Meet Rebecca Runyon | Founder & Educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rebecca Runyon and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rebecca, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I once heard it put that entrepreneurs get a bad reputation because they are seen as extreme risk takers. While entrepreneurship does involve risk, I believe that the best entrepreneurs are those who take calculated risks and squeeze the risk out of an idea before investing too much time and capital into the concept. With that said, life comes with inherent risk, since there is no way to see the future. History is typically the best indicator of the future, so we can learn from those who have gone before as for how to mitigate risk. I will never exist in a risk-free environment, so doing my best to take smart risks is always my goal when it comes to my life and career.

What should our readers know about your business?
Bessie’s Parlor hosts ice cream socials to raise funds for people who are homeless. By partnering with local housing initiatives, we bring the community together to learn about homelessness in Central Iowa, while giving community members an opportunity to serve. Attendees serve those experiencing homelessness by eating ice cream. Bessie’s Parlor’s homemade ice cream is not priced, but rather we ask for a free will donation. All donations go to the housing initiative being featured for the event. Ice cream expenses are covered through the sale of products in our online store, including ice cream-scented candles. Bessie’s Parlor began as a class project in an entrepreneurship course I took during undergrad at Iowa State University. It was put on the back burner for a few years while I launched and sold another social venture: Lunchsox. Upon selling the sock company, I put my focuses on growing Bessie’s Parlor. The pandemic shifted my plans from opening a brick and mortar store to hosting socials at various locations in my community, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. A big lesson that I’m learning about life as an entrepreneur is that one’s business must not only be 100% customer-focused, but must also work for the founder in their current season of life. For example, the strategies I have used to grow Bessie’s Parlor have looked different depending on what is happening in my personal life. Work-life balance is such a “buzz word phrase,” but I tend to believe more in a work-life BLEND. Since entrepreneurs are such passionate people, it’s difficult to flip a switch and focus on your business and then flip and focus on your personal life. Realistically, these aspects of one’s life bleed together, and that is okay. Blending one’s work and personal life allows founders to show up as a whole person, regardless of the environment in which they find themselves. I hope that the story of Bessie’s Parlor shows other social entrepreneurs that unconventional ways to serve those in need are just as valuable and necessary in creating the social change we wish to see in the world as the more traditional business models.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
A week in Ames, Iowa would be a blast any time of year, but particularly fun in the spring. Downtown Ames has a lovely art scene, featuring Music Walk and Art Walk events. I’d ensure my friend visit during one of those weeks and stay for the Ames Farmer’s Market, too. The sights and smells of the Ames Farmer’s Market are spectacular, and it’s always fun running into many familiar faces. We’d certainly hit up my favorite coffee shops, including Burgie’s (the north Burgie’s location is my go-to), Café Diem, and Stomping Grounds. Burgie’s would provide them with a modern environment, while Café Diem is downtown with a more traditional feel. Stomping Grounds is a coffee shop/restaurant/bar, and their outdoor seating is the best (it’s where I took my mom and mother-in-law the morning of my wedding). There are lots of beautiful places to take walks in Ames, including Ada Hayden Heritage Park (where my husband proposed to me), Iowa State University’s campus (where I serve as inaugural director of the Start Something LAS Academy), and Moore Park. Indulging in some of Ames’ greatest restaurants would take us to Provisions, Aunt Maude’s, Cornbred, The Café, Macubana, Clayton Farms Salads, and Wallaby’s. The people are what make Ames most special, so I’d introduce them to a few of my favorites: Stacy Negrete of Oak Lane Candle Company (where we would experience a candle pour bar), Father Kyle Digmann of Saint Thomas Aquinas Church, and Judi Eyles of the ISU Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship. A trip to my corner of Ames would be incomplete without a tour of the ISU Student Innovation Center, an $84 million building where students can try their hands at anything from space mining in NASA’s synthetic moon sand to glassblowing, 3D printing, media production, and more.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My biggest shoutouts go to the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Iowa State University and Clayton and Mikayla Mooney. As a student, I learned so much through the Start Something program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (formerly the Agricultural Entrepreneurship Initiative) and through the ISU Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship. Additionally, in my role as inaugural director of the Start Something LAS Academy in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, I continue to grow as a founder, as I am daily pushed by my students and program mentors. The co-founders of KinoSol, Clayton and Mikayla Mooney, deserve my second shoutout. As a college student, they hired me as a member of their team. Through the development and commercialization of solar food dehydrators for farmers in remote regions of the world, I learned a lot about building a business. As fellow college students, it was empowering to see that young people, just a few years older than me, had the ability to make such a global impact. They showed me that if they could do it, I could do it.

Website: https://www.bessiesparlor.com/

Instagram: @bessiesparlor

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccarunyon/

Facebook: @bessiesparlor