22 ms·

Funny how the last line of the article says, Looking back, we (incredibly) should have heeded the advice of bad-boy chef Anthony Bourdain, who wrote our epitap

by pj 18y ago

Funny how the last line of the article says, Looking back, we (incredibly) should have heeded the advice of bad-boy chef Anthony Bourdain, who wrote our epitaph in Kitchen Confidential: "The most dangerous species of owner ... is the one who gets into the business for love." This in spite of recent conversations here discussing "doing what you love": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=449295 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=449295, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=449457 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=449457 Why didn't doing it for love work for the author? I suppose if I were to answer the question myself, I'd say either a) they didn't love it enough. or b) They did some bad math. Why not just sell the crossiants for $3? Why not sell the cold house coffee for $3 instead of $1? Raise the price, let your customers keep you alive. If they like what you have to offer, they will. If their dream was to open a coffee shop, why /not/ work there full time? Why not make it work? Other coffee shops have figured out the formula and do survive. Maybe their owners loved it more? Every business struggles in the beginning. Do /not/ give up. Keep going. If your formula isn't working, tweak it. Don't close up shop. That's what you don't do if you love what you do. You don't give up on something you love. You can't.

patio11 18y ago
Raise the price, let your customers keep you alive. I nominate this advice for being tattooed onto the forehead of web startups. I heard something about a spot of trouble in the market, CPMs in freefall, waily waily waily? What if we stopped trying to be all things to all people for nothing and instead tried being pain relief to people who are familiar with the notion of paying money for that? (I, for one, am raising prices in February, because I've been undercharging for years now. Silly me.)
- mhartl 18y ago
  One problem: coffee shops are a competitive business. This makes their owners what economists call "price takers". It makes them what the rest of us call "bankrupt".
  - nostrademons 18y ago
    Depends. There's often a fair degree of brand loyalty in coffee shops - people have their favorite cafe and don't really check out other places, because they like the atmosphere and want to support the owners. It's not like gas stations, where the price is posted prominently and you can just drive elsewhere. Unfortunately, much of that brand loyalty seems to be to Starbucks, so the little guys don't get much of it.
  - fallentimes 18y ago
    That's why differentiation and probably, not competing in a commodity business to start with, are so important.
  - rcoder 18y ago
    There is more than one axis on which coffee shops compete, though. Price is one of the least-critical, IMHO -- ambiance, service, and "extras" like a decent menu or late-night hours will earn you a lot more loyal customers than a $0.25 price cut on coffee. Remember, if cost was the major deciding factor, people would be making their coffee at home. Going to a coffee shop is a social act, so the "scene" matters at least as much as the product. The problems (and attempted solutions) the article's author described sound to me like they all stemmed from a lack of interest in paying any attention to the market. He admits that the most prominent and loyal types of coffee shop customers (commuters who just want to grab a cup for the road, and laptop warriors who want to sit tight and work for several hours) weren't interested in his business, and then seems surprised that he failed to make a profit? Color me unsurprised. You can make money in the service industry, eventually -- but you have to provide something that people want. Simply being in love with your own clever ideas is seldom a good path to profitability.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 18y ago
      There is more than one axis on which coffee shops compete, Absolutely. I live about 7 miles from the nearest town, 30 miles or so from the nearest big city (Minneapolis). I would love a quiet, sit-down coffeeshop that had good coffee, tea, (and yes, cocoa :-) and pastries along with WiFi. I have no problem paying a small hourly fee for the WiFi or better yet an hourly drink minimum. It's nice living on a farm in the middle of nature, but sometimes I want a different environment and I don't want to go all the way into the city or large suburb to find it. I'm sure there are many around here with a similar wish.
- mynameishere 18y ago
  web startups. Well, we're not talking web startups. The demand/supply curve is omnipresent and sometimes lowering the price is the ticket: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=M&t=my&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=wmt http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=M&t=my&l=on&z=m&...
timr 18y ago
"Why didn't doing it for love work for the author?" "Do what you love" does not have a second clause. It's not an argument. It makes no promises. One of my favorite people in this world was a saxophone instructor. He loved to play. He was good at it -- stunningly good. He did the New York club scene, did session work, played backup for some huge names. But he never became famous, and never achieved wealth. He also worked a dozen different jobs, died young from a heart attack, and left behind a widow and an infant son. His funeral was the largest I've ever attended. You can do what you love, and you'll succeed. You can do what you love, and you'll fail. You can do what you love, and you'll never be anything more than mediocre. Doing what you love does not automatically make you successful. But it might let you become a better person.
- kentosi 18y ago
  Hmm... you could argue that point though. It's one thing to have the dream of becomming a saxaphone player. It's another to have the dream of becomming a "famous" saxaphone player.
  - timr 18y ago
    I honestly don't know if the man ever wanted to be famous. I just know that he did what he loved, and that the money didn't follow. When people implicitly tack "...and the money will follow" onto the end of "do what you love", they're missing the point. Do you what you love, and you might be successful, or you might not. If you're doing what you love, it doesn't matter.
    - gaius 18y ago
      That's charmingly idealistic, but unfortunately it simply isn't true. There is more to life than what you do to earn a living. There's having a family, traveling, whatever you can imagine. At some point, you will need a sufficient quantity of money to do stuff unrelated to work. And if you can't make that money doing what you love, then you're going to have to make some choices about what you really want.
fallentimes 18y ago
I think he loved the idea of owning a coffee shop, not actually doing it.
- blackguardx 18y ago
  As I sit in my cubicle day in and day out practically forcing myself to do work that I don't really care about, I often wonder if I merely love the idea of being an engineer rather than the actual practice of it.
  - fallentimes 18y ago
    I think you love the idea of being an engineer working on things you like, doing them the way you want instead of forcing yourself to do what other people want, doing them the way they insist upon.
    - gaius 18y ago
      Everyone likes making cool new stuff. No-one likes deathmarches and debugging race conditions and writing documentation and sitting in meetings and dealing with incomplete or ambiguous specs or having their project cancelled after working on it for a year or having an idiot for a boss who doesn't understand what you do. But that's what engineering is really like for most people, most of the time.
  - kentosi 18y ago
    Yeah. It's kinda sad when you have a romantic idea of something, but reality paints a totally different picture. I'm learning a new language at the moment. The romantic idea I had in my head was being able to speak it fluently with friends from that culture, read books, etc. The reality is that learning a language is difficult and and takes a lot of effort and patience. Thankfully, I love studying it. But then if I didn't and then gave up I'd still be painting that romantic image in my head thinking i "shoulda, coulda, woulda..". I kinda forgot where I was going with this... sorry :-(
    - 18y ago

by pj 18y ago

patio11 18y ago

Raise the price, let your customers keep you alive. I nominate this advice for being tattooed onto the forehead of web startups. I heard something about a spot of trouble in the market, CPMs in freefall, waily waily waily? What if we stopped trying to be all things to all people for nothing and instead tried being pain relief to people who are familiar with the notion of paying money for that? (I, for one, am raising prices in February, because I've been undercharging for years now. Silly me.)

mhartl 18y ago
One problem: coffee shops are a competitive business. This makes their owners what economists call "price takers". It makes them what the rest of us call "bankrupt".
- nostrademons 18y ago
  Depends. There's often a fair degree of brand loyalty in coffee shops - people have their favorite cafe and don't really check out other places, because they like the atmosphere and want to support the owners. It's not like gas stations, where the price is posted prominently and you can just drive elsewhere. Unfortunately, much of that brand loyalty seems to be to Starbucks, so the little guys don't get much of it.
- fallentimes 18y ago
  That's why differentiation and probably, not competing in a commodity business to start with, are so important.
- rcoder 18y ago
  There is more than one axis on which coffee shops compete, though. Price is one of the least-critical, IMHO -- ambiance, service, and "extras" like a decent menu or late-night hours will earn you a lot more loyal customers than a $0.25 price cut on coffee. Remember, if cost was the major deciding factor, people would be making their coffee at home. Going to a coffee shop is a social act, so the "scene" matters at least as much as the product. The problems (and attempted solutions) the article's author described sound to me like they all stemmed from a lack of interest in paying any attention to the market. He admits that the most prominent and loyal types of coffee shop customers (commuters who just want to grab a cup for the road, and laptop warriors who want to sit tight and work for several hours) weren't interested in his business, and then seems surprised that he failed to make a profit? Color me unsurprised. You can make money in the service industry, eventually -- but you have to provide something that people want. Simply being in love with your own clever ideas is seldom a good path to profitability.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 18y ago
    There is more than one axis on which coffee shops compete, Absolutely. I live about 7 miles from the nearest town, 30 miles or so from the nearest big city (Minneapolis). I would love a quiet, sit-down coffeeshop that had good coffee, tea, (and yes, cocoa :-) and pastries along with WiFi. I have no problem paying a small hourly fee for the WiFi or better yet an hourly drink minimum. It's nice living on a farm in the middle of nature, but sometimes I want a different environment and I don't want to go all the way into the city or large suburb to find it. I'm sure there are many around here with a similar wish.
mynameishere 18y ago
web startups. Well, we're not talking web startups. The demand/supply curve is omnipresent and sometimes lowering the price is the ticket: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=M&t=my&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=wmt http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=M&t=my&l=on&z=m&...

timr 18y ago

"Why didn't doing it for love work for the author?" "Do what you love" does not have a second clause. It's not an argument. It makes no promises. One of my favorite people in this world was a saxophone instructor. He loved to play. He was good at it -- stunningly good. He did the New York club scene, did session work, played backup for some huge names. But he never became famous, and never achieved wealth. He also worked a dozen different jobs, died young from a heart attack, and left behind a widow and an infant son. His funeral was the largest I've ever attended. You can do what you love, and you'll succeed. You can do what you love, and you'll fail. You can do what you love, and you'll never be anything more than mediocre. Doing what you love does not automatically make you successful. But it might let you become a better person.

kentosi 18y ago
Hmm... you could argue that point though. It's one thing to have the dream of becomming a saxaphone player. It's another to have the dream of becomming a "famous" saxaphone player.
- timr 18y ago
  I honestly don't know if the man ever wanted to be famous. I just know that he did what he loved, and that the money didn't follow. When people implicitly tack "...and the money will follow" onto the end of "do what you love", they're missing the point. Do you what you love, and you might be successful, or you might not. If you're doing what you love, it doesn't matter.
  - gaius 18y ago
    That's charmingly idealistic, but unfortunately it simply isn't true. There is more to life than what you do to earn a living. There's having a family, traveling, whatever you can imagine. At some point, you will need a sufficient quantity of money to do stuff unrelated to work. And if you can't make that money doing what you love, then you're going to have to make some choices about what you really want.

fallentimes 18y ago

I think he loved the idea of owning a coffee shop, not actually doing it.

blackguardx 18y ago
As I sit in my cubicle day in and day out practically forcing myself to do work that I don't really care about, I often wonder if I merely love the idea of being an engineer rather than the actual practice of it.
- fallentimes 18y ago
  I think you love the idea of being an engineer working on things you like, doing them the way you want instead of forcing yourself to do what other people want, doing them the way they insist upon.
  - gaius 18y ago
    Everyone likes making cool new stuff. No-one likes deathmarches and debugging race conditions and writing documentation and sitting in meetings and dealing with incomplete or ambiguous specs or having their project cancelled after working on it for a year or having an idiot for a boss who doesn't understand what you do. But that's what engineering is really like for most people, most of the time.
- kentosi 18y ago
  Yeah. It's kinda sad when you have a romantic idea of something, but reality paints a totally different picture. I'm learning a new language at the moment. The romantic idea I had in my head was being able to speak it fluently with friends from that culture, read books, etc. The reality is that learning a language is difficult and and takes a lot of effort and patience. Thankfully, I love studying it. But then if I didn't and then gave up I'd still be painting that romantic image in my head thinking i "shoulda, coulda, woulda..". I kinda forgot where I was going with this... sorry :-(
  - 18y ago