- For Starters
- Posts
- It takes a village
For Starters is a weekly newsletter for the next-gen of small business owners. It’s written by Danny Giacopelli, former editor of Courier mag and host of Monocle’s The Entrepreneurs podcast.
Hey, starter. In this issue…
Inspiration ➠ A dreamy hotel
Advice ➠ The 1,000 mile walk
Ideas ➠ How’s your GEO? 🤔
Tools ➠ Good e-comm shops
Community ➠ Wins & shoutouts
➠ Get inspired
01. Second acts. Back in 2022, I wrote about Le Provençal, a glorious family-run hotel on the Giens peninsula at the southern tip of the south of France: “Giens is the end. A Gallic Montauk. Outdoorsy, unpretentious, idyllic,” I said. One of the owners, Damien Piffet, grew up around the place – his grandfather built it back in 1951. Le Provençal has since stayed in the family and has, miraculously, inexplicably, (happily?!), been an under-the-radar spot that’s escaped the influencer hordes. But even the most special places sometimes need a makeover. Damien and his brother Benjamin recently brought in Paris-based interior architect Rodolphe Parente to completely renovate the property. The new Le Provençal opens soon and it’s looking gorgeous. → It was just featured in the NYT & Vogue, so go before the TikTokers do 🫢
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02. Tiny pets, big feelings. Over in LA, a former animator named Rami Kim has been making hand-sculpted, pet-inspired ceramics in her garage for more than a decade. It’s a business that grew from years of experimenting with clay and drawing inspiration from her late dog, a Maltese named Gus. Now she’s making custom pieces by commission – many of which are for other people who have lost pets. LA Times:
“Eileen O’Dea — who commissioned Kim to design a figurine of her late dog, Owen, a mixed pup she found on the street near her West L.A. woodshop — talked about the profound emotional resonance of Kim’s work. ‘It’s the kind of object that blurs the line between beauty and memory,’ O’Dea said of the butter dish Kim made her. ‘It looks just like him; even his floppy ear is perfect. Every time I use it, I’m reminded of him.’”
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03. Bye bye 9-5. Korea-born, Australia-based Cindy Moon quit her corporate content marketing job and invested her $30K life savings into building her own matcha-based Korean skincare brand, Muun Skincare, which launches next month. The 28 year-old has been documenting all the behind-the-scenes on her IG. → Let’s take a moment to appreciate all the business owners who take the time to meticulously document their wins and losses publicly? It’s such a public service for all us starters. 🙏
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04. Going solo. Meanwhile, Leeds-based Reece Jeanes quit his sales job at Apple a year ago, booked a one-way trip to Shenzhen, and started working on his own product – all with no cofounder or external funding. He's just launched it on Kickstarter – the ‘world’s first MagSafe battery pack with built-in FindMy tracking’. Reece has done everything from the product design and sourcing to branding and content by himself. Pretty wild. 🔧
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05. Spin me around. Vinyl Me, Please, a record subscription company that’s faced delayed orders, frustrated customers, bankruptcy and the threat of liquidation, has been saved by entrepreneurs Nick Alt and Emily Muhoberac, who are now doing outreach for advice and feedback on how best to resurrect the brand: “This turnaround takes a village,” Nick wrote on LinkedIn. “I’m looking to reconnect with industry folks – especially those in music, vinyl, retail, logistics, packaging, and production – who want to help us make this a win.”
→ I asked Nick to share more. Here’s what he said…
“I’m always looking to connect with exceptional generalists who have an insatiable curiosity and a scrappy approach to creative problem solving. I’m especially intrigued with those proposing ideas that on the surface could never scale. That’s often where I believe the magic is found. DM me with your favorite album of all time to start the conversation.”
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➠ Starter wisdom
A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, ‘Today I’m going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.’
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➠ Good ideas
Thermal spaces → I swear, everywhere you look there’s another sauna company opening up. I’m bullish on the trend. Over in California, Alex Yenni and Gabriel Turner have just launched a new company called Fjord — their first site will be a floating sauna and plunge experience on the San Francisco Bay.
GEO, not SEO → When someone googles your business name, are you ranked highly? That’s SEO. If they ask ChatGPT the same query, are you cited in the response? That’s GEO — Generative Engine Optimisation. You gotta be good at both now (sorry…)
The ‘toolbelt generation’ → Gen Z ❤️ specialized blue-collar jobs and skilled trades like carpentry, computer programming and welding: “Interest in attending trade school has nearly doubled among teens and adults since 2017 and shows no signs of slowing down.”
Nostalgia tech → Related-ish: If you haven’t realised, Gen Z are also obsessed with retro, obsolete tech like Blackberry phones. Lots of potential businesses (and money!) to be made in this space.
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➠ Links, etc.
🛠️ Resources
Jeremy Caplan, the guy behind the mega popular newsletter Wonder Tools, has shared all the online tools he personally uses throughout his day. Check out his tools from 7am to noon and from lunch to bedtime.
If you’re based in the UK, here’s a genuinely useful list of 150 small business grants you can apply for right now.
Shopify’s got a new list of the best ecommerce sites (using Shopify, of course). Take notes.
📚️ Reads
Why Craft Schools Matter. Sites of craft education train and shape the makers we admire—and everyday people, too. Untapped
My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts Fly.io
the market is down and so am i. i asked 13 Gen Z women about social media, money trauma, and the economy As seen on
How Older made restaurant uniforms cool again. Supplying handsome uniforms for companies around the globe, Older is a workwear brand that actually kits out workers Monocle
I've made over $40,000 selling plush dolls I scoop from claw machines. Here's how I learned to beat the game and turn my hobby into a profitable side hustle. Business Insider
The Genuine Secrecy of Secret Smokehouse. How a business started in a small shed came to provide smoked fish for some of London’s best restaurants. SLOP
Not so micro: the rise and rise of small watch brands. Many of the watch industry’s small, independent ‘microbrands’ are increasingly competing with legacy brands in specification and aesthetics – so what's next for the new guard? Wallpaper
No more Mr. Nice Guy: The incomparable Michael Bierut steps down. The man who defined 21st-century logo design is retiring (or something like it) to make room for a new generation of designers. Fast Company
This City Is Ready for Some Fro-Yo. Dubai drizzles, artisanal swirls, the return of 16 Handles: Is the next big yogurt boom here at last? Grub Street
An interview with FatBoy Zine's Chris O'Leary Kim Does Marketing
Stitch It, Don’t Ditch It: Resisting Fast Fashion Through Visible Mending. Stitchers around the world are repairing their clothes with pride, turning a once-hidden process into a bold fashion statement. RTBC
I Left My Job in Food Media to Bake at an Alaskan Wilderness Lodge. Operating a full-time bakery in the backcountry of Denali National Park was an opportunity to step out of the confining rhythms of modern life. Eater
At 23, he quit his accounting job to start an eBay business—today, his company brings in $167 million a year. CNBC
🧠 Findings
47.1% → Half of Gen Alpha have got a side hustle, lol. Ummmm: “The ‘iPad kid’ generation – the oldest of whom are just 15 – are already putting their screen time to good use. Nearly half are actively earning online through digital side hustles like selling vintage clothing, streaming video games, and posting on social media.”
🙃 Fun
Is this illustration style ‘Gen Z’s Corporate Memphis’?
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➠ Our community
→ Back in March I gave a shoutout to Switchyards, a collection of 28 ‘neighborhood work clubs’ expanding across the US. FS subscriber Brandon Hinman, Switchyards’ creative director, kindly mailed me a copy of issue 2 of their new publication, Club Paper (above). I’m obsessed. Look at this classifieds section!
→ Met up this week with FS subscriber Lena Tavitian, who runs a career accelerator for Gen Zers in LA called Project Yeraz. Lena’s also got a very good Substack called Business Casual that you gotta check out. I love her series Real People, Real Jobs.
→ Last week I said I’d link to my full conversation with Kardo founder Rikki Kher in this edition, but time got the best of me (I’ve got a 9-to-5 too!). It’ll come soon – sorry!
Quick note: No For Starters next Friday (4th of July). We’re back in your inbox the following. Keep sending me all the great stuff you see until then.
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