- For Starters
- Posts
- A thousand mile walk
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 ➠ New meets old
Advice ➠ First 25, then 1000
Ideas ➠ Corporate bullshit
Resources ➠ A retail forecast
Town Hall ➠ Community shoutouts
👋 For Starters is read by 10,000+ business-builders around the world, from florists in Copenhagen to brand strategists in Mexico City. Welcome!
➠ Get inspired
Back to the future
1. Get crafty. Old-school artisans and craftspeople have tons to teach us about solving some of our more modern challenges. That’s the idea of For Starters subscriber Louis Elton, who runs the excellent newsletter/project/initiative Nation of Artisans and, as of today, The British Cræft Prize, his new cash award for starters in the UK who find ways to combine “the deep wisdom of heritage crafts of the past with cutting-edge technologies of the future” – cleverly called ‘artisanal intelligence’. 🛠️
→ A few minutes ago, Louis announced the details of the prize and how to apply – check it out.
2. Decisive moments. I was in Paris last week and stumbled into a store next to Marché des Enfants Rouges called Fringe, which sells thousands upon thousands of vintage snapshots and postcards, methodically categorised: family snaps, landscapes, photobooth images, countless beautiful and weird and forgotten little moments once thought important enough to capture forever, then forgotten. I wanted to buy everything. 📸
3. Slow down. And check out this interview with Ding Chiern Yin, who quit her corporate job a year ago, moved to the mountainous city of Wuyishan, in China's Fujian province, and fell in love with the local tea industry. She just launched her own tea brand, Girl In Love. The idea behind the brand started with her husband’s love of the stuff…
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➠ Starter wisdom
No deep-dive starter interview this week. I’ve been under the weather these last few days (and I’ve also got a day job, guys…). So instead, I’m sharing the sentiment below. It’s loosely attributed to Tolstoy – but probably not, or twisted a million times over the years – and sums up the existential struggle and magic of life as a starter…
That’s what it’s all about.
Today is Friday. Next time you read For Starters you’ll be 175 miles closer to where you’re going. Keep walking.
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➠ Good ideas
Overstock markets 🛍️ → Why small food brands are turning to online overstock markets to bring their goods to the masses.
Corporate bullshit 🤖 → “Employees who are impressed by vague corporate-speak like synergistic leadership, or growth-hacking paradigms may struggle with practical decision-making, a new Cornell study reveals.”
Side quest accounts 📱 → Should your brand have one IG page or tons?
Fake chocolate 🍫 → “Even as cocoa prices fall, companies are learning a scary lesson: Americans don't notice when you give them fake chocolate.” (Note: a bad idea, not a good one).
A monthly cheese warehouse sale 🧀 → Yes, in East Williamsburg
Salt bread 🍞 → Will it take over the world?
Singaporean bagels 🥯 → Meanwhile…
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➠ Toolbox
🛠️ Resources
The 2026 Faire Forecast: “We’ve combed through millions of retailer searches and brand catalog upload signals to identify what’s next in retail.”
📚️ Reads
‘A slow indulgence.’ L.A. newsstands are no longer regular; they’re remarkable. LAT
The Brand Age. Paul Graham
The first batch of Gen Beta parents is here, and they’re kind of stressed. The Nod
AI for boring businesses. We run a funeral home and a medspa platform. Here’s what we’ve learned about implementing AI in the real world. Every
“I Built the Company I Always Wanted. Why Am I So Miserable?” Aishwarya's Substack
Is this one of London’s most unusual bookshops? LOTI
Could the next starchitect be a TikToker? Dezeen
Julia Holden created Sleepy Hat after discovering her baby fell asleep faster with his eyes gently covered. CNBC
Renewable-power renegades are constructing their own wind turbines. RTBC
Why Does Everyone Hate AI? Digital Native
Inside LA’s most iconic Asian pop culture shop. In Stock
The Mysterious Mr. Bennett. One of the beauty industry’s most successful but lesser known executives has seemingly cracked the code for incubating and accelerating influencer-inflected brands—and for selling them at just the right time. Puck
London design studio YY is using an enquiring mindset to carve a new path. WP
It was once a top BBQ joint, now the owner can’t find anyone to buy it. Texas Monthly
Stewart Brand and his extraordinary life: ‘We don’t need to passively accept our fate’. Guardian
🧠 Findings
532,319 → The number of new business applications in the US in January, up 36.8% compared to last year. Wild.
🙃 Fun
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➠ Town Hall
Lotsss of news this week with For Starters subscribers. Here’s some of what I’ve spotted…
Here in London, subscriber Anthony Sheret – who cofounded, bootstrapped, and was MD of the indie type foundry Colophon (and who sold it in 2023) – now runs Sheret Ventures and works with early-stage businesses. He recently launched a newsletter called Notepad, which you’ll def wanna check out.
Subscribers Freddie and Stef, owners of indie neighborhood coffee shop Wylie’s Coffee, are opening up another spot and it’s looking absolutely beautiful. Congrats.
After five years of side hustling, subscriber Caitlin Rozario has gone full-time with her company Interlude, which runs workshops and programmes on sustainable high performance. Check it out.
Subscriber Kristina DeMichele, founder of tea brand Kristini’s Teas, got featured in a local Boston TV news segment all about tea making. Super cool.
And subscriber Amy Lee Lillard is the founder of the company Rebel Yell Creative and the podcast The Art of Resistance, which tells stories about artists and creators who used their work to push back against oppression and the status quo. “I'm trying to help artists and creative people make art as resistance,” she tells us. More of this, please.
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