Shouting from my shed

Get the latest news, updates and happenings via my shed-based newsletter.

 

7 Lessons Learned While Baking Bread

Uighur bread, Xinjiang, China

One of the blogs I read regularly is David Hieatt’s. As I am beginning my own journey towards making a small business out of what I love doing, I find his advice refreshing and helpful.

This recent entry really struck a chord. You can read the whole post here. I’mve just chosen the bits I like best:

Make a great product.

It’s always about the product. Never mind being cool. Does it taste good? If it tastes good, you can cancel the marketing budget. The product is your marketing.

Do one thing well.

I just bake sourdough. I don’t bake any other bread. To me it makes sense. But doing one thing well is not as easy as it sounds. But it’s far easier than trying to do many things well. That’s hard.

Doing one thing well requires you to do many things well. Quantities must be exact. Timing must be exact. Techniques need to be mastered. Ingredients need to be of the highest quality.

There will be times when something goes wrong. Each lesson must not be forgotten. Treat the learning as the lesson that doesn’t end. Each time you bake is another chance to improve.

If you are making changes, do them one at a time. You can only judge what difference something makes by keeping everything else the same. Learn by one iteration change at a time.

There are short cuts. But they always cost more than they save.

Sourdough requires time. This is its most expensive ingredient. It’s true of most products. Each step is a 12-hour cycle. Feed the starter – leave it for 12 hours. Make the dough – leave it for 12 hours. But for sourdough, time is the thing that makes it the King of Bread. Every time I have tried to cheat it a bit, the bread suffered. And as I am the biggest customer, I suffer.

We should always be a customer of the products that we make. That way each time we take a short cut, you will know within one mouthful that it really is not a good idea to take short cuts. Never cheat your customer. They don’t deserve an inferior product. They deserve the best.

Love your product.

I love sourdough. I love the way it requires time. I love the fact it lasts for so long. I love that it doesn’t require yeast to get it to rise. I love the geeky-ness of it all. I love that others are geeky about it too. But above all, I love the taste of it. Especially when warm.

I think it’s important to have an interest in what you make. You can think like a customer when you really are a customer. And if you can think like a customer, you can think about what they might want in the future that they are not getting right now.

You are only as good as your last loaf

Reputation is not fair. If you accept that, you will begin to treat it as the most important thing in your business.You can spend a lifetime making great bread, but you are only one sucky loaf away from losing a great reputation. Yup, reputation ain’t fair.

So be consistent. Be exacting. Be tough on quality. Because that is exactly what your customers are.

Remember, you have a lot riding on that next loaf.

Identify a need. Even if it’s just your own.

We have a very good bakery in town, but they don’t do sourdough. And I like sourdough. That’s my un-met need. Many businesses start by answering an un-met need. And if there are enough people out there who want your un-met need, then a hobby can quickly become a business.

It’s good to be different in business. Try and give your customer something that they can’t get elsewhere. Ask yourself what that could be. Your un-met need could be your customers too.

Have something that bugs you.

Bread is a staple product. It’s at every mealtime, pretty much. But our bread in Britain is mostly not good enough. And the supermarkets have to ask some difficult questions of themselves: Do they want to sell healthy bread or bread that makes the most profit?

It bugs me that they are thinking of short-term profits and not thinking about their long-term customers health.

Having something that bugs you is good for your business.  It will provide extra motivation to succeed.

Tim Sanders sings a similar song on his blog:

Just be good at the one thing you do well.
Authors, speakers, bloggers: Don’t get caught up in the Triple Threat Conundrum.
Comedian Mitch Hedberg once lamented that agents would approach him with: “You are really good at telling jokes, can you act? He said, “That’s like saying to a great chef – wow, you can cook, but can you farm.?” His point, just do the one thing well and don’t sweat the product or career extensions.
Just do your thing really well and you’ll find a way to make a living – and a difference.

Read Comments

You might also like

10500 Days (and almost as many words) “My thoughts first turned to adventure 10,500 days ago today. The idea of adventure for me at first was simple and uncomplicated. It was the prospect of excitement, fun, and novelty that were pulling me forward, and the push of […]...
Survey results: What direction shall I go next? I recently asked the wonderful readers of my newsletter for a bit of advice on what things I should focus my attention on for the next few months and years. I thought I’d share the results here, partly to show […]...
Embracing the Adventurous Spirit in Life and Leadership In the journey of life, we often find ourselves at crossroads, contemplating the path less traveled versus the familiar road. Drawing parallels from a life dedicated to adventure, we can extract profound lessons that not only motivate us but also […]...
 

Comments

  1. Learning everyday 40th Year baking for me, great to see thank you for posting.
    The Adventuture Baker

    Reply
  2. Mick Bailey Posted

    Sourdough is the king of breads!!

    Reply
  3. Sourdough bread is nice but have you tasted West Indian Harddough bread? Yum!!

    Reply

 
 

Post a Comment

HTML tags you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

 

Shouting from my shed

Get the latest news, updates and happenings via my shed-based newsletter.

© Copyright 2012 – 2011 Alastair Humphreys. All rights reserved.

Site design by JSummertonBuilt by Steve Perry Creative