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

Miranda, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

The idea of COOP 111 was born out of a love and appreciation for the small business community and a need for more affordable opportunities for small business owners to get in front of their customers. In the spring of 2020 I moved my primary business, Marketing Juice, to downtown Cuyahoga Falls. Marketing Juice has been in operation since 2015 and primarily assists small businesses with marketing consultation & services, website design, and graphic design. The small business community in Cuyahoga Falls was just beginning to flourish and I felt this was the perfect place to begin offering free marketing classes on a bi-weekly basis. The office space that I leased was small, so in the summer of 2020, I decided to lease the space above us – 111 Portage Trail – for a space to offer our classes and workshops.

Originally, the space was called the Marketing Juice Community Space & Classroom and functioned as an additional arm of Marketing Juice. I quickly realized that because the space was street facing in the downtown district, it would make a perfect pop up retail space for businesses without a brick and mortar presence in the community. On days I wasn’t teaching classes, I began offering the space as a classroom, pop up store, art gallery, etc. for short term rentals. Many clients and local business owners were able to take advantage of the short term rentals and free marketing classes through 2022.

As with all things in the digital and marketing industries, Marketing Juice needed to evolve and I was forced to change our offerings to better accommodate small business owners needs for marketing and advertising support. I decided to downsize Marketing Juice in 2022 and refine our offerings in order to prevent sharp price increases for our clients, but I still kept 111 Portage Trail because I had a feeling it had more potential.

In 2023, I officially split the Marketing Juice Community Space & Classroom from Marketing Juice and rebranded it as a fully separate business, COOP 111. The concept of COOP 111 is similar, but I decided to expand upon the original offerings with more opportunities for solo entrepreneurs, independent contractors, and artists and makers. At present, COOP 111 offers memberships for regular event bookings, co-working, and even virtual office space in order to give businesses a better foothold in the local community of Cuyahoga Falls.

I hope to expand The COOP concept to other local business communities in the future and look forward to continuing to find new and creative ways to support small business owners. After all, they are the backbones of our communities!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I originally was inspired to venture into entrepreneurship after a particularly bad experience in corporate America, the details of which are unimportant. I chose to start a marketing agency specializing in supporting small businesses because I am passionate about supporting my local community and I know how much of an impact small business owners make locally. I also have a background in the arts and graphic design, so marketing was an easy pick as it provided me with a profitable creative outlet.

While I love marketing and design work, I most enjoy developing and running my businesses. I love to create services and products that solve multiple problems for businesses and consumers alike. Currently I own four businesses: a marketing agency (Marketing Juice), a co-working and event venue (COOP 111), a candle bar (Sense by The Falls), and an apparel company (The Gaslit).

I’m most proud of the volume of businesses I’ve been able to help through the years and the many positive reviews I’ve received from all of the various businesses I own and operate.

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

Funding a business is easily one of the most challenging things about entrepreneurship. When I started my first business, I had to work 3 additional part time jobs just to make ends meet for the first 2 years. Many people assume that owning your own business means more time for yourself, which is so much the opposite. Business ownership can give you more freedom and flexibility, but it’s a trade off. After starting my business, I had much less time to myself and for my family and worked many more hours than a typical 9-5. Even today, I consistently put in 60-80 hours per week.

It’s like this for most small business owners, but even more so for young, queer, and female business owners. It is much harder to receive funding through traditional means when you don’t fit into the ‘entrepreneur box’ imagined by our society.

All of my business ventures have been self funded and funded through small family loans and local community grants. Small business ownership is a hustle and a grind.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

The three things that have helped me to build my reputation within my market are honesty, integrity, and consistency. I believe I’ve earned the respect from my clients and peers by being transparent about how I offer the services and products I offer and why they cost what they cost. I’ve never been motivated to succeed by the money, although the money is important. I’m honest with prospects that I don’t think would be a good fit for my businesses and I am not threatened by others who offer similar services because I’m not trying to build a monopoly.

The types of services I offer through COOP 111 and Marketing Juice are valuable to business owners, but there’s no way I could support or help everyone, not even everyone in my community. Business competition is healthy and necessary for a thriving community, so I welcome it. I think this perspective helps to build trust between myself and my customers/clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://coop111.com
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/coop111
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/mirandaimperi