Embracing risk and scaling at speed without neglecting quality is critical to WatchHouse’s growth strategy, according to CEO and founder Roland Horne.
“The people in our industry who have really been successful, are the people that have done things which were taboo”, Horne told an audience at the Allegra European Coffee Symposium in Barcelona.
“Blank Street have received a lot of flack for growing. To me that’s weird - we need to be positive around growth”.
Horne embraces the “4000 weeks ideology”, reflecting daily choices in the context of our average weeks on the planet.
“When people ask me why we are expanding at this rate - the pressure is this time consideration.”
Currently operating 16 coffee houses across London, the brand has 28 sites in the UK pipeline, with upcoming plans to debut in the South West.
In the longer term, Horne has ambitions to open 500 WatchHouses worldwide in the next ten years and is kickstarting expansion across the pond.
It has now signed for a second New York location, which will be in a “very iconic” skyline building of Manhattan, “which definitely plays to the ego”, said Horne.
“It’s really about the speed, the cost and the quality.
“We want to scale very quickly. But without smashing the quality and without spending an awful lot of money doing so.
“The worst that can happen is we’re not here in three or four years, and that’s not to say I play fast and loose.
“What we do is great. And it’s very energetic, but it is just food and beverage.
Looking forward, the brand plans to zero in on its food offering.
“A very important part of our business increasingly, although we are a coffee-led business, is the food element.
Describing Gail’s bakery as the “godfathers” in this realm, he said, “it’s something that we are very much going to lean into as we move forward.”
Horne is also keen to grow the digital side of the business.
Nurturing workforce culture as the brand scales is also important to the CEO.
Horne envisages 215 WatchHouses by 2029, including the launch of a franchise programme
Making these large scale expansion targets “relevant to a barista who’s just joined the business”, is “quite difficult”, said Horne.
He added that utilising a Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) has been an “absolute game changer”, in terms of growing the business and making it “relevant to the people who are on the coalface.”
Citing brands that are ”challenging the risk profile of what’s traditionally done within our sector”, Horne added, “Blank Street was a very noticeable moment for us, this is a brand that’s super scaling.
Meanwhile, he said “Gail’s is a fantastic brand.”
“I think they’ve done an amazing job of representing what it means to scale quality. And I think that’s definitely part of our mantra.
