The Pursuit of Profit
How do we scale our business and pursue growth without forgetting why we started it all?
Being a small business is an existence that is equal parts exciting and terrifying. While we have the autonomy and ability to determine our own course, we still find ourselves amidst a raging ocean, in a small, albeit capable, craft. Small businesses have to adapt and evolve constantly, something that has been especially true in the past three years. Whether it was a complete shutdown of the economy, disruption of supply chains, rising cost of goods or simply the struggle to pay people a livable wage amidst a rapidly rising cost of living, it has always been an uphill battle. I say this not to garner sympathy, as I wouldn’t have it any other way, but to illustrate the constant thought process that we are engaged in.
As we face the challenges of today, we look to the promises of tomorrow with more than just hope, but abundant expectation. As we have seen growth and expect growth, we want to do more than just daydream. We want to plan, prepare and posture ourselves to steward growth well. For the many problems that are apparent in our economy, we cannot deny that the beauty of American capitalism has enabled us to go from humble beginnings to a humble not-quite-the-beginning. Many argue that capitalism is an evil that has ruined our society, but I believe the answer isn’t quite as simple as just blaming the economic system.
Capitalism empowered my father to immigrate to this country as a young man from Aguascalientes, and work as hard as he could to attain citizenship, start a family and build a life for himself. He set the example for me as a boy, showing me that hard work and dedication trumped any origin, any setback, any problem you could encounter (and he encountered many). It empowered me to take my life into my own hands and start this company, to go from a table at the 2018 Fall Festival selling lattes using flash chilled espresso to two coffee shops and a coffee cart, with more on the way.
The problems we see come from bloated corporations wielding excessive political power, who consistently see only their bottom line. Employee cuts, policy changes, quality drops all in the name of profit. How much profit is enough profit? How many corners can be cut before you’ve cut enough corners? These are the questions I ask myself. These are the observations I make of the companies I look at, whose size and infrastructure I hope to build many years in the future. I am abundant in hope, dreams and vision, and I believe I possess the distinct cocktail of confidence, drive and delusion it takes to get there. I am ready to fail, ready to learn and ready to try again. When I arrive at my destination, I want to have already decided who I, and the company, will be.
Profit is necessary. A company must profit to grow. Stewardship of that profit is imperative though. Finance is a zero-sum game. If we make $250k in a year, we didn’t magically produce the money. That is someone else's money paid to us for a product. YOUR money. You labored for your income and then chose to expend some of the fruit of your labors with us. Through that lens, it is insanely humbling. The gravity of your decision isn’t lost. As a result, when looking at how to steward that, we plant on our values and make our decisions in that vein. Does it ensure and expand our quality (customer facing mission)? Does it enrich and empower our employees (employee facing mission)? Does it enable our executive team to comfortably dedicate even more time to scale and growth (corporate facing mission)?
We have a responsibility, all of us, to work towards a better future. Maybe we will make it where I hope we can. Maybe we will have billions of dollars of infrastructure and create thousands upon thousands of jobs. Maybe we can make a dent in the consumer decisions in regards to what they consume and how it affects their health. Or maybe we fail. Maybe we never make it. All realities are accepted as containing millions of variables outside of our control.
However, we will be resolute in our identity, unwavering in our mission and unshakable in our pursuit of it.
We believe that business has the power to affect every facet of life, and will do everything in our power to leave the world and its people substantially better than we found them.