Otto and Claudia Boyer didn't set out to revolutionise London's café scene. What started as evening conversations over dinner became weekend pop-ups, then a bootstrap journey that would take them from making £15 at Brick Lane Market to opening permanent bars across London.
In this episode of Founders With Nick, Otto and Claudia Boyer share the unglamorous reality of building from nothing, why they removed their best-selling coffee (and saw sales jump 80%), and how having twins somehow made them more ambitious, not less.
🟣 We cover:
☕ Why their first markets failed, and what this taught them
🏪 The birthday phone call that landed them in Selfridges (completely unplanned)
💰 How bootstrap pressure creates better decisions than VC money
👶 Managing rapid growth while becoming parents to twins
🤝 Working as married cofounders without destroying the relationship
📈 The brutal focus that took them to multiple revenue streams & matcha mastery
For anyone building something from scratch, this is an honest look at what it takes to survive the early years, make hard decisions, and grow a business when quitting just isn't an option.
01:00 Building Jenki from scratch with no funding or fanfare
04:38 Early pop-ups, failed markets, and testing the concept
09:01 Designing the first bar to pull customers in
13:37 Creating four revenue streams beyond just the bars
21:26 Navigating conflict and building healthy co-founder dynamics
25:31 Scaling the team and defining new founder roles
31:54 Understanding customer behaviour
34:59 Getting better at saying no and trusting gut instinct
36:25 The bleakest moment after launch and pushing through
40:38 Struggling to feel successful while still chasing growth
42:08 How having twins reshaped their ambition and perspective
48:06 What makes Jenki truly different from the rest
→ Follow Founders With Nick:
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→ Nick Langridge
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-langridge/
→ Follow Jenki:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenkimatcha/?hl=en
Jenki: https://www.jenki.co.uk/
