Today we’d like to introduce you to Betsy Ottinger.
Hi Betsy, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
Dreams of a mobile coffee business first formed in my mind about ten years ago. I was newly married and working at a big coffee chain while my husband Dan finished up college. We also worked at our church as interns, and I remember seeing some of my youth group girls walk in late on Wednesday nights with iced coffees + chais in hand and thinking to myself, “I could just make those for them here.”
The wheels started turning, and quickly the plans for a little table in the corner of the youth room morphed into a moveable set-up that could be taken to weddings, parties, and corporate events. I scribbled down a “business plan” and excitedly showed it to my husband. As I talked him through it, my enthusiasm waned as I felt reality set in. We were young and not at all financially established. We had no clue of where to start with building or designing anything like what I envisioned. I remember him saying, “Well if you are serious, we can figure this out.”
But it was too late. Saying it all out loud felt like too much: I wasn’t a risk taker, after all. Money wasn’t to be played with. I never saw myself as a boss or a business person. Who did I think I was with these plans? I didn’t even feel equipped to figure out the logistics for a set-up at our church. I closed my notebook and tucked it away with my other journals. Those plans could live there, with my other writings and musings, never to be seen by anyone but me.
Over the next 7 years, we grew to a family of 5. We moved jobs + states + started a little homestead. I stayed home with our babies, and as they grew, we decided to homeschool. From the early days of our marriage, when we worked together at our church, we had always imagined a life lived together – working alongside each other, working towards shared goals. We did that at home with our family and our homestead, but Dan would often talk about wanting to start a business. We would throw ideas around, but nothing would stick, nothing felt quite right.
In the fall of 2018, we went to a fall festival at our favorite local orchard. It was lovely – crisp air, hayrides, apple picking, fresh donuts made as you watched – but something was missing. Coffee! Somehow, in some strange way, Dan and I came to a very mutual, conclusive agreement that “We could do that!” My wheels once again started spinning…
Even though I had left my barista job years before, my love for coffee persisted. We had a home espresso machine – bought as a survival tool for ourselves after our third child was born – and I absolutely loved making up recipes and serving friends who came to our home. Dan and I would do coffee tastings – trying out a variety of roasting companies and different origins and blends – during our kids’ naptimes.
We took the leap and asked the family who owned the orchard if they would consider allowing us to set up a coffee stand for their festivals. They said yes, and we moved forward with planning a tent set-up to serve hot coffee and cold brew. We ended up doing 5 festivals there over the summer and fall of 2019. It was hard work but so very fun – I felt right back at home with carefully crafting recipes and making drinks, and serving customers. But – our girls were very young still. Dan’s full-time job as starting to really pick up, and he was working long hours almost every day. I didn’t really see a way to continue what we had began past that year’s festivals without compromising our family’s wellbeing. And then, with the spring of 2020 came the pandemic, which seemed to seal the fate of our little coffee pop-up shop.
I was ready to close the notebook again. The same thoughts started to creep back in again, too. “Who did I think I was, trying to start my own coffee business?” Too big of a risk, too unrealistic.
We had our entire set-up and all of our equipment stored in the spare room upstairs and as it sat collecting dust month after month, I regularly debated selling it all. I never did, though. Perhaps my subconscious knew what I did not…
About a year ago – late summer of 2021 – I had a missed call from the orchard. I listened to the voicemail and had my mind made up before the recording ended. Nope. Not coming back. Not gonna do it again. They had a lot of customers asking about coffee at the summer festivals and wanted to know if we could come back for the fall. “I’ll call back later,” I told myself. But as I put it off and went about my day, those creaky wheels in my mind started to once again turn – without my permission, even.
I just couldn’t help myself from slipping back into the dream, back into the plans + recipes + menu ideas + visualizations of our set-up. Dan’s work had finally slowed down again after a solid year and a half of frenzy. Our girls were all older + more independent. Maybe this could all happen again…
Dan was on board, too. We both agreed that it would be really good for me + for us. And about a week later – in a mobile coffee Facebook group we had been in for 3 years since we were planning for our first tent set-ups, we saw a fully operating coffee trailer for sale just a few miles down from our house. What were the odds? We at least needed to just go look at it…
The price was steep, and it felt like a huge risk – especially since we didn’t have a real business plan in place and couldn’t even come to an agreement on what kind of an operation we would run – but we told the owner that we would sleep on it and get back to him in the morning.
That night, I slept through the night for the first time in 4 years. It all felt crazy, but it also felt right, so we signed a big check and brought it home with us. We initially were hoping to launch in the fall, but the trailer itself ended up needing a lot of work – both cosmetic + functional – to reach our standards. We found wonderful fellow small business owners in our community to work with to bring our plans to fruition. And, as time went on, our vision became clearer, and little by little, Ott’s Coffee became more than a dream, more than a concept, but a real brand, a real shop on wheels.
We have now been operating for 5 months, and we set up shop several days a week in our community and the surrounding areas. We have grown to 5 part-time employees, we’ve been at festivals and markets and events, we’ve done fundraisers, we’ve popped up in the parking lots of a handfuls of local businesses, and we have grown such a beautiful, fiercely loyal customer base. I am constantly in awe of the support and love that we have received from our community since our first day in business, a soft launch in a church parking lot in the rain when the line didn’t stop the entire time.
It is a truly special thing to get to witness this dream of mine from 10 years ago bloom and grow and become such a thriving, meaningful reality. And the gaps in time, the false starts and roadblocks and setbacks? They make it feel that much sweeter. Ott’s Coffee is something that I think was always meant to be – and always meant for me, for us, for my family, for my community.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
My husband Dan sent me a motivational video the other day that had the central message of “It’s you against you. You are your biggest competition, your biggest stumbling block. It was never about them.” And goodness, that is true of me and the journey of Ott’s Coffee.
Imposter syndrome is something that was especially hard for me as we were starting up. Back when we would do the tent set-ups at the orchard festivals, I would have nightmares about a coffee snob coming by and questioning me about the country of origin and processing method of our beans, so I would study and memorize all of that information, ready for an interrogation. That confrontation never happened – I don’t think I had a single customer ask about our roaster or the origin of our beans back then, but those types of thoughts would haunt me.
Another challenge came in the early spring, as we planned for an April launch. There was so much unknown for us for a very long time, even down to: Where would we set up? What events would we do? Who would work on the trailer with me? How the heck would we make the large chunk of money back that we had spent? And then, in the midst of all of those floating question marks, there was a span of 3 or 4 days where I felt like some force was trying to deflate what little confidence and direction that I had. It felt almost like a joke, almost comical – except it wasn’t at all – two small towns where we had hoped to set-up regularly suddenly spawned their own coffee trailers. I kept getting messages like, “Oh have you seen this!?” Or “This person is doing this.” Someone even said to me at one point, “So how do you feel about all of your competition? There are 5 applications currently submitted in the county to do exactly what you are doing.”
I had several really rough days in the midst of that. All of those thoughts that I had struggled with before, along with some new ones – “Who do you think you are? You aren’t a risk taker or a business person. You aren’t well-connected, you don’t have a big family name around here,” haunted me. But weirdly, all of this apparent opposition turned out to be a gift because I had to make the decision to buckle down and focus solely on Ott’s. I decided to put on what I call my “blinders.” I didn’t check up on anyone else or pay any attention to what anyone else was doing or allegedly doing, and I feel like in that space was where the magic started to truly happen. My confidence grew because I believed in my dream and in the path that had been laid out in front of us. A lot of our decision-making was arduous and incredibly intentional, so I felt able to stand behind our products and our brand 100%. And honestly? Nothing that I had worried about or been told to worry about has actually been of any concern because we have been so focused on us, on doing things well + to our high standards.
We’ve been impressed with Ott’s Coffee, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Ott’s Coffee is a shop on wheels, serving handcrafted espresso, coffee, and tea beverages with a playful twist, to our corner of the world. You can find us at festivals, private + public events, and pop-up shops. We specialize in friendly service, quality + approachable beverages, and a love for community. We carefully design our menu to feature color + whimsy + fun, with unique combinations + flavor profiles that you may not find other places. Our recipes are curated very intentionally, and our products are carefully selected to reflect our high standards for quality. Our roasting partner is Rising Star Roasters out of Cleveland, OH.
What matters most to you?
People. Our employees, our customers, our community. People definitely matter the most to us. It is our hope that each person who visits the Ott’s trailer walks away feeling seen + cared for – even in the simplest of ways. We also desire to be part of thriving community – collaborating with fellow business owners, and giving back to schools and non-profit organizations + causes whenever possible.
Contact Info:
- Website: ottscoffee.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/otts.coffee/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Otts-Coffee/100073429113420/
Image Credits
Abbey Kline Photography
