Go Slow vs Go Fast
Current Status
We are baking once a week, delivering to coffee shops.
We are steadily increasing sales and profitability, but it feels slow.
Fork In The Road
We have the option to more than double our number of clients (and presumably our sales) if we are willing to bake multiple days/week.
It will increase sales, but it will decrease profitability (probably).
Operational overhead will increase (more baking, more kitchen rental, more delivery).
Sales per store per day will decrease (We currently only sell on weekends. We’ll be adding weekdays, which are less active.)
There are other benefits though:
Hiring will be easier (more hours/week = bigger and better candidate pool)
Increased visibility/reputation from more prominent coffee shops carrying us
It’s tantalizing to add the new clients, bake more, and get more distribution; but it’ll mean that we’re digging a deeper investment hole from which to recover.
Do we invest more, accept a longer timeline of no profits, with the hope that it accelerates growth?
Or do we pursue the “slow and steady” strategy, stay in the black, and not put any additional capital at risk?