The Network Garden

Way before I focused on tech, and specifically prop tech, I began my career in Retail Property Management and Brokerage in 1988.

One of my first recollections was working with a tenant by the name of J. Higby’s, a franchisee of a long-since defunct frozen yogurt chain.

When I first met the store operators, we had just taken over management of what was then a shiny new shopping center in the San Francisco Peninsula.

The franchisee was a husband and wife, where the husband had been a popular physical education (PE) teacher at the nearby high school.

Needless to say, this was their first go around with retail.

When the store opened, it was the first wave of frozen yogurt shops, J. Higby’s was an up and coming franchise, and the couple had a built-in local draw of current & former students and teachers from the high school.

Plus, they were the only yogurt shop within a one mile radius.

They were crushing it.

Retail Seemed Easy

Flash forward, three years later, and the center had sold three times, each time for a materially higher purchase price, profoundly elevating property taxes, of which the yogurt shop had to pay their prorata of the increase, despite nothing materially changing at the property.

Also, there were now SEVEN other yogurt shops in the same radius, and 2-3 ice cream shops in the same range, not to mention, smoothie shops, all fighting for the same “frozen treat” dollar.

Oh, and the J. Higby’s chain was floundering, and would shortly go defunct, obviating whatever brand, marketing and/or product goodness there was to being a J. Higby’s franchisee.

Needless to say, higher rents, higher triple nets, cannibalization of the market, lost backstop of a failed brand…and no longer being the shiny new thing 2-3 year later, killed the business.

Of course, this was a few years before Amazon would drop a full-on tornado on brick-and-mortar retail, but over the past 30 years, the book on retail is disruption, reinvention and evolution.

I Love Retail

Despite the doomsayers, brick and mortar persists, and when done well and differentiated, thrives.

I love retail for that reason, a love only anchored further by the lessons of COVID.

But, I always keep the story of the J. Higby’s franchisee in mind.

It’s a vivid, relatable experience of how challenging retail can be, and a reminder to celebrate great operators who figure it out, over time and at scale.