How A Talent-First Strategy Drives My CEO Agenda

Running a coffee company sounds like it should be all about the coffee. And yes, sourcing, roasting and delivering exceptional brews is at the core of our business. But as we prepare to double our footprint with 20 new locations in the next year, I can tell you without hesitation, that talent is really the make-or-break ingredient. If we don’t get the right people in place, it just won’t matter how good the coffee is because we won’t be able to keep customers coming into the stores.

Hospitality hiring never went back to what it was in 2019, though I think the pendulum is finally swinging back our way. For a few years there, the old rule—the customer is always right—inverted. Staff got to set the terms, and after what everyone had been through, that was fair. But it left us with a workforce that had learned customer service as a negotiation. What we hire for now is closer to hospitality: someone’s coming into your home, how do you want them greeted?

We’ve learned a lot through trial and error, and we’re still learning. But here are a few of the key lessons that have helped us build a more resilient, energized team as we scale:

• Flexibility is a superpower, if you use it thoughtfully.

On the corporate side, we’ve leaned heavily into flexible scheduling and four-day work weeks. I have kids—I get it. When you can offer someone the ability to leave early one day and make it up later, or give them a consistent Tuesday off for classes, you’re solving real problems for them. We work lots of different hours because of our retail operations anyway, so why force an eight-to-five corporate structure when it doesn’t serve anyone? This approach has helped us attract top-level talent we couldn’t otherwise afford.

• Hire people who want to own something—and let them. 

For management positions, I look for people with pent-up energy, who have ideas they’re dying to try, and then I give them ownership over their stores. We tell our managers: “Yes, we’ll set the menu, pricing, and culture, but if you want to do events at your store, try a new pastry, or build community partnerships, we’re going to let you do that.” A good manager can be your best marketing. One of my managers recently organized a Mother’s Day bouquet-building workshop that brought in 12 women who spent the morning making arrangements and drinking coffee. It was low-cost and low-risk, but with the potential to deepen loyalty to our brand. That’s the energy we want. My job as CEO is to set the cultural guardrails, then trust my people to steer within those lines. In other words, give them the reins, but stay in the car.

Of course, I know some of those ideas won’t pan out. But I believe indecision is worse than failure. We encourage managers to test ideas, including new drinks. Some work, some don’t, but we always learn something and the stakes are low. The bar is: Is it intentional? Does it align with our values? If yes, go for it. As I always say: It’s coffee. No one’s going to die. Let’s see what happens.

• Create growth paths, but don’t assume everyone wants to climb.

Here’s something I’ve learned the hard way: we’ve lost very few supervisors to other companies, but we have many who simply do not want management responsibility. They enjoy minimal responsibility and don’t want to take on store management. This has forced us to hire externally more than I’d prefer, but it taught me to be realistic about internal promotions. Now we’re just more intentional about identifying people who actually want to advance, rather than assuming everyone does.

• Be obsessed with feedback, not just metrics.

Yes, we track retention and do exit interviews. But I also personally read every Yelp and Google review for every store, every day. It takes about 30 minutes and tells me exactly what’s happening at each location. Consistent positive reviews about service? I call that manager to see what they’re doing right and potentially have them train others. Two or three reviews mentioning the same issue? We address it immediately. These reviews are the hardest customer feedback to get, and they arrive automatically in my inbox. Why wouldn’t you pay attention to that? After all, you can’t fix what you’re not listening for. We also read retention a little differently than most people do. We expect to lose people in the first 90 days. You come on board, it’s more work than you thought, we want you to know a lot and do a lot, and sometimes that’s just not the right fit. But that’s okay. So when I see a manager sitting at 100 percent retention, that isn’t a gold star to me. Usually, it means they’re holding onto some of the wrong people, too.

• Scale culture through your management layer.

With 175 employees now, I can’t have personal relationships with everyone anymore. That was a hard transition—walking into a store and not knowing half the team. But it reinforced that culture has to flow through your management layer. I need managers who genuinely believe in what we’re doing, who are excited about coffee and about people. If you get those two things right, they’re probably not going to misrepresent your brand, even if they do things differently than you would.

What keeps me up at night is ensuring that each new store we open feels like Klatch Coffee, that each team member understands our “never good enough” culture is not criticism but rather meant to be a drive to be better than we were yesterday. The hardest part of that is training. Every person who works for us has spent eight hours in our lab, hands on the machines, with someone from our team standing next to them. That’s how you get a person excited about coffee. I don’t know how you do that in an online module — realistically, you can’t. But we’re about to triple, so something has to give. But the one thing that can’t is the overall message that hospitality, fundamentally, is about making people feel seen and valued — one cup at a time.