Startup Life
This past week has been one of the most eventful since I began interning with UpDog Kombucha. Our delivery guy, Sam, has been out for a couple of days which definitely created a shift in responsibilities for all employees. It has been all hands on deck! It seems as though we have more deliveries than we can even keep up with, which has led me to have some pretty interesting experiences and helped me come to an ever-deeper understanding of what startup life is all about.
First and foremost, fulfilling deliveries has taught me a little bit more about Sam’s job. In addition to bringing kegs and cases of kombucha to different locations all over North and South Carolina, he also is the main salesman. I always wondered how he was able to do both jobs because delivering seemed to keep him pretty busy, but now I understand that it is because he is driving to all these different parts of the state that he is able to recognize new potential customers. I caught myself driving through High Point, NC on Thursday and thinking about all the businesses around me that could be new accounts. It was at that moment that I understood why Sam made sales as well. It takes a good bit of time to get to some of the locations we sell, so since he is already delivering to those areas he may as well find new clients while in town and offer them samples. I now see how it has made our sales not only grow quicker but also more conveniently.
In addition to this new understanding of Sam, I also had several experiences that plunged me into startup life. This past Monday I was making deliveries in the Raleigh/Durham area and ran into a bit of a problem. I was dropping off two kegs and when I arrived noticed that the air conditioning unit that keeps the walk-in refrigerator cold was not turned on. I quickly fixed this issue, but then noticed that 62 degrees was the coldest temperature for the unit and kombucha needs to be stored at no more than 45 degrees. Lauren and Olivia had installed a device called a CoolBot that brings the temperature down further to store the kombucha correctly, but that did not seem to be working correctly. After an attempt to fix it myself, I called Lauren who instructed me to bring everything in the cooler back to Winston-Salem in order to keep it from going bad. As I started moving the 11 kegs from the cooler to my car it began to rain. Correction, it began to pour. It was then that it really sunk in that I was working for a startup. I was not so much brought to this realization from the broken refrigerator and rain, but from the fact that I was making the best out of the situation, trying things out, and working with the resources that I had at the time.
Although having one less set of hands has made things a bit crazy around the UpDog brewery, I was happy to have these experiences because I feel as though I was getting an authentic view of what startup life is really like. I have always been told that it is not easy all the time and there is a lot of thinking on your feet, and in these two cases, I have really seen that lesson come to life. It is in the moment that I was able to recognize new potential customers and act on it as well as figure out the tough situation with the cooler. It is a lot of learning and doing as you go which at times can be tough, but also work in your favor as well. Overall, I have been able to take away many lessons from my time at UpDog and I am excited to see where they go in the future.
Written by Kellyn Jamison, #WakeEntrepreneur