Go small and build communities

Philz is about to be sold to a private equity firm and this is not a one-off occurance. All popular local-coffee roasters from SF in the last two decades that raised a bunch of money, have met a similar fate. They were great, they became popular, they grew, they raised money and then couldn't grow enough so are now being sold to bigger more evil companies.

This is what I call the indie to medium sized sell-out arc. It doesn't just happen in the world of coffee, it happens everywhere there are indies. Indie software comes to mind, which has the same arc. Food is the other obvious one.


To me the problem exists with the notion of infinite growth. This very American idea of "Go Big or Go Home". What if that's not the right approach. Not everything needs to keep growing to the point where it either controls everything or sells out to someone else who does. I also hate this phrase because it's often used as a way to tell me how my own work as an indie is insignificant and will never be as big as the likes of big players. So what do we do to fight the demon of "Go Big or Go Home"?

We "Go Small and Build Communities". What does that mean. Here's my proposition: