The Mothership Serves Coffee and Community
Mothership Coffee Roasters was started in the heart of Sunrise Coffee, the longest running independent coffee shop in Las Vegas, by Juanny Romero and Josh Walter. In 2012, burgeoned by the success of Sunrise Coffee, the duo wanted to expand their craft and love for coffee and pastries. Mothership Coffee Roasters has been the darling of the community with a focus on ethical farming, farm to table pastries and passionate pursuit of roasting the best coffee. Mothership Coffee Roasters has also expanded into an online coffee subscription business and a wholesale coffee sales division.
The fast growth has come with some obstacles for the company and Juanny. One of the biggest hurdles that she has had to overcome is becoming the CEO of the fast growing company and facing C-suite executive issues. As a self-taught barista, then business owner, she has had to wrestle with learning to become a leader for her growing staff. Additionally, after setting goals for her company over the next 10 years, she was challenged with trying to find enough specialized information about her company on the internet.
The SBA has been a great boon for Juanny and her company. When she first approached the idea of owning her own business, she reached out to SCORE and met her mentor Matthew Molitch. With his help, Juanny created a business plan, secured funding for her first business, and utilized her mentor as a resource as she ran into obstacles. Through her great network of advisors, Juanny discovered SBA's Emerging Leaders program. This has been the solution to help her skyrocket to the next business level and growth for her company as they pass the threshold of 50 employees in the span of four years in business while still operating her first business of 11 years.
The strength that she has brought to this equation is her eagerness to learn and educate herself on all facets of the company. Through continuous trial and error, Juanny sharpened her ability to train and grow her team. This has allowed her core management team to be lean and efficient with communication, delegation, accountability and ownership. The team has trickled these principles down to supervisors, who use the same tools to manage baristas.
Juanny Romero’s community involvement is the core tenet of her business model. Her business growth is based on how the community has risen out of the coffee shop environment. Her customers use the space as their own to meet their friends, make new friends, and create ideas. She is collaborating with community leaders to do business with other local community-focused companies. Her goal is to grow the Mothership brand to be the largest, most loved chain of independent coffee shops in Las Vegas.
Juanny Romero believes her commitment to local business will help grow her brand to be the largest and most revered in Las Vegas.