29-year-old software engineer worked ‘undercover’ at a coffee chain
Even though she was earning nearly $250,000 a year as a software engineer, Michelle Yeung felt increasingly disconnected from work.
“I wanted to transition into something where I could make someone’s day better or be happier in some way,” he told CNBC Make It. Rather than giving up immediately, he spent months exploring what might happen next.
In the summer of 2024, Yeung began seriously considering opening a matcha cafe in Manhattan after noticing a lack of high-quality options in the city and asking herself, “Why is my matcha better?”
But Yeung wasn’t about to quit his high-paying job without a plan.
Michelle Yeung at Matcha House.
Mickey Todiwala
Before quitting software engineering, he worked the 5 a.m. Starbucks shift to learn cafe operations, traveled to Japan to research matcha, and accumulated savings that he would later use to start the business.
running today Matcha House On the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The business is on track to be profitable in its first year and is slowly recouping its startup costs.
“I’m much happier now than before,” he says.
I was working ‘undercover’ at Starbucks: ‘I was on my own little mission’
After deciding that the next step was to open a matcha cafe, Yeung set out to learn everything he could before leaving software engineering.
He traveled to Japan to study how the drink matcha, made from finely ground green tea powder, is obtained, prepared and served. He took notes on harvesting techniques and whisking methods and tested different powder-to-water ratios to get consistent results.
When he returned to New York, he recruited friends to sample different matchas and continued researching whether a store could be financially successful.
Because he had no experience working in food service, he says he spent “several months” working “undercover” at Starbucks, working from roughly 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., before attending software engineering meetings later in the morning.
Michelle Yeung prepares matcha.
Mickey Todiwala
“I was on my own little mission,” Yeung says.
The preparation extended to the search for a store. Yeung spent months touring locations and meeting with hosts; many of them were reluctant to rent to a first-time business owner.
He eventually found a small place in a side street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He later described it as “pretty perfect”; small, well-located, and relatively affordable for the neighborhood.
By March 2025, Yeung had saved more than $200,000 and felt ready to leave software engineering.
Opening day brought a few surprises
Despite all the preparations, starting the business faced unexpected difficulties.
Yeung says contractors often fail to complete the work they promised, leading to delays and a series of last-minute disruptions. The night before soft opening for friends and family, the cafe was flooded.
“There was flooding behind the curtains and we had to mop it up,” says Yeung.
She says she couldn’t have opened the business without the help of friends who assembled furniture, hung curtains and prepared the space in the final days before the launch.
When Matcha House first opened in July 2025, Yeung often worked 12 hours a day and personally brewed each drink.
“For the first two months, I only trusted myself to whisk every drink,” he says.
Michelle Yeung in her cafe.
Mickey Todiwala
Over time, he learned to delegate many of these responsibilities. Matcha House currently employs about 10 part-timers, and Yeung no longer needs to be behind the counter every day. Looking back, Yeung said his time at Starbucks before opening Matcha House provided a crash course in the industry “in a short amount of time.”
The cafe is on track to be profitable in its first year, and Yeung says he is slowly making back the money he invested in launching the cafe.
He expects to pay himself about $33,000 in 2026 while reinvesting most of the earnings from the job into the company. He keeps his personal expenses low, spending less than $2,500 in a typical month.
“My life is less about how much money I make now and more about what I do every day,” says Yeung. “I’m grateful that we survived one year, one year that I was on the job, and that we can survive another year.”
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