Max Kotin

Last year, I finally started writing fiction. It's been a dream of mine for decades. "If I can write decent non-fiction, why can't I write fiction?" I tried many times. Failed every time. It was awful, what I wrote. Painful to read. Embarrassing. At some point I decided that I wasn't talented enough for fiction. Fiction was simply not my thing. I should stick to what I do best. Interviews. Research. True stories... Non-fiction. And then when I had completely given up, all of a sudden...

Piecraft is dead. After 2 years of hard work, we're shutting down. Our small but brave cafe/bakery startup is officially closed. "Hard work? What are you talking about, Max?" you may ask. "You haven't even opened — and haven't served a single customer." You are right, we haven't....

Today I looked back at my life and realized something. "Never give up!" I always thought this was cringe. A meaningless motto...

I’ve been keeping a diary of some kind for as long as I can remember myself. The ones that I had as a teen are probably long gone. But since I discovered Moleskines, I started keeping them. There are a bunch of these old Moleskines on a bookshelf in my apartment. I brought them to Berlin with me. Although it was hardly capable of deciphering my handwriting, I couldn’t make myself throw them away. There are also tons of files on my computer scattered across different apps. Evernote,...

Last week, I shared my admiration for KEIT Berlin and its creators. And yesterday, I had a chance to chat with Kolja, Keit’s co-founder, and learn about his journey first-hand. Having read my post, Kolja kindly reached out and offered to meet for a coffee. We talked for almost two hours, and I learned so much more about Keit’s story — and how two managers, Kolja and Thanos, left successful corporate careers behind to start… baking bread. What struck me was their super lean, step-by-step...

Who are my role models? Musk and Jobs? No, it's Kolja and Thanos. We have never met. You probably never heard of them either. But I do know what they’ve built. They’ve built KEIT Berlin. It’s a bakery. “Who in their sane mind would buy a loaf of bread for 5 euros? When you could buy one for 1 Euro in a supermarket…” That’s what we were saying in the family when Keit first opened in our neighborhood. Then they did a tasting. Then we bought one loaf out of curiosity. Then we started buying...

I’m a bit scared to finally make it public. But… here it is! The brand we’re launching this year in Berlin. As I shared before, we decided to 🛑 stop dreaming and talking about opening our own place; ✅ start actually doing it. And to keep things simple, we came up with a “coffee shop with pies” concept. The big question is: what type of pies? There are 3 key things worth mentioning here. 1️⃣ Crust. Not only super tasty (obviously) but extremely light. No butter, no yeast. Great for...

It’s happening. We’re launching a foodservice concept. In Berlin. In 2024. Are we nuts? I know, it’s such a cliche. Almost everyone sooner or later starts to think that it would be nice to… ✅ write a book ✅ open a bar or a coffee shop. Since books I have already written, I know that it’s not nearly as romantic as most people think. And with 7+ experience in foodservice, I should have thought twice before venturing into this red ocean of never-ending competition. Having even a small dining...