What happens when handcrafted excellence meets the relentless pull of scale?
I spent an afternoon with David Hutchison, founder of OOMHz Cacao, watching him work through one of the most fundamental tensions every founder faces: how to grow without losing what made you worth growing in the first place.
His Austin workshop smells like roasted cacao and possibility. Every bar that comes out of there is a small masterpiece — the kind of chocolate that makes you pause and wonder how something so simple can be so complex. But David’s dealing with something familiar to anyone who’s built something people actually want: demand is outpacing his ability to handcraft at the pace he’s maintained for years.
Watch me shadow David through a typical day in the life, and you’ll see this tension play out in real time:
Watch on YouTube: Shadowing OOMHz Cacao
The Intuition Problem
What struck me most wasn’t David’s process — though watching someone who truly understands their craft is always mesmerizing. It was how much of his decision-making still comes down to intuition. The way he adjusts temperature based on the sound of the beans. How he knows a batch is ready not from a timer, but from years of accumulated sensitivity to subtle changes most of us would miss entirely.
“You can’t automate this part,” he told me, holding up a piece of cacao that looked identical to a dozen others. “Not yet, anyway.”
This is the paradox of scaling craftsmanship. The very things that make your product exceptional — the attention, the intuition, the personal touch — are exactly what become harder to maintain as you grow. It’s not just about chocolate. It’s about any business built on something deeper than efficient production.
Working Smarter, Not Harder (Even in Chocolate)
But here’s where David’s approach connects to what I call the Lifestyle Entrepreneur philosophy. He’s not trying to work harder. He’s not pulling eighteen-hour days or burning himself out trying to handcraft every single bar. Instead, he’s systematically identifying which parts of his process can be optimized without compromising quality.
Some decisions only he can make. Others can be documented, taught, and eventually delegated. The key is knowing the difference.
I watched him spend ten minutes perfecting a single batch, then immediately turn to updating his inventory system — because running out of packaging materials is just as much a threat to quality as rushing the tempering process. This is systems thinking applied to artisanal work.
The Art of Building Systems Around Art
What David understands — and what every creative entrepreneur needs to figure out — is that systems don’t kill creativity. They protect it.
By automating his inventory tracking, streamlining his ordering process, and creating clear documentation around the parts of chocolate-making that can be standardized, he’s actually buying himself more time to focus on the parts that require his full attention and expertise.
This isn’t about scaling at all costs. It’s about scaling intelligently. Building infrastructure that supports excellence rather than undermining it.
What This Means for Your Business
Whether you’re making chocolate or building software, creating content or consulting, the same principles apply:
Identify your non-negotiables. What are the elements of your work that absolutely require your personal touch? For David, it’s quality control and recipe development. For you, it might be strategy sessions with clients or the final edit on your content.
Systematize everything else. The operational work — scheduling, invoicing, basic communications — should run without your constant intervention. This isn’t about being lazy. It’s about being intentional with your energy.
Trust the process, but stay involved. David has systems, but he’s still tasting every batch. Build infrastructure that gives you leverage, not distance from your craft.
The Long Game
As I left David’s workshop, I kept thinking about how rare it is to meet someone who’s figured out how to scale without compromising on what matters. He’s not trying to become the next Mars or Hershey’s. He’s trying to become the best version of OOMHz — larger capacity, same obsessive attention to quality.
That’s the kind of growth that actually compounds. Not just revenue, but reputation. Not just efficiency, but expertise.
The lifestyle entrepreneur doesn’t avoid work. They avoid unnecessary work. They build systems that amplify their strengths instead of spreading them thin.
Want to see how I apply these principles to marketing and content creation? Grab my complete toolkit here — it’s the exact system I use to turn attention into trust, without burning out.
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What’s the tension between craft and scale in your business? Hit reply and let me know — I read every response.
