Oneday MBA Alumni Fireside Chat: Ken Duffield — Building Where No One Was Looking
A lot of founders try to compete in crowded markets. Very few take the time to find where no one is paying attention.
This session is about what happens when you identify a genuinely underserved audience, move fast with the right partners, and build a focused business around a clear point of view.
Ken Duffield is an Oneday MBA alumnus and the founder of Craft Decaf, a specialty coffee brand built on a simple idea: decaf drinkers deserve exceptional coffee, not an afterthought.
In November 2024, Ken launched Craft Decaf through a single collaboration with James Hoffmann, generating $24,000 in sales within 24 hours. Since then, the business has grown to $40,000 in monthly revenue, with a 9% on-site conversion rate, driven by sharp positioning, disciplined execution, and a founder deeply connected to his product.
In this conversation, we’ll walk through how Ken found his niche, how he moved quickly without overcomplicating things, and what he’s learned about building a consumer brand with clarity and focus.
We’ll get into:
How partnerships can compress months of product development into weeks
What founder–product fit really looks like in practice
Why defining what you stand against sharpens your positioning
How to identify and operate around a small set of key metrics
Why running more experiments, faster, is the quickest path to traction
How to treat your business as a set of AI-driven, automatable workflows
Expect a practical, honest conversation about building in a competitive space with fewer resources, sharper focus, and a clear point of view.