Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. So as a prepared parent, I ordered a “classroom” box of Ring Pop Tongue Painters for my daughter’s third grade class. Yes, I Amazoned the purchase. Yes, these “tongue painters” probably have some gross chemicals in them. Don’t judge me. Sometimes I eat Doritos, too.

These “classroom” Ring Pops come in packaging that allows you to Sharpie on each kid’s name, which I suppose makes the distribution more personal. I didn’t spend the extra $8 on the matching cards that let your kid write individual notes. Alice had to write “unique and specific” notes to each of her classmates in second grade, and it was a reeeeeeaaaaal challenge for a girl who inherited my mother-...

Regular readers of this newsletter know that opening a retail space is hard work - and running one is even harder. And yet, so many of us are determined enough to attempt it - but how can you know whether you have what you need to pull it off?

We get asked this question all the time - "I have a dream of opening a [coffee shop/ crossfit gym/ vegan steakhouse], but I don't have any [money/ experience/ connections with seitan distributors]. Can I do this?

Our answer is always the same - yes, you can!

We are big believers that where there's a will there's a way. The road may not be easy, or obvious - in fact, it rarely is. Fundraising is awkward at best, defeating at worst. Recruiting experie...

Every so often we hear from clients concerns along the lines of, "so-and-so told me that NO ONE will invest in my business until I have a signed lease."

And every time we hear that, the alarms start ringing in our brains. Here's why...

1. There are very few (if any) things in life that "NO ONE" will do. People regularly compete in hot dog eating contests. People have tigers for pets. People get married for the seventh time. You should automatically be skeptical of claims about what "everyone" or "no one" will do. Listen to what the person is telling you, but stay calm, and don't let those claims psych you out or have you thinking that there is only one way to do something. This advice appl...

A couple months ago I read The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann. Did you read it too? It seems like a lot of us did.

Like most everything I encounter, there were a few elements that made me think of retail leasing. To be clear, I don’t always think of leasing per se — that would be weirdly specific — but I DO have built in “retailer vision” which I can’t seem to remove. 

Well that’s what happened with The Wager, when at one of the most suspenseful parts of the tale, my mind went to the LOI and leasing process.

If you haven’t yet read it yet, here’s the part of the story you need to know for my point to make sense:

In the late 1700s, a bunch of sti...

Recently, a Pedal Retailer who is very close to lease execution said they were taken aback by how long, involved and challenging the whole process has been. They’d heard it many times before they started (from us and from others), but still it was somehow way more…well, everything…than they expected.

As is my modus operandi, I scanned my brain for the most apt metaphor, and since my home office looks straight into an eight-year-old’s hot mess of a bedroom, guess what metaphor popped up?

The Three Little Pigs 🐷

If you recall, The Three Little Pigs is a fable — a short story meant to teach us an important moral. Ostensibly the story is about working hard (the pigs) and greed (the wolf), b...

It's flipping freezing outside, and that means we've been binging spending plenty of quality time at home with our friends Netflix and Hulu thinking about Miranda. No, not that Miranda) - we're watching true crime and thinking about Miranda Rights. You know,

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?

We got to wishing there were Miranda Rights for retail space tours. Don't get us wrong - there is no shortage of laws designe...

When I got accepted to UVA (early decision, of course, because I’m an achiever) my grandmother said, “that’s great, there are lots of men there!” And wouldn’t you know — she was right! And I managed to find and date the WORST one for way too long #achiever.

My grandmother is not the only backseat driver out there. Everyone around you is going to have an opinion about whatever you're doing, and those opinions usually have zero to do with you — their opinions and “feedback” are usually entirely about their own fears and anxieties. In the best cases, the feedback is coming from a place of love, but it’s still 100% annoying.

So unless those people around you are actually experienced in what yo...

I am ten years out of a commercial lease, and I am almost out of the hole. My scarlet BK will be removed from the sweater of my credit report in September.

Today, I am committed to helping people make good decisions and get good deals on their leases, because I know what it feels like to have it all go very wrong.

I’ll tell you the whole story of my first child (RIP: Punk’s Backyard Grill 2009 - 2013), another time. But for now, let’s start here...

If my experience were a cocktail, it would have been equal parts severe anxiety, disappointment, luminous pride, absolute ridiculousness, and deep joy. The day-to-day was just those five parts auto-cycling every 12 hours.

And when I think ab...