School of Business

Have you ever had a cup of coffee that was so good you wished that you could share it? Sergio Garrido had just such a cup in Guatemala. "Guatemala produces very good coffee. And every time I went home, I would buy coffee for my personal consumption back at Acadia. Then I thought: Why can’t I import this excellent coffee into Canada? That’s how Aroma Maya started."

Aroma Maya is Sergio’s company that is now bringing coffee beans from Guatemala for Canada-wide distribution. "I come from a family of entrepreneurs. But nobody in my family was into coffee, so I had to start from scratch." As an Entrepreneurship and Innovation major, Sergio is an interesting case because, while he has the benefit of his family’s wealth of knowledge to draw from, he is also the first in his family to attend university. As a man who knows both worlds—the school of experience and the school of business—he is uniquely qualified to ponder the perennial question of whether entrepreneurship can be taught. "I don’t know if entrepreneurship can be taught," he says, "but you can be taught the tools to get you started. My parents coached me in starting new ventures, which was helpful. But having the business tools to better understand and pursue your goals puts you a step ahead." In particular, Sergio credits Dr. Michael Sheppard as a business coach and his Venture Creation course for introducing him to the lean business model for startups. Professor Charlene Boudreau’s Personal Selling and Sales Management he also cites as being valuable for insights on how to treat clients. Anything else? "Case study analysis with Dr. Conor Vibert I found extremely helpful. When you run into an issue, you can just go back to those examples and apply or modify them to your business." And that is how Sergio takes experience and learning and blends them together for a perfect cup of know-how, a cup that is too good not to share!