This week I’ve been listening to a four-part series about the Medici on one of my favorite podcasts, The Rest is History. Anyone with a mild interest in art history is surely familiar with the Medici family from Renaissance Florence who commissioned some of the most significant artworks in western history like Donatello’s David (the scrawny one, not Michelangelo’s ripped version) and Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. 

Not surprisingly, as the Medici banking business passed from grandpa Cosimo to son Piero and then to his son Lorenzo, the business acumen and attention to detail started to wane as the gout and baller-lifestyles grew. So when a feisty party-pooper friar named Girolamo Savona...

Have you ever enthusiastically told friends about some awesome new local business only to find out it’s a chain? All of a sudden, you get the ick finding out that your authentically great experience was crafted in a conference room. 

Generally speaking, when we call something “corporate,” like “ugh, the hotel looked so corporate,” or “Chad’s haircut is so corporate,” what we really mean is uninteresting or basic and soulless. Definitely not cool. Actual corporate retailers know this – that’s why they’re constantly trying to mimic the heart and personality of indie retailers. Historical photos of your city on the walls of Chicken Salad Chick? Giant photos of local fitness professiona...

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, ...

Midway through my last year in college, I bought a six-pack of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. I remember how it happened. I was at Sam’s Club with my roommates, and I must have been hungry, because I was seduced by the free sample. So salty. So warm. Of course I’ll buy the entire pack.

Then that same six-pack sat on my shelf of the shared pantry staring at me until I graduated. Every time I looked back at it, I was ashamed of how I’d been seduced by a product that is barely distinguishable from pet food. Occasionally, more motivated by guilt than desire, I’d pick up a can, read the sodium content, then promptly put it down, my face puffing from the number alone.

I freaking love beef stew. The...

As new retailers we expect to sacrifice our weekends and holidays, dry-clean-only clothing, and possibly our lower backs. But we do not have to sacrifice our mental health, personal relationships, or overall well-being.

When you're planning your business, you have the opportunity and obligation to carve out the boundaries that will make your business sustainable for the long term.

Your lease will run five to ten years, so it's critical that you build a "sustainable" model that will allow you to stay healthy, stay married (if you want), participate in your child's life, etc.

So how do you do this? Start with the ideal scenario. The realities of the numbers and the things outside of your co...

Dear Pedal,

There is a space in my neighborhood that has been vacant for, no joke, probably four years at this point. Definitely since before the pandemic. Season after season I watch the “For Lease” signs in the window fade and age, and it doesn’t look like there’s anything happening.

So, my question is this – why wouldn’t the landlord lower the rent to make the space attractive rather than just let it continue to sit vacant? It is seriously killing me… this space could be the home to some awesome local business instead of the nothing/ eyesore it currently is.

Yours truly,

Thoughtful Neighbor

Well, hi, Neighbor, and thanks for your excellent question. Here at Pedal, we get differ...