How to Say Goodbye to 996? Young People Should Open a Coffee Shop!

From 996 to 007!

Opening a coffee shop as an escape from the 996 grind sounds appealing, but it is really a double-edged sword.

Talk to people who currently run - or used to run - coffee shops, and the ones who stuck with it will tell you it is exhausting. In a sense, they traded 996 for 007. It is nothing like the life they imagined: making coffee all day and chatting with customers. The reality is harder than a corporate job - and yet they keep going.

The ones who did not make it often say the failure was not a bad thing, because the whole process taught them lessons no 996 life ever could. Even if they eventually go back to office work, their mindset has shifted, and their ability to handle people and pressure has grown enormously. Much of this comes down to a stubbornness many people carry before they start a business: they simply do not listen to advice until they have experienced things firsthand.

I remember a popular social-experiment transformation show from late last year. One episode followed a protagonist who opened a coffee shop to escape 996, only to fail on nearly every front: poor planning (a shop located inside a residential community, opening at noon, zero promotion), an unwillingness to cater to the mass market (no delivery service, just waiting for customers to walk in), and a shop bleeding money month after month.

When the show's transformation expert suggested concrete fixes - redesigning the storefront to stand out against the residential surroundings, opening earlier to capture the breakfast crowd, adding delivery - the owners accepted only a few of the ideas and carried on as before. By the end of the episode, the expert could only sigh: "Have you really put in enough effort for this?"

Is quitting your job to open a coffee shop realistic right now?

Because there are so many stories of failed coffee shops, plenty of people have written the whole thing off as a dead end. But the truth is not that running a coffee shop or being a barista has no future - the future belongs to people who keep moving forward.

If you want to do it, go do it. The coffee industry is competitive today, but that does not mean a new shop is doomed to fail. Every kind of entrepreneurship is a business, and coffee shops - peaceful and cozy as they may look - are no exception. Nothing succeeds easily. Treat opening a shop as your next stage of development, not as an escape hatch.

How to open a coffee shop properly during the pandemic

Before signing anything, ask yourself eight questions, in this order: Why do you want to open a shop? Who is going to run it? What kind of customers do you want walking through the door? What will you mainly sell them? What style will the shop have? Where will it be located? When will it open? How much capital do you actually need?

These days, no matter what kind of business you start, sentiment cannot come before practical considerations. In today's fast-paced society, people need coffee for different reasons than they used to. They do not have to sit in a cafe chatting with a barista, and it is no longer true that if your coffee is specialty enough, connoisseurs will automatically find you.

Only by clearly defining your target customers can you settle on your product positioning, your store concept, and your marketing direction.

During the pandemic, coffee consumption is no longer confined to coffee shops. More and more people want consistently good coffee without leaving home, which has created habits around delivery orders and convenient packaged coffee products.

If your own coffee knowledge is thin, do not go head-to-head for the specialty-obsessed crowd. When the owner is not convincing, you cannot retain those customers. Set goals that match your actual situation.

If you do have some coffee knowledge and skills, a workable model is a small community shop plus delivery, plus your own brand of convenient coffee products and merchandise. That satisfies customers looking for atmosphere without losing mainstream foot traffic, and packaged products carry your brand into customers' daily routines - free marketing in the process.

During the pandemic, coffee shops need to be "small and efficient," backed by thorough standard operating procedures that speed up order handling. That lowers operational pressure and strengthens your resilience against risk. Stable quality, continuous innovation, and sensible pricing remain the preconditions for staying open long term.

If you are completely new to coffee, learn at a reliable training institution first, then think about opening. And if your plan is to hire someone else to run the place while you invest as a silent partner, you will be the only one losing money - like throwing your hard-earned savings straight into the sea.

All entrepreneurship is for growth

A coffee shop may look small in scale, and among entrepreneurial projects it counts as relatively low-cost, but it is still a business - and unknown hardships come with the territory.

Success is, of course, the best outcome. If the result falls short of expectations, that is not necessarily a bad thing; it is all valuable experience. Going through the entire process yourself, and the people you meet along the way, are precious in their own right. Only through experience comes real growth.

Image source: Internet

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If part of your coffee shop plan involves building a bean menu, starting with reliable, approachable beans makes everything easier. For an everyday house bean, FrontStreet recommends the FrontStreet Cerrado Red Bourbon from Brazil's famous Cerrado region - a classic entry-level single origin with soft acidity, a smooth body, and typical notes of cream, peanut, and cocoa in the cup.

For a flagship that shows off fruit character, try the FrontStreet Natural Hua Kui from Sidamo, Ethiopia: traditional natural processing brings out berry, floral, jackfruit, melon, and honey flavors. And if you want something rich and low-acid for customers who dislike bright coffees, the FrontStreet PWN Golden Mandheling - triple hand-sorted plus machine sorting for a minimal defect rate - delivers a clean, silky body with clear woody and caramel notes.