Saunders & Cash

We may have found the “Apple” of Wichita as we interviewed Reid Hansen and Margie Crawford of Callcap, a company that has grown from an operation started in the founder's garage to a nationwide firm providing call tracking and rating services for any company that needs to track all of their customer service calls, from scheduling appointments to handling any sort of customer service call.

This technology started with a simple rating service for inbound calls to insure that business calls were properly handled per the business expectations. It has grown into a company using artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve how customer calls are responded to, with a goal of continuously improving the quality of calls for both inbound and outbound marketing programs.

On average a business will lose or mishandle 18% of their calls, often with an auto-attendant service. Advances in the way calls are tracked and rated for mishandled calls or calls not responded to make it easier to reduce that error rate and increase revenue.  Companies that use conversation analytics see an increase in ROI because calls are better managed and customers don't drop calls or leave unable to get their questions answered. 

Read more about conversation analytics in our blog article. 

For example in the health care industry, the rate for dropped calls for inbound calls is15%. If the services provided by Callcap can reduce the rate of dropped calls then a business sees higher levels of customer satisfaction, higher sales and better revenues.  Learn more about their customers say in their reviews. 

For Callcap, tracking what marketing efforts generated responses, and how calls lead to appropriate responses is essential to how they improve call responses. The tracking and analytics details provide opportunities to identify any weakness or need for additional training.

And now with their merger with Marchex, they have more ability to use artificial intelligence to improve the call servicing within a customer services.

With AI data, it is possible to identify a caller’s intent, based on the callers words used in a call. For example does a caller want to book an appointment or have a problem solved? AI can help to identify that intent better that an auto responder system.

Our interview included Reid Hansen and Margie Crawford.

Reid Hansen is the director of technology and innovation at Callcap. Reid has spent many years in the Wichita technology scene working with startups and established businesses alike. Reid has made it his mission to help businesses he is a part of as well as his clients and customers solve complex, vital business problems.

Margie Crawford has had an extensive career in sales and her success may be attributed to listening and solving problems. I have a natural curiosity to uncover customer challenges and identify a strategic business solution. Through my latest endeavor with Callcap, I now have access to tools which improve ROI, marketing effectiveness and staff performance. Following Callcap's acquisition with Marchex, we now have the largest set of business conversation data in the market.

Be sure and check out our sponsors for Saunders and Cash and let then know you found them right here: Foreman Law, Retreat To Joy,  FlagshipKansas.tech, SCKEDD, Lee Gray Action Coach, Friends University, Shaken not Stirred Bartending, and 2UAuto.

The technology council of Kansas has had a solid year of growth in 2019, as we learned when we talked with Lisa Roberts, the executive director of FlagshipKansas and Stan Finger, a writer for the technology council, both of whom joined us for the interview.

Growth has been fantastic after starting a year ago with 50 charter members, the organization has grown to 23,000 members and an additional 58,000 student members. Many of the universities in Kansas have paid for the student members making it free for students to join and participate.

Stan Finger joined FlagshipKansas to write a number of stories about the initial charter members and we discussed a really interesting story he is working on about teaching coding and programming skills to inmates at the Topeka Women’s Correctional Facility.

With this training, women upon release can use their new coding skills to get great paying jobs in the Kansas technology industry. Most of the students in the first class didn’t have any sort of coding skills before taking the classes and now see a better future for them.

We also talked about the value of including a diverse set of backgrounds to improve the ability of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Greater diversity is something that the technology industry recognizes the need for diversity in programming. For the industry having women in programming jobs will help to bring some of that diversity in thought that will benefit the industry.

In addition to the coding training in programing languages the training covers the soft skills development that so needed to be effective team members in technology settings.

The Last Mile program was founded by a venture capitalist that visited inmates in a California prison and saw in them a strong desire to improve them. It started a training program that now is in five states including Kansas. An interesting fact is the number of applicants for the program has doubled from the first class to the second class, starting soon.–

For 2020 the technology council has a number of programs on their agenda. Machine Learning and AI is a topic of interest to insure this technology is used for good. So the council will be studying the potential for inherent basis.

FlagshipKansas will also be participating in the first Data Analytics Showcase, at Wichita State University on April 17 at the Hughes Metropolitan Complex. he showcase aims to deepen the understanding of research advances, curricular programs, top software, hardware and skill-building.

The event will create a venue for campus researchers, community representatives and industry experts in Wichita to build professional networks, discuss analytics and develop collaborations. Students, faculty, staff and community members are able to attend the event for free. 

Working with a variety of educational boards of education and school districts the council is striving to revise and implement now policies around Computer Science Education and computational thinking as it relates to computer science. This shift in the education approach is more about applying scientific methods more than teaching basic computer skills.

Lisa also introduced us to Sarah Bond a student Bioengineering major at Wichita State that as contestant in Miss Kansas competitions makes science education a part of her platform.

Lisa also announced a Cyber Security conference at Groover Labs, March 26, organized by the technology council and a workshop with students from Friends University to help participants insure there personal devises are properly cyber secure before they leave the workshop.

Be sure and check out our sponsors for Saunders and Cash and let then know you found them right here: Foreman Law, Retreat To Joy,  FlagshipKansas.tech, SCKEDD, Lee Gray Action Coach, Friends University, Shaken not Stirred Bartending, and 2UAuto.

We started the interview, with Andrew Gough, the founder of Reverie Roasters, with a brief summary of the grand opening of Groover Lab, a new co-working space locally here I Wichita, KS and a preview of our partnership with FlagshipKansas.tech, followed by introducing our guest, the founder and CEO of Reverie Roasters, a local company that includes a wholesale operations, coffee shops, a bakery and a community events space.

Andrew didn’t start out thinking he would flourish as a entrepreneur with a business focused on community and coffee. He completed a degree in public relations at Kansas State University and worked first in financial services where he coordinated and delivered retirement planning education to local businesses employees.

It while traveling for work, that he first realized the challenge for a local coffee establishment is building up excellent coffee experience but also a place for community. He also learned that coffee as a business is a service industry that attracts younger workers.

As he started his entrepreneurial journey, one of the first groups he engaged with was One Million Cups, a local group for connecting business leaders to each other. His presentation was the foundation for his continued support of the group by providing coffee to the group each week.

He was then able to be in the first person in the e2e Accelerator program, now NXTUS. Later engaged with Wichita State LaunchPrep program and worked with the Small Business Development Center to get his business plans launched.

He also found a relationship with Network Kansas to provide a number of connections and a grant to do some research for a program called economic gardening.

Andrew has always had an expansion, growth mindset and looking back at his first five-year plan, realized that he achieved those goals, but the goals were not his focus, it was really building community around coffee.

His why for being engaged in the community is really simple: “I believe communities blooms in the presence of opportunity.”

At Reverie, they are committed to how they source, roast, and serve coffee. The coffee beans come from various origins around the world and are chosen through a rigorous sourcing process. At the café, they offer pour overs, craft espresso beverages, cold brew, and delicious drip coffee.

Reverie is just a comfortable place for anyone to meet, study, or even just relax and get some alone time. One of the things that happen at Reverie is they ignite meaningful connections among team members and customers, creating a place for opportunities to happen, and the community to thrive.

For Andy his love for coffee is because coffee is a connector. It provides opportunity for conversation or to break the ice in an uncomfortable situation.

We only touched on the surface in this interview, we will have Andy back for a more in-depth discussion about his philosophy around building a business around community.

Be sure and check out our sponsors for Saunders and Cash and let then know you found them right here: Foreman Law, Retreat To Joy, FlagshipKansas.tech, SCKEDD, Lee Gray Action Coach, Friends University, Shaken not Stirred Bartending, and 2UAuto.

An Army of “Yeasayers” might be the best way to describe Connecting ICT, group of forward thinking Wichita citizens who have banned together in an informal group to help the community to connect to each other and contribute to a stronger, growing and vibrant city.

Connecting ICT has become a hub for area professionals who are committed to making a positive impact on the growth of their community. 

In our interview with Todd Lewis and Doug Ledbetter we discussed the activities for the group in 2019 and their plans for 2020.

Connecting ICT is committed to impacting the growth of the region around Wichita, KS through a combination of business, personal, civic, and community connections and to engage with every interested group. Be sure to connect on Facebook to learn more. 

Some of the significant events hosted by Connecting ICT in 2019 include doubling the size of the membership to over 800 members and connecting dozens of the members to the Wichita State University workgroups to evaluate and help implement the master plan for growth of the university.

Another event was bringing together more than 300 local people to engage with the developers of River Visa at the Last25Next25 event. It was an opportunity to talk with developers and city leaders about future development around the river front area.

Connecting ICT was engaged with Wichita Baseball to help promote the arrival of a triple A baseball team and a brand new state of the art baseball stadium.

For 2020 the group plans to continue to expand its membership, reaching out to the entrepreneurial community, non-profits and be engaged in the riverfront and downtown developments, work the Delano and Douglas Design Districts on the ongoing renaissance of these areas.

The best thing about this group is they like to describe themselves as “Switzerland”, a neutral place devoted to being available to help Wichita grow. The organization is not aligned with any political group, has no dues or required meetings, it lacks an official structure and does not seek funding from anyone.

As both Todd and Doug said: “When we meet with a group, our question is not how can you help us, but rather how can we help you.”

As they seek to grow their membership to at least 10,000 commitment local people, they want to continue to work toward making a positive impact within the city and the region is a way that builds an army of “Yaysayers”.

Todd Lewis is an Employee Benefits Account Executive for IMA. Born in Wichita, but having grown up out of state, Todd returned to the Wichita metro in 2000 on a football scholarship to Bethel College. While Todd’s professional career has been focused primarily in human resources and operations leadership, his community involvement has been wide-ranging. He has devoted time and energy to civic engagement efforts like Leadership Wichita and “City-to-City” trips, served as an advisory board member for WSU Career Services, and serving as a board member for several local non-profit organizations such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Central Kansas and the Friends of the Great Plains Nature Center. He is a founding member of Connecting ICT, a movement whose purpose is to be a hub for commitment ICT professionals to connect, engage, and impact their community.

Doug Ledbetter is a Partner with EY, a public accounting firm. Doug grew up in Kansas City and went to college at Oklahoma Baptist University, majoring in Accounting and Finance. He started his career with EY in 2005 in the Oklahoma City office and transferred to the Wichita office in 2010. In Wichita, Doug has found a fantastic mix of working with large global clients while having the time to spend with his wife and two children. This experience led him to co-found ConnectingICT with others who share a passion for promoting Wichita and seeking its best.

Be sure and check out our sponsors for Saunders and Cash and let then know you found them right here: Foreman Law, Retreat To Joy,  FlagshipKansas.tech, SCKEDD, Lee Gray Action Coach, Friends University, Shaken not Stirred Bartending, and 2UAuto.

We are with Seth Etter, one of the co-founders of DevICT talking about how they are growing a technology community in Wichita, KS.  DevCT is a community group of software engineers and anyone interested in technology.

Members often join and participate in meetings to connect with others, to learn, share, and find connections that might lead to job opportunities.

DevICT has been in Wichita for the past eight years. It got started to develop a community group around technology at a time when Seth was teaching at a local community college and was complaining about the lack of a community group. So someone suggested they just get started and create a group. DevICT grew from that challenge.

The group started using MeetUp.com to schedule gathering,  and because technology people like to talk technology, members would give talks at monthly meetings on a variety of technical topics.

They now meet at a co-working space, The Labor Party, located in the Old Town part of Wichita.

Membership now numbers in the thousands, rather than hundreds. Today they have at least five events each month, with 40 to 50 members at each event. The group also uses a chat app, Slack that has 1200 members in it and about 1100 people following their MeetUp site to learn about events.

Seth also founded Open Wichita, a community organization focused on using technology to drive civic change, part of the Code for America brigade group. Seth got engaged with the group to do his part. A quote that impacted Seth was:

“Being involved means offering your hands, not just your voice.”

For a day job, Seth is a software engineer at AdHoc, and a remote worker in the technology industry, where he supports the development of APIs and Data Pipelines for healthcare.gov.

With Open Wichita, the group focused on working on local software projects that wanted to have an impact.

In the second part of the interview, we learned more about what DevICT plans look like in the 2020.

We also announce our partnership with FlagshipKansas.tech, the technology council for the state of Kansas.

One of the topics we covered was how the technology community has grown in Wichita over the last few years, specifically focused on software development. With more than 1,100 local members in DevICT, we see members from not only a few large technology employers, but also a number of smaller software development shops, focusing on developing technology and applications for other companies and a host of workers who largely work remotely, to enjoy the low cost of living and maintaining a wonderful lifestyle. For example, Seth’s employer, AdHoc, is 100% virtual workers.   WE also highlighted companies like the Flint Hills Group that was formed after a layoff by a handful of workers with different but similar skills.

Seth also highlighted how he works from various coffee shops and now recently started using a hot seat at Groover Labs as a primary work spot. You can listen to our podcast with the founders of Groover Labs to learn more about this new co-working, maker space in Wichita. KS. 

The interview wrapped up with how to develop a career in technology. Seth pointed out that going to college for getting a technology education is more structured than trying to learn everything from the internet. And while either of these two approaches can work, the best you thing you can is participate in a technology community like DevICT.

In our interview with members of the Matchstick Alliance we discovered they want to be that friction that causes the spark to ignite new business growth not just in Wichita, KS but across the region. The Matchstick Alliance will fill the need of “second stage” startups that already have a viable idea that they are pursuing and need help growing to the next level.

Each company is committed to growing the resources available to entrepreneurs in this community, and the alliance believes they can do it more effectively as an integrated team.  Their ultimate vision is that the startups they support will be better positioned to grow and secure funding.

Most “second stage” startups need some or all of these key services – technology, consulting, marketing and legal – at some point in order to get to the next level and secure funding.

The Matchstick Alliance is four well-known Wichita companies – High Touch Technologies, AGH, Gardner Design, and Foulston that have come together to offer these key services through a coordinated alliance.

Bill Gardner, founder of Gardner Design started the discussion with a brief idea of the purpose behind the alliance of business service providers.

Francis Baalmann, an attorney with Foulston says, “The partners have a long history of supporting startups in the community. By bringing together the four services providers, for accounting, legal, technology and branding we can help propel these companies forward to their next stage of growth.“

Josh Odling introduced Accelerate Venture Partners a local group of angel investors, “So many times, entrepreneurs walk in the door, thinking they have found the guy with money, when they really first need nine other things to better prepared, vetted and ready to present to venture capitalists. An interesting data point is that AVP has invested in four local businesses and only 15% of the funding came from outside Wichita.

The why for this group, that so often is working with small growing companies, a common problem they see is a business hasn’t developed all of the elements they need to properly get funding, because they don’t have the experience or knowledge needed for proper branding or legal structure.

Again from Francis Baalmann, “By aligning as a group of providers, we’ve created what we believe can be a hand up for entrepreneurs with great ideas who are driven to make them a reality.”

An example company they have helped is Profer, a local company with a network of service providers in the real estate and home improvement space.  The founders of Profer needed some help, after going thru the LaunchPrep program at WSU to get some additional funding and legal assistance.

According to Francis Baalmann, this group will fuel economic growth by helping companies to get to the next level it will spur employment hires and foster the startup community in Wichita.

One of the elements that Josh Odling has worked hard on is to help Wichita to develop a reputation as a startup community.

The group officially launched at the Startup Grind Wichita Pitch Battle in December.

This group recognizes that not every entrepreneur needs all of the services available from the alliance, and they will work with each startup in a way that is customized to their needs.

Each startup must apply to work with the Matchstick Alliance through ourMatchstickAlliance.com.  In addition to offering a one-stop service model, the Matchstick Alliance will also consider deferral arrangements for certain qualified, vetted startups which become payable at an agreed date or when the startup receives its next round of funding.

Website: MatchstickAlliance.com

Company POCs:

Francis J. Baalmann, partner on the business law team at Foulston Siefkin

Derrick Nielsen, president and CEO of High Touch Technologies

Daniel White, senior organizational development consultant with AGH

Bill Gardner, president of Gardner Design

Bios

Bill Gardner is the owner and president of Gardner Design. As the leader of Gardner Design since its inception in 1983, Bill has continued to produce effective and award-winning results for clients, with a special place in his heart for entrepreneurs. He is an ongoing contributing author to LinkedIn Learning as well as a guest author to numerous national and international publications, including Graphic Design USA, Communication Arts, Forbes, Fast Company and Fortune.

Gardner Design website: https://gardnerdesign.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billgardner3/ 

Francis Baalmann, a business attorney and Foulston Siefkin partner, represents companies in the Midwest and across the country in start-ups, supply chain management, M&A, and general business. He works with large public and private corporations as well as closely held businesses, and has lead several multimillion-dollar transactions. Francis is also a serial entrepreneur who founded three successful real estate related companies. Francis also serves as a mentor for the Wichita Launch Prep Program and a finalist judge for the Shocker New Venture Competition at Wichita State University.

Website: https://www.foulston.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francis-baalmann-74846053/

Josh Oeding is the President & CEO of e2e Wichita and the Founder of Accelerate Venture Partners. His passion is working with and supporting early stage high-growth entrepreneurs and growing the Wichita Startup Ecosystem. He spent the previous 10 years with Koch Industries, and held various innovation and leadership roles during that time. Most recently, he was the Vice President, Marketing & Strategy for EFT Analytics, a SaaS analytics company.

Prior to Koch he spent time in small business and startup growth roles. Josh earned his degree in entrepreneurship from Wichita State University.

Website: https://www.avpict.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshoeding/

Be sure and check out our sponsors for Saunders and Cash and let then know you found them right here: Foreman Law, Retreat To Joy,  FlagshipKansas.tech, SCKEDD, Lee Gray Action Coach, Friends University, Shaken not Stirred Bartending, and 2UAuto.

Join us in this interview from September of 2019 as we talk with two of the staff from QuiCC, Taylor Stevenson and Krissy Buck, about the exciting new technology launched several months from Wichita, KS for creating captions from the audio in your videos. Look for fresh updates from QuicCC in the near future on our podcast, as the company is growing rapidly and they have new announcements frequently. 

85% of video is now watched with the sound off, so your really need to learn about this new approach for creating video with hard captions burned right to the video with their own algorithms for capturing the audio and burning into the audio file captions that can be read from any mobile device

QuiCC is an Artificial Intelligence company, headquartered in Wichita, KS is using software they developed for the QuiCC app.  This hard caption software app they have released to the market works and the success of the rollout of the beta to all seven continents including Antarctica. Creating hard caption of your video files in just a few minutes and have it work with a high level of accuracy is a real breakthrough in the voice recognition software space and with this new approach, the conversion software works in just a few minutes rather than overnight as is the case with some providers.

What is QuiCC?

QuiCC is an automated video captioning tool.  You upload a video, and its caption engine will transcribe the video with about 91% accuracy.  From there, the tool provides an easy interface to make final edits before burning captions into your video and letting you download the final version.

Burning in captions (also called open captions) essentially just adds the captions permanently to your video, as opposed to being able to toggle them via the video player (closed captions). This allows you to you can style the captions to help them match your brand

No matter what platform they are uploaded to, your videos will always have captions available

In the nine months since their launch QuiCC has already saved video content creators nearly 500,000 minutes of their time in captioning post-production work.

QuicCC was also the winner of the 2019 Visionary Award for the best start-up idea in Wichita, KS.

When Andrea Hattan embarked on her journey to start a co-working space for women, she thought she would find women with part-time side businesses that needed a place to work away from distractions. What she discovered was that it was more about building a community of women in business. While many of her members are entrepreneurs, a large number actually work at corporate jobs but have found they wanted a community were they could connect with other women in business.

 

Andrea’s prior experience was along the lines of teaching, photography and marketing before starting to realize that connecting with other women about growing personally and professionally was very important to her. When she first started freelancing, she worked out of a local co-working space with a lot of men in technology. That didn't really work well for her; she needed a space to connect with other women, to be inspired and to inspire others, so she did some market research, created the branding elements she wanted and got busy creating her own business. 

 

The Hive is intentionally set up to be light, bright and nurturing. Within in a short time period after she did her market research and pitched her ideas to others, she was ready to launch The Hive. The first month in business, she had 50 paying members supporting her idea of a co-working space for women and now there are over 200 members.

 

There are a lot of brilliant women in Wichita. But where are they hanging out? Where are the real, down to earth conversations happening?  It seems a lot of them are hanging out at the The Hive. The Hive is a space where these local women entrepreneurial leaders connect and empower each other to succeed faster in their careers and lives.

Be sure and check out our sponsors for Saunders and Cash and let then know you found them right here: Foreman Law, Retreat To Joy,  FlagshipKansas.tech, SCKEDD, Lee Gray Action Coach, Friends University, Shaken not Stirred Bartending, and 2UAuto.

Desiree Plamer has an amazing story of not accepting her doctor’s diagnosis that she was dying and it was an issue that had no cure. At the time she did have health issues and they were certainly affecting her life, her future and the future of her family. But she turned a life-threatening problem into an opportunity and now a successful business, Satori. She began her path toward energy healing after being given a diagnosis that was essentially a death sentence. Not willing to lay down and die, she determined to find out how the human body can heal itself. After helping herself, she knew she would be able to help others feel better as well. Now she has dedicated her business to do just that.

In this interview, we dig into How Desiree turned a diagnosis of “We can’t cure you” into a business focused on using cutting edge bio-field technology, to help you find you path to self-healing. At Satori, they treat the energetic body field in several different ways, using mind, body, and spirit. Energy therapy, holistic therapy, epigenetic bio-field treatments, and natural frequency synchronization help you as you travel your path to wellness, health, and manifesting the life you desire.

If this sounds like it's just too far out there, please keep an open mind and listen to the story Desiree tells about how these treatments turned her life around.

Desiree is an author with several published books. Including her newest book, Lifestyle Plan: Mind. Body. Soul.: Supplements. Mindful Eating. Journal available from Amazon. This the Satori method and plan, as well as supplements. This journal also talks about fasting if you have ever been curious about the healing properties of intermittent fasting.

Desiree loves to mentor other young entrepreneurs who are bringing new energy methods to our area.   She grew up in Wichita, completing her Bachelors in Operations Management and her Master’s in Business Law. She spent 30 years in the corporate world with success and finally found the courage to venture out on her own and start her energy healing business. This business expanded a year later to include holistic beauty treatments.

Desiree is married with 2 daughters, 19 and 9 years old, she also takes care of her grandparents who live with her and her family. In the interview we talk with Desiree about how she came to write her first book, a small trade non-fiction, The Human Customer Experience and the Not So Secret Formula.  One of her most successful books, likely because you can read it in about an hour and it helps small businesses understand how to scale a customer life cycle program.

She also wrote her first in a fiction series, Made of Stone ©2018.

More recently she wrote, Energy Evolution: The Flowering of Human Consciousness is a non-fiction just released in August of 2019. All of her titles are available in Paperback, e-book, and audiobook formats through Amazon.

She talks in the interview about how she inspired her youngest daughter to start writing, her first published book, Bamboo Pandas Amazing Adventures and the accompanying activity book was published on her 9th birthday.      

Her Business:  https://satorihealer.com/ 

Desiree's books: https://www.amazon.com/Desiree-M-Palmer/e/B07HKRQH63?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1565626403&sr=8-1  

The Human Customer Experience

https://www.amazon.com/Customer-Experience-Not-So-Secret-Formula/dp/1499611390/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= 

Made Of Stone

https://www.amazon.com/Made-Stone-Book-One-Satori/dp/069218483X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Energy Evolution

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1086037308/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

How do you take a trusted family recipe for wonderful, melt-in-your mouth cheesecake and turn it in to a full time business you are passionate about? 

Learn how as we talk with the CEO of Wichita Cheesecake Company and 2019 visionary award winner for entrepreneur of the year, Mark Daniels.  Mark talks about how he can to the Wichita area on active duty in the United States Air Force. Liked the area so much, he stayed and earned a BA degree in business from Wichita State, where he took advantage of the programs to develop an entrepreneurial business and started forming his business plan. 

The company is 100% bootstrapped with their own savings and they have taken a planned approach of building up, testing the market, watching demand and marketing with local events and the good recommendations of their customers. 

Wichita Cheesecake Company is a premier family owned bakery based in Wichita, Kansas devoted to delivering a high-quality dessert that is decadent and delicious each and every time.  From a small dinner party or birthday celebration to a bridal shower, wedding, or corporate event, Wichita Cheese Company offers an exquisite assortment of goodness made from scratch. They have added catering, delivery and special events from their Union Station cafe. Their cheesecake is also featured in various local restaurants, where you get it really fresh and o so good. 

Mark and Grace Daniels are passionate about cheesecake and started The Wichita Cheesecake Company, after earning attention with some high-profile gigs around town. Encouraged by the response they’ve gotten, they opened a sit-down cheesecake cafe with coffee and tea making it the perfect place for a morning or afternoon break. 

The idea for a cheesecake company came from Grace Daniels’ love for cheesecake, which she first tasted as a 13-year-old girl at a family dinner. She loved it so much, she learned how to make cheesecake, and as an adult, she would serve her cakes at family functions and for special occasions. Her family would encourage her to consider opening a cheesecake business, but that didn't happen right away. 

After a nephew requested a cheesecake for an office party and it was a big hit, Grace and Mark started making custom ordered cheesecake. Next they presented their cheesecakes at a two-day wedding expo, preparing 500 samples, which disappeared into delighted future brides within two hours. The next day, another 500 samples were consumed within just a few hours and Mark and Grace knew they have a future business.

They got access to a commercial bakery and started a business called All About Cheesecake. They started by approaching several top caterers and event planners in the Wichita area and offering their cheesecake from a booth at Botanica’s weekly Tuesdays on the Terrace concerts, where they sold cheesecake for $4 a slice to concertgoers.

The response was so good the couple decided to get serious about their dream of opening a brick-and-mortar café, and rebranded as the Wichita Cheesecake Company. Their first retail outlet opened next to the refurbished Union Station next to the Old Town district.

The couple serves up cheesecake in 30 plus flavors and sizes, from minis to by-the-slice to whole.

Learn more at their website. 

 https://www.wichitacheesecakecompany.com/

 Find them on Facebook

Be sure and check out our sponsors for Saunders and Cash and let then know you found them right here: Foreman Law, Retreat To Joy,  FlagshipKansas.tech, SCKEDD, Lee Gray Action Coach, Friends University, Shaken not Stirred Bartending, and 2UAuto.