We recently connected with Annika Baylis and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Annika thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?
The idea for Prickly Pear Coffee Co. didn’t arrive in one single lightning bolt moment, it built gradually, the way most God-given dreams do. I had always loved coffee shops. The way they bring people together, spark conversation, and create space for real life to happen. Somewhere along the way, a quiet conviction started forming in me that I was supposed to build one. Not just a coffee shop, but a place of ministry in the marketplace. A place where Jesus could meet my generation right where they already were.
Then Covid happened. I was 18 years old, the world had gone still, and I had more time than I knew what to do with. It was in that restless, creative season that the idea of a mobile espresso bar started taking shape. A way to test the dream before going all in. I remember the day I told my parents. I laid out this idea that was equal parts exciting and terrifying, and something about saying it out loud made it feel real for the first time.
From there, I just started figuring it out. I didn’t have a big budget or a business mentor or a roadmap. I had an idea, a whole lot of faith, and a willingness to figure out whatever I didn’t know. I researched equipment, learned about espresso, built the brand, and started knocking on doors. My first event was a local pop up, nothing glamorous, just a chance to show up and prove the concept. The risk was real and honestly terrifying for an 18 year old, but I kept moving forward anyway.
And then the Lord started opening doors I never could have planned for. One booking turned into another. The brand started to grow. The community started to show up. What began as a mobile espresso bar eventually became two brick and mortar and two mobile coffee shops in Nashville, Tennessee, and a business that I believe with my whole heart is still just getting started.
Annika, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Hi, I’m Annika, a Gen Z, faith-driven female entrepreneur and the founder of Prickly Pear Coffee Co., a coffee brand rooted in community, creativity, and the belief that Jesus meets people right where they are.
I started Prickly Pear at 18 years old during the Covid pandemic with little more than an idea, a whole lot of faith, and a deep conviction that coffee shops are one of the most powerful places for ministry in the marketplace. What began as a mobile espresso bar has grown into four coffee shops and a catering operation in Nashville, Tennessee, all built while simultaneously earning a college degree in entrepreneurship.
At Prickly Pear, we offer specialty espresso drinks, beautifully crafted seasonal menus, a curated bodega of local goods, and a catering experience that brings our coffee bar to your event, including our beloved coffee cart that has become a staple at weddings, corporate events, churches, and celebrations across Nashville. But what we are really selling is something harder to put on a menu. A place where you are known by name, welcomed without condition, and seen every single time you walk through our doors.
What sets us apart is not just the coffee, it is the mission underneath it. Prickly Pear exists as an act of “coffee ministry.” We are not a church, but we are a place where the love of Jesus shows up in the way we serve, the relationships we build, and the community we cultivate. We believe that business and faith are not separate things, and Prickly Pear is living proof of that.
What I am most proud of is that we have built something that proves faith and entrepreneurship can not only coexist, they can thrive together. If you are a Nashville local, a bride planning her wedding, a company looking to treat your team, or just someone who needs a really good latte and a place to exhale, we would love to have you. Come find us. We saved you a seat.
Any advice for managing a team?
Managing a team well starts with leading with genuine relationship first. My team is not going to give their best to someone they do not feel seen or known by, so I make it a priority to know my people as humans before I know them as employees, what they care about, what is going on in their lives, what makes them tick. From there, transparency and communication are everything. When things are hard, and in a small business, they are hard regularly, being honest with my team about what we are navigating builds more trust than pretending everything is fine. I have also found that making people feel like they are part of something bigger than a paycheck changes everything. Prickly Pear has a mission, and when your team understands the why behind the work, pouring a latte at 7:45am means something different. Purpose is one of the greatest morale boosters there is, and I talk about our mission constantly.
Beyond that, one of the things I feel most strongly about is never asking my team to do something I would not do myself, and actually letting them see that in action! I am taking out the trash, I am mopping the floor, I am doing the unglamorous things right alongside them. That matters more than any speech I could give about team culture. From there, the practical things that have moved the needle most are celebrating loudly and correcting privately, giving team members real ownership over things that actually matter, and taking care of the whole person, not just the employee. A shoutout in front of the team costs nothing and means everything. Trusting someone with a shift lead role or real responsibility makes them rise to it in ways that surprise you. And if someone comes in visibly off, I notice it and check in, because a team that feels genuinely cared for as people will always outperform a team that feels like a number on a schedule. At the end of the day, high morale is not about perks or pizza parties. It is about people feeling valued, trusted, and connected to something worth showing up for.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Building our social media presence has been a long, slow, and honestly humbling process, and I think that is the most important thing I can say up front, because the highlight reel makes it look a lot more linear than it actually was. We did not go viral overnight. We did not have some magic moment where everything took off. It was years of consistent showing up, posting into what sometimes felt like the void, and slowly, post by post, follow by follow, building a community of people who actually cared about what we were doing. There were seasons where growth felt completely stagnant and I had to make peace with the process and trust that faithfulness in the small things would compound over time. And it did! But it took patience that nobody really talks about when they are sharing their social media success story.
The thing that genuinely changed the game for us was deciding to stop taking it so seriously and just have fun with it. When we started making content that we actually enjoyed making, behind the scenes moments, real and unfiltered glimpses into what running a small business actually looks like, the funny things that happen on a shift, the hard things we were navigating, that is when people started connecting with us in a completely different way. It turns out the content that is the most fun for us to make is almost always the content that resonates the most with our audience. People do not want a perfectly polished brand, they want to feel like they know you. Transparency, honesty, and just being genuinely ourselves has built more trust and loyalty than any strategic content calendar ever could. My biggest piece of advice is simply this: be real, be consistent, and make content you actually enjoy, because your audience will always be able to feel the difference!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://pricklypearcoffee.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/pricklypearcoffeeco
Image Credits
Rayanna Termer Photography, Anna Mucci Photography