Security Halt!
Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
Join us as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder, proving that even after the mission changes, the call to serve and thrive never ends.
Security Halt!
From Military Service to CEO: The Grit Behind Frontier Coffee’s Success
What does it take to go from military service to running a successful coffee company? In this powerful and unfiltered conversation, Nate Dressel, founder of Frontier Coffee, shares his entrepreneurial journey, revealing the hard-hitting realities of business, resilience, and veteran mental health.
🔥 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✅ The challenges of transitioning from the military to entrepreneurship
✅ How ideology and political climates shape business and culture
✅ The struggles veterans face in civilian life and how to take control of mental health
✅ Building a business from scratch—debt management, scaling, and market volatility
✅ Why resilience and persistence are the keys to success
🎯 If you’re a veteran entrepreneur, a business owner, or someone passionate about mental health and leadership, this episode is for you!
🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube! Don’t forget to follow, like, share, and subscribe to stay updated on veteran resilience, mental health, and leadership beyond the military.
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Chapters
00:00 Navigating the current Political Landscape
02:57 The Entrepreneurial Journey of Frontier Coffee
06:03 Protecting the American way of life
09:09 Mental Health and the Healthcare System
12:00 Veteran Identity and Resilience
15:11 Building a Business from the Ground Up
33:03 Navigating Growth Challenges in Entrepreneurship
35:28 The Burden of Debt and Market Volatility
38:15 Learning from Experience: The Entrepreneurial Journey
42:07 The Importance of Persistence and Resilience
47:49 Valuing All Contributions in the Military
56:43 Broadening Experiences and Leadership Development
Instagram: @securityhalt
Tik Tok: @security.halt.pod
LinkedIn: Deny Caballero
Follow Nate on LinkedIn and on social media today!
LinkedIn: Nathan Dressel
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-dressel-b5169531/
Instagram: realfrontiercoffee
https://www.instagram.com/realfrontiercoffee/?hl=en
Website: www.frontiercoffee.com
Produced by Security Halt Media
security on podcast. Let's go. The only podcast that's purpose-built from the ground up to support you not just, not just you, but the wider audience, everybody. Authentic, impactful and insightful conversations that serve a purpose, to help you, and the quality has gone up. It's, uh, decent. It's hosted by me, denny Caballero Nate from Frontier Coffee. How's it going, man Good. How are you doing? Thanks for having me Doing well, brother, doing well. Dude, you're a welcomed break from a lot of the wokeness that infects social media these days. I feel like common sense is being murdered at an alarming rate and it's just like dude. We have to be able to say things that are true and rational, and your posts call a lot of stupid shit out. So today, my man, I want to dig into your experience, not only in the military, but pivoting into this world of entrepreneurship and creating something from the ground up. It's not easy, it's not fucking easy, and you are doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been an interesting ride. For anyone listening that doesn't know, I own Frontier Coffee Company and, like Denny said, we as a company are very outspoken on our social media accounts and in our email newsletter, which you should sign up for. It's pretty funny. Yeah, we're very outspoken politically and socially about the things that we believe to be good and true and things that we hope will save our nation, uh, or the soul of our nation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, stuff that we've witnessed, especially over the past I seem 10 years or so, it's just been I mean perversion on a mass scale and, um, it's ideological perversion, it's religious perversion, it's perversion against children, and too many people have gone along with it because they were afraid of cancel culture. I don't know how much of that is still plaguing at people's fears with the new administration in there. Uh, have kowtowed to the the woke mafia, to the rainbow mafia, to the lgbtqia whatever mafia gestapo that is and, like they've always, I think that they've always tried to shelter their businesses, um, by, like you know, putting up their celebration flags, whether that's a, you know, some sort of celebration month or celebration for sexuality or ideology, um, and they've tried to shelter their businesses by, like, going along and supporting everything and some of this stuff is just, it's just evil and wrong and shouldn't be supported. Um so, when we you know our, our business didn't start off politically or socially motivated or really have any bias besides, my wife and I wanted to sell coffee. That was an employer there.
Speaker 2:But eventually there was this breaking point of like perversion needs to stop and whatever little platform we had at the time, it's like okay, we're going to use this little platform to speak out against it, going to use this little platform to speak out against it and like why should I mean, why should a business like ours that wants to speak out for what we believe and be canceled any more than you know? Target or putting trans flags up there like cancel, culture goes both ways. So, um, they came after us super hard. Uh, actually I called my friend john bur Burke the first time the lefties came after us, excuse me and I was like, hey, man, the Young Turks are doing a smear piece on me. Are you familiar with the Young Turks?
Speaker 1:Very loosely. I try not to give any of my attention to dipshits. I know enough about them that they're yeah dipshits.
Speaker 2:It's essentially an autistic communist organization. Yeah, so the young turks are coming after us just back in 2023. So I called john burke and was like, hey, what do I do? They're doxing me like they found out where my kid goes to school. They're calling my wife's private number, they're posting pictures of my teenager online like they were going bonkers.
Speaker 2:But, uh, he's like well, you got three options. One you can apologize to those faggots. He's like, well, that's not gonna happen. Uh, so let's take that option off the table. What else do you suggest, john? You can go radio silent, see what happens after a few weeks. You're not going to gain anything, not going to, not going to lose anything. You'll just kind of be dead in the water wherever you were before. Or or you can just dive in Like you already took the blows. You might as well jump in the ring and keep on fucking swinging. So that's what we did and, uh, you know it's came came with a little bit of growing pains, a little bit of uh put, a bit of standing on edge for a month as they were doxing us, but eventually we came out on top and you know, our brand is well defined as, I think, one of the one of the stronger conservative companies out there right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It's sad to hear that. Um, whenever you talk or have a counterpoint, they want to attack you and everything is open to them. And it's ridiculous to think that if you would have tried doing the same thing, if you would have shared information about their kids or their you know loved ones, you would have been drugged through the mud even more yeah, well, I'm not a fucking psycho, so I'm not going to dock people's kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, and that's, that's a sad reality that we're living in, uh, but I think, um, it's being washed away, hopefully, but this grooming, this constant attempt to try to create because they can't manufacture their own followers, they have to take them from normal families and they try to inject their ideology into our children that's really at the root of it. That that really bothers me. Like you can't just leave kids alone. You have to continue pushing the envelope and it's all throughout media and, uh, it has to. We have to be more vocal about it. I shouldn't turn on the tv and watch this shit on disney. I shouldn't have to watch it on hulu. Um it. To me it's ridiculous that we're even talking about this.
Speaker 2:We're labeled extremists absolutely uh, and like you said, they, they can't reproduce, so they do have to groom, they have to recruit, um, and that's what they're, that's what they've been doing really heavily for the past 10 years or so at least. Um, and excuse me, especially especially on like okay, so we have this whole alphabet mafia lgbtqia2, plus there's an s in there somewhere, like I honestly don't know what all of them mean, but essentially the l's and the g's. I think should have just like, pushed all the other letters out. You know what? Women who want to love other women. Men who want to love other men. You guys won that battle back in the 90s and early 2000s. You guys won.
Speaker 2:But Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB mic was always screaming this back in the 80s and 90s like it's a slippery slope and it won't stop there. However anyone wants to take this, this isn't a. This isn't a lesbian gay bashing thing. This is just like. Unfortunately for that group of people, they opened the doors and allowed a complete freak show of depravity and perversion in there. It's not love is love anymore. It's grown men wearing thongs, wearing dresses, dangling their, their units in front of children, trying to normalize that sort of behavior to children, because obviously it's not normal. But the earlier that they can start doing that to kids, the more normal it seems as they grow up normalize the behavior.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've seen it over and over again and it's, I think, that the big one of the big pieces is there was no longer a need for all these organizations that were created to continue fighting for equal rights. So what happens? When you built this system that requires fun, fundraisers and people to open up their coffers and donate more money, you're going to create and manufacture a problem. Yeah, you know, transgender ideology is I mean, we're not saying that people with mental health issues, where they had issues understanding who they were and what they identified with.
Speaker 1:That's been around, but it was a very small subsect of our population, very, very small. It wasn't this grand group and it still isn't. This is a mental health issue, but you put it out there and you parade it and you make it seem like it's part of a counterculture and they're warriors or there need to be supported and it's like wait a second man, like and we're seeing it now the, the movement of people that are trying to detransition is sad, remarkably sad. I mean it's all these young men and women that have been sold this lie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think part of the push is uh, obviously there's the. There's the first ideology that needs to recruit in order to keep its ideology alive. But you know, I I call it the great. The next great awakening um has been people realizing that doctors and pharma are not on their side. Ironically, it's always been the left who's been like big pharma, big pharma, big money, blah, blah, blah. But now the lefties seem to love all the pharmaceutical companies.
Speaker 2:But these doctors and these drug companies have never been a friend to any of the people that they're supposed to be serving. So once they realize that, okay, we can get kids hooked on SSRIs, we can get them hooked on Adderall, we can get them hooked on whatever other things that they've already figured out, that they can have them on every single drug under the sun to cure their anxiety, cure their depression, cure their hyperactivity, well then they realized eventually these kids might grow out of these drugs. They might become young men and women and be like you know what. I probably don't need to be taking 15 milligrams of Adderall twice a day. I could just focus on my job like an adult.
Speaker 2:But once these doctors and pharmaceutical companies realized that they could start lopping parts off and do hormone blockers and like, pretend to play God with people's sexuality or their gender. They like they have them hooked for life, these kids going into young adults, they can never get off of this stuff. You know, once you've undergone the surgery, once you've undergone these types of hormone blockers or hormone adapters, you're stuck. I mean, they've got a client for life. For life, yeah, there's nothing about this quote unquote gender affirming care. That is about saving lives. It is only about keeping a gravy train going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the sad reality is when you talk about any other mental health condition, if I go see my provider today and talk about PTSD, talk about flashbacks, talk about nightmares and talk about my delusions of always being in danger and always having to assess threat, they're not going to align with that view. They're not going to allow me to continue living that lie that I'm always going to be in danger. No, they're not. They're going to help me and give me tools and walk me down a logical path of thinking and understanding like, hey, you're not always going to be a threat. We have to understand that that's a big lie. You go read the DM. Oh gosh, one of those days DSM, DSM-5. And there's nothing in there that says, yes, absolutely agree with your patient when he's dealing with PTSD or any sort of mental delusion.
Speaker 2:It doesn't say that. Well, I mean, I think you're lucky if you have a provider that is you know, if that's a scenario that you've gone through, where you've had those sorts of you know, those delusions, those ideas, if you have a provider that's actually looking to help you heal, help you move on, help you, you know, get past that and fix the root problem, that's great. I don't think that's the no-help provider. I really don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, there's some great ones out there, but you're right, a lot of them are still under the guise of let's just put you on another medication.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, look at I mean look at how many guys we know that are now like in this perpetual toilet bowl of the VA medical system. Yeah, they are literally prescribed. They're prescribing 43 year old guys like 20 different drugs that they're perpetually on, and half of the drugs are only to counteract the symptoms of the previous drugs that they put them on, like what they're doing is absolutely asinine, and you know, I know, I know you were an SF guy too, were you a Delta?
Speaker 1:No, I was Bravo and then warrant officer. Awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, back when I went through the Delta course uh, 2005, ish, five and six it's like I I shit you not. The solution to 70% of the problems was drink water, get rest. It's like I firmly believe that still, COVID. Drink water, get rest. You got the flu. Drink water, get rest. Literally 70% of the shit is going to get better if we just hydrate and be healthy. It's not vaccinating stuff to ad nauseum. It's not vaccinating stuff to ad nauseum. It's not taking SSRIs on top of SSRIs. That cycle needs to be broken. We've got a damaged healthcare system that wants people to be on this and specifically veterans. The VA system perpetually encourages these guys who spent know, spent 20, 30 years getting getting beat up, going through some some traumatic experiences, um, but they, they turn them into perpetual victims for the rest of their lives and I don't think that's the solution like, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:that's one thing that that I want to touch in on is it's why is it that we've allowed ourselves to take on that comforting blanket of being a disgruntled veteran and being a broken veteran? Like that is such a hard thing to combat and talk against? Like guys don't seem to understand, like the importance of like. Take power of your healing, take power of your journey and don't just settle for being in your room in your home, locked away, watching Netflix.
Speaker 2:Dude, it's one of my biggest pet peeves in the veteran world. These guys that do their time whether that's four years, 20 years, 40 years, I don't care these guys that do their time and then they get out, they get their retirement, they get their VA disability and then they just play Like you said. They play disgruntled, dysfunctional veteran and then they just play like you said. They play disfunctional veteran. Yeah, so what you're telling me is that you spent X amount of years in the military. You made it to whatever rank you made it to, Up until that day that you got out, you were going to PT, you were going to the gym, you were going to the three shop, the op shop, your ODA, whatever your job was Maybe you were the supply guy, Maybe you were the cook guy, maybe you were the up till the day that you got out, you're telling me that you were going to PT, going to work and performing nonstop, and then, all of a sudden, you're just like, like you just stop functioning and you're this perpetual victim.
Speaker 2:Fuck that. I think it's absolute bullshit and I think it's ridiculous that so many other veterans like they they perpetuate that existence on each other. Um, I mean, perpetuate that existence on each other. So I'm still in the guard right now.
Speaker 1:Oh, no way yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm still in the guard, but I'm not.
Speaker 1:I can tell you used to be an 18 Delta.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so my medical records don't reflect anything because I was the Delta so I only wrote other people's records Like records don't reflect anything because I was the delta, so I only wrote other people's records like I do not. I do not want to rely on the va. I mean I, I don't rely on the v like I. I don't. I get I have 20 disability from when I left active duty the first time, all the way back in 2010. So what that means I think my check is like $230 a month or something from the VA. If I don't go to drill basically anytime that I play National Guard stuff, I don't get VA check or they keep paying me and then I have to pay them all the money back at the end of the year check or they keep paying me and then I have to pay them all the money back at the end of the year.
Speaker 2:Um, but, like, when I look at this, I'm like I'm 40, 40 years old, relatively healthy. Why would I? Why would I just want to, like, kick my feet up and let the government take care of me? Why would I not go, like I want to go out there and build my empire and I want, okay, maybe, maybe when I get out finally, like when I finally pulled the plug and I'm done with the guard service and all that stuff, maybe I'll put a VA pack. But that's not like, that is not. My plan for retirement is just connecting or, I'm sorry, collecting a VA paycheck and some dipshit prorated national guard paycheck, like that's, that's quitting. You might as well quit. I just don't get it and the mentality drives me up a wall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's hard to sell the idea that you can't just magically develop grit and resilience. You have to do hard things, you have to challenge yourself. If you're dealing with mental health issues, just sitting in a protective bubble listening to the same voices on BetterHelp aren't going to solve the issues. They're not. You have to take the tools you're given and put them to work and you have to get out there and do things and fall down and stumble. But we're getting this idea that we have to stay and and this protective cage and it's like that's not reality. You can't just sit down after you get out. You have to go do something.
Speaker 2:yeah I mean, I, I really don't care what it is that guys do, as long as they do something like whatever, go get a job at the gas station, at least get out of the house and like do something, interact with humanity. Oh, you know, the entrepreneurial route isn't the right one. There's got to be at least three days a week. We're seven plus years into this project and there's three days a week where I'm like man, I wish I worked for somebody else Every single week.
Speaker 1:Shit that doesn't go away.
Speaker 2:It does not go away. I think the entrepreneurial endeavor is not for all veterans, absolutely not. I think that the entrepreneurial, the idea of it, holds a lot of allure for veterans. They've seen Black Rifle, they've seen Grunt Style, they've seen Nine Line, they've seen whatever Matt Best and Jt's funny videos.
Speaker 2:Uh, do you know how hard it is to make that lightning strike twice like, yeah, there's a, there's a small group of veteran entrepreneurs who nailed it, and then the rest of us are just grinding away, like just grinding away and it's tedious. There is no big green welfare machine that's going to come in and pay your bills. They're not going to. You know, you don't get. You don't get 30 days of leave when you're an entrepreneur not collecting that big green welfare machine paycheck. You're there every day. Excuse me, um, I think that's a.
Speaker 2:That's a tough one for a lot of guys that leave active duty is that comfort level which could be why some of them don't try to their full potential. They were used to being successful in uniform. They knew that they had the financial stability, they had the healthcare, they had retirement points building up, they had all of the stability and active duty. Maybe they could have been the best soldier ever in their unit or in their base. Whatever, I think that fear of failure on the outside world probably does stifle a lot of guys and lead to that just being stuck in that dysfunctional veteran rut.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fear crushes a lot of hopes and dreams and deters a lot of guys from going after what they really want, and it's being able to share stories. Maybe it's not your individual path, but highlighting every single story that I can find, giving guys the option Cause that's one thing that I realized nobody's out there showing what they're doing, or at least putting it out there, saying like, hey, I, when I did this, I went to college, went to MBA program, this is what I'm doing now. Or hey, I went agriculture. I never thought I'd be a farmer. Just understand that there's a second chapter out there for you. Being a Green Beret, being a soldier in 82nd, that was just a stepping stone. It doesn't have to be the end of your ability to achieve greatness.
Speaker 2:There's tons of things we can do, one of the things that veterans do have on their side if they're willing to take those risks and go out there and even try to build their own company. If you're retired, you do have that retirement check to fall back on. You do have that VA check to fall back on Again. I think that being your plan for retirement or post-military income is a is a pretty crappy plan, but that is a. That's a padding that most people don't have when they go try to start a business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, How'd you take that approach, man, when it when it came time to lay down the foundation for Frontier Coffee?
Speaker 2:coffee. Um. So when we were, when my wife and I were initially starting the company, uh, we had no, no illusions of this becoming a commercial roastery or online company or any of the other projects that we're doing now. Uh, we started it even before we had gotten married. We discussed opening a coffee shop, thinking, goodness, uh, you know, we had this idea of opening a coffee shop, thinking this will be, it'll be a laid-back way to work together, make a living work for ourselves for the most part, set our own hours. Yeah, you have to be early mornings for coffee shop, but we can also be closed by one o'clock or two.
Speaker 2:Um, so we had a twenty five,000 saved up for a down payment on a house back in 2017 and, instead of buying a house, we bought a dilapidated coffee shop up in Washington State, um, refurbished it, reopened it and that's where we kind of kick started. It was what a 10 by 12 drive-thru shed. So, yeah, that's where it started. It's in paulstow, washington. Um, we were doing our own roasting because we got quotes from a couple other local roasters oh it's getting really expensive.
Speaker 2:So we bought these little uh, they roasted a quarter pound at a time. They were like I don't know eight inches tall or so. They look like a little air popcorn maker. So we had two or three of those things lined up on the windowsill in this coffee shop shed just roasting our own coffee, a quarter pound at a time. Um, so, yeah, that was that was our start. We spent, you know, every single cent of our down payment on starting this little business.
Speaker 2:Throughout the next couple of years, we moved to Sandpoint, idaho for a failed partnership with a much larger company. Then I went back on active duty down in California at Fort Hunter Liggett. When we moved to Idaho, we sold the coffee stand, but we kept our roasting equipment. We had upgraded a little bit of the equipment. We kept the roasting side, we kept our roasting equipment and we had upgraded a little bit. Yeah, so we kept the roasting side, kept our brand name and we're just kind of figuring out what to do with it. Um, yeah, I went back on active duty in california in late 2018, I think, and, uh, throughout the summer of 2019, our company really started taking off in coastal California.
Speaker 2:We had contracts to do like event coffee. So triathlons up and down the coast, marathons, big wine festivals, the state fair, um. So you know we'd, we'd go out there for a weekend sell coffee to all the marathoners, all the triathletes. And uh, it was, it was good money. We're doing our own roasting and selling, you know, maybe 20 orders a month online at a time, but the event coffee was where it was at. So we, uh, we had a strong, strong summer season in 2019.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, I started lining up contracts for 2020. Uh, malibu triathlon, santa arbor triathlon I had a contract for ironman triathlons, basically from san diego all the way to washington state, damn, uh. So I went and talked to my boss at fort hunter liggett. I was like, hey, my company's taking off. I'd kind of like to go back to a part-time oda and just do the national guard thing, focus on this entrepreneurial endeavor. So 19th group took me back out there in Utah. I was still living in California but got reassigned to ODA in Utah. Yeah, we had our contracts lined up for 2020. I was like this is it, man? We're going to kick ass. So left my full-time active duty job, left my retirement, left my TRICARE, all that fun stuff that you get on active duty. And then, obviously, march 2020 rolled around, like three phone calls came in. Within the first three phone calls, it was like $150,000 or $200,000 worth of contracts just all canceled. I was like, oh no, oh no. So, yeah, that was March of 2020, out in California. I mean, you know, I left active duty, lost all our contracts. We were online. Coffee sales was not really a thing, not for us. Anyways, like I said, we had the website turned on, but a couple thousand orders a month. That was it. We couldn't get jobs at gas stations. I couldn't get a job as a grocery store bagger, couldn't get a job at Home Depot because everything was shut down.
Speaker 2:I remember in California, at the beginning of COVID, the state legislator had passed this emergency bill or maybe it was an executive order in the state. Basically, if you didn't pay your rent, your landlord couldn't kick you out. The banks were still collecting mortgage from the landlords. Yeah, so my wife and I were renting this little house at the time from a family. We're not going to not pay our rent to this family. That's some liberal shit right there Fucking over somebody else for your own gain. So we had no jobs. Couldn't get a job anywhere. So we had a payment plan with this family so that we keep a roof over our head and not screw them over at the same time while we tried to figure it all out and, uh, basically I got really lucky. Uh, maybe April or May 2020. Uh, maybe april or may 2020.
Speaker 2:The active duty medical ncoic that was supposed to be coming from germany to salt lake to be the ncoic at salt lake mep station, for whatever reason couldn't make it from germany. Oh, because covid, everything. Yeah. So they're like hey, nate, if you want, you can ride out the rest of the fiscal year being the NCOIC for the med section at MAPS in Salt Lake. So I went back on active duty again out at Salt Lake, left my family out there in California. That was an absolute blessing to be able to have that opportunity to go back up.
Speaker 2:My wife and my wife and kid were still sitting out in california. We had to vacate our roastery because we couldn't afford the rent on it anymore. Um, so we packed up, packed up all the roasting equipment, packaging equipment and put it in my friend's barn out in california and uh, again, absolute blessing and great friends that I've made over the years. Uh, the guys that own park city coffee roastery in park city, utah, allowed me to, uh, allowed me to use their roastery while I was working out of utah. So I do all day at maps, drive all the way up park city from salt lake, go into their roastery, you know, get whatever, whatever I needed, packaged and mailed out to our few customers.
Speaker 2:I started focusing on trying to sell more stuff online during that time, since we didn't really have any other options. That went for about six months. We just put a finger on the map. We're like Texas is open, all right, texas is open, idaho is open, tennessee is open, let's go to Tennessee. We're going to get the most bang for our buck.
Speaker 2:And we were able to amazingly afford we had like $5,000 put down on the house but through a VA loan and everything, we're actually able to afford a house out in Tennessee with a detached warehouse on it where we were able to move Frontier Coffee and really just kind of threw gas on it from there A ton of sweat equity and grinding away until that thing turned over and started producing something. Yeah, since we've moved to Tennessee and plugged in here and kind of finally turned frontier into both of our full-time jobs. It's turned over and it's our, it's very much our both of our full-time jobs. We've got a couple of people on staff uh, you know, full-time salary guys and it's chugging away slowly rebuilding the american dream, dude, that's I was just gonna say, man, that's, you're doing it.
Speaker 1:That like the scaling part, that's the hard part that so many people, when they get into the you know entrepreneurial routes are like fuck, when, when can I bring somebody on? It's really, it's really tough to figure out.
Speaker 2:You know what exactly do you need, what can you afford? And you can never. You can never afford what you need. Like you know. You look at okay, we have wholesale operation, we have white label operation, we have a third-party logistics operation, obviously our own roasting and direct customer on the website and everything. Where do you find that person? That's like, hey, I know fulfillment, I know roasting, I know. Luckily we actually did find a guy eventually.
Speaker 2:But it's really tough when your company that is scaling, is growing and has so much potential on the table to find the right person to fill that spot and hopefully be able to afford it as a company, hopefully be able to afford it as a company. You know the next thing that we're always still running into as we grow you know we need bigger equipment. We need a whole new K-Cup manufacturing line because the current one can't keep up with demand we need. You know it is that's a good problem to have. But when you look at manufacturing lines and stuff like that, you're like, okay, this thing's going to cost us $250,000. Last year the website did $250,000. We do wholesaling and custom labeling and distribution for other companies as well.
Speaker 2:But when you look at those numbers. You're like, okay to, I see the goal, I see what we can do here's. You know, I have to take out another mortgage to get there and that's what. That's what a lot of people don't understand about that, that entrepreneurial thing, like, okay, it's fun, you kind of make your own schedule, you get to brand it the way you want, you get to build it the way you want, brand it the way you want, you get to build it the way you want. But eventually, eventually, there comes a time when you're just like I've gotten this far but I have to go so far into debt to keep the momentum that I have. Uh, and I see what I've seen it with a lot of companies, specifically in the veteran, veteran entrepreneurial space guys that take on, take on equity partners, take on, you know, working working partners, take on capital, but a lot of times they end up with golden handcuffs on them and like it doesn't. It doesn't stay the company that they started or that they envision.
Speaker 2:So right now, my wife jen and I still still hold the reins to everything Frontier, including all the debt. That's perfect.
Speaker 1:But hey, it's yours.
Speaker 2:All my debt. The other kick in the nuts recently is, you know so, coffee is a commodity, it's ever fluctuating and it has to be imported. So we have, you know, we have overseas, we have imports and we have fluctuating and it has to be imported. So we have, you know, we have overseas, we have imports and we have fluctuating commodities market. Well, the past two years the coffee market has coffee market has increased by roughly 200 in the last two years. So that's that's my raw cost of goods.
Speaker 2:Uh, the past six months has been especially bad. Um, there was a, there was a harvest loss in brazil. There was about 11 million bag shortage from brazil. So when you have that big of crop loss from one country, obviously the supply and demand, you know, goes through the roof for all of the other countries, like the past six months was really starting to kick us in the nuts.
Speaker 2:Every day I look at the C market. It's a new high every single day. Not a new high for me being in the business, a literal record new high every single day. Since Big Daddy T came back in office it has continued reaching new highs every single day at an alarming rate. Uh, and I think, I think that's uh, you know the tariff threats have been announced, but I think it's market volatility just based off fear. So hopefully that stabilizes, but in the meantime, like meantime, that's the business that we're in, where we locked ourselves into this commodity and ultimately, for a 12-ounce bag of coffee, a one-pound bag of coffee. No matter what the market does, there's only so much that we can put on a price tag where people will still buy it. If I could, I'd change the website to just have a little market price on it, just like steak and lobster.
Speaker 1:But I don't know that the market I don't know if that strategy is going to work. Nate, I'm not a coffee guy. I don't know that the market is going to support that Congratulations.
Speaker 2:Today, your coffee is $10. Tomorrow it might be $30.
Speaker 1:You know you could take a page out of the places like Seattle or they're like hey, what would you like to pay? We recommend you pay this much. Yeah, you know there's a lot of resources out there for learning business. Did you participate in any programs or take advantage of any veteran entrepreneur programs that helped you kind of figure it out? Or did you dive in head first and just uh, figure it out on your own.
Speaker 2:I've always been entrepreneurial. Um, I ran a a pretty large triathlon endurance coaching business before we got into the hot thing. Um, shit, but really no, I didn't do any of the veteran entrepreneur programs. I don't have an MBA. I'm kind of a knuckle-dragging moron. I don't have an MBA, you don't have an MBA. I can't believe it. So pretty much. Once Frontier fails, I'm destitute. Well, I mean, there's always money in the banana stand.
Speaker 2:Some people will do that really the uh, the like the crash course in where we are now in the veteran space and you know, the online space came from black rifle. Honestly, honestly, evan Hafer and I were on the same ODA back in the day. I was the first operations director of operations guy, or whatever the title was back at Black Rifle in 2016, 15 or 16. So, and I had already been doing our coaching company and contracting and other kind of entrepreneurial stuff, but that was my kind of first crash course and like, oh, this is a whole new scale of entrepreneurship and, you know, just managing a different level of entrepreneurship than the stable of athletes.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I would credit the initial crash course to Evan Haver. Shout out to Evan. I don't know if it's a shout out. We're not talking right now, but he does deserve credit where credit's due we're not speaking terms.
Speaker 2:We'll edit that in post somebody, somebody's gonna come out, it's it's been done before. Like oh, they're just trying to be black rifle junior. Like nah, I don't really give a shit. What those dudes do they? My wife and I had wanted to start a coffee shop. Before you know, before I ever had the opportunity to work with evan, that's what we did. Here's where it is today. Yeah, I'm seven or eight years removed from black rifle, but that was my crash course yeah, you know, it's funny that we we have this veteran echo chamber that everybody shits on everybody.
Speaker 1:I'm like dude, we we've been drinking fucking coffee for fucking nobody is better at killing veteran spirit than veterans dude, I oh man, the instagram inbox boy. Let me tell you it is a fun place you want to go.
Speaker 2:You get a lot of good ones, you guys. You guys got a pretty strong meme game on there as well, man.
Speaker 1:I wish there was a team, but this is everything. It's all sides of the operation. It started out well. It started out with three of us that we're doing it as a hobby, but the reality is, when you are fucking headstrong passionate about something't, want to go work for somebody else I didn't. I I had ways to make money for myself and support this, and then I started getting paid to produce other shows and what I quickly realized was no one's going to believe in your dream more than you and you can love your friends like still dear friends, talk to them every fucking single day and still connected. But this is my fucking dream. If I want this to really fucking grow, I have to figure out how to fucking do it. And as much as you want to sit there and hope and pray that somebody sees value in what you're doing, they're not going to see it unless you're fucking crushing it and killing yourself to fucking make it happen.
Speaker 2:And again that kind of circles back to where we started the conversation with veterans just being this dysfunctional, this grunt. A lot of them will start some project, whether it's a podcast, whether it's a t-shirt company, whether it's a coffee company, and they'll get two months into it and be like well, it, it didn't take off. Like xyz podcast, I'm not the next joe rogan, I'm not the next black rifle, and they'll hang it up that quickly. Like there's, yeah, I've got a really good buddy of mine. Uh, you know, he's followed. He's followed the growth of frontier. He's been friends with me since I was doing coaching and triathlon thing. Like his, his phrase is always overnight and it's going to be an overnight success 10 years in the making. Like that's, that's where it is.
Speaker 2:People like, whoa, scary podcast. Have you, have you been following this? Some people are like, yeah, man, I've been following it for 12 years. Others and but then like, yeah, it might take that long, it might, whatever the time frame is, eventually you start getting the momentum of like I just discovered this new thing. It's a lot of new thing, man.
Speaker 1:That dude's been grinding for a long time there's been a lot of fucking, just grinding, but you figure out what. Like you were saying, man, like one door closes, another one's going to open as long as you're looking for the open door.
Speaker 2:Guys will just let them close in their face, and then they'll go sit back down on the couch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, life is going to kick you in the dick. Sometimes it happened to us on teams. You didn't get the school you wanted. Teams started yelling at you because you fucked something up. Every day is not going to be the fucking best day of your life. You're going to be wanting to get back up the next day and go after it. If you really love it, if you really want to do this, you're going to be there at 4 am putting out memes about poop and cum. That's what it takes.
Speaker 2:That's kind of funny. You mentioned the meme thing. Well yeah, I had to clean the 50 cal the entire deployment in iraq because of an nd. So my team sergeant yelled at me a whole lot for that one and then then gave me a present for it. It was when the crow's system came out you know, the joystick thing in the back of the truck yeah, you had to have the.
Speaker 2:Uh, you had to have like some little lever switched up a thumb on a button and if you're like, if you're moving and you want to stabilize the thing, you'd have certain combo of things squeezed. So the stabilizers on. So I've got the stabilizer going. We're bouncing through the desert and then, like we hit this big bump, my finger goes in just like clack, clack. He said what the fuck are you shooting at? I don't know. I was a brand new x-ray e5 like this comes with a team a month or a month and a half before we deployed and within the first month, I'm just blasting 50 cows for no reason.
Speaker 2:Anyways, uh, yeah, you're gonna get. You're gonna get your dick kicked in, no matter where you go, whether it's on a team, whether it's entrepreneurial, whether it's in a relationship. You just got to get up and keep going like brush it off, don't let it, don't let it put you down in the dirt. Um, yeah, so frontier coffee has two instagram pages. We have the frontier coffee company, which is the the shitpost page. Then we have Real Frontier Coffee, which posts wholesome Americana coffee stuff. Anytime that we actually post about coffee on Frontier Coffee Company, everyone's like boo, you suck. Seriously, guys, I honestly think that most of the people following that page don't know that we're actually at all company. I do not think that they know that. I think they're just like they. I think they think the page took this name, but I don't think that they think it's a real company yeah, did it.
Speaker 1:It's funny, man like you. I'll post something about like what truly means to be a good, real good operator, a real good green beret, real good, like professional soldier, what it really what we should really focus on, and I'll get a fucking inbox of like yo, you need people with no standard. Tesla makes grape. You're a fucking piece of shit, fuck you. And I'm like oh god, dude, like what the fuck? The amount of irrational hate that gets sent through social media? It's like fuck. But then you make a meme making fun of that same thing and people are like oh, I fucking love.
Speaker 2:This guy must be the best operator in the world. He made something funny on the internet, I think it's. I think it's funny how many. You know how many messages we get, whether it's the on the social media or our actual inbox. I want to become a green beret. What's the? What do you recommend for this, this and this? I'm like there was a time when I could help you. I am so far removed from that. I, I, I can't. I am not an operator anymore. I was never. I was never an operator. I was a. I was a good 18 delta, I was a good guy on a team, but I was never a cool guy. Yeah, you know, as you got the crypt teams or shift teams, whatever they call them. Now you've got all the tim kennedys of the world.
Speaker 2:You've got the bt3 et don't say his name like you've got legitimately cool things going on out there. I was just a delta on a rough team and a halo team like unremarkable deployments, but I think that's okay it's 100, okay it's.
Speaker 1:We have to kill the myth that every, every deployment is mogadishu, that every deployment is lone survivor. It's not. That's not the reality. We weren't in world war ii. It doesn't mean that your service didn't matter. It doesn't mean that your deployments didn't matter. You contributed to the g-watt, one of the largest and longest fucking military fucking wars like that's. That's the the reality of it. You should be fucking 100 proud of whatever the fuck you did. Whoever you are, have you served in that time frame? I want to hear your story. I think you're remarkable, but we've didflated. What's that? We can't say that we won. Maybe winning was just a friend we made.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's why. No, I agree, I was a big support hugger, especially once I left active duty. I was a full-stripped dude. Once I left active duty and went to 19th group and really once I worked in the three shop at 19th group, I was a full-stripped dude. But once I left active duty and went to 19th group and really once I worked in the three shop at 19th group, I was a full-time two-ops guy and I saw all the moving pieces and like like how, whatever, what do they call it? Italian? The? Uh yeah, gsb, gsb. Like once I really saw the assets GSB had, once I got to meet kids and the guys over there and like, okay, there's not an oda that could, yes, we could function in country like we would never get anywhere without having a strong gsd and I promise you I would way rather have the gsb riggers attack my shoot than myself.
Speaker 2:I trust those kids way more doing it than I do my own chute packing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've seen an entire battalion run because of one E5 fucking Barson. Every time you walk down there as a Green Beret, you should be shaking those hands and thanking those kids, those guys, those young men and women that make it so that you can go on your jay set, you're seated to continue and doing your job because, as much as you think they don't matter, they truly do and we're better for going into those, those, those parts of the battalion that you never get to, and sit down and just understand what they do. Yeah, they may not be able to rock 15 miles, they may not be able to shoot as well as you, but I tell you what, if, if you trained them, they could, if you took them to do some pt with you, they could. But we don't do that as much. We don't bring them out, like I know some teams do.
Speaker 1:That's one thing I will say. I've seen some teams reach across and bring a lot of those guys to support guys on to do PT, to go do stuff, to build that rapport, because if you're there for your career and you're going to see these people, you're going to see them make rank. They're going to be there for a long time Just not all of them, but a mass majority will stay there and they'll continue to support you and you will get to know them and you'll realize that a good soldier is a good soldier.
Speaker 2:It pays to be friends with the first sergeants over at GFD oh fuck yeah. I was definitely a support hugger, really, once I got to the three-shot group and saw the moving pieces. I had a couple really awesome opportunities throughout my career it was actually on the guard side, but on full-time guard status. So one of them I was the NCOIC at the there's the Special Operations Recruiting Detachment the SWORD you know that was super cool.
Speaker 2:I did that for about a year. And the Special Operations Recruiting Detachment you know that was super cool. I did that for about a year and uh, the special operations recruiting detachment, basically, like I got to go all over active duty bases, go to the art r, triple c, the reserve career component counselor, so uh, that's the, basically the, the retention guy that every active duty person has to go through when they're leaving active duty. So, like all the sf guys that were getting off active duty, I would go through during their process and be like hey, you've got all these qualifications, you're an e6 or e7, whatever, like whatever rank it was. Uh, you can come over to help us out at 19th group, um. So that was kind of that was kind of cool.
Speaker 2:But also throughout that process, uh, I was at the correct company, the readiness enhancement company at 19th group for a while and that's where we ran the sfres or the special forces readiness evaluations. So it's basically like our little four-day in-house selection um. So I got to run those for a while and that was super cool, seeing there was a ton of our own support kits that wanted to come through. It's like getting to put them through that in-house selection process to really like guide them after that. Like, if they did it all, great, we're going to. You know, we're going to mentor you until you go to the Q course.
Speaker 2:You didn't do so well, but you've got the heart to do this. Like I will help you and I was coaching and racing triathlon at times Like I'll help you get where you need to be. And there's probably at least a dozen guys that I know personally that you know there were E3s, e4s that are now Green Berets that I, you know, help them get, get through all the pre-selection stuff and you know was able to provide that mentorship along the way. Along the way, another super cool opportunity that I got was I got to be the senior military instructor out at Brigham Young University's ROTC program.
Speaker 1:Oh, no shit, I guess.
Speaker 2:So that was actually 2017 when my wife went up to Washington to start the company while I was teaching Nice At first. When they offered me the job, I was like I don't know, I really really don't know if I want to babysit these college kids. It's, I don't know, um, but I I kind of reluctantly took it and then within, oh, my goodness, I was the uh, the senior military instructor, so that's like the nco I see at the program. Uh, and basically you're teaching small unit tactics to the juniors and seniors. Um, it's like working out in the like level 10 and ranger handbook, uh, and I absolutely loved it. It was so much thinking, fun and what was really awesome about doing it?
Speaker 2:At Brigham Young, I was the resident center. I'm not a Mormon, so I show up with a big dip and a cup of coffee every morning, yelling at these kids and they absolutely loved it because, like they were so used to every single person being being part of their church and just like, yeah, they had this super gentle program. And then I was like, yeah, you guys are about to be fucking officers, we're, we're, we're changing the subject, but like there was no babysitting there because one, the Mormon kids don't go out and drink and party, the Mormon juniors and seniors. They've already spent like a year at the mission academy, whatever they call that. Thing uh like two years on a mission, so these kids are coming back as juniors. And thing uh like two years on a mission, so these kids are coming back as juniors and seniors at like 23 years old. So I've got young adults that are actually ready and wanting to be become military officers. Like no one's showing up, hung over, no one's showing up late.
Speaker 2:It was a super cool opportunity and uh, it's like, all right, this is, this actually has value. Being an rot rotc instructor that actually is going to hold these kids to a standard, is going to push them really hard and make them, hopefully, a valuable asset as an officer when they graduate and go off to whatever unit. That is um, so it was a super cool experience and they, however, we got to their support huggers, I don't know Like it was super cool and uh, you know, you, you have the junior ROTC officer that shows up at your unit and you're just like, oh, this kid sucks Like I re. I really hope that at least some of the kids that I helped graduate from that program don't suck Um, and I actually I still talk to quite a few of them, uh like seven years ago so no shit still every now and then, you know, guys will ask me for a letter of recommendation or just call to check in, tell me that they got to a new unit.
Speaker 2:So that was. That was neat, right yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good experience, man, and more people need to take advantage of it. Um, it's out there if you're an enlisted guy don't look down.
Speaker 2:The broadening assignments are important as much as we want to be like, oh, an ODA is the only place I ever want to be. Yeah, I mean, that's awesome, it's super cool. An ODA is the best place that you will be in the military. But to shirk other experiences, to not take advantage of something that might turn out to be a great experience for you and make you a much better team search down the road, whether that's learning a different type of leadership style, figuring out hey, I'm going to lead a bunch of these ROTC kids that don't know their ass from their elbow.
Speaker 2:That will make you a better leader when you go back to your team. Hey, I'm going to lead a bunch of these ROTC kids that don't know their ass from their elbow. That will make you a better leader when you go back to your team. Or if it's like going up to the three shop going out. I was a division safety officer for a reserve training division for a year. Why, I don't know, but administratively I learned a lot of stuff being at a division level, so stuff that you'll never get on an ODA.
Speaker 1:No, that's the broadening. Assignments are truly needed, and I especially if you didn't have that formal like growing up in the infantry or in a conventional unit and you never saw that you got to take advantage of every resource. Man, man, don't just think that your experience on the team is going to be it. Be willing to take on a challenge in a different arena. Nate, if we want to get some of your coffee, you guys can check out.
Speaker 2:FrontierCoffeecom and we'll do a discount code SecurityHalt for 20% off your first order there we go. Frontiercoffeecom.
Speaker 1:We'll drop it down in the.
Speaker 2:FrontierCoffeecom and use code security halt.
Speaker 1:I like that. That's perfect. And if we want some great memes and some great entertainment on social media, where do we go? You?
Speaker 2:can go to FrontierCoffeeCompany on Instagram for a whole dumpster fire of dirty shit. If you want to tune in for the real life version of it, you can find us look up Boldly Patriotic. That's our little in-house podcast that we've been doing for a couple months now, so Boldly Patriotic will bring the real life shit storm to your ears.
Speaker 1:Hell yeah, and that will also be in the episode description. Nate, I can't thank you enough for being here today, even though you're sick, making the mission happen. I'm truly grateful for you being willing to stand up and voice the truth, because we need more people Now. It's the time for us to just be firm, stand tall, talk about faith, talk about values, talk about what it means to be a good man, a good father, a good husband, and don't let people tell you that it's not needed, because hell yeah, absolutely needed. You don't have to be negative, you don't have to attack anybody. Just boldly be yourself and talk about how great it is to be a great, a great patriotic dad is the best gift I've ever had.
Speaker 2:It's awesome and every man, every man, should strive to do it.
Speaker 1:It's absolutely, absolutely, man. I can't say that enough, and you heard it from Nate himself. So if you're sitting on the sidelines and you're wondering if it's worth it, yeah, being a husband, being a father, yeah, man.
Speaker 2:Go, get your own project and start your own business.
Speaker 1:You'll love it. Hell yeah, thank you all for tuning in We'll see you all next time.
Speaker 1:Until then, take care. Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to like, follow, share, subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to support us, head on over to buymeacoffeecom forward slash SecHawk podcast and buy us a coffee. Connect with us on Instagram X or TikTok and share your thoughts or questions about today's episode. You can also visit securityhawkcom for exclusive content, resources and updates. And remember we get through this together. If you're still listening the episode's over. Yeah, there's no more Tune in tomorrow or next week.
