Last week nearly broke me

This post is a short one.

Last week was, by a country mile, our worst week at House of Joy.

Across Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we barely took a third of our daily target — not each day, combined. Friday at least got us back to hitting our daily target, but Saturday struggled again.

It was dire.

And yet, it’s strange how quickly a week can turn emotionally.

By Saturday evening, I was driving to work feeling oddly on top of the world.

That feeling came largely from the fact that Erica and I both spent Saturday at markets — our first since opening House of Joy in February. Erica was at the All About Kids Colchester Family Fest, while I was at the Minories Queer Midsummer Market.

Both went well, in different ways.

Of course, you always hope for strong sales, but what felt just as important was visibility. We got to introduce people to House of Joy who had never heard of us before. We got to share the kinds of stories we champion, the diversity of books we stock and, hopefully, encourage a few more people to wander through our doors in the weeks ahead.

Still, I’d be lying if I said the quiet week hasn’t worried me.

I’m writing this on Tuesday morning and it’s been another slow start.

The gambler in me wants to chase losses.

Stay open later. Open Mondays. Open Sundays. Do more. Push harder.

But the calmer side of me knows that new businesses have rhythms. People have warned me that June can be strangely quiet on Crouch Street. Maybe this is just one of those lulls that every business experiences. Especially being just outside of the centre of town.

I hope the final weeks of the month pick up. Of course I do.

But one thing quiet weeks have given me is time.

Time to work on the House of Joy website — something that, hopefully, becomes another string to our bow and helps us reach more people beyond the four walls of the shop.

Running a small business seems to involve constantly swinging between optimism and mild (major) panic.

At the moment, I’m trying to trust that quieter weeks are part of the story too.