We were lucky to catch up with Rachael Ahle recently and have shared our conversation below.

Rachael, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

The name of Passion Coffee Co. was no easy choice, but when I knew it, it was undeniable.
Some back story on me – as a kid I always had a hard time naming things. Whether it was a painting, a team name, or even a stuffed animal. So when I eventually grew up and pursued running a small business, naming it was no joke. That’s almost the most important part, right?
It had been approximately three months of my journey into building this business and it still remained nameless. I thought of things like Hebrews, Holy Grounds, and other things. After lots of prayer and thought, the name “Passion” was revealed to me. This seemed to come for many apparent reasons. Many people have called me a passionate person, I have a passion for making and serving coffee, or even just that it simply sounds appealing. But I liked it, and so I sat on it for a while.
I told my friend, Emily, about my coffee cart aspirations including the work that’s been put in and the name it might take on. Later that year, Emily and I attended a Christian young-adult conference called – believe it or not – Passion. Not thinking much about the similarities, the conference name didn’t phase me. One night as we sat in the conference, the speaker gave their own definition of “passion”, and it goes as follows.
“A degree of difficulty you are willing to endure to accomplish the goal.”
My jaw nearly hit the floor as I looked at Emily. We both knew in that moment that was confirmation form the Lord that Passion is the name this business is to be known as.
Emily quickly snapped a photo, shown below. As we made it back to our hotel room that night, we talked about how perfect and divine that was. That was the night I made the decision to name this business what it is today. I believe it perfectly describes all that it is. Through all the ups and downs my team and I are willing to endure a great degree of difficulty to accomplish the goal of this coffee cart.

Rachael, 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?

Passion Coffee Co. is a mobile espresso bar that was established on September 2, 2023. I took a gap year after graduating High School in hopes to define my goals.
Through much prayer and encouragement in that gap year, it became more evident that serving coffee was the right route to take. My passion for coffee, more specifically the creativity and hospitality that comes with it, was and is a huge driving factor in the vision and development of Passion Coffee Co. With the help of my supportive family and friends, and a wise coffee catering community, Passion began to grow from just a dream to a reality. Although based in Dallas, Texas, Passion serves coffee all over the DFW area. The goal of Passion Coffee Co. is not to reach a specific number, but to provide a sense of community, intentionality, and connection that goes beyond the cup.
By focusing on quality and personability, I hope to achieve a brand that exemplifies comfort, warmth, and excitement to remind you of the love that is greater than I, or any other person could show you. This has only been possible through the grace and gift that my Lord, Jesus Christ, is to me.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

Getting the funds to launch this business was a pure miracle.
Ever since I was fourteen I have been working miscellaneous jobs. I enjoyed having my own money to go buy things or hang out with friends as any teenager might be. As I got older and was homeschooled online due to Covid, I was able to work even more and eventually began to save up money. First it was for shoes, then for a car, then my future… You get the idea. Fast forward slightly to my eighteenth birthday. My siblings and I would all receive an inheritance from our grandpa. My grandpa, though deceased, mostly intended this to be a college fund. When I got the mail on my eighteenth birthday with this inheritance, I was stunned at how much he so generously gifted to us. I was so stunned in fact, that I put it all away in a savings account and didn’t touch a single dime until I was “100% positive” on what I wanted to use it on. I had the idea in my mind that college might not be the route I’d take after high school.
Later in the year as the idea of a small business came and quickly grew, I knew having funds was a big part of that. Though I had many savings due to my own efforts, it was apparent to me that what my grandpa had gifted was more than enough. It was the perfect amount to source all the materials I needed to get Passion Coffee Co. from a dream into a reality.
I have a deep memory of asking my mom, “Would your dad be proud of me and what I did with his gift?” and looking back at me with teary eyes she said, “Absolutely, he would be so proud.”

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

There’s a book I read when I was eighteen that changed the direction of my life. Not as much as the Bible, but it still had enough of an impact for me to get over my fears of “what if” and unknowns of entrepreneurship. This book is called “The 4 Hour Work Week” by Timothy Ferriss.
My dad is a big financial guy and is always informing us kids on what groundbreaking book to read next. My dad, knowing I wanted to pursue a small business while having a lot of doubts about it, encouraged me to read “The 4 Hour Work Week”. This book is filled with tips and tricks on how to be more efficient in time management and tons other helpful life skills. One part stuck with me more than any other, is actually at the beginning of the book. It is a series of seven questions on pages 92-94. These questions are an exercise to help you achieve a realistic viewpoint of your goal. The author guides you through critical thinking with questions based on best case and worst case scenarios, likelihood of failure, recovery from theoretical failure, and most importantly asking… what are you waiting for? Writing out my answers to these questions and spending quality time thinking about them radically changed how I viewed my goal including fears and unknowns about it. It showed me that my fears are not as likely as I thought, and that I can easily recover from them if they did end up coming true.
I would encourage this book to anyone who has a goal in mind. Whether that’s entrepreneurship, traveling, saving, relationships, or anything else.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://passioncoffeeco.net
• Instagram: passion_coffee_co
• Facebook: Passion Coffee Co
• Youtube: PassionCoffeeCo
• Other: email : [email protected]

Image Credits

Cydney Roy
Russell Hollar