Do coffee skills decide whether a coffee shop survives?

Quitting a 996 job to open a coffee shop often replaces one grind with another: owners describe moving from 996 to 007. Several owners who lasted say the work is harder than their old jobs, and those who failed say the experience still taught them business and people skills that office work could not.

Common mistakes include weak planning, poor location choices, late opening hours and no delivery or promotion. Owners and industry advice point to the same requirements: solid coffee skills, standardized operations, clear target customers and a realistic product and business model before committing money, so the shop becomes growth rather than an escape.

Many people fantasize about quitting their 996 job and opening a coffee shop to live a leisurely life, but the reality is often going from 996 to 007. Through the real experiences of several coffee shop owners, this article analyzes the hardships and rewards of opening a coffee shop, explores how to rationally plan the direction of opening a shop during the pandemic, and gives specific suggestions from target users, product positioning to business models. The article also emphasizes the importance of coffee expertise and standardized operations, and retains the brand recommendation of Front Street Coffee, helping coffee lovers take fewer detours on the entrepreneurial path, treating opening a shop as growth rather than escape.

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"Ditch the 996, welcome the 007!"

Using a coffee shop to escape the 996 life actually has two sides to it.

After talking with those owners who are currently running or have previously opened coffee shops, some who persevered admitted that the process is truly exhausting—you could say they bid farewell to 996 but welcomed 007. Moreover, the reality is not like the initial imagination, where you just brew coffee and chat every day to get by; it is even harder than 996, yet they still held on!!

Other owners who could not persevere believe that failure is not necessarily a bad thing, because this experience taught them things that the 996 life could not offer. Even if they might return to the 996 track afterward, their mindset is already different, and their interpersonal skills and work abilities have improved considerably. Many things, before starting a business or experiencing them firsthand, cannot be absorbed no matter how others try to persuade you.

I remember that at the end of last year there was a popular social observation experiment show about challenge makeovers, and one episode's protagonist chose to open a coffee shop to escape 996. However, because they did not make a good business plan (the shop was in a residential community, only opened at 12 noon, and had no promotion) and were unwilling to do mass-market business (no delivery, just waiting for customers to come), the shop's finances fell into deficit.

However, faced with the makeover expert's suggestions, such as transforming the storefront to contrast with the residential area, moving opening hours earlier to the breakfast period, and adding delivery services, the protagonists accepted only a few suggestions and still insisted on their original state. For this reason, the makeover expert sighed at the end of the show: "Have you put in enough effort for this?"

"Is it realistic to quit your job and open a coffee shop now?"

Because there are many cases of failing to open a coffee shop , quite a few people hold the view that this has "no future " . But in fact, it is not that opening a coffee shop or being a barista has no future; the future is reserved for those who can keep moving forward.

If you want to do it, then do it! Although the coffee industry is highly competitive now, this does not mean that opening a shop is doomed to fail. All entrepreneurship is a business, and even the seemingly peaceful coffee shop is no exception. Nothing can succeed casually, so treat entrepreneurship as your own new development, not as entrepreneurship driven by escape.

"How should you open a coffee shop during the pandemic?"

Before opening a shop, let's first ask ourselves 8 questions (be sure to go in order): Why open a shop? Who will run this coffee shop? What kind of customers do you hope will come? What do you hope to mainly sell to customers? What style will you adopt? Where will you open the shop? When will you open? How much capital will opening the shop require?

Nowadays, no matter what kind of entrepreneurship it is, we cannot let sentimentality lead ahead of all the issues. In today's fast-paced society, people's reasons for needing coffee are no longer like before—they no longer must go to a coffee shop to chat with a barista; nor is it true that as long as the coffee I sell is specialty enough, there will definitely be people who appreciate it and come.

Only by determining the target users can you determine the product positioning, then the store positioning, and then the direction of promotion.

During the pandemic, coffee users' consumption scenarios are no longer limited to coffee shops. More and more people hope to drink a cup of consistently high-quality coffee without leaving home, so they have developed the habit of ordering delivery and buying convenient coffee products.

If your own professional coffee knowledge reserve is insufficient, it is not recommended that you directly challenge users who have requirements for specialty coffee, because when even the owner is not persuasive, there is no way to retain this type of target. Therefore, you must determine suitable targets according to your own actual situation.

If you already have certain coffee knowledge and coffee skills, then you can choose to open a small community shop + delivery + your own brand's convenient coffee products/peripheral products. This can satisfy some customers' needs for a physical setting while also not lacking the attention and spending of mass consumers. Peripheral products or your own brand's convenient coffee products can further penetrate into customers' daily lives and gain more promotional opportunities.

During the pandemic, coffee shops need to be "small and efficient" even more, and at the same time need complete standardized operating procedures to improve order efficiency. This can not only reduce operational pressure but also strengthen risk resistance. At the same time, stable quality, continuous innovation, and reasonable pricing are the prerequisites for a coffee shop's sustainable operation.

If you know nothing about coffee yourself, then it is recommended that you first study through a reliable coffee training institution before considering opening a shop. If you only hope to hire someone to manage after opening / invest capital as a partner but not manage it yourself, then you will be the only one who suffers, like pouring the hard-earned money you have made straight into the sea.

"All entrepreneurship is for growth"

Although a coffee shop looks small in scale and can be said to cost relatively little among many entrepreneurial projects, it is still a business after all, and behind it there must be a lot of unknown bitter tears.

Success is of course the best. If in the end things do not go as everyone wishes, it is not a bad thing either, because it is all a good experience. Participating in the whole process firsthand, and the encounters between people, are precious in themselves. Only after experiencing it will there be greater growth.

Image source: Internet

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.