About Us

The Story Behind North Star Yerba Mate 

Some companies are built in boardrooms. North Star Yerba Mate was built through two lives — lived separately, shaped differently, and brought together by friendship, struggle, and a shared belief that people deserve better. This is that story.

A Summer That Changed Everything

In 2008, Jeff Hatter had just graduated college and was working a remodeling job alongside a father-and-son duo from Argentina, Nico and Arturo. Every single day, these two men drank from a funny-looking container with a metal straw. Jeff thought it was drugs. Curiosity won. One afternoon, he sat down with them and asked. Arturo laughed, invited Jeff to share a mate, and told him he would definitely feel good afterward. He was right. The energy was different. Cleaner. Longer lasting. Nothing like the coffee or energy drinks Jeff had relied on his whole life. What began as curiosity became a daily ritual: sharing mates together on the job site, talking about life, culture, and the world beyond Northern Kentucky. Near the end of that summer, Jeff mentioned he was taking a new job overseas and moving to South Korea to work in education. Arturo's eyes lit up. He poured one final mate, looked at Jeff, and told him that the world was waiting. Before Jeff left for South Korea in the summer of 2009, Arturo gifted him a traditional calabash gourd, a bombilla, and a bag of yerba to take with him. It was more than a gift. It was a compass.


Two Friends, Two Paths

Jeff and Mike Kannady had met years earlier while attending college in Northern Kentucky. What started as a friendship quickly became a brotherhood. They became roommates, spending countless hours in a house in Covington, Kentucky, talking about life, business, and what they might someday build together. Then graduation came, and their paths split. Jeff moved overseas. Mike stayed behind and began building a career in business management and administration, working his way through leadership and management roles across multiple organizations. On the outside, he looked successful. On the inside, he was struggling. Meanwhile, Jeff landed in South Korea with his gourd, his bombilla, and his yerba. His first mate in a foreign country hit him differently than he expected. He immediately wished Nico and Arturo were sitting beside him. The ritual was the same. The feeling was different. Lonelier. But the practice continued until it didn't. After finishing Arturo's bag of yerba, Jeff noticed the inside of his calabash gourd had darkened. Convinced it was mold; he threw it away. He called Arturo in a panic. Arturo's first response was, "No, no, no!” it wasn't mold at all, just the natural coloration that happens when yerba soaks into a calabash over time. The gourd was gone. The ritual went dormant. For years.

Two Journeys Running Parallel

Back in the United States, Mike's life was quietly unraveling. Years of addiction, alcoholism, poor health habits, stress, and trying to carry the weight of family, work, and life on his own eventually caught up with him. His physical and mental health deteriorated. At his worst, Mike weighed 371 pounds and found himself dependent on 11 different medications just to function. Lost jobs. Divorce. Hospital visits. Treatment stays. He became an expert at hiding it by convincing others, and often himself, that everything was okay. Until he couldn't anymore. Across the world, Jeff's connection to yerba mate had also gone quiet until 2013, when he started a new job as Head English Teacher at a middle school in South Korea. One afternoon, a Korean English assistant called him into her office. On her desk sat a cup with a metal straw. Jeff knew immediately what it was. She didn't drink tea and offered the kit to Jeff without hesitation. The ritual was back! That same year, though separated by thousands of miles and multiple time zones, Jeff and Mike never stopped talking. Through years of late-night messages on Kakao Messenger, they stayed connected — sharing ideas, challenges, and dreams for what they might someday build together. Their friendship never faded.

Rock Bottom and Rebuilding

In 2021, Mike entered what would become his final treatment program. Broken physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, he made a decision that would change the trajectory of his life forever. For the first time, he stopped trying to do everything alone. He asked for help. That decision became the foundation of everything that followed. Through recovery, fitness, nutrition, accountability, personal development, faith, and a relentless commitment to growth, Mike rebuilt his life from the ground up. He lost more than 150 pounds, eliminated all 11 medications, reclaimed his physical health, and rebuilt his mental health. He went from employee to entrepreneur. From addict to advocate. From surviving to thriving. Along the way, he discovered something powerful: millions of people struggle with the same challenges and most of them suffer through it in silence. That realization led Mike to launch FocalFlip in 2024, a company dedicated to helping people navigate mental health, addiction recovery, personal growth, and life transformation. Through coaching, speaking, educational content, and The FocalFlip Podcast, Mike set out to help destigmatize mental health and bridge gaps through honest conversation.

The Idea Takes Shape

By the end of 2023, Jeff had returned home to the United States after years abroad. He had traveled the world, started a family, and spent years exploring different yerbas — organic, suave, babacua, Argentine, Brazilian, Uruguayan and even launched YerbaTravels, a YouTube channel dedicated to reviewing and explaining the nuances of yerba mate culture. Like wines, he told anyone who would listen, yerbas carry the distinct character of their region. He was passionate. He was persistent. And for years, he had been trying to get Mike to try yerba mate. Mike wasn't interested. The preparation felt complicated and time-consuming. Like many Americans, he wanted something quick, convenient, and easy. Despite Jeff's persistence, the idea never stuck. Then something unexpected happened. While hosting The FocalFlip Podcast, Mike noticed a pattern — three guests in a row shared stories involving cancer, either their own battles or the battles of people they loved. Those conversations sparked a deeper curiosity about health, nutrition, and the lifestyle choices affecting communities across the country. As he began researching, one issue kept surfacing over and over again: sugar. It was everywhere — in drinks, in snacks, in products marketed as healthy, in products consumed every single day. A question began forming: what if one of the biggest health challenges facing our society isn't that people don't care about their health, but that healthier options aren't convenient enough to compete? And then it hit. Americans don't need another sugary energy drink. They need to be introduced to one of nature's most powerful plants. But if people were anything like Mike had been, they weren't going to spend twenty minutes preparing traditional yerba mate every morning. So, the challenge became clear: how do you introduce a convenience-driven culture to a healthier source of energy? You make it convenient. You make it portable. You make it taste good. You eliminate the sugar. All while preserving the power of the plant.

North Star Is Born

Jeff and Mike went to work. They started sourcing different yerbas and flavor combinations, trying to find something that was instant, on-the-go, and genuinely good. They spent months in Jeff's mother's basement — sampling, testing, and refining creation after creation until they had a product they believed in. One that people would enjoy. One that honored yerba mate's culture without abandoning its traditions. By May of 2024, North Star Yerba Mate had its first product, and they showcased it at The Christ Hospital Health Fair in Cincinnati, Ohio. The response was immediate. People were intrigued. They wanted to know more, understand the health benefits, and couldn't believe something this clean could taste this good. Jeff and Mike looked at each other and knew they were onto something. Since then, they have continued educating, sampling, and improving lives with North Star Yerba Mate at health fairs, farmers' markets, and through growing online sales.

Why North Star

The name wasn't chosen by accident. For centuries, the North Star has helped travelers find direction when they felt lost, and both founders understand exactly what that feels like. North Star represents finding your path. It represents choosing growth over excuses, health over habits, purpose over comfort, and progress over perfection. Today, North Star Yerba Mate exists to help people fuel their lives with clean, plant-based energy, zero sugar, natural flavors, and all the benefits of one of nature's most powerful plants. Making it accessible to anyone, anywhere, without the traditional barriers. Because no matter where your journey begins, everyone deserves a North Star to guide them forward.