Oceana Coffee, Scott Angelo and Amy Angelo
“Our SCORE team has been amazing,” Scott says. “They have guided us through a tough financial hangover” from the business-management company that had promised the team much but delivered little. “We have turned our company around from a loss in 2015 to a solid profit in 2016, with great growth forecast into the future.”
Scott and Amy attended workshops on online sales and marketing that provided new ideas and a new approach to some common challenges for growing businesses. When they heard about the Palm Beach chapter’s SWOT224 program for businesses older than two years, they applied and were accepted.
The SWOT224 program provides in-depth mentoring based on the business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, helping each participating business implement an action plan for growth. The SWOT team serves as a free company advisory board for as long as the business seeks advice.
Scott and Amy Angelo fell in love with coffee while living in Australia for three years. Once they returned to the United States, they struggled to find a cup that compared to the fresh-roasted coffee they’d buy directly from a roastery in Brisbane. The couple did some research and found specialty artisan coffee roasters on the West Coast, and Scott even reengineered a popcorn maker so he and his wife could replicate their favorite varieties at home.
The popcorn maker led to a converted BBQ grill to roast four pounds at a time, and in the meantime, our coffee was getting very popular and the word was spreading fast,” Scott recalls.
In 2011, Oceana Coffee opened the doors of its first retail location, complete with a seven-kilogram commercial coffee roaster.
But in 2014, when the Angelos were ready to grow their business, they struggled to find guidance that was both sound and affordable. “We heard about SCORE through a networking event, so we started taking some of the local classes offered,” Scott says.