To succeed as an entrepreneur, business owners have to build a better mousetrap than their competitors. “If you don’t have a competitive advantage, you’re not going to survive,” said Mitch McMullen, co-owner of the Newhall Coffee Roasting Co. and Java ‘N Jazz. “You have to know your advantage and sell it.”

Over the last 10 years, the competitive advantage for McMullen and his brother Kyle has been that the family operated coffee manufacturer supports a cause.

“I didn’t even drink coffee until we opened the business. I started drinking it because I know I’d better know what it looks, smells and tastes like. Now I’m addicted,” McMullen told a group of Canyon High School business students Friday morning.

McMullen was at Canyon High to teach the Canyon High School students how to run a successful coffee shop. The Canyon High students are interested in starting their own coffee concession on the Canyon High campus as part of their business applications class.

Over the last several years Canyon High has run several business education programs that are designed to work with local businesses in a hands-on manner to help the students learn the necessary steps to becoming an entrepreneur. The Canyon High business students used to be sponsored by Santa Monica-based Project ECHO, but because of financial difficulties, the students are now sponsored by Student Enterprise Partners, a Santa Clarita Valley-based nonprofit organization.

Lisa Diann Eichman, financial officer of Student Enterprise, said the organization was created over the summer to help students establish on-campus businesses by providing them with capital and management support.

To receive support from Student Enterprise, students are required to write a business plan and have it approved by the organization’s board of directors. If the students’ business plan is approved, they are given $500 to launch their business. Profits made from the businesses will be used for scholarships. Student Enterprise works with four student classes at Canyon High, Bowman High School and Saugus High School.

“The goal is to get the business plan due in October and have the business up and running by December,” Eichman said. “We want them to got through the process to learn how to become entrepreneurs. I think it is important that kids strive to further themselves. If we can help just one, then we have achieved our goal,” she said.

McMullen said business mentoring is an important part of educating high school students, whom he called the future business leaders. If the Canyon High students were interested in starting a coffee shop, he told them, he would help them get it off the ground.

Ten years after they first began selling coffee, McMullen said he and his brother are living their entrepreneurial dream. Newhall Coffee is sold in Ralphs, Vons, Albertsons and Pavilions supermarkets throughout Southern California. The coffee is also sold at Costco wholesale outlets in California and Bi-Lo supermarkets on the East Coast.

The McMullen brothers donate proceeds from their coffee sales to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Foundation to honor their brother Corey McMullen, who died from leukemia.

“When we started out, we were nobodies from Lyons Avenue in Newhall. Now we are in grocery stores out-selling Starbucks,” said McMullen, who lives locally and attended Hart High School and College of the Canyons prior to attending San Diego State.