We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kathy DeFrancisco. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kathy below.

Alright, Kathy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

It may sound cheesy, but I love what I do. Is this business or owning any business hard…you betcha, but I get to come to work everyday working alongside my husband and I get to be a part of our clients big events. I had a “regular” job, and was miserable. I hate corporate politics and I hate not keeping the rewards of my hard work because its not time for merit increases or the department was only allotted X amount. I did take away that I want to be the boss that changes lives. I want to be the woman that my employees write about when they answer the interview question about the best boss they ever had. I want to change the world one charcuterie board at a time. So am I happy, yes, what’s the saying, do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

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 am a proud woman business owner. My shop Sharecuterie is in my town of Powell, Ohio. We have a retail space where we source and sell some very unique cheeses, crisp, pickles and essentially any of the fixings you would need for entertaining. We also have an amazing website Sharecuterie.com where you can order any of our boxes or boards for delivery or pickup. We offer delivery in and around central Ohio. We are unique in that you can call in same day orders or order today for delivery tomorrow. We also offer classes and workshops. They are always a hit, we start with a lovely cheese/charcuterie tasting and then walk through how to make a charcuterie with styling tips and tricks. I have always loved to host gatherings so I give lots of details on how to be the best host and some fun easy DIY tricks. We do giant grazing tables for weddings, funerals, showers, birthday….the list goes on and on. They are customized to follow theme and always a statement piece. We do it all, and more importantly we have fun doing it. We are fully licensed and insured with the health and agriculture department and we adhere to strict guidelines to make sure that we are doing business the right way.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Getting started during the pandemic while working my career job, made this adventure better. It was nice to “try it” before we had to go all in. As far as building out the shop and commercial kitchen space…..it was all done by a working capital loan. Once we had the track record of receiving payments that was easy to qualify for. Outside of that we run very cash in, cash out to pay for the day to day. Down the road, we may open to investors for capital, but we are small enough still that we haven’t had a need and the expansion has all been self funded.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

My business partner is my amazing husband. We met at work so that part of our story was already in sync. Working with your life partner is not for everyone, but for us we don’t know another way. When I was working in HR and Recruiting, prior to this business, that is the one thing I missed in my day to day….I love to share ideas over morning coffee, and go in town in our business branded clothes where people know us as “The Sharecuterie Couple” When we were on the cusp of becoming empty nesters, we sat down and talked about what we wanted in order to “live our best life” and so this is part of that. This is the dream.

Contact Info:

• Website: Sharecuterie.com
• Instagram: @sharecuterieco
• Facebook: Sharecuterie
• Other: Tik Tok Sharecuterie