Remember the quirky, fun interview we did with the Co- Founder of Late Shake, Taylor London? Late Shake is a pop-up, late-night milkshake spot delivering high-quality, tasty shakes in Portland, Oregon. We checked in on Taylor about a year later to see what he’s up to and asked if he could give us insight into passion, purpose and creating a business out of something you simply love. For him, that’s milkshakes.
Words from Taylor London:
In 1960, one of my favorite authors, John Steinbeck, decided to drive around the U.S. in a car with his poodle, Charlie. He had a truck built specifically for the trip, enabling him to live out of it while driving around and talking to people, all in the name of getting to better know a country he had been writing about for decades. He was 58, his heart was failing, and he was probably suffering from a mild form of depression. When other writers his age were living out the twilight of their careers, he decided to jump in a camper and make for the west coast.
In 2015, my friend and I decided to start a seasonal milkshake pop up out of a gorgeous coffee shop in SE Portland, Oregon. We also decided to keep our day jobs, which meant we worked seven days a week for a couple months straight in an effort to successfully launch our idea while not losing our health insurance and the respect of our parents. I had just turned 26, was moderately healthy (though I hated running, still do), and by my own admission a bit stuck as to what I ought to do with myself. Notably, I did not have a poodle, though Grahm owned a cat named Janet.
At that point in his storied career, Steinbeck had lots of money and plenty of spare time on his hands to take such a trip, though I’m not bringing this up to suggest it was at all easy to do. Quite the opposite. Creating a business without much to fall back on is an admirable accomplishment, though attempting something new when already accustomed to success takes some guts. Steinbeck had his national reputation on the line. Grahm and I, we didn’t have much to lose because we didn’t (and still don’t) have much money or prestige. Still, industrial milkshake mixers cost a lot, and I couldn’t shake the sense that, if things didn’t go well, I might never be able to work up the confidence to try something new.
Now, Steinbeck died a few years later, but he completed his odd little journey and even got a novel out of the whole experience. I am roughly a year and a half removed from starting Late Shake with Grahm, and this thing is still going, remarkably. Now, I’m loathe to chalk up the success of a small shake shop to the cliche of “hard work and a little luck” (these are givens in any venture worth undertaking) because, sad as it is, lots of people work hard and miss what they aim for. Starting a project and putting hours upon hours into it does not guarantee success, as this world (and the food industry, especially) has shown. We all know life can be unduly harsh and punish smart, motivated people while rewarding those who err on the side of caution.
If you are an infant entrepreneur, bite off what you can chew. Starting a business is difficult enough without making it harder to succeed. Late Shake started with three menu items versus five, for instance; we purposely focused on doing one thing really well and tackling new ventures, like boozy shakes, only after we perfected our process. Shed the unnecessary weight before setting off.
I make the Steinbeck analogy not to equate the success of Late Shake with the brilliant author’s foray across the country, but to stress how the root desire is similar: love of craft and underlying purpose is essential to the viability of starting something new. My peculiar love of milkshakes and desire to provide a community space for my neighborhood is what enables me to work so damn hard. Steinbeck found joy in his gift of manipulating plain speech into something great, and I suspect he loved his country quite fiercely as well, because why else did he drive across it?
If one does not love the people they set out to serve, the cause will inevitably fade into dullness; resentment settles in.
Perhaps I will one day abandon this weird, wonderful project—as satisfying as it is, I know there is more to life than indulging in one’s own desires and pursuits—but that won’t happen anytime soon. I’ve learned more about myself in the past 18 or so months than if I had not decided to start Late Shake, of that I am confident. Somehow, I’ve managed to accomplish this while working a retail job (I work an Apple Store) and beginning a relationship with a girl who I’ll marry in the fall. Life is wonderfully strange. Then again, so is driving across the country at 58 with a poodle:
Sometimes, we have to do something strange to get things in motion.
Follow his journey with Late Shake over on Instagram. x
