An Australian coffee and outdoor lifestyle business that offers its staff members adventure leave wasn’t meant to be much more than a “fun side gig” between running other businesses says its founder Shaun Lynch.
Shaun Lynch and his wife Rachel co-own Dog & Gun Coffee, which officially launched in 2019 and is targeted towards those in the hunting and camping outdoors lifestyles.
Since launching, the online retailer has sold more than 85,000 products directly to consumers and is roasting about 500kg of green beans per week, with four full-time employees and one part-time.
Each year, the founders give up to two weeks of paid ‘Adventure Leave’ to their full-time employees, which can be used for camping, fishing, hunting, a big hike or even an extended road trip.
As well as the two weeks extra ‘adventure leave’ on top of the standard four weeks annual leave, employees get every Friday off and the founders take staff on interstate outdoor trips and run monthly camping trips.
Lynch says most of the team, like him, didn’t grow up in this sort of adventurous lifestyle but that’s exactly what they’re trying to promote with Dog & Gun – getting out there, re-connecting with nature, learning new skills and pushing past your comfort zone.
“It’s not an entirely free ride though,” he tells SmartCompany.
“There’s an expectation that these trips generate some kind of content for the brand. We use content from the trips to show our customers that we genuinely live the lifestyle that we promote, which ultimately creates trust and loyalty.
“There is a balance that we need to manage between offering fun perks and doing the work we need to in order for the company to be sustainable; the Adventure Leave policy is an incentive for the team to be as productive as possible.
“If we’re behind on orders or have unresolved issues, the leave won’t get approved. If we’re ahead, we’ll instigate team trips or encourage some staff to go chase some adventure.
“We’ve created some great memories as a result of the policy and although there’s no tangible return on investment, there’s definitely a boost in morale and loyalty to the company as a result.
“I don’t think any of us will get to the end of our lives wishing that we’d worked more and had less adventure.”
During Dog & Gun Coffee’s first year, the brand made approximately $200,000 and in the last financial year, its direct-to-consumer business made $1.1 million. Its monthly revenue now sits around the $100,000 mark.
The brand also has a wholesale component to the business, which includes selling to around 100 retail outlets as well as white-label production for other brands.
Lynch says he is naturally very entrepreneurial and was actively looking for an opportunity, prior to launching Dog & Gun Coffee, to serve the hunting, fishing and four-wheel driving community he’d become a part of.
“Honestly, Dog & Gun wasn’t meant to be much more than a fun side gig between running my other businesses but it turned out that people liked what we stood for as a brand and it took off,” he says.
“Coffee as a product made sense to me for a couple of reasons: over 70% of Australians drink it, it’s a recurring purchase item, and I saw that there was a unique opportunity for a good product-market fit with the drip filters; an elegant solution to bring quality coffee into the field on adventures.”
When asked how the team has grown the business while travelling and exploring, Lynch says in the beginning, he was working 16-hour days scooping coffee and hand-sealing the drip filters.
“It was completely unscalable and didn’t allow for travel at all. We launched right as COVID kicked off so I guess the timing worked out well in that sense,” he says.
“Since then though, I’ve actively built the business around operating without me needing to be on site too often. I still like to be there when possible but it’s easy to get caught up helping on the tools instead of focusing on the business-building tasks that should be my priority.”
Having standard operating procedures in place means “every operation of the business is fairly repeatable”, says Lynch, and if a problem does arise, “it’s usually something we’ve experienced in the past”.
“Once a problem has been identified and fixed, we just document the solution for future reference,” he explains.
“With good documentation and a little hands-on training, every procedure in the business can be picked up by anybody else on the team.”
Lynch says while he still does occasionally jump in on the production line, generally his focus is on tasks that build the business up and ensure team members have the resources they need to do their jobs well.
“Nearly all of my work in that regard can be done remotely,” he says.
“With Starlink internet, we’re able to stay in touch with the team and suppliers even when in the most isolated parts of Australia. It’s not unusual for me to take a meeting while in the outback, several hours from the nearest town.”
Running a business in this way has taught Lynch that “things will go wrong whether the owner is around or not”.
“I’ve found that the more available I am, there’s more reliance on me to be the one to fix the problems that come up. It doesn’t give the team the chance to develop their own skills,” he adds.
“When I’m not accessible because I’m off-grid, they tend to figure the problems out themselves and be more self-sufficient. They won’t always resolve the issue in the way that I would have but ultimately things keep ticking along.”
However, Lynch says a notable downside to operating remotely is that the leadership mostly drives workplace culture.
“We definitely feel that when we’re away for a long period, the team tends to disconnect a bit from our values and instead just get caught up in the daily grind,” he says.
“We expect that as the team grows and we can put middle management in place the culture will continue to thrive even when we’re not around.”
Lynch says the brand is on a great trajectory but still has so much growing to do.
“The goal is to turn Dog & Gun into an iconic Australian brand, synonymous with adventure and the great outdoors,” he says.
“In the immediate future, we’re leaning heavily into long-form media as a way to highlight our community and inspire people to chase adventure.
“We’ve capitalised on our in-house capabilities to do filming and photography projects for other companies, which brings in a healthy new revenue stream that helps to offset the cost of our own media production.
“We’d also like to support more community events and clubs, particularly those that are actively recruiting people into outdoor pursuits like hunting, fishing and 4wding.
“We want to see people get back some old-school skills that build self-reliance and resilience.”
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