Friday, 25 September 2026The Weekly Edition · No. 38
Business, money and the people running both.
Most cafés take two years to break even. This one did it in ninety days by doing half as much.
Eight items on the menu. Open 7am to 2pm. No table service, no evening trade, no oat-milk surcharge. Kiln Coffee in Margate broke even in its third month and has been profitable every month since.
Founder Dami Afolabi designed the menu around one question: what can two people make brilliantly at speed? Everything else was cut, and with it most of the waste.
Every item you add is a new supplier, a new fridge shelf and a new way to disappoint someone.
Three studios, one question: what happens when you stop billing by the hour and start competing on the work itself?
After a decade of growth at any cost, small-company balance sheets are filling up. The reason is not fear — it’s leverage.
Forget the moonshots. The owners getting real returns started with one boring question: where do we retype things?
