Ben Southall is co-founder of Seven Districts Coffee, a Lincolnshire, UK-based coffee house and roastery which opened its doors in September 2020. He runs Seven Districts alongside his childhood friend, Ellis Purvis. Ben and Ellis first started brainstorming Seven Districts back in 2018, however, it wasn’t until September 2020 that the pair successfully opened their first in-person brewery and coffee house. Despite the pandemic, they continue to grow across the county as well as selling their unique roasts online. Ben’s background is in digital marketing, but his passion has always been a fantastic cup of joe.
What is Seven Districts all about?
We’re about great quality, single origin coffee, from bean to cup. We want our customers to enjoy a great brew both in-house at our spacious coffee house in Lincolnshire, and at home via our ready bagged and roasted beans. We know exactly where our beans are sourced from, and we roast them on site, so we know the process they’ve been through.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your business?
Ellis and I met as kids, having grown up in the same village together. We’ve always been entrepreneurial – and had many small side hustles when we were younger. It helped us practice the skills we needed for Seven Districts. We first started Seven Districts with one coffee roaster and a refashioned horse cart for making sales at festivals! All very low key, but we always had a vision of opening an in-person coffee house as the eventual business core: we never envisioned that it would happen during a global pandemic though! We have quite resilient spirits generally – so despite the challenges that we faced, we were determined to make it work; despite how volatile the hospitality industry has been during covid.
How have the pandemic affected you or your new business?
We first secured the coffee house at the cusp of the pandemic. It didn’t seem like it was going to be a big deal then, and we were in for quite a shock when the UK lockdown was announced. We’d been hoping to open pretty soon when we were told that all of the hospitality industry was to be put on hold. Despite this, we decided to use this to our advantage. There were less social commitments of course, and our commutes for our day jobs at the time were a lot shorter, so we were able to work evenings and weekends in lockdown to do up the roastery and move across all our equipment. We were still selling online to fund the project, so we were able to make things work around it.
Once hospitality reopened, we were able to get more serious about opening the house, and in September we opened our doors to our first (masked up!) customers. It was a busy few weeks before, measuring the meter distances between each table and buying in perspex screens, but we did it. When the UK returned to lockdown briefly in November and then again in January to present, we’ve had to adapt. Our takeaway service is going strong, and we’ve even branched out to bringing in outdoor caterers for takeaway wood-fired pizza! The key has been adaptation the whole way along.
What was the biggest problem you encountered starting up and how did you overcome it?
Getting to the point where we knew we could open safely. Coffee houses are designed as social spaces, so adapting things to make sure that we had enough tables to make the business feasible financially while also keeping our customers safe required patience and attention to detail. There were a lot of tape measures flying around to check the tables were far enough apart, that’s for sure! We overcame it with patience and a drive to succeed. We’d put a huge amount on the line to purchase the building and do it up (it was previously a dilapidated pub) so we couldn’t afford to not make it work.
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
Taking things for granted! Although it’s hard to predict things like a global health crisis, we were not prepared for the financial hit that covid had. We were extremely fortunate that our online sales took off, and that we had developed an online product to sell in the first place. It kept us afloat – if we hadn’t had our online presence I really don’t know if we’d have survived or been able to open the coffee house.
We have learnt from it the absolute necessity of having diversity in terms of sales. We know we need our online presence just as much as we need our in-person sales, and we know that we can’t just stop at coffee. We envision expanding what we do to more mass catering, utilising the space of the coffee house for conferencing, and more. You need a plan A, B, C, right through to Z!
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
Read up on strategy. I love reading Entrepreneur Magazine and the Financial Times, as well as (when it’s safe) networking with other like-minded founders. It keeps the spark alive and encourages us to think about what we can do next for our growth.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
We’re definitely learning more about expanding into the catering world. We have brought on a woodfire pizza company for outdoor catering, as this is the next step out of lockdown in the UK, and we’re recruiting a chef so we can expand our food range. For us, this is important as we want to expand our revenue opportunities as much as we can, without detracting from our caffeinated core!
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
How key branding is. When we first started brainstorming we had a different name which had a lot of sentimental meaning to it. We still love looking back at our old name, but we know now how much changing to Seven Districts has helped us when it comes to online content and marketing, so if we started again from scratch we’d focus on branding from the get-go. Seven Districts relates to the seven districts of Lincolnshire, and our branding all looks around the folk tales related to each region.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
It’s definitely utilising SEO to drive organic traffic to our website. We’ve done this by increasing the amount of blogs we share around getting the best out of your coffee, as well as developing our social media presence. Like I said earlier, online sales have been vital to the stability of the business and really were the backbone of our income while we were still developing the coffee house.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
It would really depend on what kind of expertise the person has. If they’re entirely new to the business world, the first thing I’d recommend is investing in a reputable course, or at least some relevant and targeted books which will teach you the key things you need to know to get your business from idea to reality. If you’re already familiar with how to run a business, I’d say getting the branding solid is really vital to gaining credibility.
We know our coffee is amazing, but if the bags they are sold in don’t capture the heart of what we do and don’t have visual appeal, customers are less likely to purchase our coffee. The aesthetic of the coffee house is an extension of that. Even if our coffee tastes great, if it’s served in chipped mugs with dingy walls as a backdrop, are people likely to come back? Getting your branding right, I think, is vital to success.
So either purchasing the right software or buying in a consultant/advisor is important. I know $1000 won’t buy an entire rebranding, but a few hours with someone who has expertise in the area will go a long way.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
Teach yourself about marketing, branding, and general business acumen. You can have an absolutely fantastic idea, but if you don’t have an awareness of the right structures in which to promote it, you’ll never get it into the hands of the right people. Focus on business skills before you do anything else – that includes setting up any social media or websites.
Make sure you when you’re ready to release your product or service into the world, it’s something that you’d want to buy yourself! One caveat to this is that it doesn’t have to be absolutely perfect: that’s what growth is all about, but make sure that what you’re putting out there is the very best you can do with the skills and knowledge that you currently have access to.
How do you personally overcome fear?
Firstly we’d say an adventurous spirit. We’ve always been the kind of people who give things a go, even if they seem off the wall or with risk. We feel like life should be lived to the fullest and you only get to do it once, so you may as well throw everything you have at it. We’d much rather at the end of the day accept failures than feel like we didn’t give something everything we’ve got.
Firstly, a great marketing program. We use Semrush, which helps us with our SEO, monitoring traffic and much more. It takes some learning to get your head around it, but it’s absolutely invaluable to working out a good marketing strategy.
Next up, a filing system like Google Drive. We have staff across the country who work on the back end of Seven Districts, and utilising a drive that’s free while also having a great package of programs has been brilliant.
Finally a solid productivity tool. We use Slack to have ongoing group conversations around different business areas. It really helps keep everything in one place!
How is running a company different than what you thought it would be?
We’re learning way more than we ever thought we would! From the intricacies of stock supply, taxation, digital marketing, and recruitment through to the perfect-sized cup for our beverage, there is so much to explore when you’re an entrepreneur; and there’s so much room for development and growth. It’s why we love doing this so much – there’s space for both creative and logical thinking; though the endless supply of coffee is pretty good too.
How can readers get in touch with you?
We’re a pretty chatty bunch! You can find us on the usual social media, and we’re particularly active on Instagram: @sevendistrictscoffee and @sevendistrictscoffeehouse. We love seeing folk post about how they’re enjoying our coffee and often share posts like that! You can also email us for any queries admin@sevendistrictscoffee.com, or head over to our website sevendistrictscoffee.com
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