The Journey of 1,000 Steps Starts with Iteration
8 Iteration Tips that helped my wife and I go from coffee drinkers to cafe managers.
Hello again. If you don’t remember, I coach leaders and teams how to improve the way they deliver value to their customers in ways that work for their business. My promise has always been to give you real world examples, not textbook advice or platitudes from an armchair quarterback.
This Tidbit is 10 years in the making.
The Story
In 2014, my wife was done with coffee. We were both starting our health improvement journey, which I have written about previously, and one of the early improvements we both made was to eliminate sugar from our diet. On one particularly dark day, she announced she had no interest in drinking black coffee and thus was no longer going to drink the stuff.
I was shocked.
Coffee had been part of our relationship for ten years, not to mention part of our respective upbringings. For as long as I have known them, her parents have owned a Bunn coffee maker with connected waterline. The very first date I took Natalie on was to Starbucks in a Barnes & Noble, and my best man at my wedding was Mr. Coffee from the coffee machine manufacturer company.
Okay, so Mr. Coffee might be fiction, but my point here is that coffee was part of “us.”
Long story short, we realized there was a world of coffee we didn’t know. Our K-Cup experience was just the tip of an iceberg that needed to be explored. And that’s what we did. Somewhere in the haze of the health journey, I decided I would no longer settle for these “unintentional cups of coffee” and instead embark on a journey for greener pastures. Or, in this case, a better roast.
A Vision
The subsequent coffee journey led to one of my few real moments of vision. We were sitting in a coffee shop, where it was is lost in a sea of coffee shop encounters, and I remember imagining people drinking excellent cups of coffee, in a relaxed atmosphere, talking about the things of God. That’s it. That was the vision.
I could see it in my mind’s eye. I could also see my wife and I running it, serving people this great coffee, leading Bible studies, hiring local church youth and giving them a place to work that wasn’t going to force them down any of the obvious woke paths most cafes we had experienced seemed to celebrate. (I don’t judge any of those places, to each his/her own, I’m just being real about my vision).
The only question that remained was how to obtain it. Owning a coffee shop takes experience. It takes start-up money. Two things we didn’t have. What we did have was a desire to avoid debt and learn everything we could, along with a vision and an agile mindset. Turns out, that was all we needed.
The Iterative Journey
Iteration 1
We decided to visit as many cafe/coffee shops (no franchises) on all of our travels. We took pictures of decorations we liked, asked questions, ordered different drinks, and just soaked in as much as we could. It was an important first step. We took the Ken Coleman school of thought. Ken teaches an iterative approach to getting your dream job, where steps 2 and 3 are to get qualified and then get connected, respectively.
We used other cafes to quickly sift ideas, learn table stakes type things, and gradually improve our own taste for coffee. Trying these different types of coffee without first taking on the risk of trying to open our own shop was huge. We were deepening our love for coffee with every visit while only incurring the cost of a cup of coffee.
Iteration Tip #1: Iteration allows you to lower risk as you learn from your and other’s experiences.
The obvious next step was to get started.
Iteration 2 & 3
Getting started, for us, meant finding any open door to be around coffee. So we did what any self respecting lover of church service would do…we joined the cafe team at our church. Technically, it was just a book store in the foyer, but they were serving K-Cup coffee. Now, you may be thinking, “K-Cup coffee is to cafe coffee what fast food is to a gourmet meal.” Unintentional coffee. Agreed. But, this iteration was critical for me, as an introvert, as it served to help me learn how to serve people. Serving people, it turns out, was the real heart of our vision for a coffee shop.
Iteration 3 happened almost immediately after iteration 2. Keep in mind, some iterations will be short, some long, and some can happen simultaneously. In fact, let’s call that the next tip.
Iteration Tip #2: Iterations can be short, long, and even intertwined.
While we were serving at the church cafe, Nat also started taking jobs at coffee shops. She wanted to immerse herself in the business side as well as the art of making delicious coffee, and that’s exactly what she did. She worked at several shops, moved up the ranks, and before the end of this iteration, was a manager at Joe Mugg’s in a Books-a-Million. She learned how to properly lead a coffee shop, clean machinery, manage inventory, and speak the cafe lingo. As you can imagine, this took a few years. All the while, she continued making connections and preparing herself for eventually managing a cafe.
Iteration Tip #3: Iteration prepares you for what’s to come.
After a year or so of these two iterations swirling back and forth, our church moved to a new building with a specific advantage: it had a space for its own legit coffee shop. Because we were in the orbit of the original iteration of a “coffee shop”, simple K-Cup unintentional coffee, we were invited to help get the new cafe up and running.
Iteration Tip #4: Iteration allows for opportunity.
Natalie used her connections in the coffee world to bring in a legit cafe connoisseur to train the team. I still remember the nights I got to spend in the cafe washing dishes and blending drinks, anything I could do just to stay in the stratosphere and learn. I would spend time with the customers, taking orders, yelling out finished coffee, learning the lingo. It was ridiculously fun.
Things were starting to get real. Every new experience brought us some new aspect of running a cafe. It brought us one iteration closer to realizing our vision.
Eventually, we were approached by the church leadership about stepping in to a leadership role to help expand the cafe vision. They wanted to open more coffee shops in the community. We had been in the orbit, learning and growing, proving our belief in serving great coffee. It was only natural that iteration created ability, which built consistency, which led to trust.
Iteration Tip #5: Iteration builds trust.
I won’t lie, it felt like the door was finally open. But, something was still missing. We weren’t ready.
Turns out, it didn’t matter. I got a job in Tennessee, working for Dave Ramsey’s company, and we had to leave that coffee shop behind. But not the vision. The vision was as strong as ever.
Iteration 4, 5, 6
This is where the iterations started coming faster with bigger gains.
As part of this journey, our home coffee experience had leveled up. We had some friends over one night and we used our modest setup to serve a fateful cup of coffee, a Salted Caramel latte. It turned out that this friend was a small business owner and he invited us to serve coffee at his leadership booth (shout out to the Iron Table) at an upcoming convention. Iteration 4 was loading up our Phillips coffee maker, setting up shop in a hotel conference room, and making coffee for various pastors from local churches. We didn’t charge for the coffee, just allowed for donations in the form of words of encouragement scribbled in sharpie on the heat sleeves used for the next cup of coffee.
It was a hit. The pastors loved the experience, and the coffee.
Iteration 5 happened when we were invited back the next year. For this event, my wife and I decided to do something big. We wanted to seal the deal and go all in on trying to advance our dream, so we purchase our first legit coffee maker. The LaMarzocco Linea, affectionately name LaMar. A simple, single group-head machine that we had researched and decided would be an excellent investment. We also dropped some coin on a companion travel case we could load it into and take it to more events.
Another resounding success.
A few more events followed and we then decided to set up shop on a folding table in one of the rooms at our new church and see what the appetite for serving coffee would be.
Consecutive sell-outs.
The people loved us, our coffee, and the service we offered as we delivered each cup of liquid energy. As it happens, our friend with the taste for Salted Caramel lattes just so happened to be a board member at our church. Iteration 6 was an offer to create and present a business plan for building and running a coffee shop at our new home church in Tennessee. We would finally be able to serve great coffee while creating an atmosphere for Bible studies and great conversation. (All of the proceeds, by the way, go to funding missionaries spreading the gospel abroad.)
Iteration Tip #6: You can iterate your way to your visions and dreams.
Just for fun, here’s a quick shot of where we are now in our coffee making journey. Meet the two group-head version of the LaMarzocco espresso machine, dubbed LeMarc II. It’s helped us serve well over 1,500 caffeine induced smiles.
Landing the Plane
Now that we have the cafe up and running, I look back and see how we have iterated even within the shop itself. We took the same approach. Instead of trying to open a perfect shop day one, we used our own advice and have grown organically. And that leads to my final two iteration tips.
Iteration Tip #7: Once you truly understand iteration, you will use it everywhere.
And most importantly…
Iteration Tip #8: Iteration allows for organic growth.
We opened the shop a few weeks before the official grand opening to learn what people would order and how they would flow through the room. There were still boxed up tables in the corner, and missing seat cushions. But we learned how people wanted to use the space. We reconfigured the space again and again as we learned new things. We added and removed art and furniture based on what the customers did. We played music with a bluetooth speaker before deciding to install a permanent music solution. We printed a paper menu until we could put up a digital menu board. We started with a single size of coffee. Only brought in a few volunteers. Our first ice machine was a bag of ice.
Do not forsake these small beginnings. Zechariah 4:10 NLT
I will definitely be using this experience to illustrate nimble and agile principles as we get closer to the actual dream. Until then, one final thought. If you ever find yourself in Murfreesboro, TN, swing by the Cafe at Centerpointe Apostolic Church on Lascassas Pike. Try the Peanut Butter Heaven.
You’ll thank me later.
Until next time,
Keep on learning. Keep on growing.
If you came here looking for the 8 Iteration Tips…
Iteration Tip 1: Iteration allows you to lower risk as you learn from your and other’s experiences.
Iteration Tip 2: Iterations can be short, long, and even intertwined.
Iteration Tip 3: Iteration prepares you for what’s to come.
Iteration Tip 4: Iteration allows for opportunity.
Iteration Tip 5: Iteration builds trust.
Iteration Tip 6: You can iterate your way to your visions and dreams.
Iteration Tip 7: Once you truly understand iteration, you will use it everywhere.
Iteration Tip 8: Iteration allows for organic growth.
Wow that’s an amazing amount of work. I love that you did it together, learned from real life experiences, and built a community from it. What a great lesson!