The Melrose Messenger

Project Pop-Up Brought Entrepreneurs to Main Street

By Patrick DeVivo

Project Pop-Up, Melrose, a holiday season initiative to promote small-scale entrepreneurs in the city, finished its run on December 22nd. The project gave nine local artisans and online business owners the chance to simulate the operation of a brick-and-mortar storefront by setting up business in a mobile pop-up box on YMCA property on Main Street. The project came about due to the coordinated efforts of the City of Melrose, the YMCA, and a third-party non-profit, Up Next. The City began working with Up Next in 2021.

Each entrepreneur used the pop-up box for a week at a time, during which they could experience managing a storefront business, learn the challenges and advantages of in-person versus online business, and try out different displays and methods to promote their brand. The experience could also serve as a way for each individual to judge their strength as an entrepreneur and decide whether the rigor and uncertainty of the work is right for them.

Each entrepreneur brought their own unique needs and goals to the project depending on where they are in the life cycle of their business. Daphne Vantine is a Medford-based artist who left the corporate world to pursue a living through her paintings and design work. She is in the process of establishing her business, Daphne Rae Creative, and utilized Project Pop-Up as a way to increase the recognition of her brand. Her efforts have primarily involved attending one or two-day artisan craft fairs where she promotes her works to an already receptive audience of attendees. Project Pop-Up, Melrose challenged her to market her works in such a way as to attract passers-by who may not be shopping.

Jacqueline Busi’s online clothing boutique for infants, toddlers, and young children, Grace + Bo, is more established. However, she welcomed the chance to bring her own “special vibe” to the Pop-Up box. As with so many small online businesses, she says she is always on the lookout for just the right opportunity to make the leap and establish her own brick-and-mortar store.

Rosemary Scott, the owner of Slant Rhyme Studio, already runs a brick-and-mortar storefront in Rockport. She participated in Project Pop-Up, Melrose to gauge whether to open a second store closer to Boston.

For Lily Barrett, co-owner of Read My Lips, Boston, a bookshop for authors with typically underrepresented identities, Pop-Up Melrose was a slightly new experience. “We normally pop up at breweries, wine shops, and coffee shops around greater Boston,” explained Barrett. “We also feel like our brewery pop-ups sometimes tend to be hectic, since we usually pop up for 3-4 hours at a time and during peak hours, when it can wind up being crowded and noisy. Our spot in Melrose allowed us to take more time with each customer, which we absolutely loved.”

Anne Damphousse, owner of Housse Studio, also found the Melrose project very helpful for her business. She said, “Setting up the space was a creative adventure in itself — the unit is so well-equipped to showcase a variety of products, offering endless display possibilities. It also provided a valuable opportunity to create content and boost brand awareness.” Damphousse added that after her last pop-up project she walked away thinking, “I need to keep it smaller.” Project Pop-Up Melrose “offered a completely different experience. It’s much more manageable in every sense. I imagine brands that haven’t tried a pop-up before would feel far less intimidated starting with a space like the Pop-Up Box mobile unit that Up Next is using in Melrose.”

The catalyst and driving force behind Project Pop-up is Up Next, an organization founded in 2018 through a grant from the Massachusetts Office of Development. The underlying idea behind Up Next is a simple one. Commercial property owners seek successful businesses to lease their space to, towns and cities seek to cultivate active thriving environments in their downtown business districts, and entrepreneurs seek the freedom and pride that comes with owning their own business. Allison Yee, the CEO of Up Next, refers to her organization’s work coordinating these overlapping synergies as creating a “retail incubator funnel.”

Up Next has sponsored pop-up projects in several communities in eastern Massachusetts, including Cambridge, Boston, Brookline and Lowell. Melrose has been the most active supporter of Up Next among cities and towns of its size.

The most common pop-up arrangement involves a single entrepreneur occupying an empty storefront for four months. Less common is the recent arrangement in Melrose using the mobile pop-up box to accommodate several entrepreneurs in quick one-week stints throughout the busy holiday shopping season. Another arrangement is called a pop-in, where an entrepreneur sets up shop in a section of an already established store. In any type of pop-up project, a great deal of work goes into finding the right entrepreneurs for the right setting, getting buy-in from property owners and municipalities, and supporting entrepreneurs throughout the duration of the project so they are best positioned to achieve their goals.

The vision behind Up Next extends beyond the work of pop-up projects. Up Next offers a range of additional services in its online Retail Playground. These include access to coaches and workshops, a library of reference materials on subjects such as how to develop a brand and how to start a small business, and a wealth of networking opportunities, giving entrepreneurs at all levels of experience the chance to connect with and learn from their peers. Up Next says their goal is to create a “Pop-Up Ecosystem” that stimulates the growth of small businesses and plays a key role in the health and development of our local economy.

More information about Up Next and current Pop-Up Projects can be found here.

Posted December 5th, 2024