You know how the saying goes...

💯 Good

⏱️ Fast

🤑 Cheap



You can pick two.

The internet is undecided (shocker!) about the original attribution of the phrase we’ve all heard in some form or another. While we might not know who first spoke this into office decor legend, we know that it’s true…especially when it comes to retail real estate.

💯 + 🤑

Looking for a good space that’s also cheap? It won’t come fast, because spaces like this are hard to find, and negotiations take a long time. 

🤑 + ⏱️

Looking for a cheap space that lets you open up shop next month? You’re not going to get a good spot in a prime retail area.

💯 + ⏱️

Looking for a good retail space that lets y...

If I had a dollar for every time an aspiring retailer told me they didn’t have their startup budget solidified because “it’s impossible to know until I find the right space,” I’d probably have a downpayment on a vacation home.


Nailing down a budget for a retail space feels impossible if you’ve never rented a space before, but here’s a pro tip: 

✨ The space does not determine your budget – your budget determines the space. ✨


Imagine if I called my residential realtor and said that I was in the market for a new home. And when she asked me for my budget, I responded, “well, I really don’t know yet because it all depends on the space.” 

💸 Should she show me a $4M historic home tha...

Our dramatically dwindling attention spans (hello, TikTok) and culture of instant gratification (hello, Amazon Prime) is reshaping everything around us. We can order bulgogi bowls, a case of Modelo, toilet paper, a phone charger, and a hot date…all from our phones and all delivered to our doorstep within 60 minutes. 

So, when we tell aspiring retailers that it’s going to take 10 months to a year (or more) to open their brick-and-mortar, we brace ourselves for their disappointment. Most of the time, when we talk to first-timers, they share their plans to open for business in a new space “by the summer” or “in time for the holidays.” Almost always, those opening dates are about three ...

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...

A few weeks ago, we talked about why you shouldn't be afraid of a ten-year lease term, but we know that many new retailers are most comfortable starting with a five-year term (or even shorter).

If you determine that a shorter lease term is best for your business, here are two tips to keep in mind:

1. Ask for multiple renewal terms of at least three to five years a piece. If things are going well, you do not want to find yourself homeless with a growing business.

2. Negotiate your lease like you're committing to it for ten years or more. You may be tempted to think that you don't need to think long term in a short term deal...

BUT leases are like dogs, and just as you house train a puppy ...

Would you ever sign up to be on Married at First Sight? (That’s a TV show, mom.) No? You wouldn’t? Because it’s a terrible idea to marry someone you don’t know? Especially in public?

Well if you have enough sense to know that making a commitment like that is a bad idea, then why would you sign a lease on the first space you seriously consider? But since there are apparently no shortage of people willing to do this (the show in on season 14, wtf?!) you can bet that there are a lot of people who sign leases WAY TOO SOON. And guess what…signing a lease is a whole lot more consequential than marrying Drew the IT manager from Pensacola. 

There is a whole lot of “dating” that needs to happen bet...

Sometimes, it feels like I specialize in mind games. I try my best not to play them with my partner (Dio, if you’re reading this, that’s definitely NOT what’s happening when I stop doing the laundry at the same time as I’m trying to win a multi-day argument), and yet, as a broker, interpreting the subtext on the other side of the negotiating table is a big part of my job advising Pedal Retailers.

If you’ve signed a retail deal, you know what I mean - and the worst of it is when the other side goes quiet, which happens all. the. time. If you’ve never signed a retail deal, you might assume that going quiet may as well be killing a deal - and you’d be wrong. Over the course of negotiating an...