Business Strategy 
No Comments Purple Cow Strategy in Vancouver Coffee Shop Business?
Vancouver is a coffee pot. As it seems there is never enough coffee shop to go around. You find it at every corner. Literally… the two Starbucks across from each other at Robson and Thurlow has been classic textbook material.
Yet if you dig deeper – even for a non-caffeine-addicted guy like me – the truth is they simply lack character. Starbucks, Waves, Blenz and Timmies are cookie-cut products from large impersonal corporations. Baristas appear friendly at first but most are minimum-wage earners trained to smile and greet. Not genuine. The tenure is too short, turn-over too high for them to genuinely care.
This industry – and its market – really needs a purple cow. Vancouver is too big and too diverse for a group of cookie-cut coffee houses. I miss the small but full of character coffee houses in Victoria, but even those are not purple cows. Such coffee shop has to be extraordinary. How about an appointment-only / invitation-only place serving personalized Kopi Luwak? How about a coffee house whose owner actually traveled to African and Indonesia, sample the beans near a farm before bringing them back and roasting them in house? Perhaps a coffee drinking co-op that donates all proceed to good social cause?
I have not yet noticed any such cow. If someone spotted one, let me know please.