- [Women] We want to manage growth better.
Part of growing is just having really good,
well-performing cafe.
So, you know, to grow fast, you know,
it is almost better to just slow it down a little bit.
Make sure everything is right.
- Like, things are going to take on their life.
Like thinking you start something, it kind of takes on
life of its own.
So, you talk about a vision, you might have visioned.
But then it just like grows into something else.
Customers, the business climate, the place you are in,
the community, that all can develop what you actually have,
how it works.
You know? That's kind of,
that is the unknown mystery of having a business, you know.
It's kind of interesting.
I mean I would--
My recommendation is don't take on too much stuff, you know.
Don't-- just don't have more employees than you can know
and be personally, like "Hi, how are you?"
their name, and what they do, where they live,
you know, that kind of stuff.
- (off camera) Yeah.
- And don't have too many locations where you can't be.
I mean, maybe you can.
I mean, I know-- there are-- they do it.
Like, they probably have just a huge team.
You need like super big team of people.
- Now that we have a bigger team,
and that team has been great in terms of helping us grow.
That's been amazing for us.
From the time we started, it was just my husband and I.
Now, we have like ten other people that are just like us,
and all going the same direction.
So, you know, I continue to love what I do.
If you don't have fun at work everyday, why bother working?
You know?
(Laughing)
Oh, that's my husband, by the way.
That was my second half.
Come in for a second.
Okay.
Whatever you do, then just be consistent.
Don't keep, like, morphing it all the time.
Because whatever you've done, if people love you,
they just, they start to identify,
and they will become your apostles.
- Yeah, that was sort of the main,
you know I think the brand, like, staying with that idea.
I think, one thing I always tell people is,
and I've seen a lot of different businesses come and go
along this path or journey,
is that, you know it's like, at time it was like
"Oh, we should star brewing beer"
"Oh, wow, weed's becoming a thing. Let's grow weed"
and I was like "No, just keep, you know,
just keep roasting coffee."
"Let's make good coffee."
and it helped us just keep it simple and just be persistent
on that path of making coffee.
(slow beat music)
- You know, our hope is that
Sweetwaters gets as big as it can be,
and still maintain the basis of how it started.
And, um, I think and lot of that is
all the connection with the guests, and the community.
- When you're growing a coffee business,
it's really important to listen to your costumers,
via either your own baristas or sitting in your shop and
watching people interact or like, get out there and like,
ask your costumers to sit in on a panel and
"Hey, will you these three new drinks?"
"What do you like about them?
What don't you like about them?"
But I think the most important part about, um,
listening to your costumers
as creating the spaces where you have that communication.
I don't think people get out there
and ask the right questions to the right people.
I think it is really about asking questions.
To your costumers and your baristas.
- We also monitor any kind of review sites, like Yelp,
google my business.
And also your PO system asks for a review
at every transaction. So we monitor that as well.
So, we can immediately see if there's been an issue
with the drink or product.
And then we can reach back out to the franchisee,
just to make sure.
What's been really nice is that
we have really passionate franchisees,
and sometimes they're seeing those reviews before us
and they're on top of it, you know.
They wanna make sure that the product matches the quality,
and expectation that we have, too.
- The quality of what we do, I think,
it is essential, because there's so many cafes out there,
people are pretty educated now.
And your palette is educated.
It's like, you know when something is good,
and when it's not good.
So, then they're gonna tell people,
"Wow, oh, you gotta go. The place is so good"
if you contrast that to, if you start scrimping on coffee
to save a buck, you're saving maybe two cents in a cup.
It's not worth it.
So now you've got people saying,
"It's okay. I think such and such places are better"
it's not what I want.
I want people to say we are the best.
They tell five people, and it sort of exponentially grows.
So it's worked out really well.
(slow beat music)
- Yeah, the competition thing, I mean, I'm always like
I'm not really worried about it,
but I just think it's out there, and everyone wants to get--
Like, people see something and they're like,
"Ooh, that looks good. I'll do that", you know.
So, I mean, but you gotta have the love, you know.
- We don't want to follow our competitors' footsteps.
So we really like to build and path of our own,
and I think we found that to be our big reason
for our success up till now.
So, worry, keep an eye on.
I think we really keep an eye on our competitors.
I mean, we don't have a thousand stores
and we don't have the resources
that some of our competitors have.
But, there are some benefits for being smaller.
In being able to make decisions quicker,
and we are more nimble, and, so, we take advantage of that.
- I think that it is possible to all coexist,
and serve different people.
Everybody wants their own special coffee experience.
I also think and rising tide lifts all boats,
and if you have and successful business,
you're gonna make the other business around you
more successful. And I think that's pretty important
when it comes to coffee culture and building culture.
When you say something bad about another coffee shop
as a barista, you might now think about it,
but that person probably goes to that coffee shop.
And you're making them feel bad about that
and you might've just said something out of ego,
but in reality you might've also just lost and costumer.
- As the business grows, people don't know this,
but the balance sheet grows.
That means sales are growing, you're making more money,
but also bills are growing, and cordially it's come up,
and so you really need to forecast.
It's not enough to just look at your bank account today.
You need to think about
where your bank account's gonna be in 30, 60, 90 days,
in as great a detail as possible,
because while you're growing sales,
you can actually run into situation
where you run out of money in four months.
It's like, "What happened?
We were paying the bills two months ago,
and sales are higher".
So I would say, understanding cash flow
and forecasting is vital as and business owner.
You wanna have at least
ideally two weeks of working capital.
So whatever your sales are, for a month,
half of that should be sort of afloat in your account.
Otherwise you're gonna get stressed, and freak out,
and bounce checks and you just can't.
It's a bad spiral.
- For us, I think, how can we keep
setting the example of how to do good.
So maybe go, try to get electric vans, solar roof, charge,
you know, that kind of thing right away.
An then just meet with more meetings with the farmers
and try to get, like, really sustainable on that end too.
And with the people we buy coffee from.
That's the future for us.
And just try to keep making better coffee.
Always try to make better coffee.
- Our unique beverages are ginger, lemon tea.
We started that probably about seven or eight years ago.
But there is a whole, huge market we haven't
even tapped into,
and certainly as every cafe gets established in their area,
at a certain time we're gonna go out to those local grocers,
especially grocers, and also get the ready-to-drink product
out there as well.
So our bottle beverages are a great way
to extend to brand beyond the cafe walls.
- I'm actually working on a project
based on its potential partnership to launch a new product
that would be, have larger and further reach
than what I have.
So we'll see if that happens,
but that's one egg in one basket.
Also, I'm always trying to figure out how to grow
if that partnership doesn't happen.
I can't put all my attention into that,
because I also wanna make sure that
I'm always thinking about how to make this part grow.
Working on a project for that potential partnership
is helping me figure out a lot
and how to grow this part of the business.
But I haven't cracked the code exactly yet.
(slow beat music)
- Looking back in my coffee career,
and all the people I've ever worked for,
the one thing I wish they knew that they didn't know is that
perfectionism isn't real.
Failure is acceptable, and, yeah, it's just a long journey,
you know.
- You just gotta go fearlessly.
I always tell people, being entrepreneurs,
it's like walking across the canyon at night,
cause you wanna get back to the other side.
In the morning you look back in the daylight and you realize
you walked across a rope over a very deep canyon,
and you can't be afraid to keep going.
You can't stop and go "Oh, my God" and freeze.
So, being an entrepreneur, business owner,
is a very scary world. It's not for everybody.
But if you're the right person for it, it's very rewarding.
It's wonderful to be self-employed.
You can be creative.
You're a leader.
You're gonna get a lot of the credit.
It's super fun.
(slow beat music)