We recently connected with Laina McWhorter and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Laina , thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

Opening a brick and mortar is risky business anytime, but it’s especially scary during times like these.

After operating as a vintage pop up shop for the past three years in the metro Phoenix area, we decided to make the jump to opening a brick and mortar shop on Mill Avenue in downtown Tempe, Arizona.

Going from a pop up shop to a brick and mortar requires a substantially greater financial investment, primarily because of the operating costs

You must pay rent or a commercial mortgage, utilities, insurance, legal fees, the proper business licenses and so much more.

Sure you will make more sales, but there will also be more bills and the chance that you do not make enough money in sales to cover them.

We borrowed money from our investments and savings…basically, our future selves to make our dream of opening a brick and mortar happen. We bootstrapped it because we didn’t want to start out in debt.

It’s hard enough to earn an income when you’re a small business owner. We didn’t want to prolong the chance of making an actual living for the work we do.

This was also a way of protecting ourselves should our venture not turn out to be the success we expect it will be.

By funding it ourselves, we are only on the hook to ourselves should things not go the way we want.

We knew our shop had to be in certain, high foot traffic areas in order to make our business work as a brick and mortar but we felt this was near impossible for a small business like us.

We called real estate agents representing commercial properties in areas like Roosevelt Row in downtown Phoenix and were basically told “we couldn’t afford it”… they wouldn’t even give us the time of day because of our small budget.

In order to afford the high price of running a small business nowadays, we had to think out of the box.

We found a non-traditional solution to make our dream of opening a brick and mortar happen.

Renting a shared space will have it’s challenges, no doubt, but at least we can afford to give our business a chance to thrive as a brick and mortar.

In addition to our vintage shop up front, the building has four other entrepreneurs operating out of it.

By splitting rent and utilities in a space that is shared by others, we hope to thrive as a brick and mortar it in a world that caters to deep pockets.

We wish we could tell you everything worked out in the end but that is TBD.

Follow us on Instagram @subjectivevintagetempe to find out!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My wife/business partner and I met in 2009. Sparks flew instantly. We fell madly in love and got married… twice.

We’re huge nerds with an untamable passion for history, travel, music, pop culture, art and film.

We adore kitsch, nostalgia and anything strange, unusual or weird.

Those passions soon began to turn into a small collection of collect cool, unusual, old things.

That small collection grew over the next decade.

Soon the collection itself became too big to contain… Subjective Vintage was born!

We LOVE what we do. We stick to what we know, which are the items we grew up with! That is why we focus on art, music, toys, clothing, accessories, decor, comics, ephemera, and weird stuff from the 1960’s-1990’s.

“We sell things that may, or may not, give you that warm, fuzzy feeling.”

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

We have been doing pop up shops for three years in order to get our name and product in front of people. We are reliable and consistent when it comes to the products we sell.

We hustle 110% no matter how big or small the market and are very supportive of other small businesses in their endeavors as well.

It’s important to get involved in your community and get to know both the customers and other small business owners in the area in order to be successful.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Social media and having an online presence is a must but it is easy to get buried on the internet if you do not have a substantial marketing budget for advertising and search engine optimization.

The best source of new clients for us has been participating in local events and markets such as First Fridays on Roosevelt Row, Phoestivus, Thieves Market, 7th Avenue Street Fair, etc.

By getting more physically involved with our community, we are able to get our business and product in front of new clients on a consistent basis.

Do we still have to have an online presence? Of course. But nothing beats face to face interactions with your customers to give them a true sense of what your business has to offer.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.SubjectiveVintage.com
• Instagram: www.Instagram.com/subjectivevintagetempe
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/SubjectiveVintage

Image Credits
All image Credits: Laina McWhorter