We were lucky to catch up with Johnny Chen recently and have shared our conversation below.
Johnny , we’ve been so fortunate to work with so many incredible folks and one common thread we have seen is that those who have built amazing lives for themselves are also often the folks who are most generous. Where do you think your generosity comes from?
As someone who came to this country at a young age, I’ve been lucky to have made so many connections and experience other’s generosity towards me. If it weren’t for this neighborly, friendly feeling you get in the Midwest, who would’ve know what would’ve happened with Mr. D’s. We’ve always had great support from our community, from our regular customers who’ve stayed with us all these years to our new customers that have been supporting our business during AAPI month! We’ve been so lucky they’ve all stuck with us through the tough times as a small business. I just want to pay it forward and watch others succeed, you never know what small act can do for someone or their goals. Although we love to support big efforts, we especially love supporting our local community and education causes. We now have 2 kids and we want to see them and their peers thrive while growing up in an enriching environment. We want to just keep paying it forward while we have the means to!
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
Hello! I’m Johnny, the co-owner of Mr. D’s LLC. I co-own with my wife, Boggie, and we have a donut shop in Shawnee and a coffee shop in Lenexa. As small business owners and being AAPI owned, we try to emphasize our culture and highlight local business while serving tasty treats.
I’m from Taiwan and Boggie is from Mongolia. Donuts are not the biggest thing in either one of our countries, but we’ve grown to love American donut culture! We’ve now started to incorporate some Asian culture to share with our community too. From trying new flavors, to bringing mochi donut rings to KC, to collaborating with other local Asian small business, we’ve been excited to test our creativity. Thankfully, we have a great customer base who is excited to try new things and give us feedback!
Our current mission is to bring more awareness to AAPI small businesses and increase our education philanthropy. We believe that these ways will only enrich our local community and bring us together. We love to collab, learn more about local programs, and connect with small business owners.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I think persistence, being open, and communication are some big factors in being a small business owner! There’s lots of things that can bring you down, lots of bumps in the road, but being persistent in an efficient way can be the thing that drives you to that finish line and beyond. Communication is key, as they say, and working with others (and working with my wife) only means more communication is needed. It’s never a bad thing and sometimes talking through things helps with your creativity. I think being open is such an important aspect of being a small business owner. You never know what life brings you and what people you meet along the way. Maybe, one of their stories will surprise you and spark some idea! Or maybe, they have the key to an issue you are facing. If it wasn’t for making connections, we wouldn’t have been able to do some of our donut collabs, gone to amazing events, or gotten the opportunities we’ve done.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
We love to collab with our local community! We are always looking for people to collab on donut flavors/donut foods, merchandise, pop ups, or coffee collabs.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mrdsdonuts.com
- Instagram: Mr. D’s Donut Shop
- Facebook: Mr. D’s Donut Shop
- Linkedin: Mr. D’s LLC
- Yelp: Mr. D’s Donut Shop
Image Credits
Meilene Robinette
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
