building blocks

from inspiration to setting an opening date

Let me set the scene:

Living in London and hopping from one concept cafe to another, and spending days in bookshops. Reading in parks, on the tube, on a hot bus, inside cafés.

Journaling and taking in everything, feeling not only inspired but more productive than I’d ever been. I wrote two books in the span of half a year. Lived my days outside for the remainder of my time.

Browsing independent shops on sunny afternoons and making a never-ending list of more places to see. Chasing this list.

Going back to live in Germany again, creating a Pinterest board, still listening to my London Spotify playlist I created in those years.

Thinking, we have too little of that here.

The vision

Building blocks

• Daydreaming and conceptualising, brainstorming & researching happened while I was a team leader in my previous day job. I also wrote books at the same time, so planning my business went slowly.

• Wrote up a business plan (after lots of research, calculations, starting from scratch multiple times) and found lovely help from mentors.

• Spoke to professionals with experience in opening businesses, approached tea shops, cafés, local bookstores to learn as much as I could – in the process meeting more kind strangers.

• My goal throughout this process was to ask all my questions and not hesitate to seek help. I’m an introvert at heart, have always been, but reaching out and asking all of my “stupid” questions has turned me into a person that will approach anyone about anything, and who will tell any professional: “Please explain this to me like I’m five.”

• All that damned paperwork. I was a receptionist for years so the Sorting and Staying on top of everything wasn’t the hard part. It was the part where I had to call everywhere and probably annoyed office workers out of their minds.

• Signing of the lease. More contracts. Demos of tills until I made a decision.

• Making a layout of the store.

• Cupping of coffee and tea, and matcha, at the roastery, at tea shops, as well as at home. This was the fun part: getting all the nitty gritty to my taste. Ordering the espresso machine and grinder, kettle, tea pots,…

• Checking out fairs and online platforms in search for furniture. Many Ikea trips. Much online-shopping. So many tabs open, still.

• The name solidifies after a conversation in London: Someone sitting across from me and others, the Granta logo staring at me in the background, turning their heads, saying ‘And I said, Goodness, read the room, will you?’ Read The Room.

Lucky strike

The stereotype that every Asian person seems to know everyone in some way must be true here, because if it weren‘t for my mother and her new friend she made at her job, she wouldn‘t have scored me a handyman who understood and built my vision into the store.

I was lucky I didn‘t have to look far or even very long to get this sort of help. He built the store from scratch in some little weeks, and saved me from the depths of internet and calls to find an external team.

My Struggles

• All the time is business time. I dream about my store at night. I check emails while brushing teeth. I forget that I was cooking. Once, I accidentally had 4 matchas in a day. I put 9-5 home office admin in my calendar and forgot to have lunch and dinner, and went to bed at 3am. As an independent business owner, people kept saying, you’ll be able to make your own time! Ha ha.

• Organisation is my talent, but some stuff is simply out of my control. For instance, I am still waiting on my license to be allowed to offer you drinks and bakes at the store. It is the only license I am still waiting on. I got the news that it might take another 3 months to receive it – German bureaucracy, am I right? – and I cried. It felt like a step back and I was worried I would have to wait out those three months to make my business work.

Impatience & Decision

Luckily enough, Read The Room is not just a café – it’s a concept bookstore as well. Who said I had to wait? I messaged the people in charge:

I know I have to wait for that license but do you mind if I open it as a concept bookstore already anyway?

They said: Go ahead.

I set an opening date after picking a nice date with my mother.

It’s not how I had my grand opening in mind, of course, but I wouldn’t be me if I had given in & waited another few months before getting active.

The first lesson you learn as a business owner is always that things often do not go to plan. I knew this as a team leader at my previous job, and I expected it throughout the entire progress of opening my own place anyway.

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If you’re a local in Dresden, Germany, or live in Germany and would like to visit the store in person – consider signing up to the store newsletter where you will get all the news about products, events and sales. Most importantly: The Opening Date & details.

Thanks for reading the room. ;-)

Yours,

Hannah

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