Back at Ray’s Coffee Shop the conversations continued:

“After I got my degree and got a little experience,” Collin started, “I decided to start out on my own. My aunt gave each of here nephews $5000, and I had some second hand office furniture, so it was easy to get going. I was living in the largest city in the state and figured there would be lost of customers. Maybe, but there was also a lot of competition, too! Moving to this smaller town was great. My clients are like family to me here.”

Rob added, “My dream was to own a full service gas station like my Dad, but by the time I was old enough self-serve was becoming more and more popular. Now they carry groceries and have restaurants. What do I know about those things? For a while I thought I’d have to look at something totally different. Then I thought about what I really liked and that was working on cars – not pumping gas or selling tacos. So I put together a plan and bought a closed gas station. Then I gradually added bays. Now I have three locations.”

Sean joined in, “I wanted to start an investment firm right from the beginning, but it’s hard to do, especially at the time I wanted with a bad economy and all. My dad wanted to work less at our family bank, so it made sense for me to help him out so he could go part time. I opened an investment department at the bank – just a small piece of our business. There will be a formal announcement in a few weeks. My brother loves the banking part so he’ll do that. We’re splitting off the investment part into a new firm and I’ll finally get to do this full time.”

“You’d think with a husband in business I’d get a lot more help with my start-up,” laughed Jennifer, “but Rob was so busy, I had to put together a network of advisors to help me making my start-up plans. Of course, with Rob’s lack of fashion sense, that was probably a good idea!”

As Ray refilled their coffee cups, he commented, “I couldn’t help hearing your stories and it got me reflecting on mine. I started a taco restaurant years ago, but when they changed the highway, my business died. Then I tried a steak house downtown. It was successful for a while, but when the economy isn’t so good people don’t want to spend so much. After that failed, I decided what this town needed was good food at reasonable prices and the coffee shop was born.”