Abby here! It takes a village to care for a newborn, a two-year-old, and somehow still show up to work dressed and on time! So I've enlisted some help in the form Dio's and my parents. As grateful as we are for the help, the trade-off is we now receive approximately 147 urgent texts a day about Henry. "Is it normal if he wakes up 10 minutes early from his nap?" "He only finished half his bottle. Should I call the doctor?" "I can't find his swaddle anywhere — how will he ever sleep again!?"
As it turns out, none of these matters are urgent. So, I've been leaving my family on read, and I suggest you do the same! (No one tell my mother I said that.)
There are lots of reasons people ...
Abby here! I imagine we've all dated someone who seemed alright at first, but in short order, something they did or said gave us the ick. Thankfully, we can bail on the potential relationship the moment we realize there's no future for it...but only because we went on the date in the first place.
Similarly, the only way to find out if an LOI might bloom in a lease is to jump right in -- even before we know if it chews with its mouth open or administers any alarming subreddits. Enjoy!
Just last month, I had a first day touring with a Pedal Retailer who’d recently graduated from the Dream Space Accelerator. The sun was shining, the cherry blossoms were giving way to fresh new leaves, ...
“You know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation. And that’s really the most important part… the holding.”
These words were spoken by:
- Samantha Jones to a top-hat wearing bouncer at a club opening
- Jerry Seinfeld at a rental car counter
- Ross to a restaurant hostess, thinking he's about to blow it on a date
The correct answer is B, and this line is, IMHO, Seinfeld at its best. It’s a supremely relatable daily frustration delivered perfectly: Jerry is judicious with his words, and yet he makes his point so clearly that no reasonable person could dispute it.
If I had a standup act and Jerry’s talent, I’d also deliver life’s fundam...
Pedal Retail Advisors was recently featured in the Washington Business Journal’s Small Biz Spotlight, highlighting our work helping independent retailers navigate commercial lease negotiations and retail real estate strategy.
The article focuses on a challenge we see every day: commercial leasing can be complex, high-stakes, and difficult for first-time retailers to navigate without in-house expertise.
Commercial Leasing Is a Structural Challenge for Small Retailers
The commercial real estate industry works well for established brands with internal real estate teams. It is far less intuitive for new and independent retailers.
Many founders enter lease negotiations without knowing:
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👋 Hi, it's Faith! I'm exciting to share my first official Pedal blog today. I'll be popping up alongside Sheila and Abby now and again, so if something sounds new or foreign to these pages (like competitive running or vegetarian cooking), don't panic...it's just me. Enjoy!
If you’re like me and 90% of my friends, your new years resolutions involve some version of: “getting to the gym more,” “eating healthier,” or “running a marathon" -- fun crowd we are, I know. But we’re also committed, and training for and running a marathon will keep us motivated all year long.
What do we do first? We develop personalized training plans. Getting “marathon ready” is anything but standard, so how lo...
The other day I opened my fridge and suffered an olfactory assault. It wasn't the worst mystery odor I’d ever smelled, but it was pretty bad. I hadn’t noticed anything the day before, so it seemed to have come on fast and strong.
It wasn’t immediately obvious to me what was causing the smell, but it could have been a couple things — all of which I’ll blame on my husband, since he’s the only one who cooks for a family of six when there are only three of us at the table. So the only thing to do was to proceed with the unpleasant #adulting task of sniffing everything until you find the culprit. It was the leftovers in the Dutch oven.
I won’t attempt to pathologize why my brain doe...
Top on the list of New Business Misconceptions is “you should never sign a personal guaranty.” It sits right up there with “I can’t make a budget until I find the space” and “I won’t need to pull permits.” The personal guaranty has a bad reputation partly because it is, in fact, a little scary; but for small businesses, it’s incredibly common and often inevitable, no matter what the local celeb chef told you in between bench presses.
⚖️ Quick reminder here — although Abby grew up with two attorneys as parents, and I’m deeply familiar with the South Carolina justice system thanks to the Murdaugh Murders Podcast, we’re not actually attorneys, and this is not legal advice.
Okay, consid...
Percentage rent has a PR problem. It’s right up there with the personal guaranty on the list of concepts retailers love to hate... but should it be? The initial feeling of “oh haaaale no” is tough to overcome, but just like colonoscopies and unmedicated childbirth, once you learn how it really works, it’s not as bad as it sounds…in fact, a lot of people do it willingly.
💡 ICYMI there are two types of percentage rent. One is where the rent payment is a set percentage of revenues each month instead of a fixed base rent. Tenants love this, and they should. We’re talking about the other percentage rent – where above a certain threshold, a tenant pays some additional rent on top of their r...
