Retail rents are HIGHLY negotiable. On a scale where 1 is Taxes and 10 is Facebook Marketplace, I’d put retail rent at a solid 9. Since rent is one of the highest fixed costs for brick-and-mortar businesses, it’s worth the upfront investment to negotiate it down. You will absolutely have to spend some money to do this (brokers, lawyers, architects etc.) BUT this “one weird trick” is actually free, and invaluable.

I’m talking about preparing and practicing a killer “Elevator Pitch.” For those who spend elevator rides frantically ping-ponging their eyes around to avoid the catastrophe of making eye contact with a stranger, I’ll explain. An Elevator Pitch is a clear, confident and compellin...

Last fall, I fell deeply in love with a dress. It was no ordinary dress; it was an ankle-length, sleeveless, v-neck and v-back, empire-waisted beauty with a geometric print in “peacock” and “cinnabar.” And the designer is German, and I got a 5 on my AP German exam, so that, too.

I saw the dress on the e-comm shop of my favorite brick-and-mortar store, so if I bought this dress I would not only be mind-blowingly fabulous, but I’d also be supporting an independent retailer. Aren’t I selfless?!

But there were two minor problems. One, I had literally no occasion to warrant purchasing a new dress, and two, there was no way I could afford this dress. But you know what we say over here — whe...

In our last post, we told you we're firm believers that where there's a will there's a way. But, lest you think we're starry-eyed optimists, there is a part two to this philosophy. Like the yuzu to our mayo, these seemingly opposite ideas work together to create something amazing.

That part two is our Pedal promise -

Real Talk, Always
We will always tell you the truth, even when it's hard to hear and say. You deserve to know the good, the bad, and the ugly so you can make decisions with confidence. We think that honesty is the best policy, and we're sticking to it.

If you've ever worked in a service industry, you understand the temptation to keep your customers happy by telling them what t...

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...

I’ve been thinking a lot these past few months about how retail really exists on the front lines of American culture and society. I’m no economist, but I think it has to do with the fact that how we choose to spend (or not spend) money is a real-time reflection of our priorities and preferences. Put all of us together making many small financial decisions (and transactions) on a daily and weekly basis, and the impact is hard to ignore.

Retail takes it in the face first.

Let’s think of some of the recent cultural “events,” and let’s exclude COVID. We’re all painfully aware of how the retail industry was first in line to be decimated by COVID, but that’s a circumstance that is ...

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...