Half a Decade of Antler and what it Really Takes

If a 2024 goal of yours is to quit your drab 9-5 and be your own boss, and you want to do it well. Buckle up because for the time being, your 9-5 just became your 24/7. This is not a negative opening statement but you’re about to be sold the idea of being your own boss from aesthetic reels on instagram by a creator who is paid to go on vacations. Your tangible goods business that you want will not look like that and that is okay, because yours will be real.

We all know how many hours our business owning friends put in and it is honestly insane and not always super healthy BUT it is necessary for the time being. When you are in charge, you are responsible for everyone and everything. Every straw, fork, meal, ingredient, coffee bean, dish soap, chair, rag, bowl, syrup bottle, backup syrup bottle, stirring stick, and receipt paper magically appears because you made it so. You are in charge of payroll, rent, and inventory, but you also must make 9 gallons of soup on Thursday to serve over the weekend and 2 gallons of all 11 syrups that you are currently featuring on bar. Like I said, it is nuts.

It’s nuts but you must do it. For your first few years and for the first year for sure, you are a toilet scrubbing CEO and the board of directors hate you (you, you are the board of directors). Some may think that it’s a right of passage, but I think it makes us the best bosses we can be. Someday, if Antler is some big business with wholesale accounts galore and management teams in place, we will be able to sympathize with every single role from top to bottom in our company.

We are entering year 5 of running Antler full time with no other streams of income which is by far the most exciting thing I have typed so far. We are beginning to place other people in charge of all the things we hate the most, or tasks that do not fit our strong suits. This allows more time for the rolls that we both thrive in and can bring the most positive contributions to Antler with. Our team has grown, our shops have grown and it feels so liberating to be to this point.

I think the 1 thing that allowed us to have Antler full time for the last half decade (woah what a crazy way to put it), would be our willingness to spend the time doing what is necessary to stay true to the brand we dreamed up on our dining room floor during quarantine 2020. I know that cheaper coffee would mean better margins off latte sales, I know that I could have hours and hours and hours off of work if we would just buy syrups and not make them all from scratch. I know that serving normal flavors would bring in a larger client base. I know that by choosing to not have drive throughs, we are deliberately missing out on an 80% bump in business. We know all these things and are more than content with our decisions because we know that they reflect the environment we want most. We know that Antler people find Antler, and Antler finds Antler people.

So I guess, if you are looking to read all of this and actually take something away from it. Maybe you’re brainstorming business ideas, maybe you just bought a domain, maybe you’ve had an idea for years and want to take the leap. Your business is what you will give the most of yourself to for the next long while. Choose something you obsess about, something that you have a unique approach to, something that you would pay someone to allow you to do. You have to love it, otherwise you will get burnt out. If I was in an industry that didn’t click with me, I’d be long gone.

Have a Happy New Year

Choose to Live it

Annalisa