Joanne Shaw gave up everything she had to finance her startup coffee shop - her car, her house and her coffee service business. Begun in 1976, the Coffee Beanery charged 75 cents for a cup of coffee, and brought in revenues of about $100/day. Joanne's husband Julius was discouraged by this but Joanne told him to have patience, because people will come once word spreads how wonderful the coffee is. In the beginning Joanne was commuting two hours a day and working twelve hours without pay for a year before they showed any signs of profitability. Once profitable, Joanne and her hubby started looking around for other profitable locations and signed a ten year lease at an up and coming mall. They tried to get financing to open the new store. They were rejected five times but the sixth time was the charm, proving determination and hard work are major keys to success. Today they have around 160 franchises nationally and internationally. All this without a college education, either. However, Joanne remembers the words of the speaker at her high school graduation when he made the hundreds of people in her class stand up. He told them statistically only five of them would be successful, and only one would be a major success. Joanne was always determined to be one of the five.
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