Meet Marissa Childers

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marissa Childers a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Marissa, we are so happy that our community is going to have a chance to learn more about you, your story and hopefully even take in some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way. Let’s start with self-care – what do you do for self-care and has it had any impact on your effectiveness?

Self-care comes in a lot of different forms. For me, I am a creative person and I love to express myself in different ways. Each week I have non-negotiable times for expression. Whether it be taking a dance class, writing, making a video, drawing, or skating; I take intentional time to allow myself the space to play. Moments like this remind me that I am a full human who can be an individual apart from work. At times, it’s hard to view myself apart from my work because it takes up a big portion of my life, but when I allow myself the space to step back, I am able to approach my work and my life with more balance – fully showing up in the spaces where I am needed.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I have an extremely mixed background and I am always working on new projects. Having a primary background in design and design thinking, I approach everything with an open mind and a lot of questions. Currently, I run a Micro Coffee Business called Tanbrown Coffee. We focus on sourcing and roasting Asian coffees because I saw it was missing in the Atlanta coffee landscape while working on the floor as a barista. It was important to me to share Asian coffee with my community because it allowed a pathway to speak on topics I am passionate about and shed light on topics I am not only passionate about, but resonate with my lived experiences. Asian coffee has historically been dismissed as less than within specialty coffee spaces and I wanted to show that, like Asian people, it has a lot to offer. Starting Tanbrown Coffee has been a whirlwind because it literally started out of my apartment as a roasting project and we scaled out and now roast out of Leaven: Shared Kitchen. We never thought this would be possible. In the past few years, we have also solidified our place in the pop-up world and offer coffee cart services to events like conferences, weddings, galas, creative events, and more! We love the opportunity to connect with our community, share conversations, and serve cute coffee (and non-coffee) bevvies.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Some qualities I would never take for granted are drawing from past experiences, flexibility, and endurance. In everything I do, I bring prior soft and hard skills from other lines of work or work unrelated disciplines. For example, illustration and doodling could help inspire your new logo, a conversation with a customer could influence how you talk to potential clients, movement in day to day exercise can influence how you breathe, everything you do connects and none of your experiences are in vain. I allow myself the space to be flexible because I have learned that no matter how much planning takes place, something can always go off course and that needs to be okay because at the end of the day, most things turn out just as good or better than expected (and when they don’t, what can we learn from it?). Being a small business owner, endurance is important. The cliché of the road being lonely is REAL and people don’t generally see the hustle and grind of every day. Will you be okay with serving only one customer? Will you be okay if no one comes to your event? These are things to consider when starting a small business and building in ways to combat the frustrations are key to getting through the tough times enough to see the good times.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I LOVE genuine collaboration because I believe we all have things to learn from one another. I would love to collaborate and work with artists, other small businesses, any events. I want to collaborate with people who aren’t solely looking for transaction, but are looking to grow together. My favorite partnerships are ones where we can benefit one another and celebrate our wins whether or not we are in the same industry. If anyone wants to connect about coffee education, wholesale, events, pop-ups and more you can reach out to [email protected]. I would love to just talk to you about general day-to-day things as well! Let’s connect.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

StarChefs, Creative Mornings ATL

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