We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Devan Moll. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Devan below.
Devan, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
I get my work ethic from my mom! Being a single mom is hard and she definitely worked her butt off to provide for me and made sure we had a roof over our heads, food in our bellies and clothes on our backs. I would go to work with her sometimes as a kid and she would let me ‘help’ her…little did I know she was teaching me her work ethic. If you don’t know something, ask or learn about it. If you don’t know how to do something, teach yourself how to do it. The more knowledge you have and the more skills you have, you will be more useful to your employers and have more expertise for the future.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
My name is Devan and I am a bartender and small business owner in Southern California. I’ve been bartending for around 10 years and I love it. I am a creative spirit so I enjoy having a job where I can experiment with new flavors and ingredients to make tasty and beautiful drinks. My company is Diablo Dev’s and I sell my own spicy Bloody Mary mix. As a seasoned mixologist, I’ve had my fair share of Bloody Mary’s over the years. One thing I noticed was the lack of bold flavors and consistency. One establishment provided me the opportunity to create the mix for the busy brunch weekends. They had a classic (but delicious) Bloody Mary batch recipe but as time went on, my creative juices got flowing and I started to experiment with the recipe, adding and subtracting different herbs and spices. As a result, the customers tastebuds were tantalized! After receiving many comments such as, “You should sell it!”, “I’d buy this in the store!”, “Best Bloody Mary I’ve ever had!” I knew Diablo Dev’s was a hit!
Diablo Dev’s Bloody Mary Mix is the result of many years of craft cocktail bartending in restaurants and bars in Southern California. I was able to use my knowledge and experience to create a mouth-watering, flavorful Bloody Mary mix available to many more tastebuds nationwide. This bloody good mix is spicy and bold with a smooth, peppery finish.
I also have a graphic design background so the logo, branding materiel, label, website…everything has been designed myself!
My proudest accomplishment is that I won a 2nd place Scovie Award in the hot and spicy category and also won a 3rd place award In the Bloody Mary Category for the Spicy Flave Awards.. It feels amazing to be able to have award winning on my website and social media posts.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1. I believe bartending and working in customer service has helped me a lot in understanding people and understanding myself. Growing up, I was a shy kid and being a bartender teaches you how to be confident and how to talk to people from all walks of life. You have to entertain, multitask, be creative and be aware of your guests all at the same time. I am always. ‘scanning’ whether I am behind the bar or not, I always try to be aware of my surroundings.
2. The best advice I got from a college professor was “Fake it til you make it.” It basically means to project confidence and poise even if you don’t 100% believe it yourself.
3. Another great nugget of advice is to “Always invest in yourself.” If you don’t invest in yourself and believe in yourself, what makes other people want to invest and believe in you?
Keep learning, keep teaching yourself new things, keep failing and keep trying!
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I would love to find other creative minded business folk who would love to collaborate! I would love to find other women in business to just talk with and bounce ideas off of each other, even if we are in different markets. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to my on my instagram @diablodevs or email at [email protected]!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.diablodevs.com
- Instagram: diablodevs
- Facebook: diablodevs
