Bootstrap Cold Brew Coffee – Xero Customers Do Beautiful Business in Asia

(Republished from Shaun Burke, Regional Sales Director, Xero Asia – LinkedIn)

Over the last few weeks our team have been visiting Xero customers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Malaysia, listening to their business stories and hearing first hand how cloud technology is helping make running their lives and business operations easier and more seamless.

Over 10 years ago, Xero was born with humble beginnings in New Zealand – an idea hatched by a couple of Kiwis because they saw the available accounting options were outdated and didn’t meet the real needs of small business, the way things really worked. New Zealand was built on this DIY spirit, and it will always be close to our heart. Because of this, and because NZ has such a small population, kiwis always love discovering fellow Kiwis outside of NZ doing cool things.

Here in the Xero Asia team, as much as we love getting to know our local business customers we can’t help but feel a little extra pride when we find a #beautifulbusiness in the world that is not only on Xero, but is established by a Kiwi too. We had that exact moment last month when we met Greg Hickman, owner of Bootstrap Beverages Co. in Canguu, on the Indonesian Island of Bali.

I lived in New Zealand for over 10 years, briefly in Australia too, and I can tell you – considering how Australasians played a massive part of the ‘third wave’ of coffee connoisseurship that spread around the world since the late 1990’s – you’d be hard pressed to find a Kiwi or Australian that doesn’t believe their countries do coffee better than most places in the world. Thanks to the world class coffee scene in Wellington, I consider myself a bit of a caffeind too. We take coffee seriously. Combine that with a love for travel and laid back lifestyles, and it makes sense that there’s a strong demand for good coffee in a place like Bali that draws thousands of Kiwis and Aussies to it’s beautiful shores each year. (My Kiwi wife already knows which coffee shops should ‘meet the standard’ before we travel somewhere new).

Greg Hickman was one such kiwi coffee fanatic. But he isn’t like all the other coffee shop owners in town, he’s doing what Kiwis do best – taking the road less travelled and somehow forging his own path through what seems like an already saturated market. Instead of catering to the latte and flat white habits of folks from cooler climates, he’s ushering in the new era of cold coffee consumption that better suits the tropical climate that he’s living and working in. A hot flat white just doesn’t quite feel right here. But pour one of Greg’s organic cold brew coffees over ice while you’re beachside or sheltering from the heat of the day, and you’ll quickly understand why his product is getting picked up by some of the hippest beach clubs, restaurants and bars on the island, and has a bit of a cult following by both locals and travellers alike. With the classic Black Coffee, plus also the White Coffee (gently sweetened with coconut milk and nectar), extra strength coffee concentrates (espresso martini anyone?), and now a nitro coffee (think a coffee that pours like a Guinness) all under the Bootstrap label, Greg has a lot to smile about.

Cold Brew is the fastest growing trend in coffee is now rapidly growing as the choice for serious coffee drinkers in Asia. Bootstrap has been brewing refreshing and healthy alternatives to regular coffee since 2014, and came on board with Xero last year when their accounting and tax compliance needs were getting too complex and time consuming for them to manage internally. Being a Kiwi, Greg knew of Xero and so set out to find a Xero accounting partner that could support their needs as an agile and quickly growing small business. “Bukubuku (Xero Gold Partner) helped us implement Xero over the last few months, and it’s really helped us have to much better visibility over our general financials, reporting requirements, reporting for tax and local government requirements; and we’ve also found it really easy for our staff to get their heads around, training went really smoothly,” says Greg.

We love to see Kiwis #dobeautifulbusiness around the world on Xero. And because your coffee’s so good Greg, we’ll forgive you for not getting back to NZ more often!