Naissance // March '25
The birth of Anecdote
Welcome back, dear reader.
I’m writing to you from Verci in NYC, which is also where I’m going to be hosting my first pop-up in just about a week!
Every time I visit NYC, I feel like a kid in a candy shop. This city makes me giddy like few other things in life do - I feel like jumping up and down with a big grin on my face, and maybe I should, but I haven’t reached that level of unbotherdness yet.
I feel like asking the guy dressed in full black leather in front of me where he hangs out, I feel like taking a picture of every single cast-iron building I see in SoHo, I feel like riding the M train all the way to Middle Village, I feel like making a short film, and I feel like sitting in the reading room of the New York Public Library for an entire day to lock in on writing.
Whenever I’m in the City That Has It All, I feel like doing it all.
But, as tempting as that is, right now I’m heads-down on one thing and one thing only:
Laying the groundwork for the pop-up
80% of my time over the last few weeks has been spent on planning and laying the groundwork for this pop-up. It’s been a lot more work than I anticipated it would be, partly because this is my first rodeo and partly because I want this pop-up to be much more than just a counter for grab-n-go coffee. I want it to be a social experience anchored around curious people, lively conversations, and great coffee.
But in order to make it great, I must first make it work, and that’s why I started my preparations with the basics. Here’s what my process roughly looked like:
Choosing a spot: Verci was a no-brainer because Anant (the co-founder of Verci) is a good friend, it’s a cool spot, they already have an espresso machine and grinders there, and I have a bunch of friends in New York.
Oh, and the boys at Verci are letting me host the pop-up for free - which means the pop-up is free for you!1
Picking a date: I picked the weekend of the 22nd because my friend Mario is hosting a little belt-making workshop next Thursday, and I wanted to be there for that.
Figuring out constraints: What are the foundational necessities I need for the pop-up to function well?
I already have the location, dates, and espresso machine figured out.
Finding someone to help out with the coffee: I’ve been telling everyone I know personally about this pop-up for a while now, and I honestly feel like I’m going to have too many people to deal with on my own, so I figured I should probably ask for help.
The cool thing about sharing your journey and thought process online is that it acts as a search function for finding interesting people that are aligned with your values. Case in point: a few months ago I received this message
from Elliot, a barista in New York, and now we’re friends and he’s helping me with the pop-up!
Espresso Beans: I’ve probably tried more than a thousand cappuccinos so far, and by far the best one I had was at Villager in Brooklyn, which is also, funnily enough, where Elliot used to work. That cap had the perfect balance of floral and chocolate notes, and both of these characteristics were somehow expressed very clearly through the milk.
That flavor profile is my north star.
I asked Elliot, and apparently when I visited they were serving Little Wolf’s Companion Blend, so that’s what we’re going to use. Aside from the quality of their coffee and their beautiful brand identity, what I love about Little Wolf is that they don’t have order minimums or contracts for wholesale, so I was able to place a one-time order at wholesale prices.
Milk: The milk is equally as important and something I’m very opinionated about. Most coffee shops offer almond, soy, oat, skim, and whole. Skim milk isn’t real milk so we can skip that, soy milk tastes weird, and I’d rather chew glass than try to steam almondmilk.
So we’re left with oat and whole - for oatmilk, I went with Oatly since they have the best copywriting (and the best product) out of all of the oatmilk brands.
One of the things I need to get better at as a founder (and just as a person) is negotiating and selling. I suck at both of these things, but they’re both necessary for agency; whether or not you realize it, almost every conversation you have has an ask in it, and the better you get at that, the easier it becomes to live harmoniously with people and build the life you want.
So I also figured this is a great opportunity for me to ask Oatly for a discount and start a long-term relationship with them.
As it turns out, the Oatly people are pretty generous and offered to send me 2 cases of oatmilk on the house!
To-go cups: I love the cold cups homebody uses. They’re from this company called tossware.
For hot drinks, I’m looking for double-walled 8oz cups, because I really like the way they feel in your hand.
Since the turnaround for custom-printed cups (hot and cold) is 5 weeks, I’m just going to order plain cups.
I learned about this company called Odeko from Elliot - they’re basically like Amazon for coffee shop supplies - and that’s where I’m going to order the cups and the milk from.
Building the RSVP platform2. Since we’re sharing a community/co-working space, and since there are way more people interested in showing up than we can fit in the space at the same time without causing too much chaos, I’m going to ask everyone to RSVP.
You can RSVP for yourself and your friends here.
As an additional incentive to stick to your RSVP, I’ll make a promise:
if you fill out a short 3-sentence description about yourself on the form, I’ll personally introduce you to at least one other person at the event with whom I think you’ll get along really well ;)
That does it for the foundation - if all else fails, I can still operate a basic pop-up as long as I have the bare minimum in place.
Of course, the bare minimum is never enough, so I’ve also added a ton of flair to the event beyond just the basics. I’ll reveal my thought process behind that and more details on Wednesday, but here’s a little teaser: live music, matchmaking (of sorts), sun-shaped cookies, cool people, tapered candles, sexy stickers, and a cute flower arrangement.
You don’t want to miss this.
Establishing the brand identity for Anecdote
The brand identity is here! I briefly wrote about the origins of the logo in this instagram post, but I never explained the story behind the name.
In a nutshell, Anecdote is called so because I hope people create stories there.
I wanted the logo to invoke a rustic, homey feel, and I think it does a pretty good job of that.
My friends Nolan and Rusty designed it for free, and I’m super grateful to them for that.
What I’ve Been Slacking On
Content
I grew from 900 followers to 25,000 followers from December to February. From February to March, I grew from 25,000 to…25,096.
Why?
Lack of consistency is probably the biggest reason. As it turns out, maintaining quality and consistency of output on contracting work (that I do part-time to pay the bills), setting up a business (Anecdote), and creative work (instagram content and writing) without sacrificing health or relationships isn’t as straightforward as I thought it would be.
I’m also pretty reliant on my friend Jack for video work - not because I don’t have the right equipment, but because I’ve been avoiding the responsibility of actually figuring out the details of video production.
So once this pop-up is over, I need to get back on the content horse and figure out how to stay on it.
What’s Next
Literally just the pop-up. That’s all I can think about. Please come.
Rent and coffee equipment are usually the biggest expenses for pop-ups, and I thankfully don’t need to worry about those. Yet, since this is going to be a much more involved experience, I still have to burden considerable costs (~$1400 for 3 days), and would really appreciate donations :)
If you’ve been wondering whether my background in CS helps me in my coffee shop journey, the answer is yes, and this is (partly) how. With V0 and Windsurf, it took me like 6 hours to build this bad boy.
Loved it, thanks for sharing, and good luck for the pop up !!
incredible. wish I was in ny for this