Bucha Brewers is bringing the delicious flavors of kombucha right into your home with their kombucha brewing kits. Bucha Brewers journey started in the greater Denver area when founder Kristie Burritt became inspired to find a cost-effective way to enjoy the many benefits and great taste of kombucha. She decided to put the magic of kombucha in the hands of customers with brewing kits that teach people how to make nutritional and delicious kombucha. Customers have the opportunity to start home brewing kombucha from scratch using Bucha Brewers signature kombucha brewing kits. We sat down with Kristie to discuss the benefits of kombucha, brewing tips, and the process of building a WordPress website to grow her business.
How did you start your business?
My husband’s family was visiting us in Colorado years ago, and they wanted to try kombucha. We had a “kombucha tasting”; my husband and I were the only ones who liked it, and I was inspired.
I wanted the benefits of kombucha without the expensive store-bought price, so I looked into making it. As I pieced together equipment and instructions, I realized there was a business opportunity in simplifying the process for others.
What are the health benefits of kombucha?
Kombucha offers a wide array of probiotics, antioxidants, organic acids, and nutrients. Amongst the many benefits studied are improved digestion and gut health, improved immune health, liver health & detoxification support, treatment and prevention of type 2 diabetes, and reduced inflammation.
How do you define the “Rocky Mountain Style” of your brewing process?
I started Bucha Brewers in the Denver area. Kombucha is unique in the fact that each brew (and kombucha SCOBY) is made possible by part of your previous brew and previous SCOBY(s). As a result, all of our SCOBYs and kombucha brews have descended from our original SCOBYs grown in the Rocky Mountains.
I love the Rocky Mountains and the beautiful nature, health and fitness lovers, and positive energy they are surrounded by. I wanted this energy to be a part of Bucha Brewers, and I find that it fits very well with the mission of kombucha home-brewers.
If you could recommend 1-2 products for new customers looking to make their own Kombucha, what would they be?
For new brewers looking for a seamless way to learn and complete the entire brewing process, I would recommend our Deluxe Brewing Kit. This kit includes everything you need to set up your kombucha, ferment it, and bottle and flavor it. Our customers love this kit because it walks you through all parts of the brewing process and provides some inspiration for future flavoring options.
I would also recommend our Kombucha Heat Mats to anyone brewing in a cooler home or climate. They are adjustable and make it easy to keep your kombucha happy and tasty as can be year-round!
What are 5 tips you would give to business owners looking to expand/diversify their products and services?
- Think outside the box: What problems do your customers run into when using your product/service? What problems do you run into when you use your product or service? A solution to these problems can often be a new product idea.
- If you want to stay ahead of your competition, you need to catch up first! It’s great to create new products and solutions, but you might be missing an opportunity with existing products as well. Look at your competitors’ products: could any of their offerings improve your customers’ experiences? If so, you probably have some work to do.
- Don’t be afraid to take risks: Whether you are looking at investing in a new product, switching to a new partner/supplier, or outsourcing some of your work, change can be scary. However, the quickest way to fail is to decide you aren’t going to show up in the first place. As Babe Ruth put it, never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game!
- Change your mindset on failure: This is the tough part of taking risks: not every risk you take is going to end in success. Your new product could flop, but it might lead to your best-selling product yet. Learn to look at failure in terms of the lessons that you take away from it, and move forward with those lessons in mind.
- Listen to your customers: Pay attention to your reviews and customer feedback. Sometimes a customer will blatantly state that they wish an add-on item was available, and sometimes you can identify a new product idea based on their unmet needs.
Take some time to get familiar with your fermentation preferences. Start with a 7-day fermentation for sweet kombucha or 14 days for a tart kombucha. If your kombucha ends up too tart for your liking, try using it as a “vinegar” in salad dressing!
How does using a subscription-based model change impact your business?
The idea for our first subscription product came from a customer, who said she wished we would offer a subscription for sugar and tea for her future kombucha brews. We did not take her feedback lightly and added this option to our website. This works very well for our customers and for us on the business end, especially given the semi-weekly nature of home-brewing kombucha.
On the customer side, we can offer subscription ingredients and recipes that conveniently arrive at a customer’s door once a month. This ensures customers will have what they need to brew for that month and helps them to maintain a regular brewing schedule without worrying about hunting down recipes and ingredients.
On the business side, we can forecast some of our revenue and product demand each month based on our subscriber counts. This helps us to plan better for the month ahead.
Tell us 4 things to know before building your own website
- There are incredible tutorials & resources available online: I watched many videos and read many articles in the process of building my website. It might be helpful to watch an “introduction to WordPress” type of video to familiarize yourself with different plugins and other ways you can simplify the process prior to getting started
- The coding knowledge you need is very limited: With all of the plug-ins and resources available these days, you can really build a WordPress website without any coding knowledge. To further customize your site, you can look up the coding knowledge you need to achieve specific tasks.
- Think about the type of website you want before selecting and working on a particular theme: For example, many themes are not very compatible with an eCommerce website. Make sure your theme properly suits your purpose before putting in the work to build your website!
- Build your site with your web content in mind: In order to build out your site, you will need some content (i.e. images, articles, etc.) prepared. Think about how you would like that content organized as you build your site. I would suggest having some content prepared so you can make sure you understand how different features and sections of your site will look as you build it.
Do you have a website maintenance routine or process for updating your website?
We update our website with new articles, recipes, and products regularly. We also update back-end items like plug-ins regularly to ensure we offer the best customer experience possible. Aside from this, we update our website seasonally to ensure its content is always relevant to our customers.
What role does your website play in your business model?
The Bucha Brewers website is essential to making our eCommerce store possible. It also gives us a place to share recipes, kombucha brewing knowledge, and information about our business with our customers. I would consider the Bucha Brewers website the “heart” of the business.
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