Prospects for the development of Drinkit: COO Drinkit Kirill Grishin — about the strategy for 2024-2028

Drinkit is a digital coffee shop for every day: You can order your favorite drink in the app in just a few clicks.

At the moment, 24 coffee shops have been opened in three countries — the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan and Russia. Drinkit will also see great growth and development in the next few years. Read more about this in this article.

A little bit about what Drinkit has already achieved

In 2023, 12 coffee shops were opened, which is more than there were total coffee shops before this year. Drinkit has also been launched in two new countries: Five of these 13 coffee shops are locations built in Kazakhstan and Dubai. The team also increased the variety of drinks, developed a new interior concept and trained 390 people as well as the first partners.

In 2024, Drinkit plans to open 85 more coffee shops in Russia, 16 in Kazakhstan and 8 in Dubai. How? Kirill Grishin, COO Drinkit, shared the strategy for 2024 and plans for the next few years.

About the main focuses and energy

Drinkit can be compared to a teenager who has a lot of energy, prospects and opportunities. The first coffee shop opened in 2021, but we are already showing results. And we’re not going to stop.

We want to be the best coffee shop for every day, to enter the top 10 largest coffee chains in the world within five years. To do this, we need energy and perseverance in four main areas:

  1. We must focus on the fundamentals: constantly improve the quality of the product and set high standards in what we do.
  2. We must develop quickly. Our ambition is to build more than 3,000 coffee shops by 2028. This means that, on average, we need to become 50 times faster than we were in 2023.
  3. We must always collect feedback from the guests and the team and respond to it.
  4. We need to assemble a team and save it.

What is our five-year strategy?

If we go through the entire strategy in the context of time: The main task of 2024 is to refine our model and make it as secure and resilient as possible while creating a foundation for future growth. In 2025, based on this model and foundation, we must gain growth speed and become profitable, and in 2026 we must invest in rapid, consistent grow for the years to come.

From the point of view of strategy in the markets:

▫️In Russia, the goal is to become market leaders.

▫️In Dubai, the goal is to create a showcase for the world and take a significant share — so that the world can experience our concept.

▫️Our big bet is to take a significant share in several large countries and become an important player in the market.

What awaits us in 2024?

In 2024, we want to build 100 coffee shops that would show us the way to growth in 2028. We have to work out our model on them so that then we just have to repeat the same thing 3,000 times. The most important thing for us now is to learn how to build predictably successful coffee shops.

It is also worth highlighting the following focuses of this year:

▫️Product — to make progress in drinks and progress in food, to pay special attention to the interior and raise it to a whole new level, to make the brand ready to go out into the world.

▫️The business model is to create 2-3 very clear formats that can be scaled at all stages. We want to develop a breakthrough coffee shop concept that will potentially open up new horizons for us in terms of goals and have the potential to grow in more than 10,000 coffee shops worldwide.

▫️Breakthrough growth opportunities. Our LTL should be more than 50%, we should attract new guests as much as possible.

▫️World-class organization and development of high-quality analytics. We need to learn how to use data as a business engine — analytics should help facilitate processes and improve the system.

There is a huge amount of work ahead, but we believe that our perseverance and energy, together with the support of each of our guests and colleagues, will help us achieve our ambitious goals.