Brian Hicks, co-founder of Humphreys Street Coffee, a Nashville-based social enterprise, and Harvest Hands, a community development non-profit. Fifteen years ago, Brian and his wife were running an after school program and had the idea of teaching coffee- and soap-making to the older students. In a matter of months, Brian and the students would be writing a business plan for the CEO of Dollar General, which led them to Sandpoint, Idaho to be trained on the prized Diedrich coffee roaster—by the inventor. In this week’s episode, Brian shares his unlikely path to building a social enterprise, the importance of owning your retail footprint, and how one former student has been particularly instrumental in their success.

To see photos from this episode, visit: https://instagram.com/folk___tales

To learn more, visit HumphreysStreet.com or on Instagram at @HumphreysStreet

And if you’re in Nashville, stop by their coffee shop at 424 Humphreys Street.