120 Days of Retail: Day 27 - Starting a Shopping Site for Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

This is part 27 of a 120 day series on validating our product ListIt, a digital storefront for independent retailers to sell their inventory online for free. You can see the whole series here.

A snapshot of the Verrazano Bridge in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Credit matthew st. amand via Unsplash

I know I'm supposed to sit down and write something profound every time I create a blog post. But today I expended all of my energy coding a new blog feature on the ListIt website which is what you're reading this from now. My intention with the blog for ListIt was to have some similar styling as Substack so any consistent readers (which I doubt there are any really) can comfortably follow along.

Anyway I know I said I'd be debuting the UI prototypes for ListIt today but I simply haven't the energy. So instead I'm going to talk about my strategy for launching ListIt hyperlocal to my adopted neighborhood of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

I may just be getting old, but I've been thinking a lot since moving here how idyllic of a neighborhood this is and how much I enjoy it over supposedly hipper other parts of North Brooklyn where I used to live. And from the perspective of starting a company catering to independent local retailers it's hard to imagine many better places in the country to do so. Let me explain.

Bay Ridge is a small neighborhood at the southern terminus of Brooklyn. In other words, the last stop before you cross the Verrazanno Bridge to Staten Island. It's about 30 blocks North-South and 10 blocks East-West. Unlike other parts of New York, Bay Ridge is a neighboorhood that's a bit more representative of America.

Close to half of all households have children. There are schools, parks, shopping. It's an extremely diverse place with plenty of immigrants, but middle class and old money too. According to the Bay Ridge Business Improvement District, there are over 300 local independent businesses in the neighborhood. There are about 90,000 people living in this little neighborhood which makes it a bit bigger than the East Village and a bit smaller than Bushwick.

It's good to start a business or app or website in a place that's representative of America because it means the dynamics and challenges you'll face are more similar to those the rest of the country faces. I'm not sure how many startups started and died in-utero in San Francisco because that's such a unique ecosystem, but it's less likely in a place like this.

Anywho, I hope to have some UI designs to share with you tomorrow. Until then, thanks for reading!

ListIt is a free app that allows retailers to sell to local shoppers as easily as posting to Instagram. Like it? Dislike it? Simply have questions? Reach out to me directly at james@listit.one and be sure to check out our website for updates and the beta product sign-up- coming this weekend!