Jeremy Ho and Justin Eyford making the perfect cup at Monogram Coffee.SUPPLIED
Behind every small business is a ‘big why’ – the reason they started their company in the first place and what motivates them to keep going, even when times get tough. Intuit QuickBooks is proud to support Canadian small businesses through every step of their journey and is pleased to celebrate companies doing remarkable things in this “Small Business, Big Why” series.
Jeremy Ho didn’t think much about coffee until around 2005 when he was at a café in Vancouver that displayed tasting notes on its menu.
“That was my personal ‘aha moment’ with really, really good coffee,” he says. “Until then, I thought it was just a black liquid that we drank to stay awake. But when I ordered that coffee, it blew my mind… I was like, ‘Wow, I’m actually tasting these things that they said I would taste!’ So that sort of created a spark for me.”
Taking risks
Ho had been studying biomedical research, but his newfound love of coffee inspired him to start working in cafés. There, he learned more about how to prepare the perfect cup, as well as how cafés can become community spaces where people gather, socialize and connect with one another – especially if they’re welcoming and accessible.
“At the time, a lot of cafés were talking about how their coffee was so good and there was almost [an attitude of] ‘Hey, if you don’t get it, well, you don’t know anything.’ That was back in the day and things have gotten better now, but… we think coffee should be for everyone.”
Ho’s co-founders Justin Eyford and Ben Put also had different career trajectories – with degrees in political science and music, respectively – but like Ho, both fell in love with coffee and began working in the industry not long after graduating.
Jeremy Ho and Justin Eyford, two of the founders of Monogram Coffee in Calgary.SUPPLIED
United by their love for and desire to make great coffee accessible to everyone, they quit their jobs, hand-built a coffee cart (literally) and in late 2014 set up shop at DaDe ART & DESIGN LAB in Calgary’s Inglewood neighbourhood. It was a bold decision – there wasn’t a ton of foot traffic – but they loved the area and believed it was the right place to build from.
Steady growth
And they were right; Monogram Coffee quickly took off. By March 2015, they’d opened their first brick-and-mortar location in the city. In 2016, they opened their second location, as well as a roastery. Location number three followed in 2018 and locations four and five, which included their first in Vancouver, opened in 2020. This year, they opened a restaurant-café-bakery, Primary Colours, that serves coffee, brunch, dinner and drinks.
They’ve also built an e-commerce and wholesale business, where they supply hotels, restaurants and cafés across the world with coffee, as well as customers who buy single bags of beans online or subscribe to receive monthly deliveries.
Ho credits their growth – and success – with the team the trio has hired.
“Bringing on good people has really allowed us to grow,” he says. “If it was just the three of us, I have no doubt we’d still just be a coffee cart in the art gallery – or out of business!”
Knowing your numbers
That growth hasn’t always come easily. While the trio all had experience in sourcing coffee, roasting and managing and running retail, none of them had ever run their own business before.
“None of that really prepares you for the operations side of a business, where you really need to know your numbers. I think what’s hard is when things get disorganized,” Ho says.
Ho and his co-founders aren’t the only entrepreneurs to experience this. According to a 2019 report from the Business Development Bank of Canada, there is a strong link between business owners’ level of satisfaction and their level of managerial and technical skills.
“Unsatisfied entrepreneurs tend to have lower managerial and technical scores. Having the right tools to manage a business helps entrepreneurs feel more confident and less stressed,” the report says.
That’s why, when the business started growing and they realized the accounting was only going to get more complicated, the co-founders began leaning on QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Payments for help wrangling their finances.
“We have multiple business units, so it allows us to keep everything very well-organized, with really quick reporting, so we can easily see that everything is accounted for and our business is running properly,” Ho says.
“The ability to be able to create an invoice and receive payments has been a game-changer for us as far as cashflow,” adds Eyford. “It’s made our lives a lot easier. And saved us a lot of time. We haven’t needed to chase people for payment. It’s like: ‘You can pay it online and here’s the link.’ It’s easy.”
The fact that the platform is web-based and offers cloud-based storage only makes it more convenient, especially as the coffee-sourcing part of the business grows, as the co-founders may not be on the same continent on any given day.
Justin Eyford using the QuickBooks mobile app.SUPPLIED
The key to success
That ease of use and convenience allows Ho, Eyford and Put to keep their focus on the most important things: building their business and supporting their community, all while serving really excellent coffee.
“I’m really proud that our whole team is so passionate about the cup, but almost more importantly, they’re also so passionate about how we can use coffee to effect positive change, to build community and create connections,” Ho says. “Coffee quality isn’t the be-all and end-all of what we do; it’s all about how we can use that to bring people together.”
Are you a Canadian business fuelled by passion and purpose? Share your business’s ‘big why’ on Instagram and TikTok using #SmallBizBigWhy for a chance to be featured by Intuit QuickBooks.
Advertising feature produced by Globe Content Studio with Intuit QuickBooks. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved.