Christmas Holiday and a new Business.

Anyone who has opened their own business knows it takes a tremendous amount of effort.  This is usually performed by the business owner and his family.  Sometimes this "labor of love" can be very consuming and sacrifices are made.  These sacrifices are usually time spent doing anything else, financial sacrifices and sometimes cheerful and happy mood sacrifices...  But for the most part, when that opening day comes, you can just sit back, relax and enjoy the fruits of all your labors...  Nawwwww.  Now the real work begins.  More sacrifices, financial, time, and sometimes, the happy cheerful moods...

This year as we opened our business in Spring Lake, NC- we had the Christmas Holidays fast approaching.  We opened with a bang, and expected a slow down as regular commuters, service members at FT Bragg and other business hours adjusted for the holiday season.  Well, we underestimated that everyone would still want to stop in for coffee, a latte or a chai on their way shopping.  While we are very grateful for this and love to give everyone who comes in a little "holiday in a cup" we realized that once again we, as a family, would be sacrificing a bit for the business.  So we found ourselves, December 25th, at the shop in our Christmas pajamas. (We ran a special, everyone who shows up in Christmas Jammies got 25% off- it worked great).  We brought with us a few board games, we played an epic game of Risk, and we took breaks, a lot of breaks, to serve coffee to those who came by to see us.  A new business can be demanding, the holidays can be demanding, but this year I wouldn't have traded Christmas at the shop for anything.  Happy Holidays everyone!

Now Open in Spring Lake

First and foremost I am pretty excited for our store opening in Spring Lake.  Located at 106 South Bragg Blvd it's only about 1/4 mile from the Spring Lake gate to Ft Bragg on Butner Road. We hope you take a few minutes and come by to try one of our delicious espresso drinks, brewed coffee, smoothies or frappe's.  I hope to see you there.
So, a quick word about coffee.  We have an amazingly roasted blend for our espresso.  The beans have a full rich aroma when you open the bag, all of the beans are uniformly roasted (which isn't always the case) and the pulled shots pour out like melted chocolate.  The creme is smooth and sweet, the shot holds a bold flavor that is great by itself but also mixes well with flavors and steamed milk.  Overall, I am very happy with the product that The Morning Jump produces.
Finally, I have another interesting perspective on something.  Customers.  I really haven't been in a customer oriented business before.  Just having retired from the Army (our customer service there gets... varied reviews...) I did work for a convenient store for a while when i was in High School, while we had plenty of customers i don't remember really doing anything special then to make them happy.  So considering my background I was curious to see how things would go as we opened our doors.  Here is what i have found- Everyone I interact with I share my passion for coffee and business with.  I love the chemistry of coffee, the emotion of coffee and I love business and all that is involved with running one.  So far the customers seem to like it, and fortunately, the coffee too.  See you there!

Finishing touches, equipment and paving.

It's a long journey to go from the draft of a business in your head, to putting it on paper, to building it and  finally opening it.  As we near the completion of our building and are preparing to open there isn't much time, or energy, to look back too much and ponder.  Construction is nearly complete, equipment has been picked out, purchased and installed, and preparations for our grand opening are being finalized.  As I type this we still don't have the exact date for opening.  We have found this is a very difficult day to predict.  The General Contractor has an estimation of when the parking lot will be complete, but those are just estimations, and things like that have a tendency to move around. Never earlier of course, they tend to move in one direction.

The Morning Jump Coffee Company- 106 S. Bragg Blvd, Spring Lake, NC

    Of course going through this process teaches you patience, even if you thought you had patience before, it re-indoctrinates you.  Perseverance is something you had better come with, or this process will win.  It can be very trying at times.  So- with all of that said, we are cautiously optimistic that we will be serving you hot delicious latte's soon!  And that really puts a smile on our face!

There are mistakes... then there are Mistakes!

Business plans are like a combat operations order- they never survive the first shot.  Well, at least completely intact. Which is why the military has frag orders, so I guess business plans do too.  Navigating through the business process is exactly that, a process.

I'm lucky- because of good planning things have continued to move forward and in a good way. Patience is key, getting inpatient is fatal, and here is why. Moving fast increases the chances of big mistakes. Mistakes are going to happen no matter what.  There are just too many variables, too many unknowns and risk management is an inherent part of the start up process.  Sometimes moving slowly, easily and patiently pays off.  If you can limit the damage of a mistake and go in the right direction it becomes a "gain".  You didn't lose so much in comparison to the experience gained and the elimination of a "bad direction".  In staying with the whole military concept example- think of a business mistake that is a a "gain" as going around a corner and having a near miss bounce off the wall above your head. Didn't get hurt and figured out where a bad guy is hanging out. But the thought goes through your head "lucky again".

Our concept is almost there- building is almost done, Baristas are almost hired (interview process is a whole other blog) and I am doing one last scour for information before we open.  Opening is just another phase line, not any bigger or smaller than any other, just as important as the first phase line, but... it feels bigger. Because now all of the theoreticals are going to be tested against the biggest variable of all. The public.

This morning I scoured the internet and read dozens of stories of coffee shop failures.  Learning from other people's mistakes is valuable too.  I read through story after story: bad location (a big culprit for failure) too high of overhead- rents that are astronomical.  Too many competitors, and rarely, not enough business (bad location again?)  I think my business has those covered, but we won't know until the public decides.  I have a lot of people that look at my plan, and our operation and say- "Wow- this is going to work" but they don't know, and they aren't the ones taking taking the risk.  The internet is littered with the bodies of dead coffee shops.  Reading and learning about why they failed provides me with a lot of ammunition to plan for unexpected and unpredictable events.  It helps to read about the failures, it really does.  It does get a little a little dreary though, reading about all these people that saw their dreams die.  But, here I am, drinking some amazing coffee- which I know people will love and looking at all of these death stories thinking "sucks to be you" because my mistakes won't be fatal.