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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!
A year ago, For Starters was just an idea. I genuinely had no clue what would happen when I started this newsletter back in January, but I hoped it would light a spark in others who, like me, thought the world needed more inspiring and useful content on how to build dream businesses.
But would I be writing dispatches to a tiny group of friends and family who signed up because they felt bad? Well yes, 100%, but also: more than 9,000 of you have subscribed too, which is just… absolutely wild. 🤯
Thank you for reading, sharing, replying, and trusting this little (k, kinda long) weekly email the past 11 months. There’s so much amazing stuff I’ve got planned for you in 2026. I’m very excited. You will be, too. Seriously. Watch this space… 👀
Some quick housekeeping:
🏕️ For Starters is taking a short and rare pause for the holidays. I’ll be traveling, thinking and mega-planning. Look out for a fresh issue on Jan 9th.
📬️ As ever, drop me a line at [email protected] and tell me what you’re working on, what business challenges you’re facing, what opportunities you’ve spotted, and what you’re excited about. Or just say hi.
🙏 Plus, if you’ve got a sec, I’d love if you take our subscriber survey.
I hope you have a calm and energizing start to the new year. Take a break, if you can. It’s good for business.
Read on for…
Inspiration ➠ Back to the future
Advice ➠ A well-oiled machine
Ideas ➠ Merry Thriftmas!
Resources ➠ End of year trends
Town Hall ➠ Subscriber shoutouts
➠ Get inspired
Remember this? | Credit
1. Bring back the ring. Cat Goetze was done with screens. The massively popular digital creator, also known as CatGPT online, was on a mission to make tech less distracting and intrusive, so in 2023 she hacked a Bluetooth antenna into a thrifted pink landline handset. Voilà – she soon fell back in love with that forgotten, tactile ritual of pick-up, dial, talk. Fast forward to July this year, when she posted a video of her prototype on IG, and the idea caught fire…
“Hundreds of people commented on the video within hours saying they needed the device. She set up an online shop to collect pre-orders thinking 15 to 20 people would place actual orders and she could make the devices by herself in her apartment. Goetze’s project, Physical Phones, passed $120,000 in sales in its first three days… The business has sold over 3,000 units and made $280,000 in sales by the end of October.”
Physical Phones is tapping into a much bigger craving out there – especially from Gen Z but also, just… everyone – for more human, analogue, intentional tech – and real conversations. Here’s to more of this in 2026 🥂
2. Off the leash. Meanwhile in Chicago, Devon Brown has quit her corporate job and secured a 24,000 square foot warehouse to open an indoor dog park with an absolutely brilliant, pitch-perfect name: Zoomies.
3. Skin in the game. And what happens when a design studio doesn’t just work on a neighborhood bar’s brand identity, but actually co-owns the place? Meet Denver’s Semiprecious.
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➠ Starter wisdom
There are a million ways to start a business. Dana Elemara’s began with a single ingredient – and a lot of persistence.
Born and raised in London to Iraqi refugee and immigrant parents, Dana discovered argan oil in her early 20s. Sourced almost exclusively from southwestern Morocco and made by pressing the seed of the argan tree, it’s known for its health benefits and its uses in both food and cosmetics.
In 2012, Dana launched Arganic with £8,000 and spent the next 14 years building the business and educating customers about why argan oil is so special. Along the way, Arganic attracted customers like Mick Jagger and stockists like Harrods and Whole Foods.
→ Below, Dana tells For Starters about the winding road that led to her idea...
It all started when I was studying maths at King’s College London. I love maths. I saw a Goldman Sachs internship being advertised over the summer holiday before the 3rd year. It paid £800 a week. I was looking for a summer job, so I applied… and got it. They offered me a job after the internship, so I sort of accidentally ended up working at Goldman Sachs for a year on a graduate scheme. I didn’t add much value or even end up with much money. You’re just working such long hours. They wanted me to stay on, but I didn’t want to get caught up in all that. You sacrifice a lot of your soul and life to be there. I knew if I stayed it would lead to ingenuine things.
So I made the decision to quit and start my own business. Starting a business is hard, otherwise more people would do it. But I wanted to give it my best shot. I’m going to run this marathon, I said. Or at least I’m going to do everything I can to try and make that happen. So… what business could I create?
I began by leaning into my interests. I love art and design. I love bringing people together. I love curating things, creating atmosphere, and cooking. So the first thing that came to mind almost instantly was to open a restaurant. Literally a minute later, I realized that’s one of the riskiest things you can possibly do. I was so young and inexperienced. I needed to find something less risky. I had to change up my environment and do some soul-searching. So I tested ideas and shadowed entrepreneurs. I put myself in different environments. I started a 3-day a week job in the marketing department of King’s. I even had the idea for a business that told the stories of famous mathematicians! You just get all these random ideas, and then one of them lands…
The idea for argan oil was planted in my head from a family friend. She knew my family was quite forward-thinking with healthy, natural ingredients, and she asked if we knew about argan oil. It had all these amazing health benefits, she said. I was maybe 21 years old at the time. I hadn’t heard of argan but I became very curious. Hmm, this is super interesting…
Argan oil comes from the seed of the fruit of the argan tree. More than 95% of the trees grow in a small part of southwestern Morocco. The tree has been around since the dinosaur era. An absolutely ancient species. For centuries, Morocco’s indigenous Berber people have been making and using the oil for things like regulating blood sugar for diabetic people and lowering bad cholesterol. It has like three times the amount of antioxidants than olive oil. It's really good at fighting free radicals.
It’s also very laborious to make. There’s a bit of scarcity involved, because the way it should be made is you wait for the fruit to drop. The trees themselves are UNESCO-protected, so you can’t damage them. Then you dry the fruit, peel it by hand, crack the inner hard kernels by hand, extract the seeds, gather them, and press them – or toast them if you’re making culinary oil, because the toasting brings out the flavour.
I wasn’t particularly interested in the beauty side of argan oil at the time. I was more interested in argan as a food ingredient. It’s traditionally praised by chefs. It’s got a low burning point like olive oil, so you use it to dip, dress, and drizzle. It’s got a buttery, nutty flavor. Back then, truffle oil was having a big moment, but you couldn’t really get argan oil anywhere in the UK. It was starting to creep up in America, which was a good sign. So I thought maybe I could introduce it as an exciting ‘new’ ingredient in the UK. Some people I spoke with, like at big food markets, thought it was too niche, or the margins were too small. But I thought this thing was absolutely amazing. I was obsessed.
So I went to Morocco on a series of trips. I loved that, done the right way, argan oil could empower local women. I loved loads of things about it. But I had to be convinced the product was great. So I visited lots of different suppliers and people. I even had the Moroccan embassy in London supporting me. But the partner I ended up going with actually came about via a friend of my father’s. He’d been travelling in Morocco and met a woman from Zimbabwe who owned a riad in Essaouira. I stayed at her riad, and she was like, Hang on a second, you're here for argan, aren’t you? You can't leave without me introducing you to this one person! I was literally getting on a flight that day. And that’s how it all came together.
Very shortly after I launched, I realized I was sitting on a massive opportunity in beauty. Historically, brands would put like 2% of argan in a shampoo product and then shout ‘argan oil!’ and exploit it. Money talks. And argan is indeed very good as a cosmetic. (To be fair, eating it is good for your hair and skin as well.) But I decided to double down on the beauty aspect in order to support the food line, which was my passion. I thought that was a solid business model and approach: in cosmetics your margins are very high, whereas in food the margins are very low, so these two sides could support each other nicely from a business perspective.
I practiced what I preached. I used the oil on my hair and it started to look amazing. People would stop me on the bus and be like What hair product do you use?! I literally started carrying product on me and I’d sell it on the spot! I had no PR company, but sales really took off. It became known by top chefs, and the company got recognized around the world as the best place to buy argan oil.
I’m a big fan of brainstorming and writing things down. You have to make it a part of your practice. Something in your writing will come out and speak to you. The mess in your mind that you put down on paper will start to form into something clearer. It’s a process of eliminating some ideas and leaning more towards others. I also know loads of people have The Creative Act on their coffee table, but it’s honestly a brilliant book to help you get in the frame of mind for picking ideas. The key is being open-minded, and allowing for serendipity and spontaneity.
I’ve realized, with hindsight, that you have to just plant a seed and start. You don’t need to have the complete thing. You don’t need to have all the solutions. All that will come together later on and you’ll have a feasible business. It doesn’t have to be 100% feasible in the beginning. It’s important that you’re a bit intuitive. Put yourself in unknown territory and just keep listening to the universe!
→ While Arganic is temporarily on pause due to supply-chain challenges, Dana is also a mentor, hosts workshops and is a startup consultant. Say hi!
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➠ Good ideas
💡 What’s a business for? → Packy McCormick wonders why so many entrepreneurs are “building startups to win the lottery instead of building the thing they would build if they’d already won it.” Bingo. Couldn’t agree more:
“Most startups are vehicles for status and wealth, vehicles to accumulate the resources people think they need to do what they actually want to do or work on the thing they actually want to work on, if they even have any idea what that thing might be. But it’s magical when you find it.”
🎄 Thriftmas → Giving secondhand goods as a gift to friends and family during the holiday period is finally becoming mainstream.
🧙 Be weird! → From David C Porter in his newsletter Garden Scenery, on the value of having weird interests:
“To be interested in records no one listens to, books no one reads, films no one watches, is to resist the encroachment of this especially pernicious kind of living death. It can feel strange sometimes, and sometimes lonely, and sometimes alienating – but it also feels real. It feels like, I know what I’m doing, and I know why, and I know that this kind of certainty is increasingly hard to come by. I know that I am doing this because it is meaningful to me, and for no other reason. I know that I am doing it because I would not recognize myself if I did not.”
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➠ Toolbox
🛠️ Resources
Dan Frommer’s just dropped his much-anticipated 122-slide deck of consumer trends to pay attention to. Always a delight/insightful read.
📚️ Reads
The little California coffee shop crushing Starbucks, one latte at a time. SFGate
Insane Companies No One Talks About, Episode #4: Tetra Laval (Part 1). A family business doing ~$18B per year selling... paper cartons! Julie Young's Newsletter
The Hottest Toy of the Year Is Made by a Tech Startup You’ve Never Heard Of. How an obscure company pivoted, then pivoted again, nearly ran out of money—and built a hit product. WSJ
The Secret Life of No. 39: How Chinese Menus Abroad Became Numbered. Radii
The legendary magazine editor who traded it all in to weave baskets. 1Granary
Telling Hawaii’s stories, one hand-carved surfboard at a time. NYT
We’ve Reached Peak Boutique Grocery Store: How Food Shopping Evolved Beyond a Simple Errand in 2025. AD
🧠 Findings
33% → The proportion of US adults who plan to start a business or side hustle next year – a 94% year-over-year increase, according to QuickBooks’ new Entrepreneurship in 2026 report. Holy moly.
50% → Semi-related, from the department of ‘the economy is wild… so start a business!’:
“Over the last three years, the number of fresh graduates hired by big tech companies globally has declined by more than 50%, according to a report published by SignalFire, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. Even though hiring rebounded slightly in 2024, only 7% of new hires were recent graduates. As many as 37% of managers said they’d rather use AI than hire a Gen Z employee.”
9,000 → And the number of festive mince pies that the tiny London deli Finns of Chelsea sells each Christmas. That’s a lot of pies.
🙃 Fun
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➠ Town Hall
Finally, a massive end-of-year shoutout to For Starters subscriber Kim Darragon, a brilliant small business marketing consultant, speaker and mentor – who also happens to be my wife!
Kim’s been For Starters’ number one supporter, fan, idea-tester, advisor, sounding board, and hype woman this past year. I couldn’t have done it without her. She’s also worked with and supported literally hundreds of the most interesting starters around via her consultancy Kim Does Marketing. 💫
→ Get in touch with Kim to work with her in 2026 and follow her on IG for small biz marketing tips.
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