Beatriz Mesas, cofounder of Incapto Coffee

We spoke with Beatriz Mesas, cofounder of Incapto Coffee, an entrepreneur who knows coffee from its origin all the way to the final consumption experience. After beginning her career in the family business and deepening her understanding of the sector through direct experience in Guatemala, she decided to launch a project of her own with the aim of modernizing a traditional category and offering a more convenient, technological, and sustainable alternative to everyday coffee consumption.

Throughout the conversation, she explains how her knowledge of the product, the industry, and consumer habits allowed her to identify clear areas for improvement; what it meant to launch a digitally native brand in a market still largely unaccustomed to this kind of proposal; how she understands sustainability from a practical and cross-cutting perspective; and why transforming traditional sectors requires patience, education, and a very precise combination of vision, technology, and execution. She also shares her view on female representation in still heavily male-dominated environments and on the role the ONE Platform can play in supporting those who are building businesses in complex or changing industries.

What led you to start a business in such a traditional sector as coffee, and what did you see that others were not seeing?

My journey in the coffee world began around 17 years ago, when my family bought a coffee brand. From that moment on, I started getting involved in the sector, and very soon I felt the need to better understand the origin of the product. That is why I went to work for four months at a cooperative in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. That experience was truly the beginning of my path in coffee.

When I returned to the family business, we were still not roasting our own coffee. Even though we worked with our own brand, I felt that deep down we were acting more like distributors than like a company with real product knowledge, because we did not really know where the coffee came from, nor did we have control over the whole chain. That is why we decided to set up a coffee factory.

At that time, our main client was the hospitality industry, a channel very focused on price and one in which significant investment was needed to acquire customers. At the same time, selling to end consumers was also difficult, because most people consumed ground coffee or capsules.

That was when, in 2020, I launched Incapto together with my two current partners. We wanted to offer a real alternative to capsules: a solution that was just as practical and convenient, but without generating unnecessary waste. I already knew the industry well and could see how deeply traditional the sector still was. My partners, who came from more technological backgrounds, also quickly spotted many possibilities for innovation. The three of us clearly saw that the coffee world had a lot of room for change. 

What did you learn from working for so many years across the coffee value chain before becoming an entrepreneur?

The biggest lesson was being able to understand coffee from its origin. That changed the way I looked at both the product and the world behind it. Understanding who produces the coffee, how it is grown, and which people take part in that value chain gives you a completely different perspective.

Since then, I have always tried to train as much as possible in every phase of the process: raw material, green coffee, roasting, cupping, barista skills, and preparation. All those years of experience have given me a very broad understanding of the industry and have allowed me to identify what was missing, what could be improved, and where there were real opportunities for evolution.

And there still are many. Coffee remains a sector where there is still a huge amount left to do. A very clear example is something that happens to all of us: many times you finish a good meal in a restaurant with a bad coffee. That shows that there is still a great deal of room to innovate, professionalize, and raise the quality of the final experience.

How did you experience the challenge of introducing innovation into a sector where tradition carries so much weight?

When we launched Incapto, the coffee sector was still very traditional. At that time, there were hardly any digitally native brands in this category, nor many projects designed from the outset to sell one hundred percent online to end consumers.

We were one of the first brands to clearly embrace that approach. And not only in direct-to-consumer sales. We also introduced a very innovative model for companies: a Coffee as a Service system in which the machines are connected, track consumption, and allow billing at the end of the month based on the coffees served. That allowed us to introduce a technological logic into a market that until then had barely operated that way.

From the beginning, we saw a major opportunity in applying technology to a traditional sector. And we did so in a fairly comprehensive way: from relationships with farms and importing, to developing our own coffee machines, local roasting, and creating digital tools to improve the customer experience.

We have an in-house development and industrial design team to launch our own products, we roast in Ripollet, near Barcelona, and we have also incorporated technological solutions that are unusual in the sector. For example, we were the first coffee brand to offer a transactional WhatsApp channel, allowing customers to modify or bring forward their subscription directly there, without needing to enter an app or website.

Today, more companies are innovating in this area, but at that time we were among the few that chose to integrate technology so thoroughly across the entire chain.

What did working with producers, roasters, and coffee professionals teach you about real sustainability?

It taught me that sustainability is a very broad concept and cannot be reduced to a single element. It starts at origin, in how coffee is grown and which agricultural practices are applied, and continues all the way to the end of the process, including the waste generated every time we consume a cup.

Coffee is also a daily habit. In my case, for example, I drink an average of three coffees a day. Over a lifetime, that means tens of thousands of cups. That is why, even if they may seem like small decisions, the way you choose to consume coffee has an enormous impact.

What this sector has taught me is precisely that: many small decisions repeated every day can make a very big difference. Depending on how you consume, you may be behaving more responsibly or, on the contrary, multiplying your environmental footprint without realizing it. Real sustainability lies in understanding that whole picture and acting across the entire product journey.

What cultural barriers did you encounter when trying to change habits in the horeca sector, and how did you overcome them?

In horeca, we are still taking relatively early steps, although over the past year we have made more progress with the development of a new machine, the ST One, which has a very traditional aesthetic but a super-automatic operation.

One of the major problems we see in food service is the lack of consistency in quality. Very often, the result depends too much on who prepares the coffee, the level of staff turnover, or the team’s technical knowledge. That makes it difficult to consistently serve a good cup.

Our response has been to develop a solution that allows for consistent quality. We wanted the machine to fit visually into a traditional professional environment, while internally bringing automation, precision, and ease of use. This way, with the press of a button, it can offer more than 60 different recipes.

Even so, this is a path that takes time. As happens in almost all traditional sectors, the more innovative profiles come first, the ones who adopt these types of solutions earlier. They are the ones who begin to demonstrate the value of change. After that, a lot of educational work is needed to clearly explain the benefits: not only in quality, but also in operations, control, and management. Because they are connected, for example, these machines can provide useful information to optimize even aspects such as schedules or organization based on real consumption.

It is a sector where there is still a long way to go and where transformation will not be immediate, but we do see very clearly the value of professionalizing and modernizing that experience.

How has your personal experience influenced your support for equality in a male-dominated sector?

I think that simply being able to be present in decision-making spaces is already a way of contributing a different perspective. For me, ideally, this should not be about men or women, and real progress will come on the day when we no longer need to point out whether a project is led by men or by women.

But the reality is that there are still sectors where female representation remains low. We see this both in investment and within the coffee sector itself, from origin all the way to preparation and commercialization. There is still a very clear male predominance.

In my case, I try at least to contribute by giving visibility and voice to the women around me within the sector, as far as I can. Sometimes that is already important: taking up space, joining conversations, and helping ensure that other voices are also present.

What personal decisions have shaped your evolution as an entrepreneur in the coffee world?

The first important decision was going to Guatemala to truly learn about the product we were selling in the family business. I needed to understand coffee from its origin and better grasp everything behind it.

The second major decision came later, when I felt that within the family business I had already contributed everything I could. It was a difficult moment, because it meant leaving a familiar environment, but it was also necessary. That was when I decided to create my own project together with my two current partners and begin a new stage with Incapto.

How can the ONE Platform help entrepreneurs working in traditional sectors who want to transform them?

I believe that today there are already many initiatives supporting entrepreneurship, both from public administrations and private entities. If the ONE Platform succeeds in bringing together, organizing, and giving visibility to that entire ecosystem, it can become a very useful meeting point for those building projects.

There is one especially important aspect: support during the so-called valley of death. Having a good idea does not automatically mean turning it into a profitable business, and that early stage is usually very hard. I have often said that entrepreneurship can feel like the slavery of the 21st century, because you work extremely long hours, often earn less than in a traditional job, and still keep going because you believe in what you are building.

That is why anything that helps support that process is valuable. It is also valuable to simplify the bureaucratic, regulatory, and tax side, which many entrepreneurs find overwhelming. A person may be very good at their product or activity, but that does not mean they have to master all the regulation associated with launching and growing a company.

If a platform like ONE can make that path easier, simplify procedures, connect resources, and make the framework in which entrepreneurs operate easier to understand, its usefulness could be enormous. And it would also complement other initiatives that already exist.