Ten entrepreneurs are taking part in the latest round of USAID ERA’s business mentoring program, receiving ten individual counseling sessions on scaling up their business, B2B (business to business) cooperation, business development or moving their business online. Here is one of their success stories. Daria Shostak founded a shop in Melitopol  in 2013 not only to sell tea and coffee but to cultivate a love of tea and coffee culture in the city.

”When I started my business, there were no specialized shops selling tea and coffee in our town. I thought it could be a promising business,” says Shostak. “I wanted to tell people how
to distinguish good quality tea and coffee and make my own contribution to this business.”
Now she has two stores with over 300 varieties of tea from China, India, Japan and Sri Lanka, and 130 coffees from Africa and South America which she purchases directly from distributors.
During quarantine, average customer spending did not change, says the entrepreneur, but she expanded her range of services to include a tasting room where customers can sample tea and
coffee. She also started selling nuts and dried fruit.
Since March this year, Shostak has been participating in the business mentoring program supported by ERA. The program aims to expand companies’ relations in the B2B format, and find
new customers.
Mentor Ruslan Beltiukov advised Shostak to create an online shop to attract new customers from around Ukraine and continue to promote tea and coffee culture.
“We didn’t have an online shop, although we had thought about it. During quarantine, we started making deliveries to our customers which became popular. Now we are planning to set up
an online shop and hope it will be a new stage in the development of our business,” says Shosta