Today we’d like to introduce you to Jim Jones
Hi Jim, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I am nearing retirement and my wife, Ana, and I were looking for business ideas for the next phase of our lives. I own a domain name called www.Freak.House and we started thinking of ways to develop Freak House into a business.
We eventually settled on offering a selection of fantasy and gothic themed merchandise such as giftware, jewelry, and fashion accessories. We tested the concept at the 2023 Miami Fair and we received a fantastic reception from everyone who visited our shop.
From the Miami Fair we moved into Redland Market for almost a year, continuing to refine the concept, learn the business, develop new supplier relationships, and grow our customer base. The customer response continued positive and encouraging. We learned that there just wasn’t anything else like our shop anywhere in the South Florida area,
Our customers started suggesting more brands and merchandise and we basically just followed their lead. They told us what they wanted and we did our best to give it to them. What a concept, right? Now we also offer a full range of Alternative, Gothic, and Post Punk style Apparel and Footwear from the best brands in the business.
We discovered along the way that the Alternative community in the Miami area is very underserved and we are very fortunate to be able to fill that need. We have received an outpouring of support that has far surpassed anything we ever hoped for.
Our customers recently voted us winners of the Miami New Times Reader’s Choice Award for Best Clothing Store in Miami. That was very humbling. Not just best “Alternative Clothing”, but “Best Clothing”. That’s how strong their support was. We believe that win was the community’s win even more than ours. They made their voice heard, and the whole city noticed.
All of this gave us the confidence to lease retail space in a prime shopping area on a major highway in southern Miami and the rest has been a wonderful ride. We could have never done this without the support of the Alternative Community around Miami and we are eternally grateful.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The biggest struggle has been funding and capital. We bootstrapped the whole operation out of personal funds and credit cards. I’m didn’t really account for all the costs associated with the lease, the build out, the sign, and all the other myriad of miscellaneous licenses and fees and other things that always seem to arise. Then of course we needed to expand our inventory position to fill the store.
I went through a period where I would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat wondering what in the world I had gotten us into. It has been a tough road and scary, but so-far we’re making it work.
Another challenge has been that some of the brands we wanted to represent were reluctant to take a chance on our small startup, especially considering we were essentially operating as a pop-up. That’s a tough objection to overcome, but it helped that we did have a decent ecommerce business already established with our other operation at www.MiamiHatShop.com.
Eventually we were able to persuade them that we would treat their brands respectfully and provide the support they and the customers needed for us to be successful together. It helped that I can make a very persistent nuisance out of myself when needed.
Finally, it was very difficult to get the store into position where we were comfortable enough to start staffing it properly. We started out running it with family. Ana, her sister Idoris, and I shared operational responsibility. Idoris and I are working full time “day jobs” so it was a very delicate balancing act to be sure we took care of our work responsibilities along with the store. It felt like we were all working around the clock. Now that we have been able to bring on some help it is not quite as challenging and we are able to enjoy it more.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I spent my career as an IT professional. I grew up in the old IBM Mainframe days and transitioned into the more modern distributed and cloud based environments. I was very technical back in the day but now I’m more of an Architect and PM type.
The PM skills have had a double edge. I approached a lot of what we were trying to do like a big project and was able to use my planning, vendor management, and negotiating skills over and over to help advance the project towards our goal. However, I had to learn that your family doesn’t appreciate being “project managed”. Live and learn!
In a lot of ways, the business is the proverbial cobbler’s child who has no shoes. It is very easy to get overwhelmed by basic operational needs and it is very hard to step back and take care of the infrastructure type things you need to really grow a business.
I have not been able to implement a proper POS system nor are we able to offer online sales for the merchandise we sell in store.
Everything starts with inventory management, and it is a huge undertaking to get it set up and maintain it properly. We probably have a few thousand SKUs that are constantly changing, and I haven’t got my arms around how to handle that yet.
For now, we are stuck in the 90’s with calculator and spreadsheet-based systems. Oh well, one of these days.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
It seemed for a while like the Covid shutdown might have been the death of in-person retail because everything seemed to be getting pushed online. Even now, we have close family and friends telling us we’re nuts for opening a new retail store. On the other hand, our customers are telling us constantly that they appreciate having an alternative to online shopping.
People are coming back to the idea that there is value in being able to personally inspect the merchandise before committing to purchase. They want to feel the fabric, examine the workmanship, and try things on. They are also getting tired of the hassles of returning online purchases and we frequently hear of people that just don’t bother with the return at all even though they aren’t really happy with their purchases. I have to admit we have also done the same thing.
In addition, many of our customers appreciate the “entertainment” value of visiting our shop and it is often a major outing for them. Sometime entire families come shipping together. We try to make visiting the shop an experience more than just shopping. Many of our customers come in fully dressed out in whatever aesthetic they like the best and make an event of it. It’s a wonderful thing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.Freak.House
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/FreakHouseMiami
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreakHouseMiami
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@FreakHouseMiami
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@FreakHouseMiami
