How the Messy Road to Entrepreneurship is Often Paved with a Portfolio Career
Steve with the Duck Foot Part Inc. at trade shows.
The road to entrepreneurship is often not a clear and linear ascent to success. Instead, it’s often paved with a messy income streaming, portfolio career. This was the case for Steve and Chrisa Kastning, the owners of Duck Foot Parts Inc., a startup company that was launched in 2017. In just 5 years, their company has expanded sales into Australia and the United States. However, prior to working full-time in their business, they had a portfolio career that included income streaming from part-time work, a seasonal job and a contract job in order to bridge the gap between quitting farming and launching their business.
Steve has always had an entrepreneurial, income streaming mindset. From 2005-2016, he had numerous forms of employment including owning a grain elevator that cleaned and shipped organic grain, he managed a farm, rented and farmed his own land, custom farmed for a land investment company, plus worked with his dad in his dad’s plumbing business in the winter. “It’s just what I did,” he said. “When you’re a farmer you learn how to juggle and make money from diversifying your income. That’s just how we think.”
In 2014, Steve had two entrepreneurial ideas on the go. He and his friend, Kirby, had everything pulled together to start a semi-truck wash business outside of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Steve says, “I had the idea with Kirby to start a semi-truck wash. He and I travelled to the US to look at a state-of-the-art wash system. Chrisa and I traveled to Norway and Sweden to meet with the company that builds the system to work on the building plans. We had a piece of land outside of Regina and we had investors lined up that were going to invest.”
He also had another idea brewing in the background that he shared with his wife, Chrisa. “We were fortunate to be in the farming business, so the idea happened organically,” Chrisa says. “I remember riding in the combine with Steve and he started to talk about how he had the vision to create a product that would feed crops better. He then started to play with the idea to get it to work better. At the time, we were both working full-time for the farm.”
During this time, Steve and Chrisa had the mold made for the Duck Foot and started to work on patents. In 2016, they started selling to local farmers and continued with testing, but they were having problems with the product falling off. They stopped production and went to work on making the necessary changes to improve their product before taking it back to market.
“I’ve thought about creating this product for years as I was working in the farming industry,” Steve adds. “There were products out there that I had used as a farmer, but they weren’t designed in an efficient way. I was growing lentils, which is a short crop and hard to clear the cutter bar, creating losses. I’ve always been someone who adapted, changed things and tried to make processes more efficient. I really felt I could improve on what was in the market.”
In the meantime, the semi-truck wash came to a sudden stop. Steve adds, “The GTH couldn’t get our land prepped so we decided to put it on the shelf until the land development was ready.” At this point, they realized they had to pivot. They were waiting for the truck wash, they had a product they were launching and they had another idea brewing.
They decided to quit farming. They were renting 90% of the land they farmed and buying the family farm wasn’t an option, so they transitioned away from farming, and decided to franchise Kirby’s ‘Suds Car Wash’ and open a Saskatoon, Saskatchewan location. Time ticked away and securing investors for the franchise was a lengthy process. Like most entrepreneurs who are waiting for investors or are launching a product line, Steve and Chrisa needed to make some money. They decided to tap into previous skills and experience to look for work.
Prior to meeting Steve, “Startup Entrepreneur” was not a job title on Chrisa’s resume. She began her career as a Family Worker at Onion Lake Family Services and, before marrying Steve, for 12 years she was an Adoption and Permanency Planning Worker for Alberta Children’s Services. However, following their engagement, she worked towards her resignation and moved, joining Steve to work on the farm. Wanting to keep her foot in the door of her 1st career, Chrisa took on a contract role as a SAFE Home Study Supervisor. “I provide consultation and to the SAFE Home Study Writer through each step of the process including reviewing the final report”, she says. Chrisa began her first portfolio career streaming income from working various jobs on the farm including driving a grain cart and reviewing home studies, a job she could do remotely. “After we quit farming, I kept that contract and then after we sold our house and moved to Saskatoon, I also got a job at the Saskatoon Public Library.”
The move to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan to franchise the car wash meant Chrisa was living in Saskatoon while Steve spent weekdays in Regina working at Sud’s Car Wash, learning the ropes of running a cash wash business while they waited for the car wash franchise investors. “We were car washing and duck footing. It was a crazy time for us,” they add.
Chrisa and the Duck Foot Part Inc. at trade shows
“We were streaming income from all over the place,” Steve continues. “I took a contract in the oil field for a few months just to get some money in the bank, then I saw a job posting for a full-time Farm Supervisor for Winny Farms, I applied and got the job.”
Shortly after, in 2017, they had their big break on Twitter with their Duck Foot product.
“We didn’t have any social media platforms for Duck Foot yet and no twitter account,” Steve says. “But, my buddy, Jeromy Smith, from Nokomis, Saskatchewan had a Twitter account. He works for a farmer and they grow lentils. He tweeted about using our new and improved product. A farmer from Australia tweeted Jeromy and asked where he could get them. Peter from Australia then contacted us and we made our first sale internationally. It all grew from that point on.”
They worked on their sales funnels after that and started a Facebook account. They officially launched Duck Foot Parts Inc. as part of the Innovation Showcase at Canada’s Farm Progress Show in June 2018. “We won a Sterling Innovation Award,” Chrisa adds, “and after that the product started to take off in Canada and internationally.”
Many portfolio careerists who are highly entrepreneurial and are using a portfolio career to leverage their expenses while building their business will tell you that there comes a time when you may have to pull the plug on some of your income streams to dedicate your time and energy into nurturing or scaling your business.
Chrisa was the first to shift to working full-time for Duck Foot Parts Inc. She quit her library job, but continued with her contract role reviewing home studies. Steve continued to work for Winny Farms. But, by the winter of 2019/20, Steve realized he had to take time away from his farm job to focus on the business. That winter they exhibited at 7 trade shows, 6 in the USA and 1 in Canada. Steve completed seeding for Winny Farms in 2020. He then also shifted to working full-time for Duck Foot Parts Inc. It became evident he needed to be in the field doing demos, getting videos and testimonials in order to build the businesses growth capacity.
While the Duck Foot Parts Inc. took off, Steve and Chrisa let go of the truck wash and car wash franchise focusing 100% on growing their business. In the beginning phase of launching a business, entrepreneurs work tirelessly. Steve says, “You have to have the work ethic. I’ve always wanted to work for myself and be in charge of my schedule. But, it’s hard work.”
Chrisa adds, “If you want to be an entrepreneur you think about it all day. I had a full-time job, and I had a pension and I certainly valued that, but I love the flexibility of this business. It drives us. You have to be prepared for that. You have to be ready to work 12-14 hours daily. You also talk about it all the time. Vacations aren’t going to happen. You are giving up a lot of your personal life for your business to start it up. You don’t have evenings and weekends like you do with a 9-5 job. If we are talking to Australia, it has to be in the evening. Planning in the evenings, you’re doing the work during the day. You have to love it. You have to be passionate and love it. If you don’t, it won’t work.”
Steve adds, “The other thing is you have to realize is that you are financially tied to it. You have to be financially invested or you won’t do the work. All investors say you have to have skin in the game, and that’s why we worked a portfolio career. We had income streams so we could keep going.”
Duck Foot Parts Inc. now sells all over North America, Australia and is expanding into Germany with plans to reach other countries. They are continuing the learning curve, recently completing courses to help them create a strategic export plan. They also recently hired a consultant from an ag advisory company to take their sales to the next level getting into dealerships rather than doing direct sales. When asked what advice they would give during the growth spurts of a new business, Chrisa suggests, ““If we were to give people advice on growth, know your strengths.”
Steve continues, “I have knowledge of the product. I know farming, how the industry works and I know the product because I’ve been the consumer. Now I’m the innovator and I know the problem it solves and the benefits it offers, so we believe in the value it has for farmers. I can also talk farmer language.” He laughs.
Chrisa adds, “Know when to hire people to help you scale in the area of sales and business. Direct to farmer, we could manage, but scaling to the next level and shifting from B2C to B2B we needed support. We have figured out how to do the farm shows and Steve is figuring out how to manufacture new versions of the Duck Foot.”
When asked how she made the incredible leap from her full-time stable job, to a portfolio career, to full-time entrepreneurship Chrisa says, “I have no background in business or sales. I was a social worker, but I accessed free webinars all the time, and read to try to train myself and advance my knowledge and skill sets. We’ve met a lot of business owners through the farm trade shows and talking with one another and supporting each other has been really valuable. We text and call each other with questions. We are active in each other’s social media.”
“It has cost us a lot of unnecessary money because of what we didn’t know. Get mentors, connect to people in the industry who are slightly ahead of you as a business owner so you can connect to advice and also connect to entrepreneurial groups. Also, remember,” Steve adds, “It’s not going to happen over night. You’re going to have to work hard. It’s an absolute grind, so make sure you’re going to love it.”
Website: www.duckfootparts.ca
Facebook & Instagram: @duckfootpartsinc
Twitter: @duckfootparts
Remember: Our first big sale came from social media!