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- What's your lightbulb moment?
For Starters is the essential weekly briefing for the next generation of small business owners. Inspiration and ideas, every Friday – for free. It’s curated by Danny Giacopelli, formerly of Monocle and Courier magazines.
Hey, starter! Read on for…
Inspiration ➠ Lobster pizza
Advice ➠ Socks with benefits
Ideas ➠ Phone-free nightlife
Resources ➠ 40 Q’s to ask yourself
Town Hall ➠ Subscriber shoutouts
➠ Get inspired
Island-made | Credit
1. Pizza, not politics. Ben Wexler-Waite was destined for a career in public service. Or so it seemed. He studied government at an elite liberal arts university. He worked on multiple political campaigns after graduation. But his real, not-so-secret passion? Far from policy. It was starting a food business.
After working on organic farms, food trucks and a food startup between campaigns, Ben made his dream happen four years ago. He converted an airstream into a wood-fired Neapolitan-style pizzeria and started serving customers at Peaks Island Lions Club, located on Peaks Island, a 740-acre slice of paradise off Portland, Maine. He called the spot Il Leone (‘The Lion’).
Word of mouth grew, and this month Ben’s expanding for the first time — to a brick-and-mortar location with, uh, not so much pizza competition around: Brooklyn. Except Il Leone’s got a seriously dangerous secret weapon as a topping: Maine lobster. Get me on the first flight to Park Slope… 🦞
2. Surf & sip. Meanwhile, in the town of Crescent Head, on the east coast of Australia, there’s a beautiful little surf boutique called Cheetah Five. A ten-minute walk from the beach, the shop sells surfboards, own-brand swimwear, accessories, and fresh Allpress coffee for locals seeking a hit of caffeine and a chat with owner Jill, who’s created a special vibe. She’s also been documenting her experience as a small biz owner, and all the quiet moments in-between, on IG. 🏄♀️
3. ‘Shroom supply. And in Montreal, two ex-engineers, Vathana Len and Daniel Vogt, are supplying 700 pounds of mushrooms each week to the city's best restaurants, via their business Full Pin. 🍄 Not for the faint of heart…
The business model is simple: grow the highest-quality gourmet mushrooms possible and deliver crops grown the day before within 24 hours to restaurants within a 10-kilometer radius, all without distributors, middlemen, or inventory sitting in refrigerated trucks for days. Simple, see?
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➠ Starter wisdom
Compression socks: good for preventing swelling, soreness and inflammation in your feet and legs. Bad for… looking stylish. So who’s making ones you actually wanna wear? 🧦
For Starters subscriber Princess Ebi, for one. Princess, who divides her time between Lagos and London, is the founder of Main Squeeze, a brand giving the category a glow-up with medical-grade performance and fashion energy.
→ Keep reading for insights from Main Squeeze’s first year in business…
💬 Hey Princess! Main Squeeze is such a good name for a compression socks brand. I bet you were happy with that...
Sooo happy! It took ages to come up with a name. We were using Super Socks as a placeholder, and I was genuinely worried we’d have to go into production with it.
💬 You used to work in finance. How’d you pivot to being an entrepreneur?
I started my career in investment banking in London, then moved into private equity and later investment advisory, both in West Africa.
It was almost inevitable that I’d become an entrepreneur. I’ve always known the kind of life I want and the things I want to see in the world. As my career in finance progressed, it became clearer that if I wanted to realize that vision, I’d have to create it myself. Entrepreneurship felt like the only path expansive enough to do that.
I went into finance for very practical reasons:
I needed to make money and create some financial stability for myself.
I wanted to be in a demanding environment that would push me to be more structured and disciplined (I’m naturally more of a lateral thinker)
I wanted to understand how money actually moves through the world.
It gave me rigor and perspective, but I do wonder sometimes if I’d approach work differently had I started my career in another environment. I can be quite intense and I’m sure banking only amplified that lol.
My last few years in the industry really sharpened my long-term vision. I believe commerce is the lifeblood of any economy, and that exports built on reputational currency can strengthen international relationships and development. I’m deeply curious about how to expand who gets to participate meaningfully in the global economy – especially from countries that carry immense cultural influence today.
So, in short: yeah, entrepreneurship was the natural next step.
💬 How did you land on compression socks as a biz category? Was there a personal story behind it or it’s just an interesting market gap?
A mix of both. A close friend of mine developed lymphedema and had to wear compression socks. She didn’t like how they looked or how uncomfortable they felt, so she’d often avoid wearing them or hide them completely under her outfits. I wanted to gift her a pair of chic, premium compression socks, but I couldn’t find any.
That lightbulb moment sparked Main Squeeze. It started as a way to make compression socks that my friends and I would actually want to wear, even beyond the functional benefits.
💬 What are some hard-won biz lessons you learned this past year?
I’ve written so many “notes to self” since we launched. I can share a couple – it’s been an eventful year…
Always run the numbers. When we started, our fulfillment partner had a couple fixed recurring fees along with a monthly minimum. I misread the contract, thinking shipping was included in the calculation towards the minimum (it was not). It was horrible for our margins in those first few months. Very painful. I very quickly started evaluating dozens of potential new partners; I even put my finance hat back on to build a model and better understand the impact of different scenarios on our margins with the different partners. We just moved to our new partner last month and I’m really happy. It was an expensive mistake, but it could’ve been worse.
Decide what matters the most. Everything can’t be important at once when you’re not well resourced (team-wise and money-wise). At first, I was so precious about our creative direction. I still care, but I’m not going to let it be a blocker at this stage. Consistency matters more right now. We’re already visually distinct from competitors and there’ll be a time to push that further, but right now the focus is on understanding our customers better and increasing discoverability. That will inevitably give us the tools and information to do everything else better.
💬 What’s the toughest part about growing a consumer brand?
Balancing growth! With physical products, there are so many factors at play so we try to be intentional at growing at a speed we can afford at this stage. We’re lucky to have had some amazing opportunities come our way. Some I’ve had to postpone till we’re adequately resourced. In the past year, we’ve learned so much about logistics, distribution and marketing that could have cost far more if we scaled too quickly. I want Main Squeeze to become the household name for better wellness wearables, so it’s important we’re intentional at each stage.
Compression, but make it fashion
💬 Main Squeeze is a venture of your business Moonlight, where you’re cooking up other cool projects, like Fable. Tell us more.
It’s sometimes hard to describe Moonlight, but my partner sums it up perfectly: a creative practice focused on distribution.
We’re makers at heart – physical products, software, animations, you name it – we love creating things. But distribution is an entirely different challenge. So, we think of Moonlight as an inquiry into distribution: researching the principles of large-scale consumer reach through real projects.
Fable’s a great example. It’s gone through several iterations, but the team’s now focused on seeing how people interact with it. It’s live and available for download, which feels like a big milestone.
💬 And what’s the deal with your brand Blank Body? It looks intriguing!
My first baby! I started working on Blank Body in 2023 – hard to believe. It’s been around (conceptually) longer than Main Squeeze and is finally launching this month. It’s a new approach to body care, and I can’t wait to release it into the world.
💬 What’s a brand or small biz that everyone should know?
This is Us. They’re a really cool fashion brand that produces indigo-dyed cotton, sourced from Funtua in Northern Nigeria and hand-dyed using centuries-old dye pits in Kano. It’s all-natural indigo, rooted in deep craft and sustainability. The founders are an amazing couple, deeply committed to empowering local communities through creative commerce.
I’ve always felt that the best way to preserve and propagate craft or cultural practice is to make it economically viable, and they’re proof of that. I’d encourage anyone reading this to check them out when you get the chance.
💬 Where do you turn to for business or creative inspiration?
For business inspiration, I used to love Courier magazine – there’s nothing quite like it now. [Editor’s note: 🙋♂️👋]
Podcast-wise, I prefer listening to people that aren’t in the same world of business; it helps me expand my thinking beyond the usual best practices. I do love The Cutting Room Floor by Recho Omondi.
For books, Contagious by Jonah Berger is a recent favorite, really compelling and instructive.
For creative inspiration, I love magazines, Apartamento is a forever favorite. I recently discovered Cake Zine and Viscose Journal, which I’ve been enjoying.
Fiction books and film are less regular sources of inspiration but they free my mind to wander – for instance, Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream recently inspired some of the direction we’re exploring for upcoming campaigns.
But I’m also really inspired by the people around me – friends and strangers alike, the everyday. I often travel between cities that are so different yet so similar and I love connecting dots, drawing parallels, and asking questions.
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➠ Good idea!
1. Fliers on telephone poles → With social media algorithms wreaking havoc on reach, small businesses (and just… random people) are increasingly turning to an old-school medium: little fliers.
2. Phone-free bars → We are seemingly, tragically incapable of putting down our phones — at the dinner table, on the toilet, in bed, anywhere — so we’re seeing the emergence of intentional spaces where being in the moment is enforced. Like this spot in Washington D.C.
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➠ Toolbox
🛠️ Resources
40 questions to ask yourself every decade… and another 40 to ask yourself every year, from Steph Ango, CEO of Obsidian.
📚️ Reads
So Fresh, So Clean: The Hackney Drycleaner Beloved by the Fashion Industry. Broadsheet London (written by yours truly 👋 )
Can a Shop Truly Be a ‘Third Place’? BoF
On Modes and Time Changes. Mildly Independent
🧠 Findings
$27,000 → The price a customer at Thunderstruck, a Bangkok vintage shop, apparently paid for a faded black shirt featuring rapper Nas, thus “confirming that when it comes to old-school fashion, music shirts are ruling the vintage world right about now.”
🙃 Fun
Which For Starters reader will be the first to scoop up this gorgeous, enormous $830,000 former schoolhouse, dress factory, and piano workshop in the Catskills of upstate New York, and convert it into a retreat for starters? There’s a goddamn gymnasium, people! Give in to the temptation... 💫
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➠ Town Hall
In Berlin, For Starters subscriber Fiona McDougall is building a book-making business called Fondfolio. But they're not just any books… they’re memory books. 📚️
Picture this: it’s your boyfriend’s birthday, or your sister just finished college. To mark the occasion, you can create a book that collects the words and stories of loved ones. Fondfolio then delivers a bespoke book, handmade by Fiona with beautiful wooden covers and no glue — just high quality paper and thread. Each book takes 5 hours to make!
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