We were lucky to catch up with Laura Wolfram + Kayla Adams recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Laura and Kayla, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The idea of a coffee shop was something that had been in both of our minds prior to us meeting each other. We both worked in the industry for many years and loved seeing the way a coffee shop can cultivate community wellbeing on so many different levels. We’re also both idealists so we had a lot of ideas around the level of service, quality, and craft that we felt should be inherent to a good coffee shop. Both of us had lived in St. Cloud for many years. We had always wanted to move to Duluth, so we did that a few years ago in the hopes that we’d get jobs and establish ourselves in the community with the intention of eventually opening a coffee shop there. Needless to say, it didn’t work out that way. We thought it would be easy enough to find and build a community there but it wasn’t and every passing day just made us miss the community that we had left behind more and more. Kayla was working at a small paint manufacturer as a quality control technician and after briefly working at a small coffee shop, Laura was probing the job market for a fulfilling food service position, or anything that felt remotely rewarding in a difficult job market. The increasing isolation, both from community and, because of our schedules, from each other, was wearing us thin. It felt like we had lost the passion and creative spark that had once energized us and we knew something had to change.
A potential opportunity to build a coffee shop under the umbrella of another St. Cloud business was presented to us, and although we ended up going in a different direction, the idea of pursuing our dream in the community that felt like home ignited a passion and determination within us. Making the decision to pursue this long-standing dream certainly brought with it plenty of anxiety. We were just a baker and a barista with no business experience and a lot of unconventional ideas about the way we wanted to do things. Although committing to pursue opening a coffee shop was a terrifying decision, the idea of never trying was unfathomable. If we didn’t try, we would surely regret it for the rest of our lives.
We started by creating a home-based bake shop and after a year of continued growth, decided it was time to make the leap into a brick-and-mortar space, adding espresso, coffee, and more menu items to our offerings. We felt strongly about having a physical space in which to build this community we had envisioned. The specifics of our shop came from years of visiting other businesses across the state and country and making mental lists of what we saw working and what we would improve in our own shop. When it came time to turn all of these ideas into a reality, we were surprised at how quickly it all came together because our vision was so vivid and already complete in our minds. We had so many shared values and ideas as well as unique and complimentary skills and experience that we were each able to contribute. The process really unfolded organically and quickly once we set ourselves on this path.

Laura and Kayla, 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?

I (Kayla) first got into the coffee industry as a part-time barista at Dunn Brothers, working to pay the bills while I went to school full-time for an Environmental Studies degree. Coffee always had an allure to me. It felt like drinking coffee had the power to ground a person in the sensory experience of the moment as well as sanction a time for self-reflection (the unit of time being how long it took to finish the cup of coffee). Being a person that takes pride in doing things well, I went down the craft coffee rabbit-hole and was vexed by how so many places didn’t place enough emphasis on quality and process. It didn’t take long before I was roasting the coffee at Dunn Brothers, but after a few years of learning and honing my abilities, I decided to try moving to an independent, locally owned coffee shop. I felt like I was limited by the constraints of corporate rigidity and that an independent business was the key to having the freedom to delve into the craft the way I wanted to. It wasn’t quite as simple as that and although I still had my ideas about how things could be done better, being a part of a small business opened me up to a sense of community that I had never been in one place long enough to experience. Also, that is where I met Laura. The only thing more dangerous than one person with lofty ideas of the way things should be is two people together with the same lofty ideas of the way things should be. It was a whirlwind from that point on.
I (Laura) had been working with food since graduating from college years earlier. I discovered in school that I had a passion for sustainable agriculture and the way that food can bring people together. This was especially fostered by a three month trip to New Zealand working on organic farms through WWOOF. Upon returning for my senior year of college among the farm fields of Iowa, I did all I could to learn more about a more sustainable way of growing food, living, and eating and doing as much cooking as possible while being a full time student. I knew I wanted to do that in my home community and quickly found work in the deli at our local food co-op (The Good Earth in St. Cloud), where I soaked up all the information I could about making food, growing food, and growing community. Down the road a few years and wanting to expand my food service experience, I ended up finding work at a local community-oriented coffee shop and truly loved the work. I worked in coffee (as a baker and barista) and at a wholesale bakery for a while and then met Kayla at the coffee shop. The rest, as they say, is history.
We found that we shared the same values and aspirations. We felt very strongly about doing things with quality, intentionality, integrity, craft, kindness, community, and environmental stewardship at the forefront of our minds. In all of this, we saw the potential for a coffee shop to play a central, connecting role between sustainable agriculture, quality whole-food products, and community health and wellbeing (economically and otherwise). This was something that we found to be missing in St. Cloud at the time (the coffee shop we met at was located in a small town outside of St. Cloud) and we were passionate about bringing these ideals to this community that seemed to be itching for a place like this. Additionally, we felt strongly about creating a space where everyone was welcome and would be treated with kindness and respect. In our small community, there weren’t many places where a queer person could go and feel safe, seen, and respected. We’ve tried to foster that kind of a space here at Korppi, with amazing feedback from our community. We are so grateful that so many folks have embraced what we are trying to do here. The community that has built up around Korppi, including our amazing staff, is one of the things we’re most proud of.
We decided to open Korppi using our shared core values to guide our business model. We felt that by using high quality, whole-food ingredients, we could create products that were more balanced, flavorful, and didn’t require excessive sugar to compensate for otherwise low-quality ingredients. Our goal was to be sourcing ingredients that would nourish our bodies, community, local economy, as well as support sustainable agriculture. This was how we wanted to enact our three core principles: kindness, integrity, intentionality. Kindness not only to our customers, community members, and each other, but also kindness to our bodies, our environment, and to society. Integrity through compassion, respect, honesty, and consistently doing our best to improve and be better. Intentionality through thoughtful and deliberate decision-making based on our values. These values aren’t about personal gain, profit, convenience, or vanity. They are about creating, sharing, building, and strengthening ourselves and each other. We believe that this set of values is what sets us apart.

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

When we were first opening, we really struggled with the concept of marketing. We had this idea in our heads that marketing itself was inherently inauthentic and manipulative. We felt like we had to figure out how to advertise and market ourselves but we didn’t know how to do it without feeling gross about it. Fortunately, we had an opportunity to participate in a marketing boot camp through Start Up’s Marketing in Willmar, MN. We have a micro loan through Southwest Initiative Foundation (SWIF) that, through area partnerships, offers opportunities like this to small businesses in SW and Central MN, and due to their insistence on the value of this experience, we were convinced to take part in the workshop. It was arguably one of the most transformational experiences we’ve had throughout this entrepreneurial experience and we can’t recommend it enough to anyone interested in a new approach to marketing. It felt as though we were given permission to use marketing as an opportunity to communicate our vision and values with honesty and authenticity. They assured us that doing it this way would keep us aligned with our values and vision and, although not everyone would resonate with our message, the right people would, and those are the people we find and create community with.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Learning how to pivot and adapt has been a central theme to our journey opening and operating Korppi. When we finally decided to pursue opening a coffee shop, COVID happened, so we continued as a home-based bake shop called Corvus Bakeshop. We were trying to be responsible during the pandemic while also gauging community interest in our style of baking (which at the time, due to the nature of home-based baking, especially during the pandemic, was mainly cupcakes and custom cakes). We eventually started pursuing a location near downtown St. Cloud but as costs began to rack up and city regulations got more and more difficult to accommodate, we eventually had to cut our losses and pivot to our current location. Fortunately, it was already laid out to be a coffee shop so we were able to expedite opening. Not too long before we were going to open and less than 24 hours before we were going to solidify signage and merchandise, we were contacted regarding a name trademark conflict with an out-of-state business that we were unaware of. We decided to keep our raven mascot (Corvus being part of the Latin name for the Common Raven) and change our name to Korppi Coffee + Bakeshop as a nod to Kayla’s Finnish ancestry (korppi being the Finnish word for raven). During all of this pivoting (and so much more pivoting throughout the years than we could begin to fit here), we learned that being adaptable and open to the opportunities that present themselves is absolutely necessary in order to be successful in business, as well as in life. All of these challenges actually became blessings in disguise as we used them as an opportunity to open our minds to other possibilities. While there are some things we aren’t willing to compromise on, being flexible to pivoting in certain areas has helped us to stay grounded in the reality of the moment while holding on to our intention and desire to continually improve, change, and grow.

Contact Info:

• Website: korppicoffee.com
• Instagram: korppicoffee
• Facebook: Korppi Coffee + Bakeshop

Image Credits
Kimberly Windschitl