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

Kathryn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I used to own a coffee trailer in Wisconsin and it was a slow day. I started wondering how I can get coffee out to more service members, especially those deployed or deploying. I consulted with my business coach and friend, Jacquelynn.
I mentioned that every time I deployed, I always got good coffee, a French press, and a stainless steel mug.
As a cook on the ship, I knew that the mess deck coffee wasn’t that great, which is why I always kept some stocked in my rack.
What came up during this conversation was starting a deployment box or coffee crate where all 3 of these items could be offered or customized for what the service member needed.
I knew that I wanted those things on my deployment and I thought it would be a nice bundle to offer to others that deployed, or their families to gift them.

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’ve been in the food service industry since I was 15. I worked in restaurants until I was 18, when I left for the Navy. I continued my culinary journey, because my initial intention was to gain knowledge and open my own diner or bakery one day.
After 10 years and starting a family, I got out and opened a coffee trailer in Wisconsin. That’s where Boots On Ground came to fruition.
I knew that as a new military spouse I would be leaving Wisconsin and sold my coffee trailer but kept my coffee brand.

One main feature about Boots On Ground is that sets us apart from our competitors is that every single month, we donate 10% of every sale to a different military or veteran nonprofit to give back to those who serve or have served.
This last year, we also started a donation feature, where anyone can go into our website and choose to donate a bag of coffee to someone deployed or they can donate money, which goes to build a large care package for a deployed unit.

I would say the fact that we donate every single month, is something I am most proud of with my business. I take pride in the fact that we give back to those who support military and veterans.

Have you ever had to pivot?

One major time I had to pivot in my life was when I started my family and separated from the Navy.
It was a difficult decision to make, but ultimately, I decided to become a stay at home and work on my own ambitions while my husband stayed active duty.
I, unconventionally, decided to throw all my savings into starting my own business so I didn’t have to work for anyone else and could make my own hours.
After getting married, and finding out we were leaving the Midwest, I decided to sell the coffee trailer and continue building Boots On Ground Coffee. Now BOG has moved across the country from where we began.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

Boots On Ground started as an Etsy page, which was the easiest at the time. We started with solely coffee before adding on our deployment boxes and merchandise.
Initially, Etsy was the simple option for myself and my roaster.
After hiring a company to build a personalized and branded website for Boots On Ground, we started finding that some of our Etsy fees were getting to be a bit too much.
So while Etsy was great for the beginning and the launch of my business, I found that my Shopify had more traffic and made more sense than holding onto an unused web page.
Using Shopify now has its own challenges as I am not particularly tech savvy, I find that it has so many more features that benefit the brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.bootsongroundcoffee.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bootsongroundcoffeeco/profilecard/?igsh=MXNzdnJ1ODVvcG91dQ==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088199246149&mibextid=LQQJ4d

Image Credits

N/a