We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melissa Green a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Melissa, thanks for joining us today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

Being an entrepreneur is a risk in itself. One of my regrets is not having started my business earlier. It also hasn’t been an easy road as a business owner. There are constant pivots, learnings, and growth along the way. If it wasn’t for my mentors guiding me, I would honestly be lost. I highly recommend that you obtain mentors if you are wanting to start your own business. But make sure these mentors are successful. Anyone can talk a big game, but it’s those who have been there and made it that can truly lead you.

Another big risk I’ve taken was a recent pivot. Southern, Sweet & Sassy LLC still encompasses both Southern, Sweet & Sassy Coffee, as well as Rise Above Coffee, but we have been focusing on our #coffeeforacause initiative. We call it “Badass Coffee Causes”.

With this initiative, we spotlight two nonprofits (one for our Military Families and the other for our LGBTQ+ communities) each month and provide awareness and education to our audience. At the end of the month, we donate a portion of our proceeds to both nonprofits so they can continue doing great work within our communities.

This pivot was a major undertaking and we are still getting our feet underneath us and scaling. So far, it’s been an amazing pivot and we are finally starting to ingrain ourselves into our local community.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Two Communities With A Cause!

Hi, I am Melissa Green, Founder, and CEO. At Badass Coffee Causes, we are serious about a great cup of coffee. But we are just as invested in being the coffee company that gives back to the LGBTQ+ & Military Family communities.

As a Veteran and Military Spouse, I realized that coffee is a great way to bring people together and create a sense of community. Just by taking the time to share a cup of coffee, you can learn so much about someone. What they struggle with, what brings them joy. It creates an opportunity to really listen, empathize and connect on things you have in common.

I ventured into coffee professionally in January of 2021 with S3 Coffee (Southern, Sweet & Sassy Coffee), a coffee line focused on supporting the military family community. With the success of that line and the overwhelming support we received, I wanted to take it a step further by supporting those in the LGBTQ+ community.

It’s a community that is very near and dear to my heart. So it was a logical next step to create a brand fully focused on bringing support to those who provide services and support our LGBTQ+ community.

Rise Above Coffee opened for business in January 2022. We bring awareness and generate support for LGBTQ+ causes by being the coffee that gives back.

Both S3 Coffee & Rise Above Coffee are built around our #coffeeforacause initiative: each year, we carefully select 12 LGBTQ+ & Military Family focused nonprofits to spotlight. Each month, we feature one nonprofit from each community and donate a percentage of our monthly sales directly to their cause.

Not everyone in the LGBTQ+ community feels accepted for who they are by the people around them. Badass Coffee Causes strives to be a brand where all can feel safe, welcomed, and loved for who they are.

At Badass Coffee Causes, we provide coffee, community, and support. Because we want to offer not only a great cup of coffee but also a sense of community and a genuine feeling of inclusion and support.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

We had the opportunity to partner with Spouse-Ly, USAA, and TREA to bring 200 bags of coffee to military families in Colorado Springs, CO. It was an amazing experience designing the label to include these wonderful organizations.

We also recently had the opportunity to partner with Gifting with Valor as they were creating a coffee-related gift basket for their corporate buyers.

Both of these are huge opportunities for us to continue getting our brand out there. To be honest, our coffee speaks for itself. All we need to do is get the bags in hands of others and have them taste them. Our coffee is so fresh and smooth tasting that it will even convert die-hard name-brand coffee lovers.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

When we initially started, we were given advice about following those who we’d like to follow us to build up our following. This wasn’t really good advice because we ended up following over 3,000 people and only ended up with 1,800 followers. We also dabbled in purchasing ads. We did end up with some followers from these ads, but to be honest, it wasn’t worth the money.

As of now, we are completely organic. We haven’t purchased ads in quite some time. We are maintaining our current followers because they engage with us. We don’t need thousands of followers. We are happy with the amount that we have because we can engage with them and vice versa. We find that you can build relationships that way as well.

But if you’d like to follow us, we’d definitely welcome you to engage with our community. A piece of advice is just to be yourself. Authenticity will always win out. Your audience wants to not only know your brand, but also know you, your family, or just a few tidbits of your personal life. If you can find that balance between personal and business, you’ll build a strong following.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://badasscoffeecauses.com
• Instagram: @s3coffeeco & @riseabovecoffee
• Facebook: @s3coffeeco & @riseabovecoffee
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissagreenmba & https://www.linkedin.com/company/southern-sweet-sassy/ & https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/rise-above-coffee/
• Twitter: @s3coffeeco & @riseabovecoffee