We recently connected with James Lapsley and have shared our conversation below.

James, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

Looking back on everything, I would have started the Instagram page much sooner. Graduating from college and moving into New York City, I immediately fell in love with the food scene. It has every cuisine you could ask for and the quality is top notch. Unfortunately, for those of you unfamiliar with New York, food prices are outrageous. What once started as a fun hobby quickly turned into a small business when restaurants began providing complementary meals in exhange for a few posts on the account. Starting this account earlier would have simply alloted more time for growth and with that, more terrific meals.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

SpimmyMucks is a social media brand where we try restaurants, predominately around New York City, and post the food we eat. We provide a Beli rating and highlight what dishes were our favorites. Currently, we are exploring some sort of philanthropic arm to the account. We are priveledged enough to eat so many phenomenal meals free of charge and would like to start using our platform in order to give back to the community.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

This may seem self explanatory, but it took my partner and I longer than it should have to discover: inviting restaurants to be a collaborator on Instagram posts. We just employed this tactic recently and realized we have been missing out on so much growth. Essentially, the “invite a collaborator” feature on Instagram allows users to co-post their content with another account. This results in the post being featured on both accounts, thus more opportunity for growth. Many popular restaurants have an immense follower base. Tapping into this feature sooner would have likely led to more attention to our account.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

My partner and I met Freshman year of college. During my Freshman year there were a ton of safety protocols due to COVID-19. This made meeting people and making friends extremely difficult. One day I was at the water fountain in my dorm and he asked if I wanted to go to Applebee’s that night with he and his roommate. We are now best friends and roommates in New York City.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: SpimmyMucks