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Happy Friday – Danny here. How are we feeling? Long week? Maybe I can help: I’ve got a fun survey (tell me who you are!), For Starters caps (they’re 🔥), and some design upgrades. Let’s dive in…
1. I’d love to know more about you and how For Starters can be 10x more useful in your journey. I’ve created a quick subscriber survey and I’d be grateful if you take 2 minutes to fill it out. It’ll make the newsletter better! Take the 2-minute survey
2. Something spicy’s coming your way: I’m giving away a fun summer gift. It’s only for subscribers & only in highly limited numbers. I’ll share more next week. Until then, keep your eyes peeled (and your head bare… ☀️🧢 👀)
Caps For Starters™
3. And you might notice I’ve made a few design tweaks to help the sections in the newsletter feel a bit more clear. Slow and steady improvements.
In this issue:
Inspo ➠ Saunas & vending machines
Advice ➠ It’s time to bootstrap
Ideas ➠ You have the right to repair
Resources ➠ Sweet, sweet fonts
Town Hall ➠ Subscriber shoutouts
👋 Did a smart friend forward this to you? For Starters is your essential weekly briefing for the next generation of small business owners – written by Danny Giacopelli, former editor of Courier magazine and host of Monocle’s The Entrepreneurs podcast.
📥️ Subscribe for free and get small biz inspo & advice in your inbox, every Friday AM.
Desert hideaway | jacumba.com
1. Five years ago, San Diego-based interior designer Melissa Strukel was on a roadtrip with her boyfriend near the Mexican border. In the distance, she spotted a pink, rundown motel in the mountains. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I couldn’t stop talking about it,” she told writer Rosecrans Baldwin in Travel + Leisure. “I knew there was something bigger happening, and that it was a part of my life in some way.” Baldwin explains what happened next – and how Strukel and her friends went on to build the incredible Jacumba Hot Springs Hotel. → A reminder that some of the best businesses start with obsession, not a spreadsheet. 🌵
“A few months later, Strukel heard the property was for sale and made an offer. The purchase, though, came with an unexpected provision: she wouldn’t be buying just the motel but also a dilapidated gas station, several homes and storefronts, a funky bathhouse with no roof, and a dried-up lake. When she told me the backstory, it reminded me of the 2011 family movie ‘We Bought a Zoo.’ Maybe Hollywood should make a sequel, I thought, and call it ‘We Bought a Town.’”
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2. Jeremy Bilotti and David Rosenwasser run Rarify, a Philly-based business that sells rare and collectible furniture (they also run a hugely popular Instagram account, full of bitesized, educational design lessons). Here’s what else they’ve been up to: the two worked with the set decorators of the latest season of Severance to curate the show’s iconic furniture and design objects. → I love when niche knowledge finds its way into pop culture like this. 🪑
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3. When her grandfather fell ill and his restaurant Maguro Kaichi was at risk of closing, Pepe, also known as Toko-san, took over the 80-year old family business. With her bleached hair, tattoos and piercings, Toko-san doesn’t exactly look the part of ‘rural Japan hospitality proprietor’. “People would find me scary and I’m also not good with eye contact, so I can come off as unfriendly,” she tells Tokyo Misfits. “Those misunderstandings can make me a bit sad.” Now the restaurant’s 4th generation owner, Toko-san says she’s dealt with imposter syndrome but has found her groove. She’s now bringing new energy to the business: “My life has become so exciting. I'm realizing that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.” → Proof that being ‘unexpected’ is often your best marketing.
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4. Almost a year ago, Becci Stephens, founder of Liverpool-based greeting card and art print business Palm House Studio, bought a clunky old vending machine on Facebook Marketplace. In a former life, it dispensed temporary tattoos, but after Becci spray-painted it pink and did a bit of DIY, it soon dispensed her mini risograph prints, and found a new home in a local shop. That’s when her fun passion project slash side gig turned into something much bigger… 🎨
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5. Rupert McKelvie grew up in the English countryside, surrounded by nature. Years later, that connection led him to hand-build a cabin in a quiet, wooded valley. It was a personal project, an attempt to live more simply and off-grid. But as word spread, so did interest from others hunting for a similar escape. The cabin laid the foundation for Out of the Valley, which Rupert now runs with co-founder Chris Selman. They specialize in outdoor saunas handmade with sustainable materials (Chris has a Finnish aunt, naturally). They just launched their latest model, the Tyto. But I’m thinking about going deeply (like, deeply) into debt to get their Calluna model. 🌲
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6. And here’s some timely news → More than 97% of bicycles sold in the US are imported. In Seymour, Indiana, Brian Riley and his bike company Guardian Bikes just clinched $19m in financing to build what they say is the first high-volume bicycle frame manufacturing operation in the US. The factory will be powered by robotic welding and laser-cutting tech, and will make frames at scale using domestic steel and aluminum. 🔧
1. I grabbed coffee this week with Cornelius McGrath, a Chicago-based starter who runs a company called Everyday. Cornelius is a smart guy, and when he recommends something, I listen. He suggested I check out a talk from 2013 by tech founder Jason Cohen, called Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business. So I did – and it's great. So now, dear starter, I'm sharing it with you. → Watch the video and read key takeaways
Cornelius also recommends Jason’s excellent blog. Here’s his favorite piece:
2. Check out this awesome website by Brooklyn-based designer Fabricio Teixeira. It’s jam-packed with great advice not just for designers, but for anyone starting something new:
Here’s a crazy idea: make products repairable → Why? Tons of tech is designed to break down or become outdated fast (i.e. ”planned obsolescence”). This fuels e-waste and leaves us with little choice but to replace instead of repair. Not good. That’s why the right-to-repair movement has been gaining ground – we need products that last longer and can be fixed more easily.
One cool example: I just saw the Kickstarter for a new modular GPS sports watch called UNA. It’s got parts that can be easily swapped at home, so no need to replace the whole watch if something breaks. → Much more of this, please: normalize fixing before replacing.
🛠️ Tools
– 60fps is “an endless collection of delightful details” from best-in-class apps.
– Fontjoy generates font combinations using deep learning.
📚️ Read, watch, listen
– “Is the Restaurant Good? Or Does It Just Look Good? Restaurateurs are finding that ambience and branding matter as much – and to many diners, more – than the food they serve.” NYT
– “Founder & Former CEO of Blue Bottle, James Freeman: After the Exit” Grit
– “Tech Pack Mastery: Breaking Down the Most Important Document in Apparel Design. What goes into a tech pack and why is it so crucial in apparel design?” Friday Thread
– “10 Ecommerce Landing Page Templates. And 100+ examples from the best DTC brands” FERMÀT
– “An interview with Tony Chung, founder of The Steam Room. What they’ve created goes far beyond dry cleaning; now they’re opening a pop-up in East London.” Kim Does Marketing
– “Jacob, Mathis, the Goats and the Mountain. Every year, for four months, the von Siebenthal brothers climb into the mountain pastures to tend a herd of goats and produce cheese.” Regain
– “The Beautiful Chaos of Brands. An appreciation for all a brand represents.” Self-Projecting Projections (An excellent new newsletter from Eugene Kan)
– “Consumer Trends: Beauty Special 2025. What are today’s beauty shoppers looking for? What do they want from brands? And is the Gen Z beauty consumer loyal?” The New Consumer
– “The creative home of Wai Tsui balances nature and the city on the outskirts of Oslo. The outdoors is important for Wai Tsui, the founder of Hiking Patrol. So two years ago, when he, his partner Adeline Hermier, and their baby son Lian were looking for a new home, they were immediately drawn to a modernist concrete house a stone’s throw from Oslo, Norway.” Friends of Friends
– “The Panic Industry Boom” NYT Mag
🧠 Findings
– 55,000 → The square footage of a giant green shed that’s just opened up in London’s Canada Water neighborhood, featuring indie food vendors organized by KERB, a live jazz club, and the city’s biggest commercial indoor vertical farm. It’s called Corner Corner.
🙃 Just for fun
– New influencer festival alert: “Le Creuchella was sick this year, dude.”
– Underground refrigerators, you say? This is insane. (In a good way.)
Here in London, FS subscribers Niko Dafkos and Paul Firmin, founders of Earl of East, have linked up with Justin Vernon (i.e. Bon Iver) to create a new fragrance that “captures the essence” of his new album SABLE, fABLE. Huge stuff, congrats gents. → Also check out the other collabs Bon Iver has done for the album – some great small businesses on this list.
