Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Daniel Mikels. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Daniel, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

Our dream is to one day see the Aurora Borealis in person. We created a business selling shaved ice and coffee around the image to remind us of a life goal that we hope to achieve.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Daniel and I served 11 years in the Army. After being medically discharged I decided I could not sit around. I had the idea to sell ice cream initially but that morphed into shaved ice. I took a gamble and purchased a food truck on Ebay, sight unseen. In hindsight that may not have been the best plan but we rolled with it. After getting it home (a whole other story) we realized it was a much larger project than initially anticipated. It took many long days and lots of work but Aurora Ice was born. We had a successful first season and decided to continue with the momentum we had. We then opted to open a brick and mortar and serve coffee since winter was approaching and it is hard to sell ice when it is cold. Continuing with the aurora theme we named the business Aurora Coffee & More. The shop needed a complete remodel before we were able to open so we went with a cabin / cozy / aurora theme. Sloths also became our mascot and you will find a few hiding inside. Next it was time to learn how to be a barista. After reaching out to several coffee shops for training and being declined I spent many hours studying coffee so I am a proclaimed self taught barista. The shop started out with just me working. Since then we have added employees, a drive thru, and many drinks. We built our business around the values of providing great customer service, being personable, having a great product, and being community oriented. We pride ourselves on creating the best and biggest shaved ice at an affordable price. Our biggest challenge has been not have a business background and starting from the ground up. It has been a good but somewhat challenging learning experience. We are most proud of the product that we deliver and the team of baristas we have created. We appreciate all of our loyal customers and followers.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

I thought there would be financial resources being a veteran but I quickly found out that there wasn’t much available. I then made the decision to sell my house. I sold it and moved in with the love of my life. Using the funds from the house I took a leap of faith and purchased the food truck. The expenses quickly piled up and diminished the startup funds. We were able to get the truck rolling and quickly learned it would take off and exceed our expectations. We slowly did necessary upgrades and rolled all the profits into the business from the first season.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

We believe that our values helped build our reputation. We strive to be real, personable people. We maintain quality products that are affordable.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://aurora-llc.square.site/
• Instagram: aurora_ice_wv
• Facebook: auroraicewv
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/aurora-coffee-and-more-fayetteville

Image Credits
BC Aesthetics (only the picture of Daniel)