WTF Is A Micro-Expert?
I don't talk about my day job here too much. I do commercial retail real estate deals, mainly for small businesses and smaller neighborhood shopping centers.
I get a lot of calls from new businesses. In dense urban areas, the one thing that I'm seeing is very small, focused, successful instagram/ social-media-based businesses.
It's someone who collects art who has another primary job. A person who has become an expert in vintage furniture from a certain era, whether it's Art Deco or whatever. Vintage magazine dealer. Pottery of a specific kind. A very particular vintage clothing shop—not a Goodwill, but someone who knows everything about sourcing a type of thing. Taco shops doing one kind of taco. Coffee shops specializing in one sort of twee something-or-other, not just--you know, coffee.
In a world of Amazon, and in a world of subscriptions, these kinds of things are what will always fall through the cracks.
These micro-experts are everywhere.
(I visit vintage shops all the time. My own thrift specialty is vintage Oxfords. I like to wear them in the summer because it's super hot down here in Austin, Texas, but a certain kind of cotton, to me, is the coolest thing you can wear. Yes, cool as in Fonzie, but also temperature-wise. Plus a lot of people have weird taste--they always get rid of the good ones. )
Anyhoo, The problem is today's retail spaces don't really fit this, which is fine. They will, at least in the small neighborhoods. Because if you're in an urban environment, you really can't go bigger, but you can sure go smaller. And the smaller the space, the more affordable it is. You only need so much. After a certain point, more space doesn't equal more income for the proprietor.
In the/ my music world, I could endlessly purchase good, cheap Mexican Fender instruments off Marketplace and Craigslist, do a few small things to make them as playable as a Custom Shop instrument, and maybe only spend an extra $100 and about two hours of bench time. After about the twentieth instrument, I'd be an expert. Or expert enough so the excuses kind of fall away. And I'd have my working 'yes' or 'no' after about twenty.
One of the (*many) things I'm thinking about doing is exactly this. And in order to test the hypothesis, as they say, I need to start buying/ selling not worrying so much about making a big profit. Realizing that what I'm really getting is the experience. And knowing that if I had a small space, I could have a little shop and get these things into people's hands.
You can buy a from-the-factory Fender on Reverb or eBay or Amazon. It will most likely play like sh*t and feel terrible. But a reconditioned one that's been worked and is ready to play and ready to gig? That's different. Not everyone gets it, but more than enough would.
It's the way the retail world is going. Everybody these days has something to sell, has a side hustle. People out there are focus on a need, no matter how small, and then have that exposure vision.
A store near a post office is a global retailer.
If you work Instagram/ the socials hard enough, if you work your own personal blog hard enough, people will see you.
Then it's all just some patience and time on the clock.