Timing is (Almost) Everything
No entrepreneur wants to admit they are among the 20% who did not get their first business off the ground, but digital communications major Madison Coleman has no qualms about that reality. She started a portable coffee shop during her sophomore year. Though not a coffee drinker herself at the time, she noticed that students who wanted a cup of joe between classes on the east side of campus had to hoof it across the pedestrian bridge to Peet’s Coffee on the west side.
“There just wasn’t time to get there and back,” says Coleman, who hoped to solve that problem. Coleman launched her portable shop at the School of Business in 2022 during winter exam week, and quickly learned timing is everything. “It was terrible. No one was around.”
She tried again at the start of the spring semester, and this time business reached a steady clip. “It was a success, but to a certain degree it wasn’t,” Coleman recalls. On the one hand, her portable coffee shop met real demand, and she enjoyed it enough that she could see herself expanding and owning a coffee truck or shop someday.
“But being only a sophomore in college, it was a little too soon to be thinking about that. I didn't make as much money as I thought I would, and it was more work than I expected. I broke even and didn't have the funds to invest in the kind of equipment and startup costs required for a food business to grow.”
Coleman has not abandoned her business concept entirely and says she might return to it someday. But she did take a year off to rethink and pray about her next steps. She also stayed involved with Calvin Startup Garage, an organization in the Calvin University School of Business she joined during her first year at Calvin.
Coleman, a business minor, found Calvin Startup Garage to be a welcoming community where she could combine her creative gifts with her interest in someday running her own business or doing freelance work. Starting her freshman year, she served on the Calvin Startup Garage leadership team and created marketing materials to promote events. Then, during her junior year, she began pouring her creative energy into two long-held passions: photography and equine.
Coleman, who started riding horses at the age of seven, launched Coleman Studio in 2023, specializing in equine and lifestyle photography. “There’s something so special about capturing the bond between a horse and rider,” she says.
Professional equine photography is in high demand, but many families whose children are still learning and just starting to compete cannot afford the extra expense of professional photos. “It’s already an expensive sport,” says Coleman, who enjoys nothing more than preserving great memories for riders and families at an affordable price.
“I have been going to small, local shows and getting my name out at local barns. Everyone has been receptive and supportive so far.” In addition to equine photography, Coleman offers wedding videography, branding photography, and family and high school senior pictures. During the summer of 2023, she also landed a marketing internship at Maranatha Bible and Missionary Conference, where she and her family have vacationed since she was a baby.
“I made montage videos for each week of camp,” Coleman explains. “I was always thinking about: What is my task and how will I communicate it? What feeling do I want to evoke? A recap needs to be fun, upbeat, and tap into people’s desires to return next year.”
The internship solidified her interest in both her major and her professional future. As she enters her senior year at Calvin, Coleman’s post-graduation job plan is to continue growing her business.
“Launching my photography studio and having this internship are the first jobs that haven’t made me feel burned out,” Coleman says. “I’m showing clients God’s love, offering a service, supporting myself, making my job and my life my own. It has been so freeing mentally.”
Aware of the risks entrepreneurs face, Coleman nevertheless remains optimistic for the future, an attitude she holds because of her faith. “Growing this business, I actually have to put more faith in God—the future is less certain, but it also feels like the right fit.”
