What did we all do before memes? How did we express ourselves so pointedly? I suppose we’ve always been doing this, and I have a vague recollection from Latin 2 that people were etching sick burns on columns in the Roman forum.
Anyhow, I saw a perfect small business meme the other day:
EBITDA: Earnings before insomnia, therapy, depression and anxiety.
Lollllll.
No shade if you don’t get the joke. EBITDA really stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, and it’s basically a calculation of profitability before all the complicated tax and accounting finagling.
If you DO get the joke, it feels spot on.
When my restaurant closed in 20...
I was a cheerleader in middle school. Like many other eighth grade girls, I did it mostly for the outfits, but also because I don’t have much athletic ability, and if I didn’t pick a sport, I had to do P.E. instead of study hall.
Now this was the late 1900’s (as the kids say), and the current brand of seriously athletic cheerleading had not yet made it to
...We just got back from The Boutique Summit in Dallas. Technically, I’m not home yet since I’m writing this on the plane next to a lovely child whose name appears to be “Thunder." Kids these days, amiright?!
Reentry is always a little tough when we come home from Boutique Hub events because our brains have been working overtime absorbing everything we’ve just learned like:
💥 Pinterest is really powerful for search rankings, and you can hook up your Shopify store directly if you have one .
🚛 Even if you arrive in Dallas thinking the trucker hat trend is ridiculous and you’d never wear one, you may very well be heading home with no
...✨ Welcome to a four part series we’re calling “What makes Pedal so unique and effective in the retail real estate industry.” Otherwise known as “Why we need our own TV show pronto.” ✨
Today we’re discussing point #3:
We will not start touring spaces with Pedal Retailers until they can actually transact.
Fact: Touring potential spaces is the most fun part of the entire leasing process. Hands down. No question. 100%.
I know that may come as a surprise to some of you thinking, “oh no, Sheila, certainly it’s when you sign an LOI!” Nope. You’ve lost that loving feeling by then.
“What about when you actually sign the lease? That’s got to feel good." Yes, it does, but mostly
...Last week I met a boutique owner, and when I told her I worked with retail real estate her face fell. She told me about her terrible landlord who is kicking her business out with basically no notice, and she’s stressed and time-crunched to find a new space.
Abby and I have conversations like this one all the time – it’s part of why we started Pedal in the first place. But when we hear that someone had “basically no notice” that their lease was ending, our antennae go up…because that’s not supposed to happen in a lease.
When I looked at this boutique owner’s lease, as I had suspected, it wasn’t a lease at all.
It was actually the lease’s second cousin, the license agreement. Oh, ...
When things aren’t coming together on a deal, we revisit the “BLTS” with Pedal Retailers to figure out where we can flex. As a reminder, the “BLTS” are the four fundamental pillars of your real estate criteria - budget, location, timing and space criteria. Most of the time, we flex on location and start to look at a different or broader mix of neighborhoods. Sometimes, we flex on the budget or space criteria, but it’s rare that we flex on timing.
When it comes to flexing on timing, Emily, owner of District DabbleLab, could teach a master class.
First, here’s the background on District DabbleLab…
Bethesda native Emily started District DabbleLab in 2019 out of her basement as...
When’s the last time you went to a tailor?
I went two weeks ago. I go to IBO’s Tailor Shop in downtown Norfolk, because this guy is an absolute magician. For those of us who are “non-standard” height (in my head I’m 5’ 9”, but my doctor and the DMV say I’m 5’ 0”), having one’s clothes tailored is the key to looking like an actual respectable adult. That is, if you care about things like that, which I do.
Most recently I had Ibo fix a pair of white jeans, which I had previously (foolishly) taken for “alterations” at my local (also beloved) dry cleaner. Turns out that someone who is capable of hemming is not necessarily capable of a more complex “taking in” of a waist. Before this, I...
Mindset is everything, right? And without a doubt, your mindset when it comes to finding and negotiating your brick-and-mortar lease is key.
Over the last few years, we’ve observed two different approaches that remind us of two deeply unpleasant bureaucratic experiences. What are these experiences? They’re going to the DMV, and going to court.
We know it sounds a little ridiculous, but go with us here, because you know we love a leasing metaphor, and we think this one works even if you’ve only been to court on TV.
So as we were saying…
In some ways, visits to court and the DMV are very similar:
They both have vending machines
The both require a lot of boring paperwork
The...
