Joe & The Juice Founder: How I Built A $1.8B Brand! Why Control Kills Culture, The Truth About Money, Private Equity, Ambition & What Success Really Means | Kaspar Basse
Thriving Minds with Alberto ZandiShow Notes
Kaspar Basse founded Joe & The Juice in Copenhagen in 2002 with a few thousand dollars and an ambition that was anything but small: he wanted to build something that could compete with Starbucks. Two decades later, Joe & The Juice has grown into a global brand with over 500 locations and was valued at $1.8 billion in 2026. But Kaspar believes one of the biggest mistakes companies make happens precisely when they become successful. As businesses grow, they introduce managers, processes, controls and layers of approval to protect what they have built. And in doing so, they can gradually remove the very thing that made them successful in the first place: culture, and quality. Kaspar does not believe great company culture comes from music, office perks, parties or paying slightly more than your competitors. It comes from people feeling agency, challenged, trusted, capable of improving and proud of what they do.
In this episode, you will learn: • The real Joe & The Juice story like never shared before • Why Kaspar believes entrepreneurs should be naively ambitious about their vision but brutally realistic about their finances • The “Don't Blame The Weather” philosophy he used to build a culture of responsibility instead of excuses • Why too much management and control can make great employees stop thinking like owners • Why “hire the best people” is an incomplete strategy, and how businesses can develop ordinary people into exceptional performers • What more than 20 years of entrepreneurship taught him about money, private equity, impatience, ambition and knowing when to step away
Kaspar also speaks unusually openly about money. He admits that financial success has always mattered to him. Even today he is not sure he would ever know how much money is enough for him. Yet his perspective on success has also changed.
After decades of building, he says there is something strangely liberating about recognising that most of the things we obsess over do not matter nearly as much as we think.
A great family. Great friends. Good health. And, in Kaspar's words, a wonderful restaurant in which to have a martini.
This episode will teach you many things, including; how to take responsibility for what you can control, become resourceful enough to find a way forward, and stop wasting your life blaming the weather.
Follow Jo & The Juice: https://www.instagram.com/joeandthejuice https://www.instagram.com/kasparjuice
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