Gotham Gal

Sara Blakely, Spanx, Woman Entrepreneur

I have wanted to meet Sara Blakely, the entrepreneur behind Spanx, for a long time and a few weeks ago we sat down to have coffee.  Spanx is a game changer for women everywhere.  The idea, the branding, the whole shebang is brilliant and who knew what a void it filled.  Sara is an incredible entrepreneur who not only came out with a article of clothing that ends up we all need but she worked her tush off (no pun intended) to build her company and her brand. 

Sara grew up in Clearwater Florida.  Her mom is an artist with a bend towards water colors.  Her father is a ferocious litigator.  Her parents are divorced.  After graduating high school Sara went on to attend the University of Florida.  First semester of her sophomore year Sara went to school in  London. The London experience was pretty amazing.  Two of Saras closest friends today were two women she roomed with there.  One went to school at Davidson and the other from Gaucher.  After two years at University of Florida she transferred to Florida State...for a boy. 

Sara tried to get her father to believe she was transferring because of the debate team but both her parents knew exactly why she transferred.  She was on the debate team in high school and college. Sara had her eyes set on becoming a lawyer.  She would go to watch her father countless times growing up doing his closing arguments in court.  Legal communications was her major.  She took the LSATs twice and bombed.  Sara says she is a terrible test taker. 

Now she had to think about plan B.  She got in her car, drove to Disneyworld and tried out for the part of Goofy.  She is 5'7" but you have to be 5'8" to get the role so instead they offered Sara the job of a Chipmunk.  Disney has a rule that if you already had a job there when you try out for another role you have to stay in the first job for a least three months before transferring.  Sara was already working as a ride attendant at the World of Motions and Horizon ride.  That particular ride was all about the future.  She went back last summer to find the ride but the ride had closed.  The job was humbling seeing people you knew in line wonder what you are doing as the ride attendant. 

She never made it to the Chipmunk job because she left to take a job selling fax machines door-to-door.  She thinks she got the job because she had a pulse.  They gave her a cubicle and a phone book and four zip codes to work with.  She cold called for seven years.  She got a business card ripped in her face at least once a week.  She would go to sales meetings and see people start to cry because they couldn't make their quota.  Truth is that this job laid the groundwork for Spanx. 

She had to wear pantyhose at work even under pants.  She hated the look with an open-toe shoe so she cut off the foot of the hose.  Sara realized how much better her butt looked when she wore the hose under her pants but wanted to get rid of the foot.  They would roll up and she figured there must be a better way.  She did some research that nobody made something like this so she took the $5K she had in her savings account and funded the prototype herself.  She did not even know she could get funding for an idea.

The process took two years which she did while she worked selling fax machines.  The first year she spent calling mills and begging them to make it.  It took an entire year for a mill to say yes.  She created the packaging on her friends computer.  She wanted the packaging to be red with a cartoon character on the front.  She knew if she got a chance to be on the shelf that this would make her product stand out.  The package was her marketing.  The name Spanx came to her one day when she was sitting in traffic.  She wrote her own patent because she did not have money for a lawyer so she bought a book in Barnes and Noble to teach her how to do it.  Then she went out on the road to start selling.

First she went to Neiman Marcus in Florida to try and sell the product.  They told her that she had to call on the buying office in Dallas.  She did not even know there was a buying office.  This is a woman who sold fax machines for seven years so she picked up the phone and got the buyer in Dallas on the phone.  She said if you come to Dallas I will give you 10 minutes.  Sara got to Dallas and had a meeting with the buyer.  After about 2 minutes in she could tell she was losing her so she asked if she would mind going to the bathroom with her to show her something.  She told her to look at her tush in the white pants she was wearing.  Then she went in the stall and put the prototype underneath her pants and came out of the stall and said now look at my tush.  The buyer saw it and got it.  Sara got her first order for seven stores in Neiman Marcus and then several stores followed.

Then the real work began.  Sara knew her product did not belong in the hoisery department but on the register in the ready to wear departments where the transaction was taking place.  So for the next two years she went on the road and stood in department stores with a table from 830-6 showing the saleswomen a photo of her butt without spanx and with spanx.  She'd go to the early store rallies to talk to the salespeople and show them a video of the product.  Soon she had built an entire sales force that she did not have to pay for.  She had won all those salespeople over because they all knew that they could sell clothes much easier with a pair of Spanx. Sara never spent a dime on formally advertising, she spoke directly to the salespeople who spoke directly to her consumer. 

For the first 18 months she shipped the products from her apartment.  One day she went for a walk with a neighbor to a bagel who was espousing the virtues of Spanx.  Sara asked her if she wanted to be her PR person and she said yes.  Then she hired an assistant to help with all her logistics such as traveling.  Two weeks in she asked her if she wanted to be in product since she had been in interior design.  She said yes too.  Both of these women have been with her 13 years. 

Sara says what you don't know if probably your best asset.  Initially she really did not know how to build a company but she did it the way she wanted to.  Once the product began to take off she quit her job at the fax machine company and grew Spanx full time.  Spanx was named product of the year in 2000 by Oprah.  Needless to say the product is sold in areas where there are shoes the clothes.  She built this company from the ground up including the shipping, marketing, advertising, PR and marketing. 

Spanx is headquartered in Atlanta.  Sara hired a CEO that allows Sara to be Chairperson and the face of the product.  She believes that you hire your weakness first.  She does tons of interviews yet they still do not advertise.  What she has built is inspiring and what is more inspiring is how she went about it.  She did not take no for an answer and had a clear vision of the product she wanted to build.  What I love about Sara is she is a totally down to earth go get 'em girl for a self-made billionaire.  Oh and her CEO who has been with her the last 11 years, she met her in the hosiery department. 

Food businesses

I see a variety of consumer food businesses.  They are such hard businesses to build but I am always taken with the entrepreneurs and the passion for their products. 

I recently met with the two co-founders of A&B pepper sauce.  They have made some inroads selling  their product and are adding a second sauce soon.  I admit that many of the products I see and taste are good not great.  I understand the void if they are making an interesting drink or something glutten free but remember this is about the product first business second. 

I love the A&B Pepper Sauce.  Am honestly eating it with everything.  It isn't too spicy but just has the perfect amount of bite.  The sauce enhances what you are eating and doesn't take it over.  I am finding myself putting the sauce out for dinner just as I put out salt and pepper. The ingredients are simple too
White Vinegar, Red Chili Pepper, Carrot, Habanero Pepper, Salt.  No sugar which is a big selling point for them.

I am not an investor but I am impressed with the taste profile they have built.  Looking forward to tasting the next product they add to the line.

 

 

Question of the week #30

It is not easy to let go when you start a company.  Eventually you are going to have to hire people in order to grow.  There is no physical way that you can do everything.  I met with a woman the other day who is having a very difficult time giving up that control.  She needs to hire a sales person desperately but the first thing she needs to come to terms with is that person will not be her.  Everyone does things a bit differently and if they don't use their own words and their own methods then they won't come across as real. 

She asked me this question:  How did you learn to let go and then manage?

This is a great question because many people have a hard time with it.  Instead of becoming good managers, role models and mentors they come micro-managers.  That is not good for anyone and that type of behavior creates a bad vibe that seeps in to the organization.

My first big job managing people was in the cosmetics department in Kings Plaza Brooklyn.  I was responsible for about 150 people.  That included each of the heads of each cosmetic line; Clinique, Estee Lauder, Lancome, Chanel etc and then the people that worked under them.  There was a day time staff and a night time staff. 

Maybe it was my training from running the sports teams at the Montgomery County Recreation Department or being a camp counselor but the first thing I did was sit down with head of each line and find a connection.  I went through their books to make sure that their inventory was current.  In cosmetics there is a rep that comes out to each department to work with their teams and fills orders.  I met with them too and made each of them take back all the old inventory and items that were not turning.  That helped our inventory turn quicker and put cash into inventory that was not going to sit dormant.  Then I helped each of them clean up their drawers and the cases to present a better face to the customers.

I made sure I met and spoke with each of the people that worked under each brand.  Mostly younger women worked at night that were in college or high school so I became a role model to them although I wasn't that much older.  I was 22. 

There was no way in hell I could do what 150 women were doing at the same time so I figured out how to manage from top down.  I let each manager of each brand plan their coverage.  It was up to them to make sure the schedule was done by a certain time every week so everyone knew the hours they were going to work.  The hours were ramped up when there was an event such as product having a special sale or a new product being launched.  It made them each responsible for their own departments.

Once someone who ran one of the brands took the first two days of their event off because her husband had some event he had to go to and she tagged along.  I had no idea she had done that because I trusted her to run her department.  I gave her that responsibility but responsibility can easily be pulled back.  When she returned we had a conversation and I never trusted her again.  I made her show me her schedule each week and I looked over it with a fine tooth comb.  I looked at everything twice when she asked me to sign something.  I went into her books at least once a week to make sure she was doing the right thing.  I made sure I would meet with her rep when she came into the store to insure that she was keeping her inventories clean. She had betrayed my trust and there are repercussions from that. 

I did not do that with anyone else because I worked with each of them individually to set up the expectations that I had and we built a mutual trust.  Those expectations ended up pullting more money in all of their pockets because I showed them how to run a clean business.  I still think about that experience.  It was certainly unique for my age considering my own personal experience was limited but I grabbed the opportunity by the horns.  For years i'd go back and see each of those women when I'd tour the stores and spend time with them.  They taught me a lot and I taught them a lot in return.  That is what makes for a great management situation. 

 

Chelsea Market

Chelsea Market has evolved into a pretty remarkable place.  The Nut Box just opened a huge retail space right next door to Num Pang Sandwich Shop.  This is Num Pangs second shop.  Both great additions.  But the absolute best addition is the reopening of the Lobster Place.  

The two guys behind the Lobster Place have done an incredible job.  Super smart well thought out flow.  If you want to know how to build a market where people can also sit down and enjoy the wares this is it.  Very European. I also love the black chalkboard feel with white print.

In the back right corner is the Shack to take out.

The sushi area.  You can sit at the bar, take it to go or just watch.  Around the parameter of the area are Japanese products to buy.

People love to eat lobsters here.  This is great.  All different sizes of steamed lobsters. 

Next to the lobsters is a standing area to dig in and eat your lobster.

Oysters?  You name if they have it.  Sit down and enjoy. 

There are other random areas to sit.  Products are sprinkled around each location too.  Here is one of the cases filled with herring.  They also sell really fresh beautiful raw fish to take home and cook for dinner.

Next door they have built a restaurant called Cull & PIstol, an oyster bar.  I had lunch there. Terrible picture but the vibe in there is warm and inviting.  A cool fish shack.

Really good oysters.

My friend had a lobster roll with old bay fries. 

I went for the whole fish. 

For dessert they serve a little scoop of gelato as part of your meal.  This was creamsickle. I brought Fred back to take a look en route to dinner that night.  Looking forward to returning for dinner very soon. 

 

More thoughts on motherhood

Last week Josh went up to visit his sisters for spring fling.  He left on Wednesday night.  Thursday morning I got up at my usual time, 7am and began the day.  I work out Thursday mornings so I got into my workout attire, came downstairs, walked the dog, posted a blog, sat down for breakfast, coffee and the daily read of the NYTimes but something was different. 

It is not as if Josh comes down and has a leisurely breakfast with me but it was that he was not there.  He did not come down to say good morning, take a look at the paper, grab a cup of coffee and have a quick convo about the day ahead.  Instead Fred came down and we had a brief convo about the day and off he went and there I sat.  The silence was deafening. 

I have been thinking about that moment since it happened.  Over the past six years I have slowly rebuilt a new career for myself.  The first angel investment I did closed in June 2007 with Curbed Media.  I made a conscious decision to start down a new path for several reasons.  I looked at where our kids were in their lives and realized that in seven years we would be empty nesters.  The amount of time that I devoted to them from running errands to making dinner took up significant hours.  Those hours were slowly going to be diminished to a very small percentage of my day over the next seven years.  I wanted to start filling that time so when seven years were up I would have my days filled with other things that I enjoy.  I do enjoy building businesses and so the path I chose made perfect sense. 

So what have I been thinking about is that the path I took was to make sure I had balance in my life between fulfilling my own intellectual curiosity yet being available whenever for our kids and family.  It has worked beautifully.  Yet the other morning I thought now I can do whatever I want.  I do not have any intention of stopping what I do from angel investing to the Womens Entrepreneur Festival to blogging but I do not really have to find balance anymore.  I can be completely unbalanced.  Certainly I am lucky to be in that position but last Thursday morning it was a strange realization.  I thought I could just blow off that meeting and go to the art show.  I could just sit on a couch and read a book.  I could jump on a plane and go to Europe for a few days.  I could, I could, I could.  I was letting myself dream big. 

I might have prepared for the year when Josh becomes the last kid to leave the nest (he has one more year left at home) but I am not sure anything prepared me for the thoughts that seemed to ramble around my head.  The good news is that I have not lost that sense of self that I felt seven years ago that I got back six years ago.  Being a mother is one of the most rewarding incredible experiences. Women that are beginning to sit on publicly traded boards or women who are starting their companies or women that are CEOs of major companies or women who change the world through non-profits or women who get involved with their kids schools is personally rewarding yet the part about being a mother is still prominent in our lives no matter what. The feeling of our children leaving the nest and our job being shifted when that person is no longer under your roof is something that hits home for all of us in different ways.  It is beginning to hit me and I am thrilled that we raised our kids with wings to soar from our nest but it is still a very very very strange feeling. 

Freize and Pulse

This past week was all about the art shows.  We went out to the Freize on Saturday and the Pulse on Sunday decided to bag NADA.  The art world has made a few changes over the past decade.  The first is that the art shows are one of the main sources of income for galleries.  Those shows let the consumer see a lot of art in one setting and the gallery owners get to touch a lot of art lovers in a few days. 

There are pros and cons to the whole system.  It is expensive to take out a booth at these fairs.  You also have to have a gallery to have a booth which means that the game has just changed.  You are paying rent for your gallery and a very high price for the rent of the booth.  There are certainly a bunch of websites that are trying to bring the purchasing of art online but I still believe that when someone wants to buy an expensive piece they want to see it in person and build a relationship with the gallery.  You want to make sure the gallery is going to support and nurture that artists career. Yet I do love that the sites that are more accessible in terms of price point making the point that everyone can own art which is a good thing. 

I liked the Frieze more last year.  Who knows why. I will say that the food vendors were incredible.  Robertas, Frankies, Sant Ambreous, Fat Radish and more.  Maybe I wasn't in the mood but I found the works just not as interesting as years past or maybe just not as accessible.  The Pulse I found easier to take in. 

Here are my highlights from the Freize.  Tom Friedman had made these large sculptures that made me laugh.  A pizza.


White Bread.

Running shoes.

Rebecca Morris at Harris Lieberman.

Damien Hirst.

Barbara Kruger.

Do Ho Suh

Streams of black and white ribbon formed into a scultpure and then set inside a glass box.  Janaina Tschape

Pillow Talk by Jonathan Horowitz.  54 pieces of display but the piece is actually 96 pieces. Each piece had the opposite on one side.  Very clever. 

Nickel plated nylon sculpture Antony Gormley

Eroded Payphones, Daniel Arsham

Not sure who this artist was but this sculpture was awesome at the Gagosian Gallery.

The highlights from the Pulse below.

Grocery ladies, Will Kurtz, Mike Weiss Gallery

San Marco People, Jan De Vleigher

Hawaiian Surfer, Nick Carter.

Department Store, Gordon Parks.  LOVE this.

Deep Area Christine Flynn.

We came, we left and we bought nothing.  Will see what sticks in my head over the next few weeks. 

 

Sarah Tay, Tay Clean and Pure Skincare, Woman Entrepreneur

I knew of Tay Skincare before I got the chance to meet the entrepreneur behind the products.  I was speaking with Gloss 48, 3 women entrepreneurs up in the Boston area about their new site.  A site the carries unique independent skin/cosmetic products.  They sent me a gift of Tay products to thank me for talking with them.  When Sarah approached me at the Womens Entrepreneur Festival I knew exactly who she was.  I liked what she had built and when she later reached out to me through email I was happy to get together and talk. 

Sarah grew up in CA, in the valley.  Her mother was an accountant for the postal office and her father also worked for the postal service on the processing side.  Both of Sarahs parents were born in Taiwan so Sarah is the first generation being raised in the US.  She was born in Bangkok although ethically she is Chinese.  Her fathers family are entrepreneurs in the snack food industry and her father had zero interest in the business.  He got into UClA and realized that there was a way out.  Sarah said as a kid they traveled summers in Asia, Europe and Australia.  She also grew up with an organic garden in her back yard so a lot of their travel included camping.

After graduating high school Sarah did not go that far but down the freeway to UCLA.  While she was at UCLA she would come out to NYC at least once a year to see friends and fell in love with the city.  When she was at UCLA she knew that she also wanted to go to art school.  She spent two years building her portfolio and then applied to Pratt where she got into their graduate school design program.  That was her first foray into living in NYC. 

Sarah interned for Abon the entire time she was at Pratt.  That internship is how she landed in the beauty industry.  She did not even know what Avon was when she was growing up.  She had never heard of it.  While she was there she worked in graphic design doing layouts and catalogs for them and through that began to understand the business.  It was 2002.

Sarah graduated and landed a job at L'Oreal as an art director.  She worked on in store packaging.  She loved it.  One day she stood up and looked around the office from her cubicle and saw a woman sitting over the way who was 47 and a guy standing next to her talking who was 50 and she thought I do not want to stay here and become them.  It was a wake-up call.  She was 26.  She took a step back and began to think about doing something new.

She was offered a job at OmniCom in their creative agency.  She began to work with large clients and it was there where she learned to run a business.  She was responsible for her own profit and loss statement which included staffing and profitability.  Although it was a challenging job she felt that she was still looking for something else. 

Sarah got recruited to CVS to work in their retail marketing department.  She worked on the creative side doing ad campaigns, broadcast and instore radio ads.  They had brought in a woman from Target who began to transform the stores.  BTW, if you have not been into the new CVS stores they are brilliantly designed.  The woman they brought in did an amazing job.  Regardless of that success a year into the job the company layed off a bunch of employees and Sarah was part of that.

The day she was laid off she had got a call from Cover Girl.  She did not know that she was laid off yet but that call made her think did she really want to be drawn back into the corporate world.  The answer was no.  She turned down the job and then found out about being laid off.  The answer no with now no job propostions she was empowering so she decided she was going to do something on her own.  Skincare sopke the loudest to her. She has saved some money so why not.  Tay Skincare was born.

Sarah knew what she wanted in the ingredients.  At first she spend a lot of time on the packaging.  She did a lot of research and tested everything.  She worked with different woods and to see how water contacted with it.  She chose bamboo.  Then she began working on the product.  The whole process took about a year and a half. All and all she went through 80 rounds of testing. 

Sarah called in help from former L'Oreal employees who wanted to help her.  She outsourced contacts who understood social media.  She first sold to Bigelow, Birchbox, Fred Segal and Alchemist in Miami.  She also signed on with a few distribution sales people.  She has her own ecommerce site that is about to be launched. She has made progress but not enough which is why she came to talk to me. 

The products are great but what is more impressive is Sarah.  She is building a business the old fashioned way, with her own sweat and determination.  We talked at length about how to build her business without taking any money.  My advice was simple, dial for dollars to the right people.  Eventually you will get your foot in the door in the right location that will give you a big order and through that you can factor your business and build. 

I got a nice note from Sarah in the mail a few days later telling me that it was so good to hear someone tell her she was doing the right thing as she is a one person act and sometimes it is hard to know if you are going down the right path.  A little positive feedback can go a long way.  But the best part is she got a call the day after we spoke from Harrods who gave her a nice order so she is off to the races.  Congratulations Sarah!  I keep thinking about Sarah.  I love that she has built a business with no money but her own.  Perhaps at one point she will bring in some investors but she could also continue to finance her business through sales.  TIme will tell but I am sure she must feel pretty damn good. 

Moms are big influencers

Moms influence their daughters (and sons) at every level.  My Mom, Judy Solomon, had more than a handful of careers.  She started out as a teacher because for her generation being a teacher or a nurse were top on the list in regards to a career path.  After having me, her first child, she stayed home to be a Mom.  I am pretty sure she never embraced being home with the kids.  She was always looking to do something else and the opportunities were not endless.  Once her kids were in school full time she began on an entrepreneurial path of starting a variety of businesses.  She had a head for business.  Growing up, her father owned a shoe store in Bakersfield.  After he died her brother took over the shop and within less than two years he had run it into the ground.  We used to say that if she took over the shoe store it would have become a chain. 

Her first venture was opening up a plant store in Georgetown called The Green Scene.  It was the early 70's.  Geraniums, macrame plant hangers and house plants were big.  She always had a nose for the future.  I am not so sure how the store did financially because her location should have been about three blocks south of where it stood. No doubt that was based on the fear of a rent too high to meet.  She grew the business from the back end working with home owners and businesses putting plants in their spaces.  For a variety of reasons particularly because her partner wanted out she had a couple of year run and then closed the store.

Her next business was working with a few crazy women starting a magazine geared towards teens.  Again she was on to something.  The articles were honest and dealt with the issues of the time.  If only the Internet was around she could have built a large content business. That was a short term business.

My parents got divorced and she knew that she needed to bring in a real income.  She took a class at night getting some type of masters.  After that she landed a job as the head of sales for a trade magazine.  She loved what she did and she was really good at it but hated the management.  She began to make a name for herself and was offered an opportunity to work with a company that was from Japan expanding their industry focused magazines into the US.  She was savvy.  She got a contract with them insuring her job for a full year with a golden parachute to kick in if they weren't able to get the company off the ground.  Smartest thing she ever did.  She quit where she had been working and two weeks into the new company they decided not to expand in to the US which left her with a nice chunk of change to figure out what she wanted to do next without the pressures of having to jump back into the game quickly.

She liked the industry that she was in and had plenty of contacts.  She decided to build a company that she called JSA (Judy Solomon Associates) where she would represent a variety of industry trade magazines selling their ads.  She built that into quite a business.  By the time she retired she was financially well off which is something that really drove her.  She wanted to live her life a particular way and she knew it was up to her to make that happen...and she did.

My Mom was multi-talented.  She was an artist (there was a point where she painted), a great cook, she loved to read and do the NY Times crossword puzzle daily and stay on top of politics.  She loved to work, be challenged and use her brain to think about voids in the marketplace.  She had many careers while keeping balance in her life and challenging her intellectually.  There is no question that I learned from that.  I could use a variety of words to describe her but I think she would have liked to be described as an entrepreneur. She probably did not think of herself as one but trust me, she was.

A day on Arthur Avenue

When the kids were young we used to go to the Bronx Zoo when the weather just started to get warm.  We also frequented the Botanical Gardens. Afterward we would go over to Arthur Avenue.  I have not been back in years so it was a real treat going back for a NY outing.

We started at Wave Hill.  What a magical place.  28 acres located in Riverdale sitting on the Hudson.  What is truly amazing is that without traffic you could be in midtown in 15 minutes.  The views are breathtaking.  The grounds are so clean that if you wanted to you could walk around barefoot.

This tree took me in.  As a kid I just loved climbing up as far as I could possibly go.

The flowers were in bloom everywhere. 

Great Performances has been the food vendor there for 20 years.  It would be fun to have Liz ( who is talking to the women in the truck ) to create a time line of all the different food served there over 20 years from lunch to weddings.  Had a killer lemonade to quench the thirst from the truck.

Our next stop was Arthur Avenue.  We began in the Arthur Avenue Retail Market.  Everyone appears to know each other there.  Peter's Meat Market is impressive.  Huge rolls of freshly made sausages.  Even across the way there was a huge vat of capers and sun dried tomatoes.

We strolled by Mikes Deli and although they had quite a list of sandwiches and an eggplant parm that looked pretty delicious we continued to walk over to Cafe Al Mercato for a slice of Sicilian pizza.  Roasted vegetable pizza.

The gourmet stores carry an endless supply of Italian products.  I picked up a few bags of dried pastas from companies that I have never seen or heard of before.  All of the shops carry a variety of treats too.  This was quite good and a perfect appetizer. 

We sat at the bar that sits in the middle of the market place and had a Bronx cider.  I am not sure I have really had a cider before.  Crispy bubbly alcoholic apple juice.

We wandered down the street to Cosenza's Fish Market.  Outside they have a stand for oysters and a stand for clams.  I had one oyster that was a serious treat.  Big briny and fresh.

Teitels is another market that carries fresh sausages, cheese and a variety of products.  This is the stand outside their shop.

Each place we went into carries salted anchovies.  Teitels had the biggest pile we saw.

Casa Della Mozzarella makes fresh mozzarella every day.  I also picked up this treat.

Continuing down the street to Tonys and Tinas pizza shop.  We wanted to get a burek at Giovannis but they only made them on the weekends.  Luckily Tony and Tinas had one.  The dough is more like a fillo dough stuffed with different things.  We had one with spinach.

Our last stop was on 187th street which is the other street with purveyors.  We had a lemon ice at Caffe Egidio that has been around since the 40's. 

I admit we got a little mixed up getting out of the Bronx but spent a fair amount of time driving down the Grand Concourse.  The streets are wide and some of the buildings are beautiful.  The Bronx has gone through many changes and you can not help but wonder what it was like there in the 40's. 

We had a really great day.  Getting out and exploring the different neighborhoods in and around NYC is a treat and a helluva lot easier than getting on a plane. 

Question of the week #29

I am definitely thinking about our future.  Soon we will be empty nesters and what will that mean.  Not only what will our life look like but what opportunities migtht I be tempted to go after. It is fitting that this is the question of the week.

Aside from investments, have you ever been tempted to start a company? In what industry? For what purpose?

I have been tempted to start a company many times.  I still have a passion for the brick and mortar space.  I have always wanted to open a place that is a life style store around food.  A place where people can pick up their goodies to make or buy something already made.  A place that serves three meals included snacks but is mellow and communal.  The restaurant that sits inside a deli/store that also sells art and trays. 

The reality is I know exactly the time and energy that I'd have to put into it.  It might happen it might not.  Never say never.  Right now I am working on the businesses that I have invested in and thinking about how we will have complete flexibility in our lives in another year or so and what will that mean. 

One step at a time.