Building a Business, Part 2

The Principles that Guided My Business

Establishing a Strong Foundation

One of the first things I did after deciding to start my own business seven years ago was to… write a list.

In that list, I included everything that made a coffee business appealing to me.

Businesses are like buildings; they are only as strong as the foundation they are built upon. A business’s principles are the pillars that provide the foundation for success.

In the guaranteed uncertain times one will experience in operating a business, principles provide clarity.

I’m happy to share the principles I established when I started my business and how my team and I put them into practice. I hope my experience might be helpful as you develop principles for your own endeavors.

Coffee is the beginning of many stories.

If you look at coffee shop dynamics, you will find that many of the interactions in these places are catalysts. They are the beginning of something.

On a given day, you will see first dates, job interviews, social meetings, study sessions, presentations, market analysis, etc.

The opportunity to empower and enhance these experiences daily was extremely attractive to me. I saw the overwhelming potential for a positive impact on people’s lives.

Each team member put this into practice by trying to make an emotional connection with at least one supporter per day –we considered people who visited our shop as supporters, not as customers. A supporter is much more than someone who makes a purchase. They make a conscious decision to come to our business and support it.

The next time those supporters came in, we had a chance to improve their day.

The standard coffee experience has room for significant improvement.

Consider this for a moment: coffee is behind only oil as the most popular traded commodity. Millions of people around the world start their productive day with coffee. Coffee fuels success and entrepreneurship daily. And yet, the quality of the coffee cup has room for improvement.

Being able to make the coffee experience great by simply doing a better job of brewing quality coffee presented an exciting opportunity.

We made a great effort in choosing to brew each cup to order. This meant that when a supporter asked for a cup of coffee, we would grind the coffee at that moment to ensure freshness. We would then brew the coffee in the method which best highlighted its flavor profile. And we would walk the customer through the process of why it mattered. As a result, our supporters always had a great coffee experience and would become passionate advocates.

In coffee, time is the secret ingredient.

Every part of the process depends on perfecting timing — harvesting, roasting, and initiating the coffee-water interaction.

In our business, we underlined the importance of patience in providing the best coffee to our supporters.

This meant taking meticulous time in identifying the founding roasting partners to our business. We looked for roasters with direct trade relationships with farmers, solid internal training, and good relationships with their community. We spent time with each of them in their roasting operations and learned about their process. Being patient during this process paid off in the long term.

Coffee is about people.

After all the conversations with industry experts and research, it became apparent that coffee is in the people’s business. We strove to appreciate the growers and roasters and manually prepare each cup in the best method to ensure good quality.

In a world that is moving quickly to automation, I wanted to go back to basics.

For example, when we started building our team, we clarified that having a coffee background or experience was not a requirement. We looked for people who came with an open mind and no preconceived notion of coffee. We wanted people who understood how a small detail could have a significant impact on success.

In closing

I believe that it is necessary to have guiding principles when making big decisions in life. Outlining these principles to my team allowed all of us to be aligned on a common goal.

Fortunately, the team was all-in on the premise, and they were the driving reason we were able to accomplish our goals and grow our community.

Every coffee bean has a story that deserves to be shared and honored. Opening a coffee business allowed me to value the coffee’s origin and elevate the drinking experience.

What’s next

In part 3, I plan to share the initiatives that worked well and allowed us to grow. And the set of things we could have done to be better.

Special thanks to Michael Jones, David Burt, and Chris Angelis from Compound Writing for the feedback.