into ChatGPT. I ask it to summarize the key points and then apply something like the Made to Stick methodology by the Heath Brothers—a great sales copy framework that focuses on simplicity, unexpectedness, and emotional engagement.
I also like to use The Challenger Sale framework to make sure the content really connects with the audience. If you can understand your customer's problems better than they do, you move from being just a salesperson to an advisor, which is powerful.
For Wimp, I use these methods to create content that feels genuine. I’ll even ask ChatGPT to rewrite things in the style of writers like David Sedaris or Tina Fey to add some humor and personality. AI helps me sketch ideas, but it’s not the final creation tool—I still need to refine it to make it truly special.
I constantly check myself to make sure the content doesn’t feel too salesy because that’s just gross. I also have a group of trusted friends in a WhatsApp insider crew who give me honest feedback and hold me accountable. Honestly, I learned that through sobriety—I needed to think small enough of myself to ask for help and make things better. That’s what keeps the content real and effective.
If you had an unlimited budget, money was no object, and you could hire the perfect celebrity spokesperson for Wimp, who do you think would best represent the vibe you've created?
Man, that’s a really interesting one. You know, I’m not the most pop culture-savvy person—I struggle to access names easily. But I think the perfect spokesperson would be Jack Black.
The reason is, think Kung Fu Panda and Poe—it’s similar to Kuma, you know, the “fat kid hero” vibe. Jack Black has had some serious roles, and he could really nail that balance. Plus, he’s hilarious, snarky, and he’s a big boy himself. So, Jack, if you’re listening, I’m a huge fan and have learned so much from you. I’m excited to see this brand out in the wild — c’mon in! ha.
About Matthew Smith
Born in the foothills of Colorado in 1978, Matthew's been designing for the internet since the early 2000s with big clients that rhyme with Balmart, and SailFlimp. He co-founded and recently sold the darling of the email community — Really Good Emails. He's now gone completely nutso evidenced by the fact he's launching a decaf-only coffee brand called Wimp. He aspires to be calm AF.
You can find Matthew on Twitter or LinkedIn, and join the waitlist for some sweet, sweet, decaf coffee dropping August 16th at wimpdecaf.com.