From lean software to great coffee What happens when you apply the mindset of a software developer to the world of coffee? Judging by Austrått Kaffebrenneri in Sandnes, you can expect affordable, rare and perfectly roasted coffee beans worthy of a Michelin restaurant, tailored to every customer’s individual taste buds or brand – and a slightly nerdy passion for the dark, daily brew that keeps us all going. By Eirik Elvevold | Photos: Jan Inge Haga
Imagine being well-established with a good job in a large company – a job that even lets you travel the world. Then, you get hooked on a new hobby and, all of a sudden, there is this passion brewing within you. Would you give up your security to follow that feeling – all the way? That was the question facing Norwegian software developer Tor Sigve Taksdal. While working in a secure job for a large oil service company, Taksdal developed an addiction for roasting his own coffee and decided to go all in. 70 | Issue 97 | February 2017
“It began when I tasted a high-end coffee from Brazil about ten years ago. I loved it, so I decided to buy the same coffee the next year, but then it didn’t taste as good. The disappointment led me to do some research on coffee beans, and it made me want to try roasting beans for myself,” says Taksdal.
Finding success by failing fast Taksdal later brought home some raw coffee beans from a business trip in Latin-America, planning to put his plan into action. “I used some core ideas from
software development, like lean and scrum, from the very beginning. It’s all about failing fast to begin the process immediately and deliver value from day one. So I started roasting the newly bought beans in my frying pan, knowing that the result wouldn’t be that amazing at first,” he explains. But he quickly learned what worked and what did not, and soon he was selling his first batch. “A friend of mine is running a bike shop, and he promised to finance my first ‘real’ coffee roaster, a Gene Café, if I developed a unique coffee for his business. He got his ‘cycling coffee with pedal taste’ and I stepped up my roasting game,” says Taksdal with a smile.
The brave decision With his new Gene Café domestic roaster, Taksdal could make coffee for more