A group dedicated to helping entrepreneurs grow their small businesses stopped and took a coffee break for itself.
1 Million Cups Prince William, a weekly meetup where entrepreneurs help their fellow enterprisers, will relaunch in-person meetings on Wednesday, April 6 at CenterFuse co-working space at 9071 Center Street in Manassas.
Over the past month, the group paused its meetups, using the time to retool and regroup.
The meetup group is a chapter of the national 1 Million Cups organization, an arm of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. It meets at 9 a.m. in cities across the U.S. to help entrepreneurs thrive.
“I’ve been active from the beginning as a founding organizer with 1 Million Cups because it’s about small business owners and professionals discussing the issues we deal with every day,” said founding organizer Jim DiModica. “We can run ideas by others who are going through it or have already solved.”
In Manassas, participants gather at 8:30 a.m. for networking and coffee and then gather around the morning’s presenter to learn about their business. At the end of a short presentation, the entrepreneur questions the audience, challenging them to help a solution.
The questions have varied from finding reliable help, moving into a certified gluten-free kitchen, selling more products, and selling a business to the next generation of hungry entrepreneurs.
Two years ago, 1 Million Cups Prince William quickly adapted to the realities of doing business in a pandemic and shifted its operation online. At the same time, some faithful participants continued to meet together in a conference room at CenterFuse. When 1 Million Cups Prince William meets again, it will drop its online component, allowing business owners to log in remotely and participate in the discussion.
However, as the pandemic continued, attendance waned, going from a high of 40 when meetings were held exclusively in-person down to just 15 in the hybrid version.
“We feel that the force of meeting in person, adding face-to-face networking back into the mix and the support of both the City of Manassas and the County Economic Development Departments will put us back in the center of the entrepreneurial ecosystem,” said Valerie Meale, one of six 1 Million Cups Prince William organizers that include a staff member from the Manassas Economic Development office.
1 Million Cups hopes to tap back into the word-of-mouth success it earned when the group began meeting in 2013.
“It’s about the buzz,” said Meale. ‘Right up until March of 2020, CenterFuse was buzzing around us. Conversations were happening, and connections were being made. Relationships were being cultivated. We are all hungry to get back to that buzz, and entrepreneurs need it more than ever.”
There is no cost to attend a 1 Million Cups meeting, either for the participants or the presenting businesses. The group taps a local business to donate or “sponsor” the coffee consumed during the week’s meeting.
The Kauffman foundation set a few ground rules for the meeting groups to foster the best entrepreneurial growth. All communities have economic development needs, says the foundation.
One essential rule in the Prince William group: Presenters must have a majority financial tie to their presenting business. In other words, they’ve got to own a portion of the company they’re talking about.
The weekly sessions end promptly at 10 a.m.
Reporter’s note: Uriah Kiser served as a founding organizer of 1 Million Cups Prince William from 2013 to 2019.
