#7 A pop-up is a lemonade stand for adults 

There’s a famous prototyping challenge in design thinking that’s called the Spaghetti Marshmallow Challenge. This challenge has been facilitated across the world with all types and all ages of people. (I participated in the challenge during our welcome week at the Foster School of Business, a common environment for such exercises.) The challenge gives small groups the opportunity to build together. And to fail together, because failure is a common outcome. But what’s important is learning how to work together as the team competes to build the tallest structure of dried spaghetti that can bear the weight of a marshmallow. 

Kids are really good at this exercise. In fact, they’re way better than a group of highly intelligent executives. A hypothesis for this is that kids don’t waste as much time as adults arguing over who’s going to be boss. They simply get to work, collaborating to build the best marshmallow tower. 

I think this is a useful observation when thinking about pop-ups. Pop-ups are prototypes of a mature business. They’re an experiment to rapidly test, fail, and learn. They’re a bit like lemonade stands, in which kids also excel because they don’t yet have adult egos or insecurities. They just get to work selling, and if they’re in a good location, they sell a lot. If you asked them what they learned at their lemonade stand, I’d bet you’d hear some great insights, too. 

It wasn’t until after we ran the Just Mystic pop-up in October 2021 that I had this insight about kids and lemonade stands. Luckily, while I can’t go back in time to give myself a kids-like mindset, I can take it with me to our next pop-up just before Christmas. More to come...

#8 Sales are a drug

If we define a drug as something that alters your physical or mental state, then sales are a drug. 

That may be insensitive or too click-baity, but there’s a very real analogy between (mildly addictive) drugs and sales. 

After you get your first sale, you want another. It feels good. It lifts your spirits. There’s a rush. That’s the dopamine. But it fades, and you fall from a crest to a trough, waiting for the next sale, the next rush of dopamine. 

Perhaps naively, I never anticipated this feeling. I’ve never been one to chase a sales role. The idea of closing a big deal is, admittedly, exciting, but retail sales as a rush? That’s surprising. I’d prefer to be living quietly in a mountain cabin in the North Cascades re-reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 

Alas, for now at least, I’m addicted to sales. 

#9 Mobile first, with 6:1 odds

Back when I worked for a giant apparel corporation, there was some debate within the digital product organization about whether to prioritize mobile or desktop development. We needed to be the best in both, but where should the energy, time, and resources be deployed most immediately? 

Not an easy question to answer in a massive bureaucracy. But very easy to answer in a hyper local startup.

Just Mystic is a mobile-first digital store because that’s where our customers are. We’re still early in the game, but roughly, the ratio of mobile to desktop customers is 6:1, depending on where we’re posting new content. I’ve learned that unless we’re marketing on LinkedIn, which we’re not, save a few posts about this blog, we’re optimizing for mobile. 

I’ve also learned that to walk the talk, when I’m in Shopify or any other app designing our store or content, I have to be more deliberate about switching to the mobile view. My natural tendency on a desktop is to design for a desktop. I have to unlearn this behavior, and when I do, the odds are in our favor. 

📸 : Caroline Hernandez