Today we’d like to introduce you to Josh Quinn.
Hi Josh, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was living in Los Angeles while my wife (and Ohio native) was attending OSU. We started a wholesale accessories company together out there. Honestly we just got super lucky. We landed a couple of pretty influential stores as our first accounts. Those accounts allowed us to quickly transition to doing that full time. She moved out to LA with me and we spent the next couple of years growing that brand.
It was a fun time in our lives. We spent our early 20’s as our own sales reps meeting with store owners around the country, selling our stuff. We really discovered the idea that we might love being on the other side of the counter through the friendships we made during that process. They also turned into our mentors.
We were somewhere around 24 at the time. We had a rough idea of what we wanted to do with a shop and we knew we couldn’t afford to do it in LA. Our initial plan was to spend a few months in Columbus, using the connections Niki still had at OSU to help with our business plan and concept and then land in a city on the east coast.
If I am being honest, Gallery Hop is probably what kept us here. Our first several locations were in the Short North, split between our Tigertree and Cub Shrub concepts. We went to Gallery Hop every month during our expected short stint in Columbus and just felt like nothing was really matching that energy anywhere else we were looking.
We opened our first shop almost 20 years ago in the Short North. We spent that year trying to figure out what we were doing. After about a year a spot on High St. opened up and we jumped at the chance.
That first High St. shop was where we started to figure out what we were doing. From there we grew into a larger space, broke our children’s section off into its own business, changed neighborhoods, changed formats, you name it. Today we occupy a 6,000 square foot business that operates as a small department store with both businesses brought back together.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Retail is an inherently bumpy road. We opened in 2007, so “the Great Recession” happened our second year in operation. We have’d floods, leaks, major thefts, a multi-year streetscape and construction project that took most of our parking and, of course, COVID.
I try my best to do the reframing technique of thinking about why something is happening for you instead of to you but have to admit in the moment I don’t always succeed. That being said looking back on these, or all the other bumps in the road, and I can draw a direct line from each to a process or something else we rely on to be successful now.
As you know, we’re big fans of Tigertre / Cub Shrub. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We’re a neighborhood retail shop for the whole family that’s somewhere between a large general store and small department store. We’re known for having great gifts and a helpful staff that loves to connect you with just the right thing. We just love retail and I hope our passion for the art of it is apparent.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Oh an incredible amount. I mentioned our first wholesale accounts earlier. Our first account ever was Fred Segal, which was one of the most influential shops in LA at the time. I had no clue what I was doing and walked in and asked for the buyer who, more or less, said “well that isn’t how this works but that’s me so I’ll see what you have.” If I had sent a line sheet or tried to make an appointment with him I never would have gotten it.
Out of dozens of people working there at any given time, the fact that the buyer was even on the floor, let alone the person I spoke to… the odds seem impossible. If that very first attempt at landing an account hadn’t gone the way it did I am almost certain we wouldn’t have the business we have today.
We had a building we were trying to buy in 2019 that we lost to circumstances that seemed unfair at the time. It would have required sinking everything we had and then some. We were heartbroken at the time but we wouldn’t have made it through COVID. I really don’t think we’ve had any bad luck, just lessons we needed time to understand.
At the same time, I was a music major in college and I remember the way one professor talked about “lucky breaks.” It’s true that almost all of our good fortune has been a stroke of luck or something outside of our control. But you also have to take the chances and put yourself in the position of being there or being ready when it strikes.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/shoptigertree / cubshrub.com
- Instagram: @shoptigertree / @cubshrub
