david hieatt

Make a great product.

It’s always about the product. Never mind being cool. Does it taste good? If it tastes good, you can cancel the marketing budget. The product is your marketing.

If it doesn’t taste good, increase your marketing budget. That way more people can find out faster that your product is sucky. And this will mean that you will go out of business faster. That is good news for your customers (they deserve better) and it’s good news for you because you will fail faster (why delay the inevitable).

Then, you can go back to the drawing board, this time knowing just how important making a great product is.

Do one thing well.

I just bake sourdough. I don’t bake any other bread. To me it makes sense. But doing one thing well is not as easy as it sounds. But it’s far easier than trying to do many things well. That’s hard.

Doing one thing well requires you to do many things well. Quantities must be exact. Timing must be exact. Techniques need to be mastered. Ingredients need to be of the highest quality.

There will be times when something goes wrong. Each lesson must not be forgotten. Treat the learning as the lesson that doesn’t end. Each time you bake is another chance to improve.

If you are making changes, do them one at a time. You can only judge what difference something makes by keeping everything else the same. Learn by one iteration change at a time.

There are short cuts. But they always cost more than they save.

Sourdough requires time. This is its most expensive ingredient. It’s true of most products. Each step is a 12-hour cycle. Feed the starter – leave it for 12 hours. Make the dough – leave it for 12 hours. But for sourdough, time is the thing that makes it the King of Bread. Every time I have tried to cheat it a bit, the bread suffered. And as I am the biggest customer, I suffer.

We should always be a customer of the products that we make. That way each time we take a short cut, you will know within one mouthful that it really is not a good idea to take short cuts. Never cheat your customer. They don’t deserve an inferior product. They deserve the best.

Love your product.

I love sourdough. I love the way it requires time. I love the fact it lasts for so long. I love that it doesn’t require yeast to get it to rise. I love the geeky-ness of it all. I love others are geeky about it too. But above all, I love the taste of it. Especially when warm.

I think it’s important to have an interest in what you make. You can think like a customer when you really are a customer. And if you can think like a customer, you can think about what they might want it the future that they are not getting right now.

Being a customer brings you insights that ultimately will become a business.

You are only as good as your last loaf

Reputation is not fair. If you accept that, you will begin to treat it as the most important thing in your business.You can spend a lifetime making great bread, but you are only one sucky loaf away from losing a great reputation. Yup, reputation ain’t fair.

So be consistent. Be exacting. Be tough on quality. Because that is exactly what your customers are.

Remember, you have a lot riding on that next loaf.

Identify a need. Even if it’s just your own.

We have a very good bakery in town, but they don’t do sourdough. And I like sourdough. That’s my un-met need. Many businesses start by answering an un-met need. And if there are enough people out there who want your un-met need, then a hobby can quickly become a business.

It’s good to be different in business. Try and give your customer something that they can’t get elsewhere. Ask yourself what that could be. Your un-met need could be your customers too.

Have something that bugs you.

Bread is a staple product. It’s at every mealtime, pretty much. But our bread in Britain is mostly not good enough. And the supermarkets have to ask some difficult questions of themselves: Do they want to sell healthy bread or bread that makes the most profit?

It bugs me that they are thinking of short-term profits and not thinking about their long-term customers health.

Having something that bugs you is good for your business.  It will provide extra motivation to succeed.

(I can 100% recommend the starter kit from hobbs house bakery. It will be the best *£85 you will spend all year. *Unless you spend £85 on the lottery and win)

http://shop.hobbshousebakery.co.uk/