When we were designing Bow Market there was a list of business types we knew we needed: bookstore, ramen shop, green grocer, hair salon. Our vision of the future Bow Market was colored in with the images of shops we’d seen elsewhere, things other people had made work in different locations.

We quickly learned that our thinking was backward. As we sorted through the 300 proposals for our first 30 spaces, we weren’t drawn to particular concepts but to particular people.

We stopped asking:

• What products are popular?

• What have we seen work before?

• What are customers expecting to be here?

We started asking:

• Who can we build an open and trusting relationship with?

• Who are the people that have a meaningful connection to our shared neighborhood?

• Who is going to add the most love per square inch to their shop and to Bow Market?

When we bring on new businesses at Bow Market, we still sample their products and review the quality of their photos but we spend much more time figuring out what their values are and what they’ll add to our community of business leaders.