We recently connected with Jasmine&Vernon Chatman and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jasmine&Vernon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Any thoughts about whether to ask friends and family to support your business. What’s okay in your view?

When I first took that first dive into entrepreneurship, I quickly realized NOT to rely on family and friends to support your business. They typically want something for nothing, or often times I found that they wanted a “family discount”. Sometimes, it seemed like friends didn’t want to support because envy and other immature reasons. Nevertheless, after my first business, I knew that relying on family and friends was definitely the worst way to go about gaining customers. Personally, I didn’t understand it, because I found myself supporting friends and family as much as I could even if/when I was financially unstable.

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

For people who don’t know us, we are Vernon and Jasmine Chatman. A young, married couple who recently moved from Chicago to Ontario, California. We have two children -Jayden 9, and Jordyn 4. Jasmine (me) has a love for popcorn! I mean why wouldn’t I, right? Coming from the city of Chicago, where there’s a popcorn shop on every corner to California where popcorn shops are almost nonexistent, was devastating. I had nowhere to go to get my Chicago mix or any freshly popped gourmet popcorn. So of course, our first thought was to open a gourmet popcorn shop. The journey was long, difficult, and almost felt like we would never see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we did it and truly enjoy the opportunity to bring Chicago-Style popcorn to the west coast. Popcorn World offers over 250 flavors of handmade delicious, mouthwatering, flavors of sweet, spicy, and savory popcorn. Everything is freshly made on site, in our store in Long Beach. We are most of proud of being able to provide an amazing and different experience to people of all colors, ages, genders. We are even more proud of the fact that our product allows us to collaborate with nonprofit organizations by fundraising and donating proceeds back to those same organizations. In fact, it’s very important that our customers know this information considering these are inquiries that we receive on a daily basis.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn the lesson of “playing it safe”. Ideally, my husband is the risk taker in our personal and business relationships, and I tend to play it safe. However, after reading books, listening to podcasts, and watching successful women and men around the world speak about their journeys, many of them have said you have to take that leap of faith, I’ve learned that millionaire mindsets are not made by people who play it safe. The people who take risks, the people with crazy ideas, and the people who believe in their own ideas tend to make the greatest impact on the world. If you would have asked me 5 years ago about being an entrepreneur, I for sure would have told you that is NOT for me. It’s too much work. But if you ask me today if I regret it, I would tell you no and that I would do it again and again 50 times over. Because anything in life worth having is going to require persistence and HARD WORK!

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

So most people usually ask my husband and I how much did it take to the start our business. Considering we started a business in California, most can imagine that the initial capital to be around the 6 figure range, and they would be correct. So to give you a little back story of my background and my husband’s background, I am a speech pathologist and before we moved to California, my husband was a locomotive engineer. So essentially, when we moved we borrowed from our retirement plans, borrowed from our parents, and took out loans. Our parents have been ever so gracious with supporting us on this journey. I don’t think there’s enough gratitude in the world to thank them for all their love and support.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thepopcornworld.com
• Instagram: popcornworld_longbeach
• Facebook: Popcorn World Long Beach
• Yelp: Popcorn Word Long Beach
• Other: Tik Tok So Cal Popcorn

Image Credits
Bixby Knolls