Entrepreneurs find success through UW-Extension SBDC
Madison coffee moguls and SBDC clients Sue Lobeck and George Krug toast their business success. Photo by JIM GILL.
Ancora Coffee Roasters is thriving. The wholesale side has grown 25 to 35 percent each year during the past five years.
Owners Sue Lobeck and George Krug have added 45 employees since they opened the doors in 1994. Gross sales were more than $3 million in 2003, up from about $150,000 in the Þrst year. The husband-and-wife team now runs four retail coffeehouses and one espresso kiosk at Madison Area Technical College.
"An excellent program"
This Madison business' success is the result of hard work — and training and counseling offered by the University of Wisconsin-Extension Small Business Development Center (SBDC). Lobeck and Krug turned to the UW-Madison SBDC when, two years into the business, they had a question around managing growth. They've attended almost every class and sent many of their managers, too. "It's an excellent program," says Lobeck, who speculates that an SBDC education in human resources and finances is part of the reason for low turnover among their managers.
A good cup of joe
Prior to moving to Wisconsin, Lobeck and Krug were frequent visitors from Seattle and saw the need for a different approach to coffee in Madison. "Every time we came we said, 'You can't get a decent cup of coffee back there. People don't how to make espresso right.' People didn't know and understand coffee like they do in the Northwest," Krug says.
Successful strategy
They started with two retail establishments, hoping to establish branding for their wholesale operations, their main interest. "Our retail stores were a marketing arena for us," Lobeck says. "No one knew who we were."
"It worked out extraordinarily well," Krug says. "Better than we even imagined it would. All of the restaurant people around the [Capitol] Square would come and get coffee and within a month we had our first wholesale account."-Nancy Fawcett
SBDC IMPACTS
The Wisconsin Small Business Development Center served more than 10,000 entrepreneurs last year.
Nine out of 10 of the entrepreneurs the SBDC served said they benefited from its services and would recommend them to others.
The 2003 SBDC survey findings show that SBDC-assisted entrepreneurs:
- created 626 new jobs
- saved 524 jobs
- generated more than $3 million in state tax revenue
- acquired more than $7 million in debt and equity financing
For more information about SBDC services: www.wisconsinsbdc.org or SBDC Business AnswerLine (800) 940-7232.