I recently visited Beehive Cheese, a small company that creates artisan cheese in Uintah, Utah, about 30 minutes North of Salt Lake City. I spoke to Katie Johnson, marketing director for the company, and Pat Ford, one of the owners about how Beehive Cheese got its start.

Pat Ford and his brother-in-law, Tim Welsh were tired of the everyday grind of their stressful jobs in real estate and software, so they started talking about owning their own business. After considering a few other ideas, they settled on the crazy notion of creating artisan cheeses, something that hadn’t yet been done in Utah.

Pat and Tim went where anyone who wants to learn about making cheese goes: Utah State University Western Dairy Center. They took a two-week course and spoke to the cheese experts in Logan about their idea. Initially, they were discouraged. There were already several major cheese makers in the Cache valley. Why would Utah need another? But this cheese would be different. Instead of the typical cheddar, monterey jack and mozzarella, Beehive Cheese would produce artisan cheeses with a rubbed rind; something different and new. The folks at Utah State starting warming to the idea and taught Pat and Tim everything they could about making a quality product.

Beehive Cheese opened in 2005 with the cheese that would serve as the base for most other varieties: Promontory. Then they set out to make some distinctly different, unique cheeses.

One day the two owners were kicking around some ideas for new cheeses. They had some 4 oz bags of coffee sitting around and Tim got the idea to add it to the cheese. Pat said, “We did some experiments. One of them was coffee and lavender. Tim put the soothing effects of lavender and combined with the edgy effects of the coffee. It was just a fun, crazy little experiment.” The new variety, “Barely Buzzed” was born. It was an instant hit, garnering a first place ribbon at the American Cheese Society Competition in 2007. And again in 2008. And yet again in 2009 and 2011.

Jamie Forrest, food reviewer and cheese aficionado on the website, Serious Eats, had this to say about Beehive Cheese’s Barely Buzzed: “As I bit down through the cheese, the bitter nuttiness of the espresso and the caramel sweetness of the cheddar-style cheese made me realize this is a match made in some really quirky and hip corner of heaven.” The success of “Barely Buzzed” put Beehive Cheese on the map, and the buyers for Whole Foods and Central Market noticed. Beehive Cheese is now distributed throughout the country and has gone on to win 17 major awards.

Other award-winning cheeses include Apple Walnut Smoked, Big John’s Cajun, SeaHive and Full Moon. Two new cheese are slated for introduction in the next year: Ipanema, a cocoa bean and butter-rubbed rind cheese, will be released for exclusive sale during the Christmas holiday at Whole Foods. And BeeChive, with a distinctive bright-green rind, will be released for St. Patrick’s Day in 2013.

Beehive Cheese is a family affair: of the 15 employees, 8 are family. Tim’s and Pat’s kids work at the creamery during the summer and school breaks, and Pat’s wife ran the shipping department for the company for several years. Family provided loans for the startup of the company and Pat told me that his mom has always been a great source of support and a big influence on the success of the business.

Employees that aren’t technically family might as well be: turnover is rare and everyone in the company meets to discuss new ideas for cheeses, and to taste and judge prospective new products.

I asked Pat about the difficulties of the early days at Beehive Cheese. “We worked seven days a week in the beginning. We participated in five farmer’s markets every week. We would make cheese from 4:00 in the morning to 10:00 at night. Tim would stay until midnight and do the books. We both worked our butts off . . . but it paid off.”

Pat gave me two pieces of advice to pass on to people who are thinking about opening their own businesses. The first piece of advice was financial. He said, “Have twice as much money in the bank as you think you’ll need. You’re always growing.”

The second piece of advice was about customer service. Pat said, “We always err on the side of the customer. Even if we lose money, it’s just one little box of cheese, it’s not going to ruin us.” Connecting with customers continues to be important for Beehive Cheese. The company sells its cheese at farmer’s markets in Utah and also supports community events. Beehive Cheese is a sponsor of the Red Butte Garden’s Summer Concert Series, and they show up occasionally to hand out free samples to concert-goers as they wait in line.

The company is very involved in supporting local arts and music events and the owners are still heavily involved in the business’ day-to-day operations. Katie told me, “Pat and Tim answer the phones. We don’t have some automated phone system. The owners talk directly to customers. People love that they’re so accessible.”

Thanks to Pat Ford and Katie Johnson for sharing their knowledge (and love of great cheese!) with me. You can visit Beehive Cheese at www.beehivecheese.com (under construction) or on Facebook.

Success Stories: Beehive Cheese

Betsy Burton opened The King’s English Bookstore in 1977, with a business partner and just a few thousand dollars in start-up money. Now, more than 30 years later, the bookshop is a vibrant, vital part of the Salt Lake City community. I sat down with Betsy a few weeks ago to ask her about running an independent bookshop during this time of big bookstore chains.

What was your biggest challenge during the first few months?

Like most small business owners who start because they have a passion for whatever it is they’re doing, they think that passion will carry them. They think they don’t really need to know that much about business – the passion will do the trick. My learning curve was in the business department. I knew how to balance a checkbook and add and subtract. I knew about debt but I didn’t really understand about capitalization, so we started out really severely under-capitalized and that impacted us for a long time because we stubbornly didn’t want to borrow money.

Not borrowing had a good and a bad side, though. The bad side was that we were undercapitalized which meant that we grew slowly but the good side was that we grew organically so we never really got in debt. We added as we could afford to add and that’s a good thing. But I think I could have struck a balance. I could have had a little bit of capital behind me.

You and your business partner were both single moms. How were you able to blend work and family back then?

The passion carried us along in the beginning. We took turns so that one of us would be home with the kids and one would be at the shop. I’d take all the books in their boxes home at night, unpack them and do the invoices at night after Mandy went to bed, and then bring them back in the morning. It was a struggle for awhile.

Later, after I had remarried, I had Nicky. My son has an intractable seizure condition and brain damage. He varies between ages four and twelve socially and cognitively. When Nick was diagnosed Mandy was thirteen and going through all the teenaged girl stuff. My partner at that time, Barbara, was invaluable. I had to be able to come and go. I could never do this alone.

When you first got started, did you ever think you’d hang out with the likes of John Irving and Isabelle Allende?

Oh, it was just thrilling. The first time I met Isabelle, she was so gracious, up-beat and vivacious. Over the years, as more and more people come, you get to know more authors. Some of the most unforgettable experiences I’ve had are just to get to know authors. When Richard Russo was here, he didn’t really want to do anything fancy after the reading. He just wanted to go hang out with the booksellers and have a beer. He was just a real guy.

Most authors are so nice, kind. They appreciate booksellers because they really do understand that we’re the ones that find the good books and start them going. And they’re very thoughtful people. So it’s been one of the great pleasures of my careers – meeting and getting to know authors.

Do you think there are special challenges being a female business owner?

No. It’s the one thing you can do that makes you entirely free of all of that. Males don’t get preference. Booksellers tend to sort out as people who don’t think that way, so I avoided all of that. I started my business in the 70’s when the environment was more hostile to women, but if you start your own business, you control your environment and you don’t have to worry about it.

How do you find good employees?

Some are grad students, but a lot of our people are a decade older than that. We hire a lot of mothers who want to work part time. We’re always looking for real readers, passionate readers, but also customer service is our big deal here. You can’t have somebody that’s a literary reader and is snobbish about it. You have to have people who are very accepting and very friendly.

How have the big box stores and Internet booksellers affected your business?

Periodically over the years, it’s been a struggle. When the chains came in the 90’s that was horrible. There was a time then when we weren’t sure we would make it. But if I have one quality I think it’s persistence.

Now with Amazon, we don’t know where the business is going, because they’re getting so many perks from everywhere at some point you just can’t compete. They’re devaluing books to the point that people won’t pay for hardcovers anymore.

The King’s English sells eBooks on our website. A lot of our customers use eReaders on trips. But they still read both – eBooks and print books. We want to be able to service our customers. We are much better at guiding customers to books than Amazon.

If people see you as the center of community, that’s great for business, among other things. I think people are proud to shop here for more than just friendship or love of books; I think people value community. So I think we’re on the map in a whole new way.

The neighborhood is really supportive. We do three story hours a week. People wheel their kids in. We do lots of readings. People come here and shop from ID, WY and MT. They’ll come in and buy three boxes of books to get them through a season.

Independent booksellers from all over work closely with each other. It’s a really warm and inclusive industry. Another independent shop will get an author that you really can’t crack into, and they’ll say to that author, “Oh you really need to go to this store.” We all help each other. We’re all underpaid and impassioned.

How else are you involved in the community?

I’m the co-founder of Local First, which takes on issues that have to do with protecting small businesses. We help businesses brand themselves as local, and we have 3,000 members so we have a very strong brand.

Local First is the other thing I’ve done in my life that I feel has made a profound difference. We’re changing the way people look at the world they live in. The word, “local” has taken on more and more resonance. I feel like it’s really important. We don’t want to be a world full of corporations. We want a community. And that’s really what Local First is about.

When I ask other business owners how they knew when they were successful, they often give me dollar amount – once they hit x-amount of profits, then they knew. For you, I suspect that’s a different thing. So, what is success for you?

As long as you can make a little money, enough to get by comfortably and as long as you can pay health insurance for your employees so we can all live with dignity, that’s success.

What we’re doing here is such a community service, being able to guide people to books that they need at a certain time in their lives, being able to match one book they’ve absolutely found to be transforming to another one that they’ll love just as much, those kinds of things you can’t put a dollar amount on those. Being a community gathering place and bringing in authors from all over the world, those are things that give to this community. The older I get, the more important community is to me. I think it’s why we’re all here. So that’s what pays me.

Thanks so much to Betsy Burton for spending time with me. If you get a chance, stop by The King’s English on 1511 S. 1500 E. in Salt Lake City, Utah. You can also visit the shop’s website at: kingsenglish.com.

To learn more about Betsy and the history of The King’s English, read her book, “The King’s English: Adventures of an Independent Bookseller.”

Success Stories: The King’s English Bookstore

Each year, the U.S. Small Business Administration honors entrepreneurs from all over the country. One exceptional individual is chosen from each state to receive an award and special recognition during Small Business Week in Washington, DC. In 2011, Andrew Caprio, owner of Monet Medical, was chosen as the Utah Small Business Person of the Year. I met with Mr. Caprio last week to talk with him about his business success. He shared his story with me, and told me about the three rules he set for himself early on.

In 1997, Mr. Caprio attended a “How to Start Your Own Business” workshop at the local SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) office. He was working for a company in the medical equipment industry, but figured that opening his own business might be a good “Plan B.” After he completed the SCORE workshop, he began to draw up a business plan and think about the logistics of starting his own company.

In 2000, Mr. Caprio’s employer filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As part of the restructuring of the company, his department was closed. He quickly garnered several attractive offers from other companies, but wondered if his layoff was actually a blessing; it might provide the perfect opportunity for him to pursue his own business.

The decision was difficult. Every prospective small business owner faces this dilemma in the beginning – take a stable job with a guaranteed salary, or take the risk of starting a company that might provide opportunities and personal growth that can never come from working for someone else. It’s not a decision that can be made lightly.

When faced with life-altering decisions, Andrew Caprio relies on the strength of his religious beliefs to help guide him. He prayed and reflected on the matter until he was able to come to a decision that felt right. Equipped with his education and experience in the medical equipment industry and 10 months of severance pay, he set up Monet Medical in his basement on September 7, 2000.

Monet Medical, Inc. purchases surplus moveable medical equipment (everything from portable defibrillators to hospital beds) from facilities all over the country. The equipment is then reconditioned both biomedically and cosmetically. The company slogan is “Monet Medical… Where Reconditioning is an Art” (The company gets its name from the impressionist painter Claude Monet). Mr. Caprio believes that each piece of equipment that comes through his business should be reconditioned with great care before it goes on to its next home. Equipment goes through a stringent reconditioning process that includes biomedical testing and calibration, paint, detailing, quality assurance and three separate inspections.

During the first year, the company reconditioned 771 pieces of medical equipment. After 14 months of operating out of Mr. Caprio’s basement, Monet Medical leased its first small space in a strip mall. Business steadily increased and after nine years in business, the company was able to buy the building that is Monet Medical’s home today. In 2010, the company reconditioned 4,868 pieces of medical equipment that will be used in hospitals, clinics, physician’s offices and other medical facilities across the country.

Recently, Monet Medical added several new manufacturers to its product line, opened two new offices and entered some new markets: home healthcare, medical colleges and universities, and medical equipment planning/consulting. In addition, the growing company plans to welcome six new employees in the next few months.

From the start, Andrew Caprio set three rules for his business:

1. Pay the bills.
2. Never lose a sale because you can’t afford it.
3. Never sell company stock.

This careful attention to finances has helped Monet Medical survive and even thrive during a recession.

I asked Mr. Caprio what he considered his biggest challenge as a small business owner. He told me, “It’s important to realize that some decisions are bigger than you. Some of them are the kind of make-or-break decisions that have enormous impact on your business. While it can sometimes be advantageous to be conservative, if you’re too risk averse you could miss out on an opportunity that will really benefit your company.”

From humble beginnings as a small company operating in a basement, to winning the 2011 Utah Small Business Person of the Year award, Andrew Caprio has proven opening his own business was the right decision.

Small Business Success Stories: Monet Medical