Aww…cats and dogs who are friends!…those guys with toilet paper headdresses, that’s hilarious...how many tigers are optimal for husband disposal actually?…oh, babies trying foreign baby food!…oop, what—
Oh, HEY! Sorry—I wasn’t expecting anyone to open this email. No, hey, no, come in, it’s fine. I mean, welcome! Excuse the mess, let me just move this… sit, sit. Sorry about the—we were trying to fill out these loan applica—how are you? And the kids? Good, that’s good, thank goodness for that anyway.
Us? Oh, g-d, where to start. The speed of it is the thing, you know? The shock of it. I mean, we had won. WE. HAD. WON. Two years! Two years, since we started searching for an Atlanta location. Three different places we negotiated for before we got this one. It took so long, we decided to open Burbank in the meantime. We were going to have it up and running, generating income, as we rolled into the Atlanta build-out. But then the whole permitting mess, the indescribable sloth of Burbank Plan Check…it took so long that Atlanta caught up, and we ended up building out both stores simultaneously, flying back and forth… constantly scraping the bottom of our bank account. Our second loan finally funded when it was practically over, just in time to pay down the credit cards. It was a nail-biter, monetarily. But the point is, we finished. We opened Burbank and two weeks later, Decatur. Great response in both places! Neighbors coming in to welcome us, great opening business at both.
We were tapped out, of course. No cash buffer at all, probably looking at twenty months of paying down the debt, but so what? High season starting and we had FIVE fucking stores! The future was wide open, to quote Tom Petty. We were about to sit back and reap the rewards. Not just of the two years, but really the eleven years of building this business.
It all collapsed like a house of cards. The Decatur store opened on Sunday the 8th. Monday we sent out the first coronavirus protocols to staff: wash hands before and after each client. Friday we canceled our planned Grand Opening parties. Saturday we issued revised coronavirus protocols: steam the bras after use. By this point, business had plummeted at all shops anyway. Sunday we stopped all shipments and froze all payments to vendors.
On the 16th, a week after opening store five, we were writing to all the employees about our commitment to protect their jobs. That was Monday. Tuesday we reviewed our financials. Personal worst business meeting ever. Wednesday we closed the stores and laid off three-quarters of the most Rock Star staff we’ve ever had. So altogether it was ten days from Elysium to Tartarus.
Now Aaron and I are sheltering in place in an unfamiliar neighborhood in Atlanta while our last three employees are running the business part-time from their apartments, handling phone orders, virtual fittings, and helping us pump out a steady stream of social media because…that’s all there is right now? Stay tuned for the May Underwire one month from now, and let’s see if everything is different.
–to be continued–
