Florida Southern College offers unique lesson in entrepreneurship with student-run coffee cart

LAKELAND, Fla. - A team of students at Florida Southern College in Lakeland are learning about entrepreneurship while serving high-quality coffee.

Locals have made grabbing coffee from Morning Grind part of their daily routines.

The director of the Center for Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at FSC, Justin Heacock, says Morning Grind is completely run by students as an independent business venture.

"It's been absolutely phenomenal and transformative in their education," shared Heacock. "It's a sandbox environment that allows them to have that self-expression. And the best part of it is, it's not really about them taking on the capital risk."

FSC says Morning Grind is like an internship on campus and each student acts as a manager. Students are paid while they're working at the cart that's located at the Becker Business Building.

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"We can get them in a position where they can say, I really want to introduce a new drink. And they go through all the process from start to finish about what that entails, and they get to either see the success or failure based upon their ideas," explained Heacock.

Lauren Schreader is an FSC student and works in the external relations department for Morning Grind. She's majoring in communications with a concentration in interpersonal organizational.

"Being able to be a part of this experience and this opportunity just kind of helped myself evolve and grow within that entrepreneurial mindset and learn how to start a business," said Schreader.

According to her, the coffee is locally sourced from Concord Coffee in Lakeland. The popular shop allows students to make and sell their own coffee blend.

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Students also learn how to attract customers from nearby places like Lake Hollingsworth to increase sales.

Daniel Jones works in the marketing department and is double majoring in business administration and marketing with a minor in business analytics. He helps implement marketing tactics and enjoys seeing the results.

"We've included some lake signage and then seeing the drive almost immediately as a result from that and people coming up, hanging out and talking, that this is super, super fun," explained Jones.

College Xpress ranked FSC the second-best college or university for coffee lovers because of the Seed-to-Scale Incubation program.

Morning Grind's last day of operation for the spring semester is April 26 and will reopen in the fall on August 26. For more information, click here.

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