Momentum is a Wonderful Thing
It’s been 2 months since I signed the lease and the store is still sitting empty and idle with no electricity. I’ve now made 6 trips to City Hall on behalf of my company in order to get a Certificate of Occupancy, which is required to turn the electricity on for my unit.
While this has been a frustrating experience, I have approached it with a sense of acceptance. The city code actually prohibits me from being able to operate in that building due to the lack of parking and my inability to reach a parking agreement with a neighboring business. Nonetheless, the city planner I spoke with approved my application and moved it to the next phase of the process. This is so much better than an outright denial of the application right now that I am grateful.
In the meantime, the business continues to grow and continues to test my work ethic and capacity. I am stretched pretty thin and exhausted pretty often. I’m spending more and more time on the road and it is sometimes a struggle to keep up with all the pick ups and deliveries.
In March, April, and May, I broke $5k, $6k, and $7k respectively in net sales. With this growth, the necessity for a storefront has become increasingly urgent. A storefront increases my capacity from $8k a month to more than $20k a month. Thus, when I analyze this 2 month delay, I consider it still worth the price. I’m lucky to have found a store on a very busy street heading straight into the heart of downtown Dallas. I’m lucky for it to be within my budget. I’m lucky that the landlord was kind enough to agree to let me sign the lease despite my awful financial situation.
If this thing falls through, it sets me back several months while I rebound and begin looking for a new place. I’m lucky that it hasn’t fallen through yet.
The growth of my business has given me the confidence to be patient with the City of Dallas as they work through my difficult parking situation. I don’t blame them. The city code is part of the reason this city is such a great place to live and I understand the need to adhere to it as much as possible. And so far it seems that they are willing to make exceptions rather than put businesses out on the street.
The growth of my business has also exposed many of the flaws in my process. The main one being that I still don’t have physical tickets on the orders. I need a receipt / ticket printer. I will have one by the end of June.
The best part of all this is I’m learning how to roll with the punches. Not sure if I could have done it without the momentum of the last 3 months. This train is barreling down the tracks picking up steam.
This story is part of a series documenting the journey of a Dallas startup called Feather Laundry. For your reference here is the Table of Contents for the series.
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