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Name: Lindsey M. Hively

Business: Poptique Popcorn, LLC, a company that makes, sells, and delivers assorted flavored gourmet popcorn

Industry: E-Commerce, Food & Beverage

Location: Columbia City, Indiana, U.S.

Reason for starting: Entrepreneurship and popcorn have been a part of my life from a young age. Growing up, my dad taught me everything he knew about business and the contrarian ways of the entrepreneur. My family would also make homemade popcorn all the time and we would season it up with crazy ingredients. I knew my family surely wasn’t alone in our love of popcorn so, as a freshman  at Indiana University, my dad and I started researching and opened Poptique (formerly Kernel Coladas Gourmet Popcorn). My dad is my rock.

How do you define success? Success, to me, is achieving my goal of continually increasing my revenue and profit while maintaining a strong corporate culture that puts people first. I want to improve myself, my business, and help others around me improve as well. Because it is harder to measure the latter, I have to rely on the gut feeling I get after helping others to let me know I am successfully fulfilling my purpose.

Related: Read about another foodie entrepreneur here. 

Biggest Success: People are recognizing my dedication and potential as an entrepreneur. I have always known I would work endlessly for success but now others are seeing my vision and perseverance too. I still have a long way to go in growing my business but I have an increasing number of people who recognize what I am building and have even offered to invest in me and Poptique. This, along with profitability, is the tipping point that tells me I’m on my way to achieving success.

What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it? My biggest challenge is relinquishing control. As a perfectionist I have a tendency to want everything done my way but I know this is not feasible for growing a company. I have done a lot of introspection and personal coaching to remind myself that my purpose, as a leader, is to help others grow as well. My team cannot grow to their potential if I do not give them the freedom and tools to blossom. Working to overcome this obstacle has proven very rewarding thus far. My team is highly capable!

Related: The Secret to Better Hiring

Who is your most important role model? My parents are my most important role models. My dad was the first person to inspire me to become an entrepreneur and went so far as to invest his time and money into our business idea. Both he and my mother encouraged my creativity and taught me to put people first no matter what. Both lessons have helped me tremendously in building my business. My parents laid the foundation on which my business success is built.

[box_light]Website   www.poptiquepopcorn.com
Twitter @poptiquepopcorn
Facebook   www.facebook.com/poptiquepopcorn
Pinterest   www.pinterest.com/poptique[/box_light]

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Edited by The Story Exchange