THREE MILLS BAKERY

Founder

A. BAKER

Co-Founder

Two Before Ten Coffee Roasters

Founder / Director

I’ve built multiple businesses over the last 20 years, and the biggest lessons didn't come from scaling. They came from repairing.

Three Mills grew fast. Too fast. 0-140 people in the first 5 years.

We hit walls financially, operationally and culturally.

We were innovating at warp speed. Everything we implemented was soon outdated. It was chaos.

Instead of continuing to the point of failure, I started the hard work of fixing. 

Our crew fixed our margins, cleaned the legacy debt, reengineered products, rebuilt the team, redefined the story — and found clarity in the chaos.

Now, alongside leading Three Mills, I have a passion for helping other founders do the same.

What I talk about:
– Finding clarity when your story’s gone stale
– Maintaining company culture under pressure
– Fixing bloated businesses and broken margins
– Leading like a founder when everything feels heavy

What I (sometimes) offer:
– 1:1 advisory for brand-led businesses in the messy middle
– Practical systems for fixing without burning out
– Strategic intensives (in-person or virtual)

Where to read more:
Every Sunday, I drop one email about fixing businesses and the founder mindset. 
100% practical. No spam. And no, I'll never sell your details... Ever.

You might like reading it here - www.jarroddeaton.com.au

Otherwise, drop me a DM. 

I'd love to hear your story.

Jarrod Deaton

Last year, we took a bit of a risk and opened a new bakery outlet inside a Harris Farm supermarket

It's a bit of a new concept for us to be in this environment.

A full-scale artisan bakery inside the shop serving coffee, pie and pastries outside too was a stretch of the imagination.

We normally like stand-alone bakery stores tucked away in parts of the city where our wonderful clients are.

This one felt like a risk tbh.

It felt like we didn't have control over the customer experience or the types of people who interacted with our brand.

That can be problematic when there are competing values or customer perceptions don't align.

Thankfully only good things have happened since we open at Harris Farm in Majura Park.

It’s a great store.

The people are wonderful.

And our team is ripper.

Hope to see you out there.

three-mills-bakery

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Talks about #brand, #business, #personalgrowth, #entrepreneurship, and #customerexperience

Founder & CEO, Three Mills Bakery | Building the next generation of food brands through craft, tech & culture | Writer of Fix Before You Scale

I baked these in my home oven on the weekend. 

They're a new version of our bake-at-home croissants.

Stored frozen. 

Ready to bake in one hour instead of doing them overnight.

You just gently egg-wash the top. 

And bake for 15 minutes. 

Pretty spectacular results in the home oven.

My house smelled so damn good.

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Most founders only tell the story after they’ve won.

I’d rather share mine before the ending gets too shiny.

We were losing $40K cash a week and I thought selling more would fix it.

It didn’t.

If you’re in the messy middle, this one’s for you.

Swipe through these lessons would’ve saved me years.

The $40k per week reality check

I’ve had weeks recently where my calendar owned me.

Back-to-back meetings.
Lunch as an afterthought.
Late to the gym or not at all.
Zero time to actually think.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

If you’re in a leadership role and your week leaves no time for thinking, you’re not leading. You’re reacting.

So, here's my plan to get it back on tack:

Block 2 x 60-minute “no meeting, no calls” slots in the calendar weekly. 

Use them for one thing only: deep work on the 1–3 priorities that define your year.

Thinking is part of the job description.

If your schedule doesn’t reflect that, you’re playing an operational role with a leadership title.

Most people only focus on the wins. 
 
But in 2016 I lost everything. 
 
Financially wiped out when I walked away from a business partnership. 
 
But I wasn't done with business. 
 
Even though I interviewed at a few other places to work, each time it didn't feel right. 
 
It wasn't ego this time. 
 
Something in my bones told me to give business another go. 
 
With the support of my family, I accepted the terms to buy the used bakery equipment from my business partners and start again. 
 
I only had 2 weeks to pull it off if it was going to work... 
 
That's: 
 
- start a company 
- find bakery space 
- fit it out and open a cafe 
- handle legal, finance, banking, branding 
- move all the bakery equipment across town 
- and maintain the dozen or so wholesale clients we'd built up during that time. 
 
Crazy when I think about it today... 
 
I've always admired people who have started with nothing and built a life for themselves and here I was doing the same thing. 
 
It's incredible what you can do when your back is against the wall. 
 
But in saying that, none of it was a solo effort. 
 
Along the way, I've had incredible support from friends and family. 
 
Not to mention the wonderful team who've contributed to building each part of the vision. 
 
I rarely step back and admire it but I'm proud when I do. 
 
- 140 employees 
- Loads of wonderful clients 
- And some of the best sourdough and pastries around 
 
It's been a wild ride! 
 
Hugely grateful for every bit of it. 
 
My mates who lifted all the bakery equipment out of the basement and drove it across town. 
 
Those first few clients who walked in the door on day one. And every single one since. 
 
Our amazing team and all our families who back us. 
 
And a long list of wonderful suppliers, advisors and partners. 
 
Thank you all!

Most founders don’t fail because of their product.

They fail because they try to build everything alone.

This one’s for the founders grinding it out solo - thinking working harder is the answer.

It’s not.

Swipe through if you’ve ever felt like you’re carrying it all on your own.

Building solo feels noble. It’s actually reckless.

I never had an office at the start. 
 
I spent two decades hot-desking and working from cafe tables. 
 
But a couple of years ago I set one up above the bakery.
 
The result? 
 
My work output exponentially increased. 
 
Having a private space to focus on deep work for 3-4 hours daily has changed the game for me as an entrepreneur. 

- No distractions
- No juggling/multitasking
- No temptation to jump in and help.
 
I can only imagine the waste this must have created in huge corporate workplaces when the world switched to open-plan offices and hot-desking. 

For me, locking myself away for blocks of time has massively boosted my productivity. 

I highly recommend it.

The world didn't need another bread book.

So we wrote one that uses leftover bread!

You know all those bits you have left in the freezer or the tips of your artisan loaf that are too small to do anything with?

That's what we decided to focus on when we wrote ours.

We set out to make stale bread sexy.

So we got a bunch of talented chefs together who've worked the fine-dining scene all over the world and created dozens of recipes that you can recreate at home.

Whether you like cooking or not, we leaned into bespoke ceramics and incredible photography, and then really dialed up the quality of the printing. 

It's such a nice object to have on the coffee table.

We still have a few left from this batch if you're looking for Christmas presents!

Bread with No Added Nasties...

That's the game we're playing. 

And in this game, our villain is fluffy white supermarket bread. 

You know the super white, super soft, super flavourless bread that has an unusually long shelf life because of additives?

Yep, that's the stuff we're up against. 

Don't get me wrong, I ate that stuff most of my childhood. 

But back then I didn't have a choice. I was a kid in a country household who didn't know any better. 

But after I started to learn about the wonderful world of sourdough, everything changed. 

I started thinking about how much the world screwed up with bread making.

And in the tiniest way, we're going to do our bit to correct course by making things like this:

Our Quinoa and Walnut Sourdough. 

It pairs perfectly with cheese and wine. 

And it makes the most incredible base for a Chicken Sando. 

Bring on the good bread revolution!

--- 

Love to know what your favourite sourdough is. Drop me a comment.

I used to be afraid of sucking at things. 
 
Always practicing in private before revealing a skillset in public. 

But the problem is, when you keep it a secret, you miss out on rich feedback that can help you level up faster. 

Most people genuinely want to help you succeed.
 
The key is to switch to a student mindset, and not an expert.

Being prepared to suck at something first and make tiny rapid improvements using loads of feedback. 

That type of vulnerability has helped me so much in my career. 

Not to mention the accountability it's added to my life as an entrepreneur.

Apart from the occasional idiot who laughs at you from behind the screen, it's been all upside.

I'd encourage you to put yourself out there, openly try new things and be prepared to ask for help along the way.

If your company falls over when one person’s on holiday, you don’t have a team. You’ve built a shrine.


Too many businesses are built around a hero.


The rainmaker.

The genius founder.

The “only one who really knows how it all works.”


Looks impressive from the outside.

Feels powerful on the inside.


But it’s also weak, fragile, and one crisis away from breaking.


As entrepreneurs, you want to push through that phase as quickly as possible, making yourself redundant at every stage as you hand things over.


The ones that don't, say things like: I wish the team would “take ownership” or “demonstrate autonomy”...


Meanwhile they design systems where:


Decisions bottleneck through one inbox.

Information lives in one person’s head.

Clients only trust one name.


I don't claim to have the solution here in this Linkedin post, but I do know exactly what I'm trying to build.


And it isn't a shrine.


We need more antifragile businesses.

I often catch myself focusing on urgent tasks instead of the important ones. 
 
You know those easy things you tick off the list instead of the hard ones that really need to be done. 
 
I've become way better at catching myself these days but it took building a tiny system first. 
 
Here's what it looks like: 
 
1. I locked in time for doing the hard thing. 
 
If it required thinking time, I blocked out space on the calendar. 
 
If I had to make phone calls or write, I made time for that too. 
 
Give it the space and attention that it needs in your day/week by scheduling enough time. 
 
2. Accountability. 
 
I made sure I told someone that's what I was working on that week knowing that they would ask me how I went with it. 
 
Just the thought of them asking made me get it done more often. 
 
3. Mental capacity. 
 
Every time I found myself avoiding something was because I had way too many things on or big decisions to make. 
 
The mental load screwed everything up. 
 
So in those times, I paused on all other things to focus on building momentum on ONE thing. 
 
4. Incentive 
 
I use fear and rewards on myself all the time to drive action. 
 
I think of the bad result occurring if I continue to not act (the fear incentive). 
 
OR 
 
I dangle a reward for myself after doing something I've been putting off. 
 
Something as simple as - as soon as I finish the thing, I leave work and go for a run in the forest. 
 
Over time, this builds momentum for crushing things you've been avoiding. 
 
--- 
 
I don't think I'm unique here. 
 
Maybe others are facing the same challenge of avoiding important work. 
 
In that case, I hope this helps!

I'm an entrepreneur. It means I get distracted by lots of shiny things. But this helps me stay focused on the right things:

Some days I catch myself getting distracted by shiny new products, platforms, or ideas pulling me away from what's already working.

I have to keep remembering that it's not only about innovation and pioneering new frontiers with less competition. 

The best companies optimise relentlessly.

They follow the real 70/20/10 rule:

70% of effort into what’s already working. Your proven products, best customers, top-performing channels.

20% into adjacent plays. The small twists, repackaging, bundling, new segments.

10% into testing bold new things, The long shots, market-changing bets.

But what do most teams do (including me, at times)??

We try it backwards.

70% on distractions and shiny objects,

20% trying to fix what’s broken,

10% (if that) doubling down on the things that are already working.

Then we wonder why it feels like pushing a square boulder up a giant hill.

If your business feels stuck, it’s probably not your product. Or a lack of effort. It’s how you’re allocating your focus.

You rarely need more ideas.

You need more discipline around the ideas that already work, and you need to do some much more volume of them.

It’s not sexy.
It’s not exciting.
But if you do it, your business will grow and eventually, you can stay do whatever you want with your time while it runs.

Before we could use the 70/20/10 lens, we needed to identify a few things:

- What were the handful of processes that gave outsized results.
- What were the handful of profitable products we sold over and over.
- Who were a small group of like-minded clients who bought way more than others.

Knowing these helped us double down on what works. Then everything got easier.

I won’t lie: doubling down on the "boring" things isn’t always fun.

But having a business that finally works? 

That’s very fun.

---

You can read other articles like this on my website - I've been uploading 3 years worth of newsletter content there recently.

I was tied to my last business. 
 
Working 7 days a week and feeling like I couldn’t take a single moment off without returning to an absolute mess. 
 
I’d taken a break in the past and returned to chaos that took months to repair. 
 
The clean-up was so painful that it made me think twice about taking another holiday... 
 
But thinking like that is a slippery slope. 
 
That mentality makes you believe that it’s not your fault and that others let you down. 

In some cases maybe that's the case, but the reality is, blaming others is the easy path.
 
And that story you tell yourself about the business needing you to survive. 
 
It's a load of BS.

The solution for escaping your business is simple (not easy). 

Empowering good people with high standards to create good processes.
 
As well as telling yourself to snap out of that negative way of thinking...

Thankfully I snapped out of it quickly and began looking for ways to grow and unlock freedom. 

Have you ever felt this way? 

Love to know your thoughts on how you escaped working huge hours in your business.

Running a test bake in my home oven on our new bake at home croissant.

This one spent months in the freezer with things stacked on it. I wasn't sure how it would go. 

But, it was a freaken lovely result. 

Can't wait to share this product with the world!

Most businesses don’t get taken out by competition, they get taken out by denial. 

I learned that the hard way. 

From the outside we looked like we were winning... but the numbers told another story. 

Growth doesn’t fix broken foundations. 

It just makes the cracks louder.

If you’ve been avoiding a number, a conversation, or a cultural problem hoping it fixes itself, it won’t. 

The fire costs 10x more next year.

Swipe through the carousel to see the lessons I wish someone told me before I paid for them the expensive way.

The warning signs I ignored for too long

We grew top line 23% one year and had less cash at the end than when we started.

On paper, it looked like a win.

Revenue up.

Sites busier.

More customers served.

From the outside, everyone assumes growth = progress.

Inside the bank account, it was a different story.

Here’s what I’ve learned the hard way:

A lot of “growth” is just you working harder to stand still.

Here're three places the money quietly disappeared:

Discounts and “deals” that felt harmless
We said yes to little things that shaved a few percent here and there especially with legacy customers. On a big enough base, those “small” give-aways add up to serious cash.

Operational drag
More volume and more SKU complexity through a system that wasn’t ready. Add in overtime, wastage, rework, fire-fighting and as revenue went up, every extra dollar was more painful to earn.

Overhead creep
As soon as topline lifted, we felt justified adding headcount, tech, and “nice to have” projects and weren't as disciplined looking at costs. We chased instead of fixing. 

Growth didn’t fix broken economics. It multiplied them.

If your topline is climbing and you still feel broke, sanity check your numbers. 

Fix them before you scale.

Building this tiny habit has transformed my business: 
 
Every business has a daily rhythm. 
 
The things you do on autopilot. 
 
But most of the time they're designed to sustain what is there and not improve things. 
 
That was exactly what was happening with my business... 
 
We'd come in each day and do the: 
 
Same actions 
Same processes 
Same conversations 
 
Over and over. 
 
It's hard to see new things when you get in that habit. 
 
So you need to make a conscious effort to reprogram your daily rhythm. 
 
For example: 
 
Instead of walking straight in the door, pause for a moment and see the place like a customer would. 
 
Look around like they would. 
 
Stand where they would stand. 
 
Sit where they would sit. 
 
It's powerful stuff when you do things like this daily. 
 
You start to see improvements everywhere that make your business better instead of just walking in on autopilot. 
 
The key is to program the right things into your daily rhythm that sustain what's there as well as growing it.

It's tempting to relax a bit once your business is out of the start-up phase. 

And after years of working your face off to build something from scratch, who can blame you? 

But complacency can destroy things. 

If it's about getting your time back, delegate things instead. 

If it's about enjoying yourself, find someone who's hungry to grow your business for you.

Because even if you deserve a break.

Even if you don't have competitors chasing you. 

Things that are hard to build can be shattered easily. 

And the bottom line is, instead of taking your foot off the gas at the first sign of success.
 
It's best to use that time to double down on what's working and leap further ahead after years of grinding.

Business isn't cut-throat. It's just that some people playing the game think there's not enough to go around...

Which can send them a little mad trying to keep everything to themselves.
 
Here's what happens when you stop competing and start collaborating: 
 
Seeing everyone as your competitor is one of those old-school things you hear and then adopt without question. 
 
It makes sense but it's also incredibly limiting in business. 
 
It makes you think that there's not enough to go around. 
 
That you can't share ideas, resources or even your kindness with others on the journey.
 
I mean, why help another business get ahead of you right? 
 
It's a bullsh*t mindset. 
 
And I think realising that takes a whole lot of time/experience. and a few nudges to snap out of the negative mindset.
 
For me, I started shifting my perspective the more I learned about positioning and understanding that execution is everything. 
 
For example - You can give people all the opportunities, ideas and knowledge, but they rarely act on it. 

At least not with any urgency. 
 
It was the starting point for having the confidence to stop holding on and start living a more open life in business. 
 
Sharing information, spreading creativity and helping others get ahead. 
 
Some of the most successful and accomplished entrepreneurs are the ones who believe in collaboration over competition. 
 
They surround themselves with supportive, like-minded individuals who challenge them, inspire them and help them achieve their most ambitious goals. 
 
Sometimes these can be competing businesses! 
 
So ditch that 'lone wolf' mentality and start looking for shared wins. 
 
When you help others level up, you all level up together.

Canberra Innovation Network

Innovation Program Officer

Noetic

Senior Consultant

Deloitte

Consultant

Project Support Officer

Graduate

CAPITAL PATHOLOGY PTY LTD

Pathology Clerk

Snowy Hydro Limited

IT Trainee working as part of the Service-Desk team.

IT Trainee

Innovation Program Officer at the Canberra Innovation Network, with a focus on empowering, connecting and building the innovative Canberra SME community.
Live Streamer and Content Creator on Twitch on the side.
Graduate of the ANU in B Commerce/B Science (Psychology).

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The Battle

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