Sharing a Coffee Nationwide.

Now I have been at this coffee gig for all of 2 months now and like the caffeine in my cup, concentrated and very invigorating, this business has kept me up nights. Once the coffee beans were chosen and the packaging designed, the website running and the processes settled, just how do you get on with the business of selling coffee?

Turns out there are online forums, trade shows, discussion boards, competitions (some just for patterns on the top of lattes), newsletters, meeting groups and tastings, or "cuppings", paying homage to the sacred bean. Then there are the auctions for the most expensive beans, only at choice times through the season to fight over prized varieties. A sponge for information about the passion of the moment, I love this stuff. Pity my poor husband Matthew, who has to listen to my trivia over breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Fortunately, others of my craft love to gab about this information as well, and not long after I became a maven of mocha (apologies) I hooked up with some mentors who were generous with their knowledge. I greased them up with my Kona and Jamaican Blue and fortunately it was good enough to keep them talking. Mark Prince, moderator and coffee genius of www.coffeegeek.com is an incredible chat, as is Colin Newell of www.coffeecrew.com. Nick Usborne, the Coffee Detective is another site that has offered advice. Had I not been in business for myself before, I do not think I would have had the guts to just call on these guys and ask them to review my coffees and for information, just like that.

One of the first guys I ever had the pleasure of speaking with had to be Barrett Jones. His company, 49th Parallel Coffee out in BC has to be a model of how to do this business right. The web site, the branding and the products, and seeing him on TV... the guy has it going on.

Opportunity Based on Experience

Most of us over 40 (there I admitted it even though you can't see me), have had a few jobs, perhaps even a career or two. Some by choice, sometimes by having the decision made for us. We were canned, we were laid off, we stomped out the door in tears or perhaps in handcuffs. Hey. Your story, right?

If you are like me, you have collected a shopping list of skills along the way that have come in very handy and they have accumulated in value like art or collectible hockey cards. The older the better, condition matters and the more information and research that goes along with the property, the more valuable the item becomes.

I graduated as a graphic designer and my thing was consumer packaging back in the 1980's. Dog food, beer, Kleenex, soup. That sort of thing. Then I moved on to account management, marketing, writing for business. I hit my artsy illustration phase in the late 1990's and opened a retail gallery. Next came my online obsession with antiques and eBay. When the Canadian dollar went on par with the US, that market tanked and I returned to account management at a printing firm, combining all my skills.

Combining skills seems to be the post education process I hear many of my associates doing now. An accountant who takes on a CEO position based on experience after being the company CFO. A respiratory therapist managing a practice of a successful entrepreneurial physician. A lawyer becoming a best selling author of murder mysteries based on factual legal process. Only with the guts to back it up can you move forward into these new positions.

Another key ingredient seems to be an essential element in the opportunity based transition: passion. This second (or possibly third) reincarnation is probably based on something the person loves or really feels strongly about and wants to share, coming from the heart. In my case it is art, coffee and great taste.

Rocketfuelcoffee is a passionate project, utilizing just about every skill I have. I hope this will be the basis of a strong business plan. If one loves what they do, believes in it and can share it with others, how can it fail? (*crosses fingers*)