beyondcoffee

2020, you little sod.

sam@beyondcoffee.co.uk (Sam Cornford) — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 15:01:48 GMT

2020, you little sod.

Never again am I starting the year with a “this is going to be our BEST year” ever again. Roll back to life before the big C, we had big plans this year – a full calendar of events, including our biggest that I’d been applying for over the last 3 years to secure, alongside our shop in Fernwood. It really was going to be an amazing year…

Fast forward to now and well… what a year to choose to go full time self-employed, what a donkey – talk about jumping in at the deep end. Saying that, we have managed it… and not only managed it but our business has grown in unexpected ways. We are no longer just… me, we’ve managed to recruit our awesome team, definitely the best decision of the year. Not only that but because of the “unprecedented circumstances” (how many times have we said that this year?) we’ve seen new opportunities for growth.

I should say here, that this little blog is really a form of therapy for me. I always like writing them randomly throughout the year as an opportunity to reflect and absorb what we’ve managed to achieve.

Naively, I seemed to be plodding on with daily business completely oblivious to what was on the way in March and fairly confident they’d “never shut us down”. Well… yeh, we know how that ended…

Like everyone, we saw our exciting year of events slowly getting postponed or cancelled, our shop was forced to close and I was left clearing out the garage trying to keep myself busy – it took 3 days until I broke. Emma & I decided we should try and do something and within 24 hours we, well Emma, had set up an online booking system and thought we’d see what happens. I’d have been happy with a couple of bookings a day, just enough to keep me sane. Within a week we started to see our bookings completely fill up and in the peak of the first lockdown, and with extended hours, we saw our deliveries fill up 2 weeks in advance… nuts!

We cautiously concluded that we’d quite like the deliveries to carry on after July when things started to reopen so made the decision to employ someone to help, that quickly turned to 2 people and increased hours. I’m pretty much winging my way through running a business and our aims this year have changed on a weekly basis so increasing our team has been such an awesome and beneficial step forward.

We close out the year still running deliveries, attending weekly corporate pop ups, ploughing on with increasing our shop sales and looking forward to next year. I try not to look back and think of the things we haven’t been able to do this year, the events we should have done and have everything crossed for 2021.

I know I said I’m not going to say it again but honestly, all being well, next year really is set to be a good one, if not a little stressful, busy & exciting... If we can get COVID in the bin by Easter, I’ll be happy.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us this year, honestly if you’ve offered advice, purchased a coffee or booked a delivery you’re all helping us get our little business a step closer to the original dream, so… thank you.

Sam 

Our First Month

Fri, 31 Jan 2020 08:55:26 GMT

Our First Month

January is just about over… wait, what… how did that happen!?

We started the year with somewhat ambitious but fairly realistic goals for our coffee shop and we’ve done it, and then some. I love how everyone is taking to us and the support has been insane. To say we’ve not even had time to complete all of our targets for this month and still managed it gives us massive hope for the future.

Although we now include protein shakes, smoothies, protein snacks and bakery etc we aren’t letting it take away from the core of our business, we are a coffee business and I’d like to think a pretty decent one at that. Nevertheless, our new menu additions are pretty delicious and have gone down a treat with our customers, if you haven’t tried our energy balls yet you need to get here ASAP.

So, what have we been up to since opening at the start of the month, well we’ve made great strides in reducing our environmental impact and all of our single use materials (even the bin bags) are only ever biodegradable. We encourage those drinking in our shop or in the gym to use our Huskee cups and have the best and biggest range of Ecoffee cups available to purchase that we’ve ever had, of course with discounted drinks.

We’ve expanded our menu offerings to include smoothies, protein shakes, and (at the minute) a small range of bakery items. This has opened up new possibilities to grow our business and welcome a new group of customers to experience what we have to offer. Our selection is only fairly limited at the minute whilst we test the waters with what our customers want. We’d love to have a massive range of products from day one but as this is new territory for Beyond we need to know what works, so far so good!

Bakery, lovely lovely bakery. I’m approaching this the same way as the smoothies and figuring out what works but our energy balls have gone down a storm, they are pretty awesome! We are set to include new flavours and new items in February. Bakery and food in general are currently our main focus as we’d love to offer a wide selection for everyone and have aims to become the local ‘health bar’ (maybe with some treats!) alongside awesome drinks.

Finally, we are asking for help as to what you want to see added to our menu, we’ve had some great suggestions so far and once I’ve figured out the best way of doing things, you’ll probably end up seeing most of them on our ‘specials’ board to begin with.

Again, thank you so much for everyone welcoming us to the area and supporting our little business, it means so much. If you have any suggestions, recommendations or feedback (good or bad) please let us know via our contact page or drop a slip in the box in the shop.

Thanks

Sam :D

How Did We Get Here - 2019

Wed, 18 Dec 2019 10:57:56 GMT

How Did We Get Here

Hi!

Just a quick few minutes of your time to let you know how things for Beyond have been during 2019 and what we are aiming for next year.

Firstly, a quick thank you to everyone you has come to see us this year, whether you’ve offered advice or made a purchase I massively appreciate it. This year has been… well, pretty mad actually. I started the year as an engineer desperately trying to figure out how Beyond could ever be sustainable enough to provide us with any form of ‘living’ and now I’m ending the year (nearly) in that position. I definitely didn’t think we’d be ready to go full time with it, that’s for sure!

This year we have;

• Attended over 45 events

• Built our corporate offering, with regular monthly visits

• Upgraded all of our equipment

• Built a second setup that can work indoors or outdoors

• Improved and fully incorporated our branding

• Launched a new website & online shop

• Crafted over 8000 hot drinks

• Sold over 120 reusable cups

• Over 120 bags of coffee taken home by you

• Opening a coffee bar

• Gone full time with Beyond Coffee

I think everyone starts something, whether a business or a personal goal with hopes of what they want to achieve and that was me last year. Maybe I played it a little safe with not imagining going full time, but then I guess we were trying to keep a very small human alive, which I can assure you we have achieved! Sometimes I think jumping in at the deep end can really be the best way of getting the most out of yourself, the start of this year I was in full time employment travelling the country, working 15-hour days, desperately trying to attend as many events with Beyond as possible and looking after our 4-month-old son. If you want something enough, there’s always time.

Next year I’m setting our sights high, perhaps being a little too ambitious in terms of sales but… why not! I’d like to cut our weekend events & festivals down and just attend the event we want to go to and actually have some time off. Growing our brand within our local community is a main goal for next year, we don’t attend too many things around here but are starting to build our corporate exposure and I’d like to keep that going as well as showcasing our new coffee bar for people to drop in whenever they need their Beyond fix. I’d also like to continue to grow our reputation and start to become the go to coffee hire company, this one is a hard one, especially with the ever increasing competition but I honestly believe Beyond can offer some of the best ‘coffee hire’ experiences.

Our goals will change and adapt throughout the year but they are a good starting point and we will set smaller targets to help achieve them. To sum up… we want to get out there and spread the Beyond name!

Lastly, I know I’m going on a bit but I’d just like to say thank you… to everyone who has supported us this year. I know its cliché to say but I honestly would not be doing this if none of you visited us. Massive thank you to my wife, Emma for kicking me up the arse to go for it, family & friends for your support and encouragement and to Luke & Steve at Code Fitness for giving Beyond Coffee its first home!

Here’s to a year of change and looking forward to getting going in 2020!

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

Sam :D