Provisions Waxhaw

Hi, we are from Cutford's and High School's Entrepreneurship class and we're currently interviewing Kat Richardson. Do you want to introduce yourself maybe talk about your business a little? Sure, so my name is Kat Richardson. My husband and I purchased provisions WAPSAW in January of 2022. And so we've had a bit of business since then. My experience is in the restaurant industry, so I've been in it for And my husband's experience is in the retail side. He's been in it for about 30 years. So between the two of us, we've got a lot of experience with restaurant retail. Sure. Yeah. As an entrepreneur, what is one quality that you think every entrepreneur should have? Open-mindedness. You have to be open-minded to the fact that you might want to go in this direction, but life might say, nope, you got to go in this direction. And you have to be able to be open-minded enough to change course of action because you never know what surprises might come up. How do you think that has helped you in your endover in this business? Well, finding creative ways to still provide the products that people want, But finding it in a way where you're not breaking the bank. Because sometimes people might want a product that we just can't get at a reasonable price. So either the person that's going to have to pay a lot for it or it's just not something that we can do. So you have to be able to say, I'm sorry, we can't do that. Or yes, we can do that. It can go either way. But you have to be able to switch. And you thank you for your answer. One last question. It's on for aspiring entrepreneurs who want to open their own businesses. What do you think they should do? And what are your tips and tips for that? Learn who your business neighbors will be. Being on a main street, there are lots of mom and pop, local family-owned businesses. And you have to work with them because just as And usually it's a family. And so if you can work together and it may be cross-cremote or somehow work together with your business neighbor, it makes the entire experience that much better. Because you're not competing. You're not fighting. You're working together to give what the customers want. Thank you so much. Of course. I have a few questions to ask. So what are your future goals for your business and how do you plan to achieve those? I would love for us to do more retail with other small vendors, That's what we provide for them. And I would love to be able to focus more on that and less on the restaurant because people come for the food if you were always going to eat. But how can we help that other local vendor that doesn't have a storefront to get their product on the shelf? That's actually really nice. And one more for me. Do you have any role models or mentors that inspire you to create this or what your passion is about? I have my experience with fast food. I worked for Bojangles for 13 plus years. And I think one of my former managers, he really kind of opened the door for me to become more than just a store manager, but to become a multi-store manager, which then led to me being able to do this endeavor as a family-run business. So I would say he gave me the opportunity to grow. And so I learned from him how to grow. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, yeah. Sorry. Okay, these are our last two questions. Yeah. What role does the customer have?