Coffee Is Romantic. The Business Model Is Mathematics: A Conversation with Yolaç Özcan of Kont Coffee
What does it take to build a coffee brand in an increasingly competitive market? For Kont Coffee’s Yolaç Özcan, the answer lies in combining years of coffee experience with an engineering mindset.
In this instalment of our four-part series marking World Coffee Day, we explore automation, measurable quality, accessible pricing and sustainable profitability. Özcan explains how technology can create more time for guests and why, by 2030, the conversation will increasingly focus on the journey behind every cup.
What unmet need led you to create a new coffee brand in such a crowded market?
I have been in the coffee business for 15 years. While running a popular, small artisan coffee shop, I began thinking about a different model around three to five years ago.
Operating costs were becoming increasingly difficult to sustain in a high-inflation environment. Delivering specialty coffee depended heavily on individual skills, which made consistent quality harder to achieve as businesses expanded. At the same time, Generation Z was embracing coffee shops as a third place beyond home and work.
These changes led me to believe that the existing approach needed to evolve. Coffee shops had to become something different.
Where does automation and a leaner staffing model improve the customer experience, and where might it make it feel less personal?
Coffee lovers do not really notice the automation. In fact, it makes a significant difference to their experience because we spend the time it saves on our guests.
We can focus more closely on the customer while AI-supported machine automation helps us deliver coffee of a consistent quality. This makes it possible to reproduce artisan quality reliably.
It also allows us to serve guests more quickly. Ultimately, time is one of the most valuable things any of us has.
“We spend the time saved by automation on our guests.”
Can your pricing advantage be maintained as the business grows and competitors adapt?
Coffee lovers consider value for money alongside price. They increasingly want to know what is in their cup and what they are paying for.
When you give a product real value, you also influence how consumers perceive its price. We continually work to preserve that value and, where possible, increase it.
Our main goal when setting prices is to remain accessible. After all, we are coffee drinkers ourselves.
What are consumers paying for today: the coffee, the space, Wi-Fi, time to work or a sense of social identity?
Coffee lovers are paying for the feeling that brings them back.
That feeling comes from the experience as a whole. The product, the space, the service and the brand’s identity all contribute to a complex equation.
“Coffee lovers pay for the feeling that makes them want to return.”
What is the single tangible capability that makes Kont a coffee brand?
If you had asked about an intangible quality, I would have said being a brand that makes coffee lovers feel good.
In tangible terms, we statistically measure the results of every coffee we make. This probably comes from my background as an engineer.
For example, I can tell you the average serving temperature of the tens of thousands of lattes we sold over the past year.
After the first stores open, what data will tell you that the model works?
The coffee business may look romantic, but it is also a matter of mathematics.
At the end of the month, you look at a spreadsheet. Alongside that spreadsheet, however, there is the brand value you have created. You need to consider both.
You should believe in the power of the numbers and focus your coffee business model on sustainable profitability.
Are there too many coffee brands in Türkiye?
At first glance, it may seem that Türkiye has more coffee brands than it needs. But when we consider the size of the market, I believe there is still room for branded coffee businesses.
The main problem is that so many brands resemble one another. When we look at the overall picture, the issue is originality.
Would you build a coffee brand from scratch today?
Today, I would not start a new brand whose growth depended on opening coffee shops. I would focus on the value I already have.
However, I am very open to new investments in other areas of the coffee sector. As the market grows, new opportunities emerge. The coffee industry, both nationally and globally, will extend beyond coffee shops.
What will we be talking about most when discussing a cup of coffee in 2030?
That is a very good question. In the coming years, we will increasingly talk about what lies behind a cup of coffee.
The word “specialty,” as we use it today, may no longer be enough. We used to ask what we were drinking. By 2030, we will be asking what is behind that cup and what it has cost the world.
By 2030, coffee lovers will want to follow the journey behind their cup. Traceability will become a major topic.
If we are fortunate enough to see those days, please remind me of this conversation.
Coffee has been part of a rich, centuries-old journey in these lands. Today, that story continues through conversations over a cup, in our working lives and in our homes.
I hope your own coffee journey is rich and enjoyable. Until we meet for a conversation over coffee.
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