A tale of coffee shops and bullshit startups
If look at the start of speciality coffee shops in London, there was Monmouth Coffee in Covent Garden, long before anyone had heard of speciality coffee shops.
The next ten years, there was half a dozen speciality coffee shops.
People left, started up their own coffee shops, coffee roasteries, they had experience, they knew each other, cooperated with each other.
A decade ago, Tolley, Tolley and Tolley, were there as speciality coffee shops started to emerge, started their own little chain of half a dozen gold standard coffee shops, Taylor St Baristas. Then it was let’s create Harris + Hoole, a chain of thirty or more coffee shops.
Harris + Hoole was an unmitigated disaster, not as a speciality coffee, but as a business. The figures off the top of my head, £12 million loss on £6 million turnover, following year £25 million loss.
The shares were worthless. The best coffee shops cherry picked by tax-dodging Caffe Nero, a brand like Costa or tax-dodging Starbucks, serving undrinkable coffee, many lost their jobs.
Harris + Hoole now suffering death by a thousand cuts.
Tolley, Tolley and Tolley, having had their fingers badly burnt, have learnt their lesson, picked themselves up, and now the focus is back on Taylor St Baristas, slow organic growth. They sourced their coffee from Union Hand-Roasted, another example of the early speciality coffee scene. They have now set up their own coffee roastery Taylor St Roasted, to supply their coffee shops plus retail sales.
Coffee Lab, an excellent coffee shop in Winchester, has rapidly grown to half a dozen coffee shops within the space of a year, talk of a redesign of their otherwise excellent logo, a re-branding exercise, silly talk of creating a chain across southern England. What does a small group of excellent coffee shops need a re-branding exercise for? It should not be even seen as a brand.
At Union Summer Carnival, there was a bullshit presentation on the fifth wave of coffee, creating chains, brands. I will not cite at length, rather suggest follow the link and read.
Companies used to make and sell stuff. Then they discovered brands, why make stuff, sell stuff when you can be a brand? Levi used to make jeans, Nike shoes from sweatshop factories. Now these are heavily market brands.
Trump is a brand. Once you understand this, that Trump is a hollow worthless brand, that breeds other brands, for example Ivanka Trump and her sweatshops designer tat, then you understand Donald Trump, it is all about inflating the value of the Trump family brand.
We now have brands on steroids, hype some otherwise worthless product like Uber, pull in money as with a giant Ponzi scam, inflate the value, then sell before it is discovered to be worthless. Silly money chasing silly projects.
Uber and Deliveroo do not deliver innovation. What we are seeing is serfs working for an app, old fashioned worker exploitation. Silly money chasing silly projects.
In the past, people worked hard to start a company because they believed in what they were doing, not any more.
It is excellent many young people wish to start their own business, not be an anonymous cog in a big corporation, that will bleed you dry to create shareholder value, then spit you out when nothing further to wring out of you.
When you do something you love, it is no longer work. That is why it is not only young people, it may be someone who has become tired of travelling like a zombie on public transport to the office everyday.
Entrepreneurship has become a dirty word, when it is little more than creating giant Ponzi scams to exploit others.
In Greece, we are seeing a country destroyed by the EU, because Greeks dared to challenge the EU, a warning to others. Many young people have left the country, others are returning to the land, autonomous markets springing up using faircoin.
FairPay cards in action in Heraklion
We take our life on our hands through self-management!
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You may be a skilled barista, a master coffee roaster, excellent knowledge of coffee, but as soon as you start employing others, that personal efficiency of purpose, personality, that you brought to your business, that attracted customers, becomes spread out.
The guy with the tea shop, from a little pop up, who thinks he will create a chain, stick with the tea shop, stick with what you are good at, selling tea.
Maybe in time, start another tea shop, maybe as we saw with the early speciality coffee scene, some will leave and start their own tea shops, maybe become tea importers. And all cooperate and support each other.
If you decide to start a chain, all you will have is employees, investors, and maybe a worthless hollow brand that is reliant upon marketing hype.
