We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marcus Parkansky. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marcus below.
Marcus, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?
Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Tell us the story about the last time you had that thought, what was going on, really paint the picture for us so we can understand what you were going through and how you thought through this question and what (if any) conclusions or insights you came to.
Am I happy as a business owner?
The most realistic answer is yes, I am happy as a business owner.. Have I thought about what it would be like to have a regular job? Absolutely and often.
To give some context, I started my company when I was 17 years old and still in high school. I knew college was not the path for me but I also knew I was capable of doing things just as “big” if not “bigger” then going to school to get a degree. My thought always was – I can just do this now or I can spend tens of thousands of dollars to get a degree, be in debt, waste opportune time, just to do the same thing once I graduate. That said starting a business at that age that is still functioning almost 10 years later has come with a broad spectrum of personal and economic changes.
The biggest and most recent change that has me thinking about the “what if’s” relates to getting engaged to my partner in the past year. As much as I love what owning my own company offers, it is now showing some set-backs to growing my “personal life” the way I wish I could. For so long my work and company was my “personal life”, that has since changed as I have had to learn to make a more clear separation between my work and my life. I have and still continue to sacrifice so much for my own well-being and growth to protect the company I started and everything that entails. In many ways operating this company has treated me fairly and has given back more then I could ask for. In other ways that are becoming more apparent as I continue to grow and desire more in my life outside of my work that I question what it would be like to “have a regular job” and if I am doing whats actually best for me and my future NOW. There were many years that I was ABSOLUTELY doing the right thing with my time and my life in regards to my company. Its as of more recent that I am needing to examine if thats still the case or if what I am doing might actually be holding me back given the extreme attachment I have with my company.
Being in the same city and state since months after graduating high school until my current age of 27 has me itching to experience more of the world in a deeper way than a couple day vacation (while still thinking about work back home). I am very fortunate to have been able to travel and explore the world while running my company but unfortunately the reality of where I thought my company would be financially and stability wise at this point is not as I imagined. My role is still entirely necessary daily to keep operations in-line. I cannot explore the idea of moving closer to home (milwaukee) or further from home to gain new life experiences as I am fundamentally locked into my current physical location, unless I closed the company (which would come with negative consequences for my future given the current state of where it stands). Most importantly I am preparing to start the next planned and anticipated part of my life of building a family and a strong foundation with my partner to support that. Balancing the never ending struggles of operating a business that has yet to provide a genuinely solid/stable support system for myself, my schedule and my finances is a hard spot to be in when thinking about buying a home, having a kid/s, and being prepared for the inevitable unknown that could happen in all of those areas of life. I understand this concern is very prominent for individuals who do not own a business and work a “normal job” as well, however the risk and weight of failure is not as simple as finding another job given the size of my company. Should things not work out it could come with a large set of possible long term personal consequences not only I, but my partner and hopeful future family would be left to deal with. This is certainly a scary and thought provoking mental place to be. I have always been a risk taker who sometimes avoids the idea of consequences, I am learning it cant be that way forever for what I want to see for myself. Just as much as I now need to think if its a good idea to try and do a backflip off a cliff and possibly get injured and not be able to work, I need to think is it a good idea to take on 200k more in debt for the “possibility” of seeing amazing results, or being left with a deeper hole then I have already dug that eventually I need to find a way out of.
Being in this type of mental space has ultimately made me change some big focal areas of the company and growth plans to ideally better support the life I am after. This could sound selfish but I am so proud of what my company has been able to do for employees and the community but it has come at the cost of my well being and if I want my company to work for my community and employees, It has to also work for me. My biggest goal is to be a company that does cool shit, is fair and prosperous, and lets people live a great life. That needs to include EVERYBODY, myself included. It far to easy for me to be disillusion and not take a paycheck for months to pay employees and build the business to what I want it to be, that however is not sustainable on a personal level and creates more bad then it does good in the long run for everything and everyone.
I am optimistic that things will work out for the best and I will be able to find the balance necessary for my life to grow the way I imagine both personally and on a business sense, however it certainly comes with the frequent question of “what if” especially in the current situation my business is in. The only thing I can do is trust how I feel, and even when I have thought about “what if I had a regular job” I still believe I have not hit the point to make me make that change, and I hope I don’t have to experience that, but if I do, I will with grace and gratitude.
Marcus, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Misfit is a beverage company with its core roots and focus on coffee. Our core offerings consist of a coffee roastery, retail coffee space that doubles as an event space, mobile coffee trailer that roams the streets and serves events of all types, a coffee kiosk in the Weisman Art Museum, a mobile coffee / beverage catering company, a canned RTD (ready to drink) line of both coffee and non-coffee beverages, a full bar program with cocktail creation, as well as a plethora of collaborations with other beverage companies such as distilleries, breweries, and N/A creators. If that wasn’t already too much (it is) we also service coffee equipment, do instillations of equipment, and consult on beverage programs. If you can drink it, we can help make it. BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, WE HAVE FUN!
Misfit was created with the intention of offering unique beverages, coffee and otherwise while offering a space/environment that is welcoming to all. A space intended for connection, conversation, and the feeling of belonging. All that to not be said as a tag line, but a genuine feeling I have always tried to emit in so many ways – drinks, design, events, offerings etc. I came into this business by starting a job in coffee at 14 and loving the “people” aspect of it. I loved the conversations and relationships it let me foster and build between myself and between others. I love working hard, I love pushing myself to limits I know are beyond reach, but also so possible. I love dreaming big, but more-so doing big, so I started my company in a small trailer with intentions of growing to be so much bigger, which honestly I have reached the goal of doing exactly that, and I am so grateful to have been fortunate enough to get to where I hoped to be. Now that I am there is the harder part of being less creative and more strategic to maintain all that has been built and accomplished. My hope is that we can continue to focus on the initial core values of people, places, and genuine love for what we work so hard to create and offer to our guests, while staying true to who we are and what we want to offer with the means that we have to do so. It is very real to choose to take the harder route to do something the way you want to do it versus taking easier paths that you see to simply benefit financially at the cost of loosing what makes it fun to begin with. I think our customers see that about Misfit. They see and appreciate how honest, transparent, and real it is for everyone they interact with employee or customer wise.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
My best advise after doing the exact opposite, is to keep it small, manageable and within your means. Even if opportunities seem great and you get excited about what could be, think about the long term and all that comes with “possible” opportunities. Think about the reality of having a staff of 20 versus 5, and how that effects each employee, your bottom line, your unemployment costs etc. I would much rather have something small, ,manageable and sustainable than to continue to chase after what “appears” to be bigger and better. There are people who CAN do this, but I am not that person. I still want my business to be my business and to offer something personal versus just a product to sell.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson I had to unlearn is that more opportunities and growth does not always equate to a better business. I have made reference to this throughout the other questions during this interview. I used to believe more opportunity, more growth, more staff, more locations meant I was succeeding in building and growing a business. I realized that as I did just that, it actually started to take away more than it offered. It might not be this way for everyone but as someone who always saw these opportunities as exactly that I choose to try to fit that into the already overwhelming amount of work I was doing. I ended up spreading my focus so thin that the most important aspects of my company took a back seat and started to suffer. While taking away the time and attention to what needed it the most I choose to try to continue to do more without the proper means to actually execute those opportunities properly. What could have been a couple things operating at 75-90% excellence turned into a conglomerate of half assed executions bringing everything down to “just getting by” while not excelling at anything, ultimately straining the company and everyone / everything that was apart of it to suffer and loose joy versus feeling empowered, comfortable, and capable of everything that was on each persons plate. This ultimately makes its way into each customer interaction and the tone your business sets. If operations and intentions are more than can be managed, it will be apparent in one way or another to the end consumer, let alone the team that also has to deal with the struggles of someone (me) trying to do or offer more then we are capable of..
Contact Info:
- Website: www.misfitcoffee.com
- Instagram: misfitcoffee
- Facebook: misfitcoffee