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 Everything we implemented was soon outdated.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.

Last week I was pretty nervous.

Gearing up to speak at CBRIN about our journey over the last few years rebuilding Three Mills from the inside out. 

Thankfully the room was filled with plenty of people on the same journey. Other business owners who actually get it. 

They journey has been a bumpy one, but one of the best bits for me is the return of my confidence. 

It wasn't obvious that it was missing at first. 

But after stacking hundreds of tiny wins inside the business over the past year, it's been quietly returning. 

Getting in the room and talking about that with other business owners opened up so many great conversations. 

Thank you to those who came along.

Jarrod Deaton

three-mills-bakery

linkedin.com/in/jarroddeaton/

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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

In my natural habitat!

Fields of heirloom black barley grown from a 6000-year-old strain.

Started by Voyager Malt from a handful of seeds and scaled up to full size crops.

Seriously impressive commitment to the craft of growing such a special product.

We use it in seasonal sourdough loaves and our mushroom sausage roll for some pops of flavour and texture.

We cooked the malted black barley out like a porridge and then added it to the dough. Because of the natural sugars created during the malting process, it produced a super glossy looking loaf. Amazing product.

It was such a privilege to visit their farm and the Voyager malt house facility last week for Grainstock.

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Growth is great... until it isn’t. 
Read this before scaling your business.

I used to believe that more was always better.

Chasing hero metrics like topline revenue and head count.

More sales.
More stores.
More customers.

Until I realised that more also meant:

More moving parts.
More complexity.
More stress.

The reality was...

Not every product we made was excellent.
Not every revenue stream was profitable.
Not every part of our business was scalable.

So instead of chasing ANY growth, we started chasing the right growth.

- We stopped making inefficient products and focused on products that made sense.
- We stopped selling to anyone and started attracting the right customers.
- We stopped pushing top-line and focused on the right revenue.

It all comes down to getting the right products, to the right people, at the right price.

So before you chase more, ask yourself: 

Do I actually want more of this?

When an employee screws up in your business, take a deep breath and own it yourself:
 
Not every time. 

But at least for the first few times. 

Because chances are, the business let them down first. 
 
Looking back on my own journey, often we: 
 
- Put them in a role they weren't ready for. 
- Didn't give them enough training. 
- Set unrealistic expectations. 
- Didn't offer live feedback.

It means they were set up for failure. 
 
So it's critical to look at yourself before you point the finger at others. 
 
When you absorb responsibility for the fails and handball the wins, you: 
 
- Create a better culture 
- Gain control of the outcomes 
- Solve root causes to big problems 
 
And that's the stuff that makes brilliant companies succeed.

What are your thoughts?

On Friday I spoke to a room full of Australia's best craft Brewers and Distillers about the bumpy journey of growing in our industry these past few years.

What a privilege it was! 

Brands and operators I've admired from a distance for years.

So many incredible stories emerged afterwards and I spent the rest of the day connecting with people and listening to dozens of excellent speakers.

The event was hosted by Voyager Malt house out near my hometown so I got the opportunity to take a few of the team back home for a rapid tour of the surrounding farm land. 

The thing that stood out to me on the road there was how easily ideas flowed while traveling . We seemed to chat for hours about things we've been stuck on in the past.

There's something about getting away and accessing new information. It sparks new ideas and different ways of approaching everyday work we do.

I can't recommend it enough.

I spent years behind the coffee machine. 
 
I miss the action and daily connections. 
 
These days I'm in the office for hours. 
 
-Meeting 
-Planning 
-Deciding 
-Documenting 
 
Sometimes I think it's such a shift away from the idea of building a hospitality business. 
 
But it's about empowering, training and trusting others to do it in your absence. 
 
It's also something I've seen other food entrepreneurs struggle with. 
 
"Getting off the tools" so to speak. 
 
Office work and corporate life are something we're all probably trying to avoid by staying in this world in the first place! 
 
Thought work 
People work 
Strategy 
Culture 
 
Are often things that are put on the 'To-Do' list as you prioritise opening the store and serving customers. 
 
But there's a responsibility for owners to change their role as the company grows. 
 
Even though it'd be great to get back on the machine and pump out some coffees, I know it'd take my focus away from other important things that need doing. 
 
Things the rest of the team are expecting will get done at a high level so they can do their best work.

I make mistakes all the time in business. 
 
But often when other people on the team do, it's tempting to call them out. 
 
Maybe because when it's your own business you accept your own fails as you grow but expect others perform at a higher standard? 
 
It's one of the mindsets I'm thankful I grew out of years ago. 
 
I found it was almost always my mistake before theirs. 
 
A process or communication problem. 
 
Not a people problem. 
 
Something that you could have solved. 
 
Back then I saw things like: 
 
- People in a role they weren't ready for. 
- Didn't help iron out process problems. 
- Didn't give them enough training. 
- Set unrealistic expectations. 
- Didn't communicate well. 
 
When you look at yourself before you point the finger at others, you often find the root cause. 
 
And if you acknowledge it you take responsibility first, you: 
 
- Create a better culture 
- Gain control of the outcomes 
- Solve root causes to big problems 
 
And that's the stuff that makes brilliant companies succeed. 
 
Love to know your thoughts?

One simple question changed how I think about my business:

If you’re growing a business, ask yourself:

“𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝗜 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳?”

Not just “more revenue” or “more customers.”

But more of the right things.

- Do you want more of a certain type of client?
- More of a specific type of work?
- More high-margin products?
- More scalability?

When I sat down to answer this question, I realised I had been chasing growth without intention.

I thought I wanted more sales.

But what I really wanted was more of the right revenue.

I thought I wanted more customers.
But I really needed more of the right customers.

This one question changed how I've rebuilt my business for the future.

So... What do you want more of?

Drop it in the comments—I’d love to hear it.

Most weeks I feel like quitting LinkedIn. 
 
It's hard to see the point of it all really.

You question things like:

Is it really building my brand?

Is it really driving growth?

Is this the best use of my time on this rock?

The reality is, the world won't miss my next post. 
 
Social media feels like a distraction.
 
Especially when you:
 
- have a tiny audience 
- don't make an income from it 
- aren't nailing every single post
 
But two things keep me going:

1. Bumping into people who read my posts and enjoy them. 

They're sleepers. Rarely liked or commented, but always reading them. 

That's social media for me.

And 2, it's the discipline of writing. 

Sharing stories, Calling BS on the business world. 

Writing a weekly email to other business owners that might make their journey a little easier.

I can't explain it beyond that. 

So while I figure out what the hell I'm doing here or how to leverage this better, I'll keep showing up like this and hoping you people in the shadows enjoy reading these posts!

Thank you everyone!

We had a fierce competitor land on our doorstep a few years back who threatened to gobble up a huge part of our business.

They were:

- Bigger
- Well funded
- Aggressive on sales
- Undercutting us on price

They were relentless.

Our strategy?

𝗢𝘂𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺.

So here's what we did:

- Increased consistency
- Extended our contact hours
- Rapidly fixed problems for clients
- Treated people like our best mates and bent over backwards to help them.

The result?

We only lost 3 clients over 12 months.

And two of them came back within the first 30 days due to crappy service.

We used it again this year to grow instead of retaining clients and it worked just as well.

There's literally no downside to over-servicing your clients by building a culture around long-term customer delight.

If your company is struggling to retain clients or hasn't seen enough growth over the past 2 years, I'd love to understand more.

Drop me a DM sometime.

Maybe I can help.

Here's how growth can make a business better:

For years I watched other food businesses grow and sacrifice quality to achieve scale. 

Not wanting to fall into the same trap we started asking how growth could make us better.
 
- Better product 
- Better team culture 
- Better customer experience 
 
Instead of the alternative where all joy is lost and money is the only objective.
 
I've always felt that there's an opportunity to do the opposite. 
 
It's more of a feeling of responsibility. 
 
The bigger you grow, the more resources you have to do good with. 
 
Things like: 
 
- attracting better talent 
- hearing more customer feedback 
- utilising access to excellent equipment 
 
And that last one -optimising industrial equipment has changed the game for us. 

When you select the right piece, it not only makes the product better and increases efficiency, it removes unnecessary load on the team's body.

It's especially important in an industry like ours where you're lifting 25kg bags of flour and dough all day. 
 
This is our Rheon stress-free divider from Japan. 
 
It helps us cut precise dough weights without lifting the 20kg tubs or over-handling the dough. 
 
It means less load on the team and less impact on the dough which drives up our quality. 

Indirectly, a piece of equipment like this then improves culture by making the day better. 

And a better culture attracts better people. 
 
You start to realise that focusing on quality and team culture as you scale a business is always the best route. 

What are your thoughts?

Building businesses is an intense personal growth program if you're honest with yourself.

The cause of nearly every problem I've faced in each business can be traced back to:

- A knowledge or skills shortfall
- A decision I made or didn't make
- An outdated worldview or baggage

Sometimes it's easy to blame others for the problems.

But at the end of the day, you hired the team, set the culture, and demonstrated the standards.

If you own that responsibility completely, you get to do something positive with it. 

- Make different decisions to correct course. 
- Hire excellent people to propel the team forward.
- Acquire new skills, create better habits and educate yourself.

Taking 100% responsibility for the way things are is a massive step up in your personal growth journey.

When I started my bakery, I was done being a “small business.”

I wanted to build something bigger. 

Something that could thrive without me doing it all.

But somewhere between 30 and 40 employees, I hit a wall.

I was still solving every problem.

Still the one everyone came to.

What changed everything wasn’t working harder... it was finding the right person to take the reins operationally and empowering them to lead.

If you’ve been stuck in the grind, wondering how to scale without burning out, this one’s for you.

Swipe through to see how one hire changed everything.

One hire multiplied our growth overnight

You don’t need better marketing, you need products and experiences people share with others.

Something different, special or surprising.

In a world where everyone wants to know exactly where each customer came from and how they heard about you - I'm saying you could consider doing the opposite. 

Instead of putting up more lame content and measuring clicks, views and shares...

Make people feel so special that they must tell someone else about it. 

Make a product so freaken good that people will drive across town for it. 

They're the type of things that sparks that beautiful organic growth every business secretly chases. 

And even though advertising works, relying on it forever doesn't make much sense. 

It gives you a false metric. 

You never really know if the business can survive without it (not to mention the financial cost).

So if you're not getting much out of your marketing dollars, or your business isn't growing without advertising, it could be worth circling back to products and experiences. 

I talk more about things like this in my newsletter.

I hope to see you there.

What if you started finding solutions to industry problems that your competitors face instead of always competing with them.
 
Now all of those competitors become potential customers. 
 
And the best bits? 
 
- You already understand your clients. 
- You have credibility from running a business like theirs. 
- You've probably done a whole lot of market research without knowing it. 
 
Each one of these gives you a huge leg up if you were to launch an industry-focused product or service. 
 
It's not easy. But here's how I'd think about it: 

Ask yourself: 
 
- What challenges does my industry face? 
- What challenges do my main competitors face? 
- What caused it to get this way?
- If I could fix one thing in my industry, what would it be? 
 
Then set some time aside to kick it around with your leadership team. 

You might uncover a scalable business model that solves a juicy problem for your industry and have a pre-built client list.

The Triangle Every Business Should Understand - GOOD. FAST. CHEAP.
You only get to pick two.

This triangle has been burned into my brain for over a decade.
It’s one of the simplest tools for designing a product or service—and for setting expectations.

Want it fast and cheap? It won’t be good.

Want it good and cheap? It won’t be fast.

Want it good and fast? It won’t be cheap.

Whether you’re building a business or buying a service, this framework is gold. I’ve used it to:

Validate if customers would pay, wait, or compromise.

Justify pricing, delivery timelines, and scope.

Even make personal decisions—like hiring a craftsperson willing to do a high-quality job around other commitments (good + cheap, not fast).

The key takeaway?

If you don’t decide where you sit on the triangle, your customers will—and they might choose someone else who’s clearer about it.

Where do you sit on the triangle?

Often you've just got to start the journey before setting a goal. 
 
Here's what I mean: 
 
This afternoon I missed the gym because I was held back at work. 
 
Instead, I decided to walk up a gnarly part of a nearby hill I'm used to running around. 
 
Halfway up I noticed that the sun would be setting any minute and thought it's be cool to see it from the top. 
 
So I pushed hard and caught it just before it dipped over the horizon. 
 
(freaken beautiful) 
 
But my point is, I didn't set out to catch the sunset. 
 
The goal became clearer after I started. 
 
In the beginning, I just started walking. 
 
And this same thing applies to nearly any goal worth pursuing. 
 
1. Start moving in the general direction 
2. Goals and milestones become clearer. 
3. Lock in on a goal 
4. Adjust your direction, movements and speed to get there. 
 
Get after it!

Failure and success: It's not one or the other in business... They go hand in hand. Here's what I learned after looking at some of my epic fails and big wins: 
 
Every entrepreneur has a trail of failures behind them. 
 
What separates people who get ahead isn't that they've never failed, but that they learned from their failures and used them as stepping stones to success. 
 
I know you've read that line a hundred times before. 
 
But its been simplified to the point where it even sounds easy. 
 
The reality is, I struggled with it. 
 
I kept making the same mistakes in different ways. 
 
Because in business, each stage or growth presents the same problem differently which can make it harder to diagnose.
 
There's one thing that helped me - Getting an outside perspective. 
 
Whether it's a: 
 
- Coach 
- Mentor or a
- Friend in business 
 
Set some time aside to explore your failures and wins with them to find patterns. 

Each time I've done this, it helped find common threads to be aware of next time.
 
Hopefully this tiny habit helps you get more wins than fails.

The hardest part of business isn’t the long hours or the financial pressure.

It’s when your confidence quietly disappears and you don’t even notice until everything feels heavy.

I’ve been there. Twice.

When every decision feels like a coin toss and you’re constantly on the back foot.

But here’s the thing: confidence isn’t luck.

It’s built, one small win at a time.

Swipe through to see how I rebuilt mine, brick by brick and how you can start regaining yours too.

Because once you do, everything changes.

Confidence: Losing & Rebuilding It.

We hit national distribution.

145 staff.

More revenue than ever.

From the outside, it looked like we were winning.

Inside, we were drowning. 

The truth?

Scaling inefficient processes or bad margins doesn’t fix them.

It makes the problem bigger.

I pulled together some of the toughest lessons I learned about chasing topline and bleeding from the bottom.

Swipe through the carousel for the 4 things I wish I did earlier.

Taplio

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