Meet Aaron Blea | Business Developer & Small Business Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Aaron Blea and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Aaron, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Well, I actually had no intentions to start up a business, Covid pretty much forced my hand. I was working in corporate America for the last twenty years, which I hated every moment of it… but it paid the bills and took care of me and the wife. My particular skill didn’t open up opportunities in the workforce during a pandemic, so I was without a job for a while. Then all of a sudden an opportunity came up to be a part-owner of the coffee shop my wife and good friend had been working at for the past 5-7 years. I didn’t know anything about coffee, but what I did know about was corporate relations, networking, and how to innovate.

What should our readers know about your business?
Covid caused a lot of hardship to the business world, to people, relationships… and Humble Coffee certainly not exempt. One of the locations had closed down, with a mix of staffing issues and really just a hesitancy of what was going to happen in the world, generally speaking.

Coming through 2020 though, we wanted to start the year on a better note. We began by giving away gift cards to multiple small businesses throughout Colorado Springs, to help encourage those businesses as well as encourage others to get out and show support, and maybe they would be willing to do so on our dime. We were happy that we made it through Covid and really wanted to show our support.

Humble Coffe is really about putting your “self” to the side, doing what’s right, for our community, businesses, customers, and employees. To iterate, I hated going to my job, and I never want that to be the experience at Humble Coffee, I want people to want to come to work and interact with our phenomenal customer base. I also want the stigma of small business to vanish, we are employers, we are people and we care, and we show we care with good wages and benefits when you wouldn’t normally see that in our field.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
One of my favorite trips is on the way to Cripple Creek, driving through Woodland Park and up the mountains, such a beautiful state. And in Colorado Springs, there are so many good coffee spots and breweries if that’s your thing. It’s a bit of a niche city, we have our strengths for sure.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My good friend Patrick Murakami was always pushing me to do something on my own, not sure exactly what he was seeing in me, but he definitely felt entrepreneurship was my calling. Not sure yet if it’s my calling, but I will say that this has been the least stressful work experience of my life.

I will also say that Jordan Peterson’s lectures were very impactful to me, I can sincerely say that without those constant urges of information and self-discovery, not sure I would have ever been in the proper headspace to even try to tackle being a business owner. I’ve had to overcome a lot to get where I am, and I am super appreciative of my wife “Bunny”, can’t imagine how living with me was when I hated going to work every day.

Website: www.humblecoffee.net

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