Pedal Retail Advisors Featured in WBJ Small Business Spotlight
BY ELIZABETH DRACHMAN
Washington, D.C. – February 23, 2026
When Abby Davids Rocha and Sheila Laderberg Tarasiuk founded Pedal Retail Advisors in 2020, conventional wisdom suggested it was the worst possible moment to launch a business focused on helping people open physical stores.
But the co-founders felt strongly that they had identified a problem too urgent to ignore: commercial real estate fails first-time retailers.
Five years later, D.C.-based Pedal has served more than 100 independent retailers across 15 states, saving clients an average of $300,000 on 10-year leases, its founders say. Their secret? Treating retail leasing like the high-stakes, personal business decision it actually is for small and first-time retailers.
