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Coffee shop owners spill the beans

Aspiring entrepreneur Jordan Faulkner, Cactus Coffee owner Jeremy Jenewein and Compelling Coffee owner Kian Abedini speak on the ins and outs of starting and running a small business at Cactus Coffee’s first small business meet up May 2 at Cactus Coffee. / photo by Katelyn Keeling
Aspiring entrepreneur Jordan Faulkner, Cactus Coffee owner Jeremy Jenewein and Compelling Coffee owner Kian Abedini speak on the ins and outs of starting and running a small business at Cactus Coffee’s first small business meet up May 2 at Cactus Coffee. / photo by Katelyn Keeling

Maydeen Merino
Staff Writer

Cactus Coffee hosted its first business meet up on May 2, encouraging future entrepreneurs and business owners to attend and discuss what it takes to open a business.

Future entrepreneurs Sara Joromat and Jordan Faulkner, as well as Compelling Coffee owner Kian Abedini and Cactus Coffee owner Jeremy Jenewein, attended the meeting to discuss their experiences owning their own business.

Both owners provided tips to the entrepreneurs on how to build their own businesses and spoke about situations they may run into as an owner of their future businesses. 

“Start small and then scale up, people try to go really big off the bat, and if you do something with the resources you currently have or without having to make too big of an investment, you can grow slowly and gradually,” Jenewein said.

Jenewein encountered many obstacles when trying to open Cactus Coffee, but the process of opening his own coffee shop improved his organizational abilities, he said.

“There’s a lot to learn from being in the same room with a lot of like-minded people that are willing to challenge you and push you to think outside of the box,” Faulkner said.

Joromat attended the meeting because she wanted to learn more about running a business from those already doing so, and said she hopes to one day open her own nonprofit tea house and clothing store.

“You can Google stuff, and learn a decent amount on how to start a business but there’s not like, a point-by-point checklist,” Jenewein said. 

The business meet up helped to provide possible future business owners with connections and different perspectives on how to start up a business. 

“It’s always good to get perspective from people who are doing different things,” Abedini said. 

“Running a small business and growing a small business is such a big thing that you can’t narrow yourself to one mindset or one way of looking at problems, because you’ll fail.”

Jenewein said he hopes to meet with and learn from other local business owners in the future. He also hopes to have this event in the future and plans on hopefully having them once a month at Cactus Coffee, he said.

Maydeen Merino can be reached at maydeen.merino@laverne.edu.

Maydeen Merino
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Katelyn Keeling
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