The grind is for coffee, not people. In a world that worships hustle, Wimp chooses calm. But we all know it’s it’s easier to write a clever sentence than it is to face fear of failure, and choose to build a company of real character in a way that can feel counter-intuitive.
The allure of speed and intensity.
When building a business It’s easy to get hooked on urgency. It’s a dopamine spike and a fleeting sense of control in the chaos of needs swirling around you. It’s the high-stakes rush that fuels hustle culture: rapid-fire emails, saying yes to every meeting, every customer inquiry, and every idea that crosses your desk.
As a manager or an owner, it can feel good to be indispensable, a solo fire department. Let’s be honest though, are you saving the day; or drowning in a sea of self-inflicted drama and calling it purpose. It’s a treadmill of constant motion, without real progress.
The antidote to crazy is a calm company.
It’s time to rewire our relationship to time, work, and value. Calm companies are taking up the mantle on this vision, and I’d like to make Wimp one of them. But really WTF is a calm company and what does it have to do with decaf coffee?
A calm company is built with balanced intention. It rejects the urgency of short-term wins, focusing instead on crafting meaningful work, fostering deep connections, and honoring the time it takes to create lasting value.
Calm is not lazy. It’s deliberate. Calm sees time as precious and wouldn’t dare waste it by hurrying. Calm affronts poisonous phrases in our culture like “there’s not enough time”. It reminds us there’s exactly the right amount of time.
The work in hustle culture over-scopes, under-delivers, and sacrifices the working human on the alter of performance. Calm chooses quality over quantity. Calm allows good things to take time. It chooses the scope and time that allow for a remarkable thing to come alive. It is very simply about choosing to do less, but better.
When we work this way our craft becomes more precious to the people who buy our services and products. Our own relationship to customers grows deeper rooted and more stable. We build loyalty and connection rather than the transactional frenetic interactions of vaporware.
Nice, but how do you build a calm company?
This sounds great right? But easier said than done. From the first days of Wimp I have been prone to come up with grand schemes and abbreviated timelines to fit them in. I have felt scarcity and fear, a need to make sure that my hard earned investment of sweat and capital actually go somewhere meaningful. I'm just as susceptible as anyone to feel the need to chase every opportunity or obsess over growth.
It’s easy to feel “behind” or that we’re “running out of time” to get our companies moving, making money, and “capturing the market” as if it were a scared animal we were hunting.
Choosing calm is a guiding principle that we reflect on when these voices get noisy. Calm is the reminder to shake all that off. It asks me what I might do with more quality, more integrity, and more sincerity. This is what drives Wimp.
1. Purpose-driven profitability
Financial health builds a business that improves lives and positively impacts our community. Profit isn’t the goal—it’s the fuel that sustains our purpose. We balance internal well-being with external impact. Sometimes balancing means falling over like a juice-drunk toddler. It’s ok, we’ll get back up.
2. Simplicity through focus
We do less, but better. Cutting through the noise helps us channel energy into meaningful, high-quality work. Simplicity prevents us from becoming that person with a to-do list so long they need a Sherpa.
3. Authentic growth through connection
We grow by building trust and offering real value. Instead of gimmicks, we create products people genuinely love. Through hard work and shared joy, we’ll build a loyal community.
4. Work-life integration, not separation
Work should fit into life, not compete with it. By approaching tasks with care and setting clear boundaries, we foster connections and create a thriving work environment.
5. Freedom and flexibility for all
Work should support a full life. We give everyone the freedom to be relational, and integrate health, so we all show up at our best. We know everyone loves a team that knows when to break for cookies or dad jokes.
6. Mindful decision-making
We curate our decisions that align with our purpose. We seek clarity over stress. We avoid the trap of making decisions under duress knowing thoughtful choices keep us calm, focused, and true to what matters.
7. Curiosity and continuous learning
We embrace curiosity as a guide for growth. Every mistake or new idea is a chance to improve. By staying open and inquisitive, we innovate and adapt—because asking, “What happens if we try this?” is how we discover new paths (even if we occasionally set off the fire alarm).
A calm company is a decaf company.
It starts with coffee, my favorite beverage in the world. A full bodied drink, complex with acids, bitters, fruits, nuttiness. It’s flush with flowers of memories that all open in every sip. Memories of coffee alone, coffee with friends, coffee on walks, coffee in cafes, coffee in foreign lands and coffee in my home kitchen. There’s nothing like it.
For some coffee is a stimulant, and it sure is good at that! For some that stimulant is a fire that’s not worth the burn. Decaf is the answer to having all the wonders of coffee without the agitation of the world’s most popular buzz. That same buzz that often feels inextricably linked to hustle.
Decaf has come to be far more than my favorite drink without caffeine. It’s come to symbolize the way I want to live my life, and the kind of way I want to show up in the world for others. Each day as my wife asks after me at the end of a long day, I’d like my response to simply be “I’m feeling very decaf babe”. This is how I know that I’m on the right track.
What does calm look like for you?
We move toward calm not perfect calm. It’s a path and a process.. What would change in your life if urgency wasn’t steering the ship? What could you do better if you were doing a little less? How might your relationships deepen, your work improve, and your mind quiet?
Calm isn’t just a business strategy. It’s a way of life, a commitment to doing less but better. And it starts with a single question: what if you had exactly the right amount of time?
