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 ...

Abby here, and as a new mom, "back-to-school" suddenly means something to me again. Since I graduated from college a "few" years ago, August has run into September with little punctuation. Our DC summer weather stretches into October, and now that we're all wearing our white jeans year-round (that's a thing, right?), I only notice the season change by the number of football jerseys at bars.

Until this year, that is. Baby Stella's class started daycare last week, and already we've been to orientation, a teacher meet-and-greet AND back-to-school shopping.

So as I'm looking forward to the day when my little one learns the alphabet, we thought there was no better time to remind you ...

It’s been the summer of capital budgets over here. Some clients are deep in the throes of business planning, and some are plotting expansions and relocations. But in all cases, creating the Capital Budget* is among the non-negotiable first steps.

Most of our clients come to us with an existing "how much is this gonna cost me" budget; some are pretty thorough, and some not so much, but when we take what they’ve got, stick it into our Capital Budget framework and work with them to fill in all the missing line items, one thing is true across the board…

Everyone underestimates how much it’s going to cost to get open.

Why is this the case? I’m not a licensed psychologist, but I do pla...

We love reality television. Not so much for the colorful content that allows us to shut our brains off, but for the wealth of material it offers to help us explain how the retail real estate process works.

So in today’s episode newsletter, we’ll turn to Selling Sunset and The Bachelor* because even though Selling Sunset is the show about real estate, you actually want to approach your retail real estate deal like you’re on The Bachelor.

In Selling Sunset (and residential real estate), successful tours always end with, “if you want this house, you need to put in an offer today because tomorrow might be too late!” There is time pressure to commit NOW lest you lose the opportunity entir...

Let’s say that Dolly Parton is hosting a party and you’re the guest of honor. All eyes will be on you. You have to find the perfect outfit, duh. Your outfit has to match the vibe of the event, you need to feel fantastic in it, and you know that the general public will see the photos and feel quite confident expressing their opinions until the end of time.

🛍  Where would you go to find this outfit? 

You’d go to a store where a knowledgeable human being will work one-on-one with you to show you options that match your requirements, where they will help you in the fitting room to assess what can and cannot be tailored, and where they can pull stock from the back that just arrived, or fr...