From the December 12 issue of U.S. News & World Report magazine: It is one thing to suffer the trials and tribulations of starting a small business. But it takes a special kind of masochism to share those hassles and headaches publicly with complete strangers. Yet that’s just what 23-year-old Jason Duncan is doing with A Thought Over Coffee, a blog devoted to documenting his attempt to start an artsy coffeehouse in Bozeman, Mont. – or, as he puts it, “my journey through the dreaming and planning of Cafe Evoke.” As more and more coffee lovers and small-business owners stumble across the online diary, it is serving as a gathering place for an informal advisory-focus group. “I get a ton of great feedback,” Duncan says. And right now he’ll take all the help he can get as he struggles to turn his business plan – originally a college project at Belmont University in Nashville, from which he graduated last spring – into reality. Duncan is a graduate of Belmont’s entrepreneurship program.
