This YouTube profile ("The Sassy Biscuit: An SBA Success Story") features Jelan Hole Johnson, a military spouse who opened the Sassy Biscuit Company in Billings, Montana after moving from California. The transcript excerpt highlights Jelan's motivation to pursue entrepreneurship when DoD spouse employment programs were unavailable locally, her collaboration with the Veterans Business Outreach Center and SBA for business planning, marketing, location, and capital, and testimonials praising her precision, drive, and community impact.
Chapters
Jelan comes in, you can tell that she has that military background, she has that drive, that motivation to make sure everything's correct and everything's done right all the time. I've never seen anyone more precise with how the business end of the restaurant goes.
I'm Jelan Hole Johnson.
I'm a military spouse. My husband is in the Marine Corps, and we've been stationed here in Billings, Montana, where we've opened the Sassy Biscuit Company. We were stationed in California. My husband received these new orders to Billings. And usually where we move, the Department of Defense has a program for military spouses to assist with jobs, but that program wasn't available here in Montana. And so I really started considering the option of entrepreneurship.
When we first met Jelan, she came to us with a great idea and some passion and drive and didn't quite know exactly how to execute. And so she approached our Veterans Business Outreach center that is housed in the same facility as I am. And immediately we began working together to really help her take that idea, put it on paper, and figure out what it would look like to make that work.
Jelan's case is an example for any service member or military spouse who's even thinking about owning a small business, that the real key to success is reaching out. And immediately that began a path of helping her with the business plan, marketing, finding their location, access to capital, and all of those services that are available right here in our community. It's great to see an entrepreneur flourish. We want to make sure that the veteran community spouses, active duty reservists, or National Guard members, we want to make sure that they understand that the SBA's doors are always open. We want them to succeed because we know when they succeed, they're going to lift up our communities.
Jelan is the epitome of the client. You want to walk into your office, she sat at my desk, and I can remember her looking me in the eye and saying, dina, I am not going to fail. So it's really great to see how she's grown, what she's done for our community, creating an innovative, exciting place to go and enjoy what you would think is just a biscuit and so much more.
It's one of the most positive kitchens that I've ever seen. We're one of the most positive restaurants in general. It's been so much fun. I mean, getting to know Jelan and getting to know the family, that's what we have here. We have a family here at Sassy Biscuit.
I've learned so much through the military. When opening up this company, I took a lot of the things that I learned as a military spouse and brought those into my company. And I think as an entrepreneur, there's so much that you can add to your community, to your family. And I think that the SBA was really instrumental in the success of our business.
