I have a friend who is an amazing baker. She makes sourdough bread for her family, religiously, every couple of days. She puts all her love and care into it. Because she’s practising so often, it’s soft, fluffy, and most of all, delicious. It’s good enough to sell.
But she doesn’t need to sell it. Her ‘market’ is a 3-year old boy and a 35-year-old man. She makes them happy, every day, with the bread that she bakes. But, the nagging feeling persists. This could be bigger. She could make more people happy with her baking, so why not?
If she had more customers, she’d have to make many more loaves. She could get even better at baking than she is now. But to scale, she’ll need to work more efficiently. Weekly trips to the market to chat with the supplier and pick up the small amount of flour she normally needs won’t do. She’ll need to order ingredients in bulk. And people won’t come to her house to pick up bread. For that, she’ll need a store. And the number of customers are likely to fluctuate each day, so she’ll need to learn how much to make, what the average is. She’ll need the average amount of ingredients, she’ll need to sell it at an average price (because people won’t buy sourdough for $20 a loaf), and she’ll need an average location – one that makes it easy for as many customers as possible to swing by and pick up a loaf.
Being able to make amazing sourdough and being able to sell it, are two different things. As we scale, we need to find efficiencies. That’s how McDonald’s did it. So maybe my friend doesn’t need to sell it at all. Maybe her 2 customers are enough. Maybe the ability to make such beautiful bread is only possible because she’s not selling it. When does a craft lose its craft-ness? Just because people would buy it, doesn’t mean you need to sell it.