As owner and founder of Truth Coffee, David Donde has shaped his life to become the ultimate brand ambassador and creator of his product. David turned his business into a world-renowned coffee shop and pioneered a coffee revolution.
In 2016, UK-based publication The Telegraph named Truth Coffee roasting shop the world’s best coffee shop. Many other international accolades were to follow. Meticulously styled with a steampunk theme, the coffee shop houses industrial roasting machines, coffee bag conveyor belts running up the walls, and staff dressed in Victorian punk-style.
“I tried to build this business into the world’s best coffeeshop. It was a conscious attempt,” said David Donde, founder of Truth Coffee. PHOTO: Alistair Seymour
First opened in 2009, Truth Coffee, located in Buitenkant Street in Cape Town, was the brand to make artisanal coffee popular in South Africa, essentially starting a “coffee-cult” in the heart of the mother city, explained owner and founder David Donde.
“I want to be the best in the world, and that is a really easy thing to do in a personal capacity or a business capacity, because you get to choose your world,” said David. “I’m not looking over my shoulder at what the other guys are doing. I’m trying to do something myself.”
Truth Coffee’s interior is inspired by steampunk – a futuristic aesthetic based on the 19th-century industrial revolution. Some have described steampunk as what the future would have looked like if the world still relied on steam as the primary source of energy.
“He’s creative, but he is also a tinkerer,” said Haldane Martin, industrial designer behind Truth Coffee, when speaking about David. “He gets his hands dirty and he experiments with his product. So he wasn’t just a client that let us do it. He was very involved. The way I imagined a steampunk person to be.”
Purveyor of Truth
In August 2020, during the height of lockdown restrictions, David conceptualised and kick-started Minimalist Chocolate. David says he thrived during the lockdown, as he was constantly trying to (successfully or unsuccessfully) fix things around the house.
When talking about creating the perfect product, David’s go-to quote is: “You can’t polish a turd.” This statement is the basis for every cup of coffee and chocolate bar sold at Truth Coffee.
A Minimalist Chocolate bar is made purely with cacao and milk. The focus becomes on sourcing the highest quality for the most basic ingredients of the product, said David.
Asked about the philosophy behind his products David explained that one has to “focus on what matters and not get dragged into the (plethora) of bullshit”.
David sits at the brass coffee bar at Truth Coffee, with the large coffee roaster behind him. David has also launched a “speak-easy” bar in the previous store room. “There is always going to be new projects and new ideas and new ways to do greatness so that’s inevitable,” he said. PHOTO: Alistair Seymour
“I think life grabs you for attention, but so little of what we do is meaningful. And if you manage to get the meaningful stuff done, the crap takes care of itself,” he said.
Truth Coffee and Minimalist Chocolate are not franchises. They are distributors that act solely from the Truth Coffee hub. This is according to Andrew Couvaras, who has worked at Truth Coffee for the last five years. Andrew described the focus of the company to be on one central location, allowing all efforts to be driven towards a single space.
“There is a concept called entropy, which is if you don’t put energy into something, everything turns to chaos,” explained David. “There are no illusions of control. There is no such thing. Energy puts the chaos into control, and is always a vain attempt.”
The Machine
Collaboration sits at the heart of both products that he provides. “It can sometimes be hard to understand his way of thinking,” said Andrew.
According to David, a good employee is someone with the ability to stand up to him. “You have got to be able to have your own opinions. You have got to own your own mistakes, to be able to stand up for your own opinions. And, if you think I’m wrong, you better tell me,” he added.
“You’ve got to be resilient enough to try and get it through to me, otherwise it’s pointless to have you around,” David said, discussing his ideal team. “If I wanted a bunch of yes-men, then what would the point be? I want a bunch of people with contrary perspectives that can build something better than I can.”
The Spirited Man
David also reviews cars and motorcycles for Fine Music Radio, with the latter being his favourite. Fine Music Radio, according to their website, is the only classical and jazz music station in the Western Cape. The job blurs the lines between sheer passion and work, something David doesn’t think should be separate.
David had just competed in, “one of the toughest mountain bike races of the year” in Piket-Bo-Berg. He rides consistently for around an hour a day before work and wakes without an alarm.
“I do it for the fun of going downhill, but also the fitness of going uphill. Not that I like going uphill particularly, but there is a perverse pleasure in it,” he said.
According to Haldane Martin, designer of Truth Coffee’s interior, David was a collector for many years. He would bring random objects together over the time of creating the shop. This would include all sorts of things that interested him. PHOTO: Alistair Seymour
Through the Spyglass
David, who is just over 50, doesn’t see himself stopping to build himself and his brands any time soon. If he stopped, it would mean that he would no longer be doing “meaningful work”. He thinks there is an opportunity for older and wiser people to support energetic young people in the workspace.
“When you combine those two in a useful mechanism, great! I think you need to put people out to pasture,” he said.
David went from farming chickens and selling eggs on his family’s farm, to pioneering a coffee revolution in South Africa and establishing multiple internationally acclaimed brands. But he doesn’t claim to know what success is.
“It’s like I’ve battled with this for years. How do you know when you’ve won?”
After achieving his goal of creating the best coffee shop in the world, one thing was clear to him: “The journey is more important than the destination, but you need the destination to have a journey.”
Building brands
According to David, brand consulting has become his speciality. Exploring other businesses often means he can grow himself through his own business.
“Sometimes you can’t see the woods for the trees. It’s easier to see your own business through the eyes of somebody else’s business,” he said.
For David, there is little difference between brand and culture. Building a brand is more pervasive now than ever before, and is focused on how you are perceived.
Andrew said that everything that David did was calculated. In the five years that Andrew had worked with David, he had only ever seen him wear black clothes. Black is coincidentally the colour of Truth Coffee. For Andrew, that shows the “creative genius” that David is.
“I think one is, to a large extent, one’s work. Whatever the work might be, it’s not about doing profit. It’s about doing meaningful work, and helping other people. And for me, that’s always something bigger,” David said.
Was David then a product of the brand? Did he shape his life over time to be the ideal chocolate making, motorcycle reviewing, classical radio DJ and coffee pioneer?
Waiter at Truth Coffee dressed in steampunk style. Truth Coffee continues to serve coffee through the lockdown level 4 restrictions. PHOTO: Alistair Seymour
“That’s a little bit corny, isn’t it?” said David. “I think what you are talking about is living authentically, and we all have that choice to do that. You’ve got to find your own authenticity.”
The secret, said David, is in the name, Truth Coffee. It is an expression of authentic living.
“David has a chameleon quality,” said Haldane. As such, David will most likely not be “steampunk” forever. “He will be something that nobody has ever dreamt of in 10 years,” said Haldane.
David’s inspiration comes from solving problems, and to keep aiming for growth.
“Of course, I see myself doing something different at some future point. I don’t know what it will be,” said David. “I’ll get inspired and do it. That’s it.”