Mike Brown was bagging coffee beans out of his mother's basement only two years ago. Now, his small-town small business, Death Wish Coffee, is about to go very big: It will have a 30-second commercial air in the third quarter of the Super Bowl.

The company, based in Round Lake, N.Y., is the winner of Intuit (INTU) QuickBooks' small business contest. They were one of 15,000 companies to enter. A panel of judges at Intuit then chose 10 finalists based on the owners' passion, authenticity, and other "entrepreneurial benchmarks," an Intuit spokesperson says.

After the 10 finalists were selected, the vote went to the public to choose the top three. Chubbies, a San Francisco-based men's apparel brand, and Vidler's 5 & 10, a general store in upstate New York, rounded out the top three and will each receive $25,000 and local advertising. The seven other finalists each receive a $10,000 prize. But none of that can compare to the dramatic impact of a (free) Super Bowl ad. (A 30-second ad during the Super Bowl costs $5 million this year.)

In fact, if you ask Bill Rancic, winner of the first season of "The Apprentice" and Intuit's celebrity spokesperson for the contest, the ad could help Brown's business explode. "It's going to change his life," Rancic tells Yahoo Finance. "This year, he will probably sell millions of pounds of coffee from that one ad. That's pretty amazing to think about."

Brown certainly hopes that will be the result, and he's gearing up to prepare for it. "We bought hundreds and hundreds of pounds of green coffee to get ready," he says, "and we have some bigger local roasters helping us out." Using different roasters brings up the risk of inconsistency in the coffee, so Brown says his main focus of late has been quality control and testing to ensure the product stays the same. He is expecting, understandably, a slew of orders after the ad goes live.

The ad shows vikings rowing a ship through a dramatic storm. It's clever without being silly, and it ends with a subtle twist. For most of the 30-second ad, you think you're watching a movie trailer, or perhaps a videogame commercial. A coffee ad is the last thing you're expecting. Here's the clip:

What Brown loves is the way the feel of the ad fits his company's brand. Death Wish's tagline is "The world's strongest coffee." It's meant to be intense. The back of Brown's business card reads: "Coffee should be black as hell and strong as death." His first customers, he says, were truck drivers, construction workers, and people who worked night shifts.

The company, which did $6 million in sales last year, does not have any of its own stores, but it is sold at some local grocery stores in the Albany area. It does most of its sales online, through its website or on Amazon, and it sells internationally on Amazon Europe. It's in talks to sell at Target (TGT). As it has grown its customer base, Brown says, "People who I never thought would try my coffee -- sweet little old ladies -- are saying they love it. That's not who I had in mind initially, but they like it." Some of Death Wish's drinkers are so loyal they've etched the brand's name onto their skin. (Brown says he's met four people with Death Wish Coffee tattoos.)

Small-brew success

Intuit has chosen to back a coffee ad at a time when smaller coffee chains are exploding. Starbucks (SBUX), Peet's and Le Pain Quotidien have all launched cold brew in the past two years. Intelligentsia, Stumptown, and other so-called "third wave" roasters have grown their brick-and-mortar footprint.

Brown says Death Wish isn't about those trends. "We don't fall under any of the trendy coffees—it's not third wave, or fourth wave," he says. "It's a throwback, I'd say, it's a working man's coffee. It's that deep, dark brew you drink in the morning just to get your butt out the door and get you moving." Indeed, that's the image the end of the Super Bowl ad projects.

This is the second year of Intuit's contest. Last year's winner was GoldieBlox, which makes educational toys for girls; their ad was extremely well-received. When Brown envisions the water-cooler chatter about his ad on the day after the big game, he hopes people will say it was "epic."

And in case you're wondering where the coffee entrepreneur will be when he sees the ad air live during the big game on Feb. 7—he and his girlfriend, and all 10 of Death Wish's full-time employees, will be at an Intuit watching party right near the stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.

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Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. 

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