McKinsey reviewed The Coffee Shop (not good)


the digital coffee shop is hella' unscaleable, god damn

in the month of june, i've done so many different things

i ran an in person event for all clients together with weekly online workshops

chatted 1:1 with the people i work extra hands on with

planned out next few weeks for the agency clients we got shares in

managed all slack messages and admin

recorded a bunch of content

and wrote a lot of words

some of the words made it out on the big internet for everyone to consume

most words made it into trainings and tools for the people i work with

everything i just listed above would've either been removed or outsourced if The Digital Coffee Shop was a traditional business..

lucky for me, it's not

for the fun of it, i actually sent a June review of the coffee shop to a fancy McKinsey consultant

here is what I got back:

  • remove the in-person event you host every month, you don't make any money from it since it's free.. what are you doing?
  • why the hell are you writing 2 hours/day?!
  • is it true you're doing all client work yourself? get a client success manager NOW
  • you're doing so many different things.. find 1 product and systemize it..
  • i've read your doc 10 times now, are you a coach, consultant, agency owner or mentor?? or just "Fred", whatever that means
  • what did you and Tobi do for 4 days in Norway?? get your ass back to work
  • where did the $50k in revenue come from? you had no sales calls... you're running no ads... your pricing is public??

yeah, he wasn't too happy

obviously, im kidding.. about the McKinsey part

but i get it

lots of the things i do don't really make sense from a "scale" and a "business" point of view

but makes a lot of sense from an "enjoyment" and "peace of mind" point of view

it took me lots of time in the beginning to allow myself to run my business like i do today

and im still adapting

old Fred from Dubai had a lot of bad habits, which sometimes still shows up

i dont blame him, he did everything out of his best interest

he just didn't know any better

fortunately, he does now

best, fred


Frederik Pahuus

I write about unique mechanisms, my marketing philosophy "Show Don't Tell" and content ecosystems. I send an email every morning on the journey from $500k/year to $2m/year while following my rules.

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