In 2021, we asked several RootedGood friends to respond to the statement, "This is the time for entrepreneurship. Agree or disagree?" This response comes from long-time friend Cristin Cooper, the Soup Maker of Coop’s Soups and Pastor of Soup Church. Sharing food is her love language. Here's what she had to say:
“Agree! Entrepreneurship is about transforming the world by solving big problems. While entrepreneurship includes creating a business and scaling it to generate a profit, entrepreneurship is about being a part of the solution, making a difference, and contributing to the world’s flourishing. In this way, with the world beginning to look at itself post-pandemic, entrepreneurship is the creative solution to the many needs uniquely revealed over the course of this last year. Of course, the recipe for beginning these new ventures includes large amounts of empathy.
In my own experience as an entrepreneur, I have discovered empathy as a sustaining source for creative problem-solving. Coop’s Soups is soup to share as an awesome way to make friends and fight off loneliness. The soup’s origin story begins with loneliness. My relationships with others felt rushed, shallow, and performative. In hopes of slowing down and building relationships of depth and honesty, I began to share soup among peers and neighbors.
In learning I was not alone in feeling lonely, I started Coop’s Soups. To deepen community connections, the soup’s vegetables are locally sourced, and each jar of soup comes with a conversation starter. While many community-building events were canceled during the pandemic, I discovered sharing soup to build community could still be counted on.
People all around the world have been affected by the pandemic in one way or another. New and recurring needs are on display in ways they previously were not. Now is the time for fresh business models that start from a place of empathy and invite us all to latch onto the truth that we are indeed one another’s keepers.”
About RootedGood: Buildings into gathering places. Land into homes. Ideas into ventures that serve and sustain. RootedGood helps churches put their money and mission to work for the good of their neighbors.