Still scrolling? 📺

On maternity leave, two things have become abundantly clear: 

1. Newborns don’t do much besides nurse, dirty their diapers and sleep
2. In attempting to binge-watch my nostalgic favorite shows while baby sleeps, I found that they haven’t aged well (I’m looking at you Weeds and Sex and the City).

And so naturally, I’ve been doing what anyone in my situation does—scrolling through streaming platforms, convinced there must be something better to watch.

There are thousands of options, and plenty of things that look good. And yet, somehow, it’s easy to end up stuck in this loop of maybe there’s something better if I just keep scrolling.

🪤  Every so often, retail space searches fall into the exact same trap.

Here’s how it goes: we’ll be deep into a search—dozens of spaces screened, a strong batch surfaced, multiple tours under our belt. At that point, there are usually a few real options in play, and many more discarded.

Then, the question comes: “Are there any more spaces we should be seeing?”

It’s a reasonable instinct, and an innocuous enough question on the surface. It’s a natural response to think that if the “one” is not standing out from the crowd, it must be out there somewhere, and if we just keep looking, we’ll find it. Yet experience has taught me that while the question asks whether we should broaden our search, we really should be narrowing our focus. I’ve learned that the problem isn't what’s out there. Instead, it’s about how clearly we’ve defined what we’re looking for.

At Pedal, we’re always talking about BLTS—budget, location, timeline, and space criteria—as the backbone of a search. When BLTS are doing their job, they create a filter. You’re not reacting to every space; rather, you’re evaluating it against something specific and defined.

🌀  When BLTS aren't well defined, everything starts to feel like a possibility. When everything is a possibility, nothing stands out. And that’s when the search starts to feel like scrolling.

We use an iceberg to explain how space search actually works in the context of retail leasing. Above the surface is the inventory everyone can see: vacant storefronts, leasing signs, listings on CoStar, broker emails. That’s where most searches begin.

Below the surface, things get more interesting. These are spaces that aren’t actively marketed but could be available with the right approach—through relationships, persistence, and a lot of targeted outreach.

🎯  There are always more spaces under the surface… but going after them only makes sense when the target is clear.

If BLTS are still broad, “digging deeper” doesn’t produce a handful of perfect options. It opens up a much larger universe of possibilities that are just as varied and just as hard to evaluate as what we’ve already seen. It’s more volume without any more clarity.

The counterintuitive truth is that the broader the search, the harder it usually is to find The Space. Endless options actually tend to dilute the Pedal Retailer’s confidence, even though they’d expect the opposite. 

🔎  The most efficient searches are usually the ones where there is either real specificity—clear enough to recognize the right space when it appears—or real flexibility, where multiple paths can work and a good option is enough to let the deal terms we negotiate determine the rest.

Things get challenging in the middle, where everything is on the table and nothing quite clicks into place–that’s when it starts to feel like there must be something better just one more scroll away.

So when a Pedal Retailer asks “are there any more spaces?” what I’m wondering is “what are we actually trying to find?” The goal of a search isn’t to see everything–it’s to recognize the right thing when you see it. If it isn’t feeling clear, we probably need to go back to your BLTS and try to tighten them up.

Now if only I could find a way to apply that to my little streaming issue, I’d really be in business!