We were lucky to catch up with Angela Vannett recently and have shared our conversation below.

Angela, appreciate you joining us today. Covid has brought about so many changes – has your business model changed?
When we began our coffee business, we were mobile and would take our trailer and our truck out around AZ to do events and catering of all kinds. After awhile of working from our garage, we were able to get into a small shop which acted as a home base for our mobile operations.

In 2020 when the pandemic hit, we lost all of our events and jobs that were scheduled on our calendar. We knew we had to act fast or we would sink. We decided to park our trailer inside our shop and pop open the window for the public to come inside and order drinks.. We invested in some seating and decor to transform our workshop into a small coffee shop where we could share about the culture of Costa Rica!

We opened with regular and consistent hours in July of 2020 and we have been able to transform a 100% mobile business into a small coffee shop while still being able to offer catering from our coffee truck.

It was a blessing not only so that our business could continue to operate, but because we had always wanted a physical location. This has became the perfect stepping stone for our small family owned and operated business.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My husband and I fell in love with the coffee we would enjoy while visiting his family that lives in Costa Rica. It was better than anything we had ever tasted and we knew that we had to bring it in bulk to AZ. My husband has always been proud to be Costa Rican and we decided what better way to share about the incredible culture than through its amazing coffee!?

I am most proud of the obstacles we have had to continue to overcome since we began this business 5 years ago.. In addition to the unprecedented COVID pandemic, we also had to learn how to wear the many hats of being a small business owner, teach ourselves about coffee and international business, and do it all while raising 2 kids.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
As we have gained confidence with our worth and pricing structure, we have began to negotiate more with coordinators regarding the fees associated with setting up our coffee truck at events.

For an example, a client reached out to us asking if we would like to pay them $1200 to become a sponsor in return for marketing and promotion. A small business like ours doesn’t have that kind of marketing budget so I politely declined. They responded with the opportunity of vending at their 3 day event for the low price of $500 which would come out of our profits, and would be a lot of cups of free coffee so we again politely declined. Finally, they replied asking us if we would be able to just cater their VIP tent which would result in THEM paying US guaranteed money for our time.

The lesson here for us was to never settle and never be afraid to say no when it isn’t a good fit for your business. In the end, it will set you up for successes rather than headaches and set backs.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Building an audience on social media is no easy task. To begin with, my husband and I divided up the duties and he took over Facebook and I did Instagram. This helped us really dive into each platform without feeling too overwhelmed. It also provided 2 “voices” with slightly different content rather than a customer feeling inundated with duplicate posts.

We make it a priority to always have all of our business info filled out and easy for people to find us.
Also, replying and interacting with our followers is very important since it can become real income that is brought into our shop when people seek us out.
Finally, we try and follow as many likeminded and local businesses so that we can to boost visibility by liking, commenting and sharing on other accounts. Not to mention, this is great way to stimulate creativity when your content is in a rut by seeing what things are trending.

As with everything, consistency is key. Becoming a part of peoples daily routine of scrolling through your updates and following your journey is super cool and means a lot to us! We try and reflect that during our interactions and regular posts.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pvgrinds.com
• Instagram: @puravidagrinds
• Facebook: @puravidagrinds
• Twitter: @puravidagrinds
• Youtube: @puravidagrinds
• Yelp: @puravidagrinds