Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cassie Wilson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Cassie , appreciate you joining us today. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?

I have almost always worked for myself in one way or another – except for summer jobs during college, and after graduating when I had an office job. I was incredibly restless sitting at a reception desk, and while I liked the field I was in, I could not imagine climbing any particular career ladder there. I quit after a year and went back to school for massage, then left that behind to strike out into my current business.

Every six months or so, I seriously consider looking for a job, 20 years later. I scroll through job listings; I have alerts for CEO jobs from LinkedIn; I have even submitted for positions every once in a while– but none of this is really very serious. Normally this behavior is brought on by the stress and insecurity of owning my own business, particularly financial rockiness; or sometimes during some particularly difficult crises in business logistics. I often doubt my ability to really run my businesses effectively, or lament the pace of growth, and wish to expand but feel stymied by a lack of resources or time. These periods are often marked by 3 a.m. worry sessions, trying to puzzle out solutions to issues that seem intractable.

At these moments I wish there was someone else who could make decisions for me- just take care of me! Or I worry about how to juggle dwindled financial resources, and how I will pay payroll particularly- mostly mine, since I get paid last. I know at this point if I had stuck with a career I would be much better paid, have a bigger house or a nest egg put away. I wonder if the stress is worth it, to not be secure at this point in my life.

But I know all of that is an illusion. Generally I love being an entrepreneur and business owner- it’s like playing a very frustrating card game whose rules seem to change regularly! Security is not guaranteed even in a career, and those ladders can be elusive and have their own missteps. But mostly I made a trade-off in my life– having my own business has given me the flexibility and creativity I would miss if I ever gave it up. I have been able to live simply, travel, be with my kids as they grew, and leaned in on my own resourcefulness and strength in a massive way over the last 20 years of building and running my own businesses. Perhaps someone will come along and offer me a million dollar salary to give it up and run their show, but that is highly unlikely, and instead I am enjoying a new stage in my work projects, pulling on the huge amount I have learned (and sweated through) over the years to keep growing.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was lucky to grow up with an inveterate entrepreneur in the ’80’s and ’90’s, a time when the markets were wide open and curious to new goods and designs from around the world. My father included me in buying trips to Africa and South America, and trade shows from an early age, and I learned a lot about being flexible and dynamic in the face of constant surprises and setbacks– as dad said, business is like surfing- but you never reach shore. The waves may get bigger but you have to keep riding them.

For many years, I have worked in the same field as he did, running my own import business and wholesaling to small and large retailers. We have always focused on the importance of sustainability in our products, from early days before there was as much awareness around buzzwords such as ecological, reusable and sustainable. As the years have passed in my original industry, however, my awareness has grown of the relationship of raw materials to actual climate issues, and how a customer understands and perceives, or does not perceive as the case may be, the life cycle of a product. The fact is, most products are agricultural in one way or another, and the materials often have an origin point on a small farm in some distant place- and they are reworked and shipped around the world. These processes- farming, production and shipping- all can be affected by climate realities and raw materials can stop being available, crafts people can be displaced, if the delicate balance they work within are disrupted.

A curiosity around these issues has inspired me to dive into our new venture, Kenkashi Microbes, a line of soil, plant and compost products that work with our most vital partners in soil health, microbes! Soil is the key to a lot of our climate challenges– healthy soil results in a healthy network available to pulling and sequestering carbon back in the ground; healthy soil retains water, and staves off desertification and runoff. A thriving and biodiverse soil rich in microbes, fungi and insects results in more robust and nutrient rich plants, which in turn improve insect and bird life, and help feed us the nutrients we need to thrive.

Our biggest selling product is our compost blend of microbes and hemp, which allows the average householder to make nutrient rich compost in as little as 6 months. Customers routinely reflect that they want to do more at home to help with climate issues, and compost is a relatively easy way to save food scraps from the landfill and use them wisely in gardens. We are motivated to make this sometimes mysterious process as simple and clear as possible!

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

Our import business suffered an enormous set-back in 2021 that we have been able to navigate and bounce back from, although we are still feeling the repercussions. We were importing a large order into Canada, directly for the first time, an entire container that would have been a wonderful boon to our profit for the year; all things were going smoothly until a few shipping mishaps that culminated in customs selecting our container and deciding to search it. That was the first blow- selecting is so random, and once it is pulled it can sit for ages in port. It did not sit for long, luckily, but when they looked at it they found packing material that was problematic, and they refused the container, sending it back to the origin point. Costs were beginning to mount. To add insult to injury, this period was during the insane climbs in shipping costs- a one way delivery went from $2000 to $8000 and one of our delivery routes went up to $14,000. As a small business, this was almost crippling. We managed to beg and borrow- no stealing- enough to pay each step of the journey from Canada, back to the country of origin, where they repacked and shipped it back to our warehouse in the US- and I set about figuring out how to sell an absurd number of items, as the original customer could no longer use them- we had missed their window. We are on the final stages now 3 years later of moving the product and paying our debt, but it is hard to measure what losses we have experienced- aside from interest on loans, storage time, etc is the question of what missed opportunities losing the profit from this order has meant- we may have been able to grow, as opposed to having to tighten and simplify our business. That said, it was an incredibly useful series of lessons. Failure does indeed lead to information to learn from, and it did not take us down- we are still here and growing!

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

We make our microbes in our brewery, and we have been learning as we go, building systems, adapting materials to serve our needs. It has been incredibly useful and interesting! My original business, importing, is very simple in many way, but manufacturing brings in so many different skill sets. We started with a very simple process that we have been growing over the years, using my partners background in professional beer brewing as a starting point for tools and materials. We are working on simplifying and codifying our processes at each step, knowing that the more efficiency is built in, the higher our profit margins as it will take less time to handle each step and our production capabilities will go up. Installing a lab is crucial to maintaining consistency, and having logs for every step will ensure that we are able to track any issues in batches. The biggest issue we see moving ahead is being ready to scale when the time comes. We have found grants for some of our goals, and have networked to be ready when the time comes for fund raising if needed.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kenkashi.com and www.medinamercantile.com
• Instagram: @kenkashimicrobes and @medinamerc
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cassie-wilson-medina

Image Credits

Amber Rae
Chelsa Yoder