"So, how's the shop going?"
This is one of the most frequently asked questions from our regulars. So, let's talk about it!
I'm writing this as part of Acorn's commitment to sharing the shop![1] We are a neighborhood shop first and foremost—it was built from the feedback we received from the 750 of you who took our community survey—and the folks who are here first should enjoy a peek behind the curtain. As part of the neighborhood, I wish we knew more about how our local businesses were doing before they go into crisis. Regular shop updates are a way for the people most invested in our success to know what we're up to, good and bad. Acorn Craft Shop has an ambitious vision that may not be obvious from the outside, and I want to talk about it!
We offered 10% off to essential caretakers from day one, along with sliding scale pricing for all events, a reused art supply cabinet, and weekly events that are totally donation-based. These are not particularly good business decisions! But they're personal decisions, and it's a Personal Business.[2] We are committed to offering these things to our neighbors. That is deeply ambitious, and we're really proud of it!
In four months, this ambition has led to:
- $1,200 in savings for our essential caretakers & through sliding scale tickets,
- 90+ reused art supplies went to new homes,
- 300+ students practiced something new,
- 200+ craft night attendees made things together[3]
So how's the shop going? In my opinion, pretty great.[4] I'm hopeful that closing the gap between what we want to offer and what we can afford may be more achievable than it seems.
For our first year in business, our goals are to become useful and build trust.
A useful shop offers an array of items that people want or need. For us, that means stocking things that are really frustrating to run out of mid-project, materials you want to feel in person, or curated gifts for folks who want something to do with their hands. Useful classes are ones that are interesting to the audience with a balance of accessibility and rigor. And of course, public space is inherently useful, and we open our space to the public at least once a week.
Building trust is about reliability. It means having the exact knitting needle sizes you need, with the cord length you need, and the DPNs in the same size, every time (we are much better at this now than in May, thank you for your patience!!). Trust also means knowing you can peek at the event roster and find something accessible and fun that could shake you out of a slump. Shops need to earn trust over time, but I already feel it building. Folks know they can stop in to find a rainy day project or get a few things before a weekend trip.
We have a long way to go on both these fronts, and will likely be refining for years to come. Luckily we have an extremely creative team, the best regulars around, and I'm in it for the long haul. Thank you for being invested enough to stay curious about the shop. Thank you for buying your project quantities, for letting us know what you need, for buying gift cards, attending multiple classes, donating your supplies to the cabinet, and for coming to craft night! It's just a shop, but it's already a beautiful shop.
Till next time,
Christina
Footnotes
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When the shop was a distant ambition I was empowered by the work of other independent business owners who shared their practices publicly. Especially: The Locavore's various resources, Principals GI Coffee House's public P&Ls, and Cursive's candid retail advice. Acorn owes these shopkeepers, and many others who offered insights, a huge debt of gratitude. ↩
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As I was growing the courage to pursue the shop I read Personal Business by Charles Broskoski, co-creator of Are.na. If you're interested in the spirit of independent business, and/or a fan of You've Got Mail, it is a must-read.↩
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These are people who RSVP; the real number is probably closer to 350.↩
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Financially, we're doing "not bad". We had a slowdown in the summer, which is normal, but four months does not make a trend. Talking about why we are not profitable sounds very alarmist, even though it's to be expected given how new we are! If you're interested in more specifics I'll likely share some in the future, but not before at least a year in business. .↩
- I just gotta say... none of this was written with a large language model. Yes I used em-dashes, but we can't let AI claim them! We used them first!!
