We were lucky to catch up with Autumn Pruitt recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Autumn, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.
I overcome imposter syndrome through action. It would be easy to let the voice in my head lead me to believe that I’m not the kind of person who can run a company or give a speech or open another location, but a bias toward activity changes things. The “who do you think you are”s of life begin to get quieter when I have a track record to compare them with. I am a business leader because I’ve been leading a business for thirteen years. Not perfectly. Not without mistakes, but if I spent all of my time waiting to feel ready, then the negative voice wins and I sit quietly on the sidelines. Instead, I keep moving. I keep walking into rooms where I stand out. I keep decorating cakes and inventing new programs and processes and dreaming big dreams and eventually the resume is louder than the negative voices.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
My husband, Luke, and I moved back to our hometown of Omaha, NE and started a small bakery in 2010. In those early years, we subleased a kitchen and tiny storefront from Aromas Coffeehouse on the corner of 11th and Jones. A year and a half later, we purchased the coffee shop and have since opened three additional locations. In 2015, we began roasting our own coffee under the brand Hardy Coffee Co. and later brought every piece (bakery, coffee shops, roasting lab) and location (downtown, Benson, North Omaha, Chalco) of the business under that unified name. My maiden name.
To us, specialty coffee (and all that goes with it) isn’t so much about indulgence, but ritual–having places and moments and things in life that add value and create rhythm. We make every menu item intentionally, to fuel the difference-makers of our city and to partner with unique wholesale accounts across the region to do the same for the communities they know and love.
We are in the process of moving our roasting facility in the next couple of months to continue to accommodate new wholesale partnerships. Not just to roast more coffee but to serve more people. To help other coffee shops remove barriers and start faster and avoid costly mistakes as they work to build their own small business.
We not only provide excellent coffee, but also the support to serve it well and we’re continuing to grow that consultation piece of Hardy this coming year.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Grit. Keep showing up. Every day. Work until you’re finished, not just until you’re tired. Know that it will be difficult and imperfect and that it will require more of you than you think it should, but keep plugging along. Work alongside others. Be consistent because you care deeply. Do it because it just might pay off. Do it because you can never expect someone else to care more about your business than you do.
Collaboration.
Before I started the bakery, I was very excited about serving regular customers. About having daily relationships that would begin to strengthen our community and the bottom line. And that has absolutely happened–there are some folks we see every day. Couples who got engaged at our shop whose wedding cake and now kid’s birthday cakes we get to make. But, even these longterm relationships only get, at most, 10 minutes time together everyday. It adds up, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the goodness of spending 40+ hours every week with our employees. These are our people. The ones we get the chance to truly live life with. To be with for the big life moments and a million dirty dishes. To live our company values alongside and to have grace for each other. We don’t have to play this particular infinite game alone. If you are good at communicating your why and motivation and drivers with your team, you get much further, much faster, and have fun doing so. This is also true for other like-minded businesses and community partners.
Focus.
Be where you are. I think that my professional life after having kids has required even more intentionality. I say “no” to a lot of things. I hate to miss mornings or evenings with my family. We’re working to unplug from social media and technology at least for one full day a week. I schedule my time strategically. I have deep friendships where we text often and see each other occasionally. No one gets all of me which is hard, but if I prioritize there is enough to go around. This approach means I’m also more focused in the limited time I am at work, too. I accomplish more and am more present because of these boundaries.
And lastly, my advice is simply not to go it alone. In the first several years of my business, I was really heads down. The work we did was in the four walls of the shop and while I connected well with my team and customers, I often felt very alone in the decisions I made and work I did as CEO. Starting a business is really hard. Leadership is really hard. Full stop. And if you think it’s not supposed to be, you can become pretty convinced that you’re doing it wrong.
It wasn’t until I started connecting with other women in similar roles that some of that anxiety lifted. Not a lot of people, but the right people to spend time with on purpose. To share a meal or a bottle of wine with. To be included by. Sometimes these women had good advice, but most of the time it was simply spending time together and knowing we were solving similar problems helped.
Warning: It will feel clunky at first. If you’re anything like me, you’ll feel awkward at those tables for a while, but as you reach out and build authentic relationships, it becomes life-giving and affirming and filled with the kind of energy that can carry you.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
I think the viability of small business has been really difficult since 2020, but perhaps even more so this last year. It’s all the nitty gritty details of Cost of Goods and the price to pay our people in the midst of inflation and general economic fear. We sell products that aren’t essential and so it’s difficult to know how to still attract customers when they have hard decisions to make with their budgets.
We are in the process of updating our menu prices right now. We have to and it’s just such a tedious and scary process. We have to to make the math work to stay open. We sell a quality product in the Midwest and it’s just really hard to know what our consumer’s ceiling is for the price of a great latte or breakfast burrito. We’re telling more stories about where our product comes from and are trying to trust the process and the customer base that has carried us so far.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hardycoffee.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hardycoffeeco/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hardycoffeeco
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/autumn-pruitt-0562a99a/
Image Credits
Head shot and family photos by Ariel Panowicz.
