(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you, thank you.

- [Narrator] It's Your Business with Michael Aikens is brought to you by WCTE PBS and the Center for Rural Innovation with funding provided by the Economic Development Administration through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Stability Act.

This series was produced under an agreement with Tennessee Tech University Center for Rural Innovation through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Stability Act.

- Welcome to It's Your Business.

I'm your host, Michael Aikens.

Becoming an entrepreneur is an experiment of faith in your own vision.

Fundamentally, the only difference between a person with a business idea and an entrepreneur is the leap of faith the entrepreneur took in making their idea a reality.

On this episode, I've talked to two business owners who took that leap.

In exploring their entrepreneurial journeys, We'll learn about some of the risks, planning, goal setting and resiliency of becoming an entrepreneur.

I hope these stories inspire and encourage you as much as they did me.

(upbeat music) Meg's Bread in Cookville was born from the passion and ingenuity of Meg Borland.

After discovering her interest in bread making, Meg began attending local farmer's markets and sourcing natural ingredients from her community to craft the best breads and pastries.

We discussed her journey from passion to entrepreneur at her shop, aptly named, Meg's Bread, right here in Cookeville.

(upbeat music) So we're here at Meg's Bread in Cookeville, Tennessee, Meg, Luke thank you so much for being on the show.

- Our pleasure.

- So who are Meg and Luke and what is Meg's Bread?

- It started at the farm.

Then we have Shiloh Farm.

And then through that, I somehow started making bread at the farmer's market and it turned also into Meg's Bread.

- Okay, so is making bread something that you've always thought about doing, or like you said it just kind of happened, - Yeah.

- Tell me about that entrepreneurial journey.

- No, it was never anything that I thought I wanted to do or knew to do.

I had a Ceramics degree and so there's a tactile quality.

And then I was helping Luke at the farm and it just was a connection point from ceramics, art, food and farming, I got bread.

- Okay, so we're hearing all about the nexus of food and farming and you know, it really kind of transformed into Meg's Bread.

So tell us a little bit about why local farming is so important to your all's operation.

- Really agriculture to me is where production begins.

And I really liked being at that point from the ground, you know, photosynthesis and rainfall and just to the basics of it.

And so it gives us a something that's unique to our region you know, using produce that grows here locally adds more of a regional feel to it which I think is important to develop.

- Yeah and then through that it was to take it one step further, we realized that Luke likes to be the producer and then I liked the post-production of the food.

- Yeah - And then also with the bakery of using regional flowers and bringing that all back into it too.

So just kind of extending the farming into a place in town.

- So we talk about a lot of opportunity and potential here in Cookeville.

Clearly you all have done a great job at that.

So along the way, you know, there's a lot of resources for free in the upper Cumberland in Cookeville for entrepreneurs like yourselves, have you all taken advantage of any of those?

- Yeah, I was fortunate enough to find the Biz Foundry.

So, we had this idea, we have never started a business before and I just kind of stumbled into the Biz Foundry and they just helped me connecting you with people, workshops, funding, a lot of resources.

- Okay, so you have had a lot of success, right?

And the Biz Foundry has been able to help you.

What would you say to other entrepreneurs that maybe have heard of the Biz Foundry or a small business development center?

What would you tell them about the services they provide?

- I had no idea what I was gonna expect out of them but I am so thankful that I went there.

And you can just ask questions.

They'll pair you with people that can also help you.

They can connect you people beyond the Biz Foundry that will help you.

- Its seems helpful that - Yeah.

- They were kind of a neutral outside perspective on the business.

'Cause we're so wrapped up in our own heads of what we think we should be doing or not, or, you know, or you ask your family and, you know, they wanna encourage you, your friends they wanna encourage you, so it was helpful to hear it from a neutral third party.

They could say, "No, this is a good idea."

Or, "Don't mess around with that idea."

(Luke laughing) - Or it's okay to make mistakes.

I mean, they'll also tell you problems they've had or failures and you just realize like maybe that's part of it and that's okay.

- Yeah, it totally is a part of entrepreneurship.

You know, one of my favorite quotes by Elon Musk, he says, "If you're not failing, you're not innovating fast enough."

- Yeah - So I think that there's a lot of truth in that.

So you've started the business, obviously you're doing okay.

However, I understand in talking to you before you had a little bit of an interesting start you wanna walk us through what happened back in March when you were opening.

- We were gonna have a soft opening on a Saturday.

The Wednesday before is when the tornadoes hit.

So it's odd to have such a big celebration when people are grieving or devastated.

So we just kind of had a very soft opening.

The following week we had another soft opening, the first one my oven wasn't here.

After that second week, COVID happened, shut-down started to happen.

Like we shut down, but we did pick up.

And so it was really interesting that my business was starting when every other business in the area was shutting down temporarily.

But it's worked.

I mean, we just really pivoted quick.

I was very lucky that that was my normal.

I didn't have a normal, I hadn't hired anybody and we just have made it work from then.

- So what advice would you give to other entrepreneurs?

- Don't be afraid of what you don't know and just ask questions and stay flexible.

- Okay, so how can this community support Meg's Bread or other businesses here?

- Yeah, I would say, well, for us right now we're doing online ordering.

So if you go to our website you can order for Thursday pickups or Saturday pickups.

And just try to respect to the businesses for what they're asking customer to do or what makes them feel safe.

Because I feel like for businesses, it's for the business owner, it's for their employees and just respect their choices.

- So there's a clear connection between you and entrepreneurship and art.

Why don't you tell us a little bit more about that?

- Yeah well, I got a Ceramics degree I'm in college and for me that the art it's all, it's all process oriented.

And I never knew that it would turn into food, but after ceramics, I did farming, which is working with mud, which is pretty much clay and food and then dough is how I wish clay would have felt.

And so I think for me, it's just the process of creating and then also the tactile quality.

So I think the tactile quality of dough comes very natural to me.

- Okay, so entrepreneurship is clearly all about creating as well.

Tell me a little bit more about, you know, really how did you start that journey into what became Meg's Bread?

- I think Luke and I both just can't sit still.

(Luke laughing) I think we're always trying to think of what is that next thing?

How can we connect with people?

How can we just put our most true selves forward and how to connect with people that way?

So I think it comes from not resting much and just constantly seeing where the next thing takes us.

- We've always known that we need to be doing things that we care about and that we're interested in not just a job for the money and then retire.

This is more of a lifelong commitment to the things that we love.

- Or putting something good into the world.

- Yeah - I think it's kind of what we strive to do.

And with food is a connection point for us.

Art was just, it's a very limited group of people that sometimes you reach, I made big installations and nothing functional and maybe things hard to understand.

So food is something that I can connect with everyone too and same with the vegetables I produce as well.

- So you all do a lot on e-commerce.

Tell us a little bit more about the intersection between farming, baking bread and getting alive.

- At Shiloh farm we grow a lot of different diversified vegetables and then we also raise cattle, sheep, and goats.

And, a lot of those ingredients end up in the shop either as ingredients in the pastries or the breads or even just for sale.

We kind of realized that this could be sort of a farm stand in town for us.

Since we lived 45 minutes away from town just to have another option for being able to purchase some of the farm produce.

- And it's great for my menu of what we have, it's seasonal.

And so it's always rotating and that helps to kind of decide what to make or there's some parameters and that's just really nice.

Also, it's really great to pack up people's order when you're kind of packing up all their groceries.

So it's their produce, their sweets, their bread.

And just to hand that off to people and that's been really enjoyable.

- So on our first show, we talked about e-commerce and getting online.

You're an artist, you are an entrepreneur, you bake bread.

Are you also a web designer?

How did you get a website?

How did you do this?

- I mean there's platforms that we use, trial and error.

I mean, it's just make it work.

I mean, I think that's really the best and then ask questions and-- - [Luke] What you don't know Google it.

- Yeah, we just Google it and just try to make it the best we can.

- Well, what is the future for Meg's Bread look like?

- Yeah, who knows?

You know, honestly, it's like we're gonna keep expanding our wholesale and some time, I would love to have people come in and I think that's the main thing with food, is a connection point and talking to people.

So eventually that will happen.

But until then, we're gonna keep doing wholesale accounts and retail and pickups.

It's a marathon and not a race.

So we're just getting started.

- So, I always like to end on a positive.

Clearly we've talked about a lot of positives today but tell me what has been your silver lining throughout the pandemic?

- Shutting down has given me time to learn this space.

I got all this new restaurant equipment that I've never used and it's given me time to learn it.

I've been able to grow slow.

And I think that's like any small business, that's a tree.

- We focused on the things that we could do during the pandemic.

You know, that there can eventually be this retail interaction when people actually come in the shop but we realized, well, we can expand the online ordering and the pickup, or we can start getting into wholesale which maybe we would have done that eventually without this.

But I think we just started it up sooner because it means, well, we can develop this now and then later on, we can come back to the retail - Meg, Luke, thank you so much for being on It's Your Business, we really appreciate it.

- Thank you so much - Thanks for having us.

(upbeat music) - Anna Dunn along with her husband Tyler founded Soul Craft Coffee in 2017 and currently run their business together in the heart of downtown Cookeville.

I talked to Anna about her journey into entrepreneurship the challenges of innovating through a global pandemic and the role of resiliency.

(soft music) Anna Dunn, thank you so much for being on the show, welcome.

- Thank you so much for having me Michael.

- Now tell us you're the owner of Soul Craft Coffee.

- Yes.

- Tell us a little bit more about that business.

- Yeah, so we have a coffee shop in Cookeville on the historic WestSide, my husband and I do, and yeah we do specialty coffee and housemate pastries and food.

- [Michael] So now have you always owned this?

Have you always been an entrepreneur?

Is this something new for you?

- The last several years, yes.

I worked at enterprise Rent-A-Car for several years before that, but kinda came from a family of entrepreneurship and local business.

And so we knew this was part of our plan but sometimes you had to do one thing that maybe you don't love to do something that you do, you know so I'm really, really honored to be doing what we love and it's a dream for sure.

- So you do what you love, right.

- Yeah.

- And that's obviously great now, you know, sometimes there's a misconception that entrepreneurs are fully formed, they've got all the answers they've got all the resources going in.

Would you say that that's accurate?

- Negative, that couldn't be the farthest from the truth but there's an amount of grit, right.

And, just resiliency that an entrepreneur does has they have to have, because it's hard.

You have to be able to pivot and move and try this or that, or, you know just kind of work off the cuff a little bit.

And if you're really good at that then you should be an entrepreneur.

(Anna laughing) - So resiliency is a human trait that you need to have, you know, being an entrepreneur but there's all these other skills that you've got to learn too.

How did you do this?

- That's a great question.

I think life experiences for one, but I think being in it every day and just kind of this idea that you if you're not learning something every day you're kind of going backwards.

If you're not going forward you're going backwards kind of thing.

And just keep moving forward and learning from your mistakes.

- Now do you have a mentor that you look at or ask questions to or have you just dived into this?

- I have many mentors, yes.

A lot of them are amazing, amazing women in our community.

As far as coffee, Tyler is really really good at it and he has taken time to learn and-- - So Tyler is your husband, right?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- He is very handy.

And so we did a lot of the work ourselves and it's something that is so precious to both of us and you can see Tyler and you can see me.

And, you know, we just introduced like a small retail shelf.

And I love to get to say, "Hey, Tyler built that."

You know, I'm really proud of that.

It's an honor to be able to say that we did it and it's not for everybody, for sure.

A lot of people pay for people to build it out.

That's totally fine, but it just holds a really special place.

- So regardless of our viewers are married or not they may have a career they're thinking about starting their own business, but there's a hesitation.

What advice would you give to them?

- I would say, save your money, for sure.

It's really expensive to start a business but also I'm super grateful for the time that I had outside of being an entrepreneur.

I think I needed to go and work at a institution to kind of learn and bring out these qualities that I've brought to the table here.

And I'm just super grateful for that experience to be able to say like, "Hey I've learned this work ethic "And I've learned how to really work hard for someone else," so that I can bring this into my own business and work just as hard or even harder.

- Let's talk about the pandemic back in March, you find out Soul Craft is going to have to shut down.

What went through your mind and what did you do?

- I think immediately, of course, you know as an entrepreneur and somebody who is like me, as soon as you find out about a possibility of something, okay we could be shut down.

Okay, my mind immediately goes to, this is happening and what are we going to do about it?

So I started implementing curbside which was not something we did before.

Before the shutdown trying to get people in that thought process because bigger cities are really that's something that's common, but for us it's like letting people know about this back alley and saying, "Hey, stop and you call me."

If you don't feel comfortable coming in, no big deal, call our shop, we'll bring it out to you.

And, so just being able to kind of immediately think okay, what can we do to pay the rent?

What can we do to pay our people?

What does this look like for us?

And so that was kind of the immediate thought.

- So clearly a lot of change involved with the pandemic, but, you know, you mentioned earlier pivoting and changing is all about being an entrepreneur.

And I think that change really has a lot to do with differentiation, which is important in business.

So what are you doing to differentiate Soul Caft?

- Yeah, so we're a multi-role shop.

And so we, right now, we've got Crema at Nashville Edison out of Texas.

And we only partner with roasters that are super transparent about their green coffee.

So they're working directly with the farmers we know exactly what they're paying them.

And so every step of the way we know that this coffee is ethically sourced and these people are being treated fairly.

And so that's super, super important to us.

And also our sauces and syrups are made in-house very, very special desk.

Tyler and I made those recipes years and years ago, and I've just carried on to the shop.

And, as we've grown, we've had people come in and some of our employees are so awesome and make more things like the flower bomb or our gingerbread syrup or our Willow.

Also our pastries are made in-house.

We have pop tarts and scones and muffins and cookies things like that.

And they're all made from scratch.

So I think that's of the few things that differentiate us and make us special.

Well, I also understand you sell Meg's bread in your shop too.

- Oh, we do, we do so Meg and I are friends.

You know, those girl bosses, we gotta stick together.

She's just an awesome human.

Her and Luke both are just amazing people doing what they do at the quality and level that we want to do our stuff.

And so I think that's why that we kind of connected so quickly is because her quality is top notch and our quality is top-notch.

And so we introduced food where our goal was introduced in March by COVID so we introduced food a couple months ago and two of our sandwiches are with Meg's.

- So not only do you own Soul Craft you're also into real estate.

So I've got a couple of questions for you here.

Tell us what your journey into real estate was like.

And also when do you sleep?

(Anna laughing) - Well, that's a great question.

When I left enterprise, I got my real estate license and to back up a little bit further my mother-in-law has sold real estate for 25 years.

So she's a broker.

And so I got to learn and get to learn under her.

And she's a fantastic teacher.

She teaches actually all the agents in the area.

She teaches a lot of classes and things like that.

So everybody kind of knows who she is, and I feel very, very honored to be a part of that.

But, yeah, so I knew that we wanted to do this.

We wanted to open our shop but also what else did I want to do?

And what other dreams do I have?

And it was a perfect opportunity for me to go get my real estate lessons and do it.

So I've been doing it for a little over a year now.

- What's the most important thing you've learned as an entrepreneur?

- There are so many things but I think one of the biggest things is time management.

So going from the corporate world where, you know, you went to work at this time and got home at this time.

This is a whole different animal where you could potentially work 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

So that's a really, really hard thing to do because you want to see your business your actual brick and mortar business succeed.

And so I think sometimes, and even with real estate we feel like we have to work all of the time because we're working for people and that's my love.

And that's, I mean, the basis of what we're doing here is just to be able to love people but also we have to love ourselves.

And so what does that look like and how do we feed ourselves first and say, "Okay, take care of you."

And I can really, really take care of other people.

And so that's looks like time management it looks like, Hey, smartphone's going away.

You know, it's going to go over here and we're going to really just focus on, you know Tyler and I time together, or, you know reading a book or whatever just to try to improve, you know, who we are as humans.

- So you're having to learn how to balance your time.

And you also mentioned, Tyler runs this with you too.

How do you balance your work and marriage life?

- It's really difficult, but we do it.

And it works really well for us.

We don't have children.

So that's also very helpful, but he is the yang, we're ying yang.

I'm more of the front of house.

You see me a lot at the shop but that doesn't mean that he doesn't work equally as hard.

'Cause he's working the backend of the business, the numbers, the money he takes care of all of that.

And I'm super grateful 'cause that's just not my area of expertise.

And he does a really, really great job.

He orders all of our stuff and all of our food and coffees and make sure we have everything we need to be successful.

And as far as the balancing, it's the, Hey we're going to talk about business and we're going to talk about all these things that we're doing which are even more than we've had a chance to talk about, but we say, okay we're going to talk about this stuff.

And then we're going to talk about our dreams.

We're going to talk about where we're going to go.

We love to travel.

So we're where are we going next?

Or what does that look like or dislike our personal life a little bit.

So you kind of have to draw that line.

- Anna, thank you so much for being on the show.

- Thank you so much for having me, Michael it's been a pleasure.

(soft music) (upbeat music) - Tennessee Tech University Center for Rural Innovation or TCRI creates companies and builds economic development by providing technical assistance to main street businesses and entrepreneurs.

The TCRI serves 14 counties of the upper cameral region as well as eight additional contiguous rural counties.

The TCRI has resources and with them in your corner, so do you.

The TCRI understands navigating all these different agencies trying to find good workers, applying for grants finding funding it's not easy.

And that's where TCRI comes in.

The TCRI is a federally funded university center that provides technical assistance, research and partnerships to small businesses, chambers of commerce and community organizations.

The TCRIs mission is to provide the knowledge, resources and student talent to help businesses and communities reach their next business goals.

The TCRI accomplishes this mission much in part through providing paid or academic credit student internships at no cost to the business or chamber.

Some examples of technical assistance include social media, photography, strategy and much more.

Additional no-cost services include growing small business and creating new investments, increasing access to capital and funding, expanding agricultural innovations, marketing and expanding natural assets, increasing technology connecting dots, and creating linkages to network university and community strategic partners and collaborators such as commercialization assistance, research opportunities the grant resources, data collection and much more.

The TCRI does all of this to create outcomes that increase prosperity throughout the rural service region, address income disparities, lower poverty levels and reduce food insecurity.

Most recently, the TCRI received substantial Cares Act funding which helps them to increase their bandwidth to address economic injury caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The TCRI are partners with several organizations in their efforts who you've seen on the show before.

The Biz Foundry is a nonprofit organization working for entrepreneurs and innovators in the upper Cumberland.

They offer workspaces, workshops and events to support entrepreneurs and innovative collaboration.

They've got tools and resources available to include education, networking, peer support, mentorship and access to capital.

The TCRI also works with the Tennessee Small Business Development Center, the TSBDC, the TSBDC provides services for both existing and startups small businesses including business plan development, financial planning assistance, marketing plan development business growth planning, government contracting guidance, international trade guidance, sources of capital and social media guidance.

The TCRI also collaborates with WCTE your hometown PBS affiliates serving the upper Cumberland region for over 40 years.

It is a cornerstone of our community providing enrichment for the region citizens through opportunities for lifelong learning.

WCTE envisions an educated, inclusive, prosperous, safe and healthy region working together through public media and altogether the TCRI, Biz Foundry, Small Business Development Center and WCTE can help you.

If you're a small business or entrepreneur and would like to learn more, go to BRCollective.org.

All you need to do is answer a few quick questions.

Pick a day and time that you'd like to talk and they'll get you connected.

(upbeat music) Thanks for tuning in to It's Your Business.

For more information on today's topics small business resources and extended interviews please visit the WCTE website.

Until next time I'm Michael Aikens.

(upbeat music) (soft music) - [Narrator] It's Your Business with Michael Aikens is brought to you by WCTEPBS and the Center for Rural Innovation with funding provided by the Economic Development Administration through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Stability Act.

This series was produced under an agreement with Tennessee Tech University Center for Rural Innovation through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Stability Act.

(soft music) - [Narrator] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.