Going Up Against Goliaths
An intimate perspective from the front lines of small business
The last Saturday in November never used to hold any real significance to me as a young adult in the working world. Sandwiched between the dragon’s den that is Black Friday and its Cyber Monday hatchling, this particular weekend always served as an extension period for Thanksgiving sales (but more truthfully: as extra time for retail employees to clean up the massive mess that stampeding customers have heartlessly left behind).
In recent years, however, I’ve come to realize that the last Saturday in November symbolizes much more than that. This Saturday is a call to arms, a collective rejuvenation amongst weathered and scattered underdogs. It’s the haymaker, the big gamble in which a botched effort to steal the game ball can result in a dust-filled stumble to the cold hard ground.
It’s the Independence Day of small businesses.
I’ve always been on the other side of this fight, but I never apprehended that it was a battle to begin with. From the very day I started with the first company I ever worked for, my own concept of commerce and consumerism would evolve beyond the Theory of Econ lectures I took notes on as a student into something much less textbook.
Target, a profile mugshot of big retail if there ever was one, sucked me in like a tiny fish—swimming naively alongside my schoolmates—straight into the habitable mouth of a giant whale. There would be uniforms and name tags and walkie-talkies and scheduled breaks. I remember shelving endless pairs of shoes and folding the same shirt over and over again, scanning barcodes and redirecting customers in between. Long shifts at minimum wage was the nom du jeu.
The goal for the end of each day?
Leave everything as though they were untouched, perfectly positioned and tidy as a lawn.
Every once in awhile over the course of that year, management offers would glide in like paper airplanes folded from time sheets. I’d deflect them under the notion that my next position should and must cater to my evolving interests (which undoubtedly correlated with university life). And so I jumped ship and swam from the bullseye in the sky to the everyman’s purveyor of Oxford shirts: The Gap.
After all, my newfound taste in men’s fashion had been established and groomed under the affordable thread of Target’s needle, so why not culminate at the very school of all-American style itself? Boy was I in for a surprise: name tags, headsets, endless folding, scheduled breaks. Long shifts at slightly more than minimum wage was the nom du jeu. At least uniforms were a thing of the past and the team discount almost justified the toll this paycheck would take on my studies.
Fast forward one-year-and-an-English-degree later. With two retail gigs and zero internships under my belt, I hadn’t exactly primed myself for success as I graduated headfirst into our nation’s most notable recession since “The Great One.” I told myself that I was done with retail, that my first job out of the proverbial gates no longer coexisted with midterms and finals. Essentially I desired something more fulfilling than stock numbers and gift receipts.
Luckily for me, that role would present itself in the form of a small business opportunity.
Private tutoring, to be exact. No laser scanners here; just good old fashioned person-to-person interaction, free from the tendencies of hyper-consumerism and globalization. For several satisfying years I’d live and love the epitome of paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle, traveling to and from different subregions of Los Angeles while helping young minds achieve academic improvement.
There were no machines or websites to clock my hours (I’d log them myself and email them in), no zoning deadlines, no union. My checks would arrive in the mail and I’d have to physically bring them to the bank for deposits. It was fresh and exciting because of how different the process was compared to The Gap and Target before it.
This was new to me. I didn’t miss the War of the Corporations one bit.
In 2011, I decided that the affect I had on the people I’ve been helping needed to scale. Tutoring was certainly fulfilling, but something inside of me yearned for a new challenge that could touch more lives and create a bigger ripple. A number of documentary and video game internships later, sprinkled with a few contract jobs for good measure, I found myself at a tech startup in Santa Monica that—during America’s post-recession rebuilding phase—offered a web solution to recruiters and job seekers alike.
For me, ZipRecruiter represents the ideal modern-day small business. It’s 100% bootstrapped, carefully handcrafted by people who care about what they do and what they’re offering, not to mention a product that lives and breathes completely online. Which isn’t to say that the company itself is entirely digital.
A steadily growing team of experts operates out of a recently renovated, green-walled space just 2 short blocks from Santa Monica Beach and an elevator ride away from the tourist haven that is Third Street Promenade. When I was with the startup, I was one of ten people crammed into a much smaller office than ZipRecruiter’s current iteration; we chose our own hours and had plenty of fun while we worked.
So while the company is now multiple times its original size and the office kitchen stocked to accommodate, the core ideology of ZipRecruiter remains decidedly small business:
• inhabit a niche category that snugly occupies the thin space between head-butting giants
• innovate within that niche
• keep the customers happier than they ever could have been with one of the big guys
This is the recurring dogma that has kept small business alive for centuries predating the Small Business Saturday of three Novembers prior. But where does brick and mortar fit into today’s equation? With as much commerce taking place online as it does in stores—and for many businesses, 100% the former—do the bullet points of small business remain unchanged?
My current role at Gallery Nucleus, a popular art & event space/boutique bookshop in the San Gabriel Valley, has given me keen insight into the answer. One month in and I’m already exposed to the unique small business situation that this gallery finds itself courting like a suitor does its decade-long crush. It’s found its niche, and for nearly ten years next October the brand has fought tooth and nail to defend its territory.
Nucleus scores on every single small business bullet point, but not without taking on enemy fire of its own. While the gallery has successfully positioned itself within a niche category that spans multiple industries and their associated fanbases (from film to gaming and most everything in between), other galleries have popped up on the radar pushing similar product and event prospects.
Unique and exciting events were and still are a strongpoint of Nucleus’ appeal, but infringing competition has forced the brand to be even more creative and innovate with a fresh spin on its tried-and-true formula. Popular artists, exclusive prints, limited edition books and a seemingly never-ending calendar of events that keep customers happy and visitors visiting are all essential elements; it’s a delicate balance.
Too much or too few of any single component can throw the whole small business equilibrium out of whack and bring the entire thing crashing down like an off-kilter Jenga tower.
I’m not just talking Nucleus now, or ZipRecruiter for that matter, but all business in general—the small variety of which is exceptionally susceptible to the riptide.
So what have I learned from wading waist-deep within the microcosm of small business?
Simply this:
Every action counts, every dollar crucial to the lucky success of the few.
I’ve grasped that making a sale inside the shop on a Sunday is twentyfold more significant—and ultimately hundredfold more gratifying—than any sale I ever made as a big retail corporate cog. I’ve discovered that small business is energizing, inspiring and genuinely terrifying. I’ve realized that our golden hour isn’t just one Saturday in November. It’s all or nothing, all the time.
