Good leads/nut grafs:
#1
When is the last time you found a screwdriver and a wrench in the purse of a millennial female? For Olivia Wolff, a 2016 Wake Forest graduate, these tools are readily at hand. Her business would not function without them.
On any given afternoon, Wolff may be using these tools to install kegs of UpDog Kombucha for local vendors in Winston-Salem. These fizzy teas filled with probiotic enzymes have become a big hit throughout the city and are now sold in local yoga studios, coffee shops and even small grocery stores.
What started as an effort to make pocket money from a brew developed in Wolff’s dorm kitchen in late 2015 has turned into a profitable business in just a year. Wolff teamed up with another Wake…
#2
You never know what’s in a woman’s purse. That’s true for Olivia Wolff, co-founder of UpDog Kombucha, who regularly carries a wrench and screwdriver with her. She needs these tools on a day-to-day basis to install kegs of her kombucha at local businesses.
Wolff, a recent Wake Forest graduate (’16), and her business partner Lauren Miller, a Wake senior, made the jump from part-time entrepreneurs to full-fledged business owners last year with their launch of UpDog, a fizzy fermented tea drink. What began as a small-batch product made in a dorm kitchen is now available at 25 locations in and around Winston-Salem. UpDog even managed to turn a profit within the first year of operation.
#3
For Olivia Wolff, a 23-year-old recent Wake Forest grad, kombucha is more than just a “super” beverage. It’s a booming business.
#4
Not many recent college graduates would say that one of their long-term goals is to acquire a bottling machine, but for Olivia Wolff, a 2016 Wake Forest grad, “That’s the dream.”
A bottling machine would help Wolff and her business partner, Wake senior Lauren Miller, take their remarkably successful start-up, UpDog Kombucha, to the next level. Just one year ago, the pair began selling their homebrewed kombucha from their dorm as a way to make extra cash. The appealing product and their skillful marketing on social media made UpDog a hit on campus — and then in Winston-Salem.
#5
Olivia Wolff, 22, ditched her initial dream of going to graduate school to pursue a new one: kombucha.
Wolff had long loved drinking kombucha, a fermented fizzy tea, but it was an expensive habit. October of her senior year at Wake Forest University, she started making it herself to save money.
Only three months later, Wolff and her business partner Lauren Miller, now a Wake Forest senior, decided to try selling the kombucha they were making in their dorm kitchen. To their surprise, just by marketing through social media, they sold 40 bottles in under an hour. UpDog Kombucha, the quirky name for their tea, was a hit. Quickly, sales grew to 160 bottles a week. Now, just over a year later, Wolff and Miller produce 300 gallons a week, sold locally by more than 25 vendors, and are gearing up for a major expansion.
#6
SCOBY, an acronym for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast, is the key ingredient in kombucha, a probiotic, naturally carbonated drink that takes over two weeks to produce.
Two Wake Forest students not only figured out how to use it to produce their own kombucha, but also figured out the right ingredients to launch their own company, UpDog Kombucha. In a recent press conference, entrepreneur Olivia Wolff, 22, a 2016 graduate, said Wake Forest grants and a network of friends were key elements in turning this fermented drink into a viable business.
#7
Walking through the beverages aisle of her local Whole Foods Market, Olivia Wolff couldn’t help but ask why there weren’t any healthy tea drinks that were not too expensive. This question sparked the inspiration to create her own healthy, tasty – and cheaper – fermented tea, called kombucha.
The 2016 Wake Forest graduate and co-founder of Up Dog Kombucha, a handcraft brewing company launched during her senior year, has been working over 80 hours a week to grow her business. Her dream has turned into a reality. With the help of co-founder Lauren Miller (’17) and Wake’s Hobbs Student Award for Entrepreneurial Achievement that helped fund their business, Up Dog Kombucha is now producing 300 gallons a week of tea for commercial sale in North Carolina. They have come a long way from the original 15 gallons a week they made in Wolff’s dorm kitchen in Dogwood.
An effective nut graf:
Running a successful entrepreneurial venture forced Wolff to grow up fast. The 2016 Wake Forest graduate, along with her business partner Lauren Miller (’17), started selling kombucha out of her Dogwood dorm in January 2016. Now, one year later, Updog Kombucha has turned a profit producing over 300 gallons per week for sale in 25 venues in the greater Winston-Salem area — a long way from the first batch of 15 gallons sold on campus.
Good flow:
Exchanging production techniques, flavor preferences and ideas, Wolff and Miller began a partnership based just as much off the intermingling of their personal compositions as it is off the fermentation of their fizzy product.
After early discussions, Wolff and Miller designed a logo and last winter launched an Instagram account for their brand, which they called “UpDog Kombucha.”
By January 2016, they were taking orders over Facebook and Instagram from their peers, brewing their kombucha from the kitchen of Wake Forest’s Dogwood residence hall, and selling it—rapidly.
“The first time we said, ‘OK, let’s make 40 bottles. We can start with that,'” Wolff said at a recent press conference, stifling a smile. “We sold out in an hour.”
The duo gradually began increasing production, eventually turning out an average of 120 bottles of kombucha a month for the remainder of Wolff’s final semester at Wake Forest.
Come May, Wolff and Miller decided to take their young enterprise—much like they took themselves—from the sheltered community within Wake’s gates to the real world.
Good kicker:
In the next year, Wolff hopes to get a distributor and new employees to make the production process easier. Farther down the road, she hopes the company is efficient enough so she can think “about” the business without thinking “in” the business.
“An entrepreneur is the only kind of person who works 80 hours a week to avoid working 40,” Wolff said. “Right now, I am the business; the business is me.”
Another good lead-in and kicker:
Just as with many other students, Wolff said she had a misconception that everyone has to go through some type of post-collegiate training in order to be successful in life.
Now with 27 locations selling UpDog Kombucha in North Carolina, Wolff feels content with her decision to abandon grad school and pursue her own passion instead.
“I’m really enjoying the path that I’m on,” Wolff said. “I feel more stressed out than if I would have had some secure job. But to me, I find value in the fact that I don’t have to answer to anybody except my customers.”
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