7 Lessons Learned in 18 Months of Owning a Cafe

“If we waited for perfect weather, we’d never leave the house” unknown

Hey there,
This is coffee with Serg. The blog. I’m working on a new cafe concept in Malden, Massachusetts.

This blog post is about what I’ve learned in a year and a half of owning a food establishment.
Spoiler alert: Opening a cafe was 100 times harder than I thought.
If someone were to tell me: here, follow these 1397 steps and at the end you’ll have a coffee shop, don’t know if I would have started a food establishment. If you’re thinking about it: Don’t do it. There are 100 better ways to make money.

Good and bad. Right or wrong. Up or down. There are a lot of things I’ve learned in the last 18 months.
Here’s a few:

1. The right people are worth everything.

If you haven’t read the book “The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It” by Michael Gerber, I’m jealous. You get to experience it for the first time. It has over 1500 FIVE star reviews. It says things like this: “If you’re a small business owner or thinking of becoming one, this book is for you.” It is A MUST for anyone thinking about opening a small business.

Personal Core Value nr. 3: Value relationships over possessions.
Paraphrasing a much smarter man: A company is nothing more than a group of people coming together to create a product or service.

2. You’re going to fail — and that’s OK.

As a business owner, you fix things. By definition, you focus on systems that don’t work. Because no one else is going to do it. If something works, then someone else can do it. Probably better. There are only two trajectories that a business has: it either goes up or it goes down. If you stay the same, you’re declining.

Wat u gon’ do? Break now, fix later.

Let your team fail and learn from the mistakes.

3. Time is your most valuable resource.

“I’m busy” is an excuse I stopped making recently. I have time for my family and friends. I make time for things that are important to me. I find time to eat, sleep, rave, repeat.

Core value nr 5: Say YES only to things that get me out of bed in the morning.

I keep a tight calendar, I like people that are on time. Extra brownie points if you’re a morning riser. (my wife is not)

4. Communication can prevent or fix almost any problem.

I don’t remember where I read this. I don’t have kids yet, and when I do, I have to remember this guys’ advise. I apply it to my close relationships.

If a family member starts complaining, I ask them:
Do you want me to just listen, give you advise, or do something about it?
80% of the time, they want me to listen.
If I hear the same problem three times, I get involved.

5. Perfection is the enemy of progress.

oh boi.
I’m a serious, professional procrastinator.
It’s 1:46 AM as I’m writing this. I promised my peeps a blog post by 5AM and I will deliver. Won’t be perfect, for sure. I have to constantly remind myself:
Don’t let perfect get in the way of good enough.

6. All ideas must be rooted in practicality.

What’s the end result ?!

To be happy. I made a decision to do things that make me happy. There will be aspects of my job that are unpleasant (particularly firing), but are few and far apart.

Because of my “CEO” personality, I tend to a start a new project as soon as I’m done with the first one. I’m lucky to have a wife that helps implement those things.
Most of the time though, she is behind me to pick up the pieces.
Thank you, Evelina.

7. There is always more you can be doing to keep learning.

Do more. Work harder. Casey Neistat

You can’t teach someone who knows it all. My peeps are constantly improving. They be reading books, listening to Audible and whatnot. Always improving.
Be the change you wish to see in the world Famous cliche phrase (but true)
If you don’t move forward, you’re moving backward.

Thank you for reading this far.

There are obviously more than 7 things that I’ve learned over the past year and a half. Waaaaaaaaay more. The reason I chose these seven is simple. Simple, simple, reason.
This article is good. I don’t know much about the author, though.

DISCLAIMER:
Some of the hyperlinks in this blog are Amazon affiliated.
Supposedly, Bikeeny LLC is going to get paid if you use those links to buy product.
We’ll see about that. I’m still figuring out what website “cookies” are.
The kicker: It cost YOU the same as if you were to NOT use these custom links.
Sure.
As my father, one the most skeptical people out there would say:
I will be the judge of that ! or some Romanian translated version of it.
If you’ve seen an Amazon associates account, under one’s profile’s settings, you can choose to get paid by check. I set the Minimum payment threshold to $122,708.13. That means that we don’t get paid until the balance hits that. I believe we can do it by 2021.
Let’s hope that Elon keeps the Tesla Model X price the same.
(plus taxes & fees).

Maybe share this with your World Class journalist friends. Specifically with those at the New York Times. More specifically with Dean Baquet.
Or maybe you know someone who works with Marty Baron. Send them my way.
If not, no big deal.
U do u …

Next time (November 22) we’re going to talk about core values. And the values in my close circle.
Next post will go something like this:
Why you have to define your core values now.