Scobi Life with Rose
Hello! My name is Rose Miller. I am 23 years old, and I live in Spearfish, SD. I just graduated college in May of 2020 and have no long term plans for my future, but I do have short term goals. This year has really taught me to take life as it comes. I currently work for Scobi Kombucha, this amazing start-up company I’m about to tell you all about, and I also volunteer coach for the BHSU women’s soccer team. Anyway, welcome to my world of Scobi Kombucha...
I started working for Scobi Kombucha about 2 years ago. I was a student-athlete at the time, attending Black Hills State University for my 4th year, and working as a waitress. I was looking for an internship somewhere in the business world so I could get some experience, and then the PERFECT opportunity came up with a start-up company where I would get to do a little bit of everything. And yes, I mean everything. From running social media, making sales calls, invoicing, taking care of current accounts, running home deliveries, working events solo to represent Scobi, and MUCH more.
I started out by doing the operational tasks such as brewing, checking the pH, and finishing the flavoring process, which is a large part of what I enjoy doing today. My role and responsibilities in the company have changed a lot since the 2 years I’ve been here, and honestly, not all of it was rainbows and butterflies. It’s hard trying to figure out what you're good at. It’s even harder deciding if you even enjoy the things you’re good at. A word of advice from Rose - Even if you’re really good at something, it doesn’t mean you have to enjoy doing it. I found that I’m really great with social media marketing, but do I enjoy it? Ehh, it’s really not my favorite. I would definitely prefer not to do it. The beauty I see in this is, I developed valuable skills in social media specifically for businesses. Most importantly, I now know running social media for a company is not something I would enjoy doing forever. I still do a part of it (like today’s post 😉) because my social media skills are needed for the time being.
Start-up businesses are no joke. I wasn’t with Scobi from the very beginning so I don’t know what that was like, but let me tell you, I started about 10 months after the company was founded, and, man, were we resilient.
Absolutely nothing could stop brew day from happening. If you know anything about kombucha, then you know that the scoby is always doing its fermentation magic. This means we HAVE to brew on a certain day to keep the kombucha from fermenting too long. Stopping it at just the right point is part of why our kombucha has such an amazing and unique flavor. Not only that, we share a kitchen with another business where we have only one day a week to use the shared space. This means we have the added pressure to make sure the kombucha is actually ready for the next step, or else we miss our chance for another week, and by then it could be too far gone. But that’s the beauty of it. We’ve worked so hard to figure things out and get to where we are today (and that’s just from when I started). It is crazy how much has changed in the two short years we’ve now been in business. The start-up journey can be a struggle or a blessing depending on how you look at it, either way it’s definitely worth it.
One last word of advice from Rose that she’s obtained through her experiences at Scobi thus far - If you have the opportunity to jump on a start-up business's journey, DO IT. It’s crazy. It’s wild. Everything is always changing. About 10% of the things happen the way you want it to, while the other 90% make you wonder what in the world it is you’re doing. But the people you meet along the way, and the things you learn about yourself make everything worth it. Never have I been challenged to grow so much as a person. I’m very grateful for the ongoing opportunities this job has given me, and I thank Carissa Hauck and Bianca Hutzler so much for their determination and leadership.
