Hey, starter! Read on for…

—Danny (tell me your biz dreams: [email protected])

👋 Thousands of business-builders around the world read For Starters every Friday. Thanks for being one of them.

1. Father’s Day, every day. In a small coastal pocket of Sydney’s eastern suburbs, Australian starters Matt Lees and his partner Mya Martin (with the help of Matt’s dad) built a solar-powered, bright blue coffee trailer and called it Dad’s Coffee. Now months in, they spend their days serving coffee to loyal locals with a gorgeous ocean view. Folks, what more do ya need?

2. Heirloom, reinvented. Signet rings, those tiny pinky rings with aristocratic crests, have been doing the same job for centuries: proving your family was somebody. Here in the UK, they’re often a subtle symbol, like a banged-up Barbour jacket, that hints at inherited money. But what if the common-born (i.e. a suburban New York kid in London like me) wants to wear one? Can you LARP the pinky ring lifestyle?

That was the question asked by the founder of Pickard’s Pinkys. “Why do posh wankers wear pinky rings?” he asks in his hilarious launch video (note: this is how you do content). “I wanted to wear one. I thought they looked really cool. Unfortunately, I’m not a posh wanker. I’m a poor wanker.”

So, he went on to build his own biz for guys like him, selling sterling silver signet rings, made in the UK, with invented, not inherited, crests: hearts, horseshoes, a skull smoking a cigarette. His own family history, he (jokingly?!) says, included toilet cleaners – and a toilet-brush crest was briefly on the table before wiser heads intervened…🚽

3. Shake it up. And I’m digging just-launched seasoning brand Pinch. “I realized the seasoning aisle was so outdated,” its LA-based founder Lena Gurunian writes, “and was filled with low-quality ingredients, ugly packaging, additives and preservatives.” Her idea was to spice up the space with flavour combos like Honey & Peach Sea Salt and Shawarma Seasoning, packed into colourful $8.99 tins with a sliding lid and a removable grate.

The 22 year-old launched the biz last month:

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Starter Stack, in partnership with Hostinger

There are plenty of places to take an African dance class in the US. And that was sorta the problem…

In Baltimore, Sarah Powell spent more than a decade as a professional African street styles dancer and teacher. Even though classes are seemingly everywhere, she kept failing to find spaces “where people could learn, make mistakes & develop in a healthy and encouraging community.” So, like true starters, she and her husband Josiah Powell built one themselves.

“We wanted to create an environment where someone could walk in knowing absolutely nothing about Afro dance and feel welcomed, educated, challenged, and inspired to keep going,” Josiah tells For Starters.

The duo found their first customers for their biz, Dance With Sarah Powell, by promoting it via Sarah’s personal socials and listing classes on Eventbrite. Word of mouth spread through the community she’d spent 10 years building.

Their website is where it all comes together. Made with Hostinger’s AI Builder, along with its Reach email marketing tools and Eventbrite ticketing plugged in, it’s what Josiah calls their “digital front door.”

→ The result? It’s working: bookings are up roughly 367% on 2025.🕺💃

The best business decision Hetty Adams ever made arrived in week 3 of a silent sewing course.

Some context. In 2016, Hetty opened Henri – a sustainable clothing brand with a brick and mortar shop – and taught shirt-making classes on the side. Then the pandemic hammered her cash flow and supply chain, like it did to so many. So she built a second business, The Modern Sewing Co, selling patterns and workshops rather than finished clothes.

The idea was to eliminate stock or shipping – the whole supply chain would sit downstream of her, because the customer does the making at their kitchen table.

Just one problem: she set about running both businesses at the same time. And the reason that didn’t last involved a month of silence, a tailored jacket, and a phone call home to her mum.

→ Below, Hetty tells For Starters why teaching a skill often beats selling a product, the challenges of Meta ads, and much more. Keep reading… 🧵

💬 Hey, Hetty! You used to own a fashion brand called Henri, before you pivoted and launched The Modern Sewing Co. I’d love to know more about that transition.

It’s The Modern Sewing Co’s fifth birthday, so we’ve been reflecting quite a lot on our story. I ran Henri London for five years as well, and the pandemic was very, very hard for that business. Between our cash flow and supply chains – it was just a nightmare. I was already teaching shirt-making back then, and I could sense the demand and value in that. I basically knew I needed to do something else alongside Henri, because the income from Henri wasn't going to be enough.

The Modern Sewing Co came about as a new business to teach people how to make clothes instead of selling them actual clothes. We rough-launched at the end of 2020, and properly launched in 2021. 

💬 And when you launched The Modern Sewing Co, were you planning to run Henri, too?

Yes, I was going to run both businesses. And then I did a month-long tailoring course, which ended up being the biggest mental struggle of my career. A month of crushing pressure, in a small room with four other people, silently hand-sewing a tailored jacket, day after day, for an entire month. No conversation. It was incredibly intense!

💬 Like a silent mountain retreat… 

Yeah! And alongside silently sewing, I was thinking about my life, the pressures of running two businesses, how I was going to make it all work. It was churning up everything. I was exhausted. I had ulcers in my mouth. I was not well.

One of the other ladies on the course was a mental health nurse. She could sense I wasn’t okay. After the first three weeks, she said, “You really need to look after yourself.” I finally realised that I couldn’t do it all – I couldn’t keep my first business, Henri, going.

A huge weight suddenly lifted. I felt lighter. I remember calling my mum and she was like, “I’ve been waiting for you to say this for ages!” From then on, I thought about the future in a different way. I don’t know how I could have coped or come to that decision without my time in that course.

💬 And at the expense of stretching the metaphor, not only was a mental weight lifted, but a physical one – you no longer had to deal with stock and distribution and shipping and inventory!

100%. That’s what’s so nice about this business. The whole supply chain gets shifted to after me. I just do the design and workshops. It was a lightbulb moment: ‘This is a way better business model.’ We had a lovely time doing Henri’s final sample sale and selling all the stock. It was like a big cleansing.

💬 So you sell digital patterns people buy to create clothes at home – and you run workshops, too. Can you walk us through the biz model? Do you upsell someone on a workshop after they’ve got the pattern? Vice versa?

We changed our approach last year to be a bit more workshop-focused. There were loads of online patterns out there, but what our customers valued was learning very high-quality skills. That’s our niche, that’s what we’re good at.

The Art of Shirt Making is our absolute bestseller, and it’s all in the title – it’s a craft and a precise art form. And we teach that to a high level. If you’ve got a professional tutorial to watch, you’re going to produce something long-lasting, beautiful, and high quality. That’s what we’re going for. 

Our customer engagement is also so much higher now than when we were a clothing brand, because people are more invested in it now that it’s their hobby and their passion. 

💬 Makes sense. What are some of the challenges you face as a starter? What keeps you up at night?

We grew our business enormously last year with Meta ads, but we’ve had a real struggle this year keeping that successful. We haven’t been on top of our game, and things derailed. We’ve only just now started working with someone fantastic to get us back on track and in the zone. But those months of mismanagement really affected us.

💬 I find the Meta ad platform nearly impenetrable. The dashboard is incomprehensibly complex.

Yeah, and I didn’t have the expertise to understand the intricacies of why it wasn’t working. It’s so risky and massively worrying if, as a founder, you don’t understand why your ads aren’t working or appreciate where your sales are coming from. I realised I had to work with someone who understood what’s wrong and who could do something about it.

💬 What’s your day-to-day life like as a biz owner now?

I started my first business when I was 24. I worked evenings and weekends and I didn't really have an off button until the pandemic. It was unsustainable. Fast forward to today and I’ve been able to disconnect a lot more with this business than I was with Henri. Of course, I still think about the business in the evenings! I’ve just got more boundaries now. I just thought: “If I can’t have a life and do this business, what’s the point?” ☼

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The age of analog restaurants 🍽 → “Some restaurants are leaning into handmade touches, as AI-generated food photos and flyers become commonplace.”

Dopamine shopping 😅 → “On South Korea’s ‘dopamine sites,’ the pleasure comes from aspirational shopping rituals like browsing, curating, and tracking – not from a delivery.”

Human refrigerators 🥶 → Perfect for snacks – and your mom and dad.

Book a hotel, get nice clothes 👕 → The St Regis hotel has collab’d with menswear brand Drake’s; if you book a certain suite, you’ll get a 4-piece Drake’s collection in your room too: tie, pocket square, cap, bandana. A fun way to find new customers.

Related: Book a dinner, get a nice chair 🪑 → A supper club with a twist in Milwaukee…

Painless tattoos 🤕 → Microdot tattoos are applied using a pain-free applicator. (But if it doesn’t hurt, does it count?)

Are you a cosy entrepreneur? ☺ → “They’re ambitious, passionate, and unwilling to pursue growth at all costs.”

The emojis taking off 🫰→ What do you know about 🥀🗿🫩?

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How Things Win → A list of 80 moats for starters: “How do things win, or at least survive, in a highly competitive landscape?”

Annual Report Archive → One of the best graphic design rabbit holes I’ve been down: 3000+ corporate annual report covers from 1945-1991.

Little Plains → Emmett Shine, founder of the brand/design studio Little Plains, just relaunched their site: “We turned two years of studio material into a searchable knowledge center & made our website the first product on top of it. 819 searchable assets. 24 case studies. 5 models. 3 ways in: search, speak & type. 1 new site. Go explore!”

“Do I have to be on camera?” On being a designer and a character on the internet (and keeping your marbles). Ken Sakata

A swarm of blood robots: recent adventures in using LLMs. Craig Mod

NYC Reddit user becomes silent superman for Greenpoint’s local businesses. Greenpointers

We tracked a shipment of rare books. It ended at an Amazon AI training facility. 404 Media

After ‘failed’ startup, Bay Area techie finds success with ice cream shop. SF Gate

Inside the searing, strangely wholesome world of competitive chilli eating. Huck

How Happy Medium's Tayler Carraway took over her own supply chain. In Stock

What’s gained & lost when trail running goes mainstream? Field Mag

5 → The number of daily 8-ounce cups of coffee the American Heart Association now says is safe (maybe even healthy?!) to drink: “In fact, they added that this amount may even be tied to a lower risk of several cardiovascular conditions, including heart failure, heart disease, and stroke.”

50%+ → More than half of all US toy industry growth between January and April came from women. Adults 18 and over drove 35% of total growth, with squishy products like NeeDoh seeing triple-digit growth. All thanks to ASMR and unboxing videos on TikTok.

Why some people mow a lawn better than others.

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And For Starters subscriber Mark Chellingworth writes in about Apostle, the small ecommerce brand he’s building. Apostle sells clothes that look good and last, without – in his words – “the nonsense of fashion, the lies of luxury or the waste of cheap stuff.” Think: white formal shirt, navy chinos, a navy quarter zip, a polo, a black oxford shoe.

The endgame, he says, is bigger:

Check it out.

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