Local Businesses Pitch Their Ideas At 1 Million Cups Event

The road to success started with a coffee break yesterday morning in the Keweenaw Peninsula.

Several dozen area business professionals gathered at the Finnish American Heritage Center as they listened to new business ideas and offered suggestions to ensure a successful start.

If you’ve ever had an idea for a business and weren’t quite sure where to go with it, a monthly meeting in Hancock might be the place to start.

“Today I’m talking about Carrot Ranch. It is a literary community online for writers. We work with a specific literary art form. It’s called flash fiction. It’s 99 words. No more. No less,” said Charli Mills, one of two presenters who laid out her business plan and was greeted with suggestions and viewpoints from local business people.

Mills said, “This is a place to present what I do, literary art. It’s a little bit unusual, but I consider myself an entrepreneur so I was hoping to make connections in the community to work on some of our projects. People had some ideas about how to talk to entrepreneurs about giving pitches. They like that constraint of the 99 words.”

She made some contacts that she believes will help her in developing her products.

Mills said, “So from here, I have a couple of people that I’m going to meet up with to talk more about some of the literary outreach that Carrot Ranch does and to see if we can get more anchored in the community.”

While Charli’s business promotes writings and publications, Lynn Makela’s new business is providing a shared office space to local business people.

“101 Quincy is a shared working space for people with different ideas. You can be working at the same business but you don’t have to be. You can come in a remote worker, as a free lancer, someone that’s just looking for a shared space with access to the basic life needs—Wi-Fi, coffee, and a desk,” said Makela.

After her presentation Lynn received a suggestion that could open her business to a new type of client.

Makela said, “A great suggestion was to figure out a way to outreach to travelers or people that might be visiting the Keweenaw for a shorter amount of time. Maybe a month or three months. Letting them know that they have a space that they can come work to and they don’t have to necessarily sit in a coffee shop with a latte machine in the background.”

Her business opens at the end of this month.

Makela said, “We will be opening on may 30th. We’ve got that launch party coming up it will be from 2 to 8 pm. Stop by will have snacks, drinks toasting the new space and we’ll be showing everyone our creation.”