Extreme focus

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Welcome to Issue #9 👋 

Last week I asked what you’d do if $5,000 fell out of the sky and you had to spend it on a business. This week I’m featuring some of your responses: from organic eggs to an app to… toilet seats 🚽. Opportunities everywhere, people…

Also below: you’re a starter, but are you a finisher? Wanna sell your biz one day? Read why you should maybe think about how it ends before it even begins.

P.S. Know a huge untapped market gap? Spotted an opportunity no one else has? Let’s talk → [email protected]

–Danny

In this week’s issue…

• INSPO ↣ Magazines & beer

• TIPS ↣ What’s your ending?

• IDEAS ↣ Focus, focus, focus

• TOOLS ↣ A tool for mapmaking

• TOWN HALL ↣ The $5K question

↣ Zahra Tabatabai’s grandfather once made his own beer in Iran, before the 1979 government booze ban. During the pandemic, Zahra, a writer, decided to breathe new life into his recipes. In 2021 she launched Back Home Beer with $7,000, before raising $125,255 in a record-breaking Kickstarter. Zahra’s been working with Staten Island's Flagship Brewery Company to craft her product, using ingredients like Persian blue salt, barberries and sun-dried black limes, and she’s now hunting for a location in NYC for her first taproom. Incredibly inspiring stuff 🍺 

↣ In 2022, Krista LeRay quit her job as a blogger to go full-time with her needlepoint side hustle, Penny Linn Designs. She now has 34 employees, $4.43m in sales last year, a 36% profit margin, and just a few weeks ago opened a 5K sq ft shop in Connecticut 🎉 

↣ Shopfronts used to be beautiful. Things of art. A lot of them still are – from Madrid and Porto to Edinburgh and the neon-lit shops of Hong Kong. But in general, shopfronts and their signs have lost a bit of old-school magic. In Paris, Victor Bert – along with a whole new generation of artisans – is doing his part to reverse this trend and revive the ‘forgotten art’ of sign painting 🎨 

↣ Meanwhile, lots of starters are launching new (and old) mags: Steven Rodriguez and Javier Ramirez have just launched Cynthia, a print magazine for Gen Z about música Mexicana. In the UK, food writer Jonathan Nunn has turned his mega-popular newsletter Vittles into a print mag as well. In Idaho, teenager Bentley Zylstra has launched Revelry Collection, a biannual about adventure storytelling. And Summit – founded in 1955, gone by the 90s, and famous for its gorgeous covers – is back, thanks to NYC-based mountaineering journo Michael Levy. ¡Viva la print! 📚️ 

↣ Rounding out this trend is New Mountain Magazine, which tells ‘stories of the outdoor kind’. I caught up with founder Izzy Weds to learn more… ⛰️ 

↣ Talking about mags, friend of For Starters Sam Millen-Cramer sent in this dispatch from Portland, Oregon…

↣ Here’s a very cool project that launched this week: “The Atacama Desert has become a dumping ground for major fashion brands, with nearly 40,000 tons of discarded clothing piling up each year—many in perfect condition,” says São Paulo-based Pedro Galdi, creative director at Artplan. “To tackle this issue, we created Re-commerce Atacama — the first ecommerce platform where you can get these rescued clothes for free, paying only for shipping. Fully sanitized and ready to wear, it’s a way to refresh your wardrobe while raising awareness about fashion waste.” 🧥 

↣ Over in rural Japan, artist Yushi Dangami and a team including blogger/creator Kristina Minami are raising funds to transform a 180 year-old residence called Dangami House – once the villa of a feudal lord – into a creative retreat. They’re open to collaborating with people who can support the project.

↣ Speaking of rural, I would like a teleportation device that goes between my flat in central London and Riley’s Fish Shack, a five hour drive north of here on the coast. I mean…

↣ And a young starter named Pierce Brosnan has just released a collection of ceramic vases. I think this guy is going places.

You’re subscribed to For Starters, a weekly briefing for the next generation of small business owners. It’s written by Danny Giacopelli, a New York-born, London-based journalist (ex Monocle/Courier) and photographer. Thanks for being here.

This is the final edition of a column on decisions to make before starting your business. It’s written by Bonnie Chung, a ‘recovering entrepreneur’, mentor, cookbook author & founder of Miso Tasty. Read part 1 and part 2.

What’s your END GAME?

At the start of your business, nobody’s talking about endings. We’re instead obsessed with product and building a team. It might even feel crass to talk about exits so early. Isn’t this a question you can kick down the road? Well, no.

As the founder, you need to not only be clear about what you’re doing, but what for. Is your goal a business that will earn you a nice, sustainable income? Or do you want to sell it one day with a good return? It’s never too soon to sit down and think about it.

I learned this the hard way: I got it completely wrong in my own business.

I started Miso Tasty with a vision to create a food brand based on my passion. I would have preferred to have had fewer investors and fundraises, but I was naive about what investment meant for my sense of autonomy and responsibility to shareholders. It created a huge amount of stress before I was ready for it. We raised far too soon, and I gave away equity far too easily. These are common mistakes for first-time founders. Don’t do as I did.

In truth, many of my decisions around ownership and the ‘end game’ were reactive rather than intentional. I battled against control of the business and battled low self-confidence. This was a recipe for chronic stress and workaholism, as we were constantly chasing our tails against forecasts and valuations. My fingerprints were also all over the business; it wasn’t set up to run without me. 

I didn’t intend for Miso Tasty to be acquired when I started. But as the company grew, I changed my mind. I realized that selling could be incredibly rewarding – it meant going full circle as an entrepreneur. It could make the tough times more bearable, knowing there might be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 

Yet the sale of Miso Tasty didn’t happen as I planned. Instead, it was a logical consequence of taking on investors, which forced an exit strategy, and a twist of events meant my brand had to be quickly rescued by another food company. Ultimately, I ended up handing over my baby in the most unusual of circumstances, without the exit I expected – an experience I’m actually currently writing a book about. It’s about how to let go of our businesses in a healthy way, and taking these lessons forward to new chapters in our lives.

Remember, a happy and motivated founder is the foundation of a successful business. Your business should always put its greatest asset first: YOU. Good luck!

Have your own biz tips to share? [email protected]

Extreme focus. Zildjian, founded in 1623 (which I mentioned in FS #1) owns a 65% market share of the global cymbals industry. That’s… insane? This short piece touches on how they got there: with intense focus & prioritizing brand over margin growth. → What’s another biz w/ such mega market share? Reply & lemme know.

‘Life milestone’ biz. I was reading this Modern Retail article about Rowan, an ear-piercing studio known for its nurse-led approach, and how it’s scaling fast (aiming for 100 locations by year’s end). This quote from Lynda Fisher, Rowan’s chief revenue officer, struck me as insightful: “What’s cool about Rowan is that we could go into a large mall, a large lifestyle center, or some smaller locations or local street locations, and we would be equally as successful… Piercing is a milestone, and the demand [for that service] is there.” → This idea of building a business around a ‘life milestone’ is interesting. What other milestones can you build a product/service around?

• First day of school: A supply kit? A journal?

• Learning to ride a bike: A confidence course? App?

• Learning to swim: A swimwear subscription box?

• Getting your first pet: A training/starter kit?

• Moving out of your parents’ home: A case of beer and a pat on the back?

I’m tired. Are you? 50% of businesses fail within the first 5 years. Common wisdom chalks this up to cash flow problems. This article suggests another culprit: “They actually fail because the business owner is tired, and then everything else starts to fall apart around them. Those symptoms of fatigue get mistaken for the cause of failure.” So sleep more! → Some interesting new brands have popped up to help with this, including Hugh Thomas’s new sleep health brand Cuddle.

Gen Alpha. And don’t listen to marketing firms or consultants that try to explain what Gen Alpha wants. That's because predicting how the youngest generation will turn out has ‘no more value than astrology’ according to one professor quoted in a recent Economist article. → One thing’s for sure: it will be the world’s largest generation (2B+ members).

Resources 🛠️

↣ PamPam is an AI tool to make custom interactive maps for the web. Looks slick. Might start making some starter maps soon: small businesses worth seeking out in cities around the world (seriously).

Reads 📚️

↣ “How One Beloved Indie Food Brand Is Dealing With Trump’s China Tariffs — Fly By Jing chile crisp is manufactured in Chengdu. Trump’s tariffs on China means everything is in flux.” / Eater

↣ “My business brings in millions, but I’m barely breaking even. What’s the secret to profitability?” / Business of Home

↣ “Sydney’s Little Italy Is Losing Its Accent, But Does It Matter? — What happens when the next generation inherits a suburb synonymous with pizza, pasta and gelato?” / Broadsheet

↣ “The schmear index — A conversation with Apollo Bagels' founder about their FiDi expansion.” / Feed Me

↣ “The Most Expensive Thing You’ll Ever Pay For — Your network is your net worth, and it’s shrinking” / Contrarian Thinking

↣ “In Search of a Boring Business — Younger would-be chief executives are increasingly seeking profits – and freedom from the 9-to-5 – by pivoting from corporate jobs into often unglamorous small-business niches.” / NYT

↣ “From sunrises to headline stories, The New York Times is Sho Shibuya’s daily canvas — With an everyday ritual of painting the newspaper, the artist’s project is a testament to what happens when we treat creativity as something as intrinsic as eating breakfast or brushing our teeth.” / It’s Nice That

↣ “A visit to a lab of the future, tucked away in Downtown LA” / KCRW

📩 Share your juicy links: [email protected]

Last week I asked: What would you do if you had $5,000 to spend on a business? Here’s what a few of you said…

→ “Mobile sandwich shop, old school cycling wagon. Dish out sandwiches around London. Tour de Sarnie 🥪🚴“ [Vinnie Sauvan]

→ “Rid the world of pinching and zooming PDF restaurant menus on their website. I’ve prototyped the whole thing already 🙈. It’s like if Squarespace did menus only (+ option to export to print).” [Jamin Galea]

→ “I just moved to Italy to learn and practice sfoglia (the art of traditional pasta making) and I’m trying to build up my own brand in the process. Is $5k on eggs too much? It’d probably buy me about 5 boxes of organic eggs. BUT in reality, I’d love to invest it in all the best cookware in the world, all the cookbooks that I’ve dreamt of owning, and spend it on renting nice hosting spaces so that I can host Chinese Italian dinners that I’ve been dreaming about.” [Doris Lam]

→ “Luxury grooming, wellness and lifestyle brand! All going into producing the first product.” [Joseph Morrow]

→ “I already did it 😏” [Joe Welstead]

→ “A centralised gift card for indie coffee shops. It blows my mind there isn’t one already.” [Eleanor Mollie]

→ “Okay, here’s what I'd do. Find a used, but still watertight, pop-up camper. Gut it. Paint it. Add some serving tables and water lines. Sell lemonade around the metro area where I live. I'm about 1/3 of the way for the funding to make it happen.” [Ben Knaus]

→ “I’m literally doing this right now! I set aside a small amount from my savings to start my latest venture, Feels Like July, and I launched it this week. I’ve been part of the tech industry (graphic designer turned product designer turned design leader) for over 15 years and have really enjoyed the ride, but toward the end of last year I started itching to go back to my creative roots and start something of my own.” [Aaina Sharma]

→ “For me it would be a pop-up coffee concept for outdoor events. I remember seeing Minor Figures at one of the Excel Culinary events with this popping yellow La Marzocco, plus seeing Steve Booker's setup in the Range Rover too.” [Adam Duckett]

→ “Toilet seats. Massively overpriced and very boring.” [Olly Rzysko]

📩 Share your news & updates: [email protected]

Enjoyed this edition? Forward it to someone starting something new.