Wayne & Stacey Ashford
By Erik Deckers
Managing Editor
Tea has always been an important part of Wayne Ashford’s life, even when he was a kid, because it was always around. When he was growing up, there was coffee, water, and tea in the house, but rarely juice, and never Kool-Aid. “And tea wouldn’t have been there if that wasn’t what my mother enjoyed,” Ashford said. “My mother would take tea and put it out in the sun, in a big glass jar, and I thought that was fascinating. She sweetened it in the Southern style, and that was my Kool-Aid.”
Being an entrepreneur has long been Ashford’s dream. “I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, even as a kid. I knew I wanted to be in business for myself, from as early as I can remember,” he said. “Finding the widget was the key, the journey, the evolution,” said Ashford. “Our gifts are so close, we just take it for granted, because it’s been our life for such a long time, so we don’t recognize it for the gift that it truly is.”
Finally, in 2000, Ashford combined his love of tea and his entrepreneurial sprit, and he and his wife Stacey opened the Tea’s Me tea shop near downtown Indianapolis. They have been at their current location for nearly four years, although Tea’s Me started as a part-time online business.
“Once I discovered tea, I started researching it,” said Ashford. “I became fascinated with tea. It took me over.” Ashford began to collect and sample tea, read and research everything he could find, not only its history, but the health benefits. “The initial plan was to build a brick-and-mortar store, and then bring a Web site to the building,” said Ashford. “But I was apprehensive jumping off full-time. So we flipped the business plan and launched the Web site first.” This allowed Ashford to continue to work, get some on-the-job training, develop his product line, and reach people without a lot of overhead. But it was slow going in the beginning. It wasn’t just a matter of getting people to try something different, but to think of tea in a new way.
“I felt that being where we are in Indiana, we had to change the culture and the philosophy toward a new beverage. Most of the time was initially spent educating people on why tea should be a part of their routine,” said Ashford. But in the beginning, the personal consumers weren’t his main focus. Instead, Ashford focused a lot of his energy on the corporations around Indianapolis. Once the Web site was up, he began talking to companies about the benefits of tea. “I started talking to health industries, because tea is a healthy beverage,” said Ashford. “We focused on tea-related items, like baskets, so companies could give them as gifts and employee rewards.”
Ashford credits his success with building traffic through relationships, even when he was only on the Web. “I wasn’t concerned with getting the world wide presence. I was more concerned with proximity, and the distance of my voice, whoever I could touch and feel. That was the audience I was trying to drive to the site,” said Ashford. Ashford said their success is a direct result of relationship building.
“The key is how do you create a following,” said Ashford. “Human nature is that we want to be appreciated right away. I think one person at a time, one guest at a time, one tea drinker at a time, one customer at a time, one corporation at a time. That’s truly how I function day to day. To build relationships and longevity, that’s what has worked for me.” Now, Tea’s Me is the premier tea bar in Indianapolis, and other shops are beginning to pop up. “Some people think they would be the competition, but my theory is a little different,” said Ashford. “I’m happy to see new tea places, because the more people who are brought to tea, the better. It’s nice to see that other people are getting the idea that tea is here to stay.”
Tea’s Me Cafe
140B East 22nd Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202
Phone: 317.920.1016
E-Mail: cs@teasmecafe.com
