[cincinnatus]

Did you consider paying more than minimum wage? I wonder if a higher wage would enable you to expand your talent pool to folks who would enjoy slinging coffee a couple days a week on the side to improve their situation while actually finding it fulfilling work. The math does seem fixed, there is only so much time in the day and the inputs have fixed costs, but if you can get it all well tuned to the point where effort and time in is worth it then it can just run for a long time until some change in conditions makes you walk away instead of tweaking again. It always seems to me like spending more for a better product should be the first tweak attempted rather than the race to the bottom so many places undertake.

[muzani]

Our value proposition was that we just provide tasty enough caffeine. It's a psychological boost - first thing on a tough day, end of a tough day, before a class on linear algebra.

We weren't competing with other cafes. We were competing with cigarettes. We aimed to be daily, unlike Starbucks.

Our key metric was quantity: 1. The more purchases they make, the more the lock themselves into the habit loop. 2. More quantity means we could negotiate cheaper prices for beans, cups, marketing, etc. 3. The main factor for quality was bean freshness. If a bag is opened for more than an hour, it rapidly loses 70% of its flavor. The faster we go through a 1kg bag of beans, the higher the quality of the next cup. 4. By selling 100-200 cups a day, our baristas skill up far better than those selling 30 cups a day.

Unfortunately, this process requires little skill other than the team being charismatic and pulling in more loyal customers. The race to the bottom is part of the business model. With food & beverage, you start at 20% profit margin and save money by controlling the supply chain (roasting, etc).

The system let us create a better product than the competition, but we couldn't really charge more because the target market just didn't have the money.

[1k]

I'd love to read more about how you positioned your brand, especially on the design decisions that you made to entice customers come more regularly and how you manage to sell more cups than your competitors.

[muzani]

Habit loop: cue, routine, reward. This is how all habits form, whether it's shampooing hair or gambling/gaming addiction. Once a habit sets in, people can only control the routine, not the cue and reward.

Starbucks is an entirely different thing. As mentioned in other comments, ours was closer to cigarettes in market size and problem solved.

Reward: Caffeine Reward: Coffee flavor

The caffeine acts as the bubbles in your toothpaste, it's there to remind you of the loop without being too strong.

Cue: Entering work/class, before 9 AM. Promoted with steep 'discounts' during this period - it was already profitable and looked cheap anchored against overpriced coffees like Starbucks.

Cue: Seeing logo on cup. The coffee was all in paper cups, not sitting down. It saved a little money on rental area and training. But the main reason is that people would walk away with the cups and throw it in a trash. They'd bring it up to their offices and their friends could see it. Students would take it to other buildings. We didn't have to put up any banners - the cups were the banner. The logo was bright yellow and black, designed to be highly visible.

Cue: Stressful periods - after classes, before exams, at the end of the day.

Marketing? It was quite straightforward for us. If saw someone walking by, we'd ask them to try. Especially if they were staring at the menu.

Those who were hesitant, we'd offer a 100% refund if they didn't like it. Nobody ever requested a refund.

First day, we sold 100 cups. After that, many were repeat customers. A lot of people are afraid to approach strangers. But if you do it playfully and without any pressure, they never get angry.