The throughline of Matt Alexander’s career is his ability to curate and create community. Three years ago, on episode four of the podcast, Matt talked about building a focused set of small retail brands. Today, he’s running Neighborhood Goods — a modern department store that’s the culmination of those early ideas. Neighborhood Goods is a unique retail experience that rotates featured brands, products, in-store activations, and ultimately, the stories they want to tell.

On this episode, Matt talks about bringing together local, digitally native, household name brands together under one showroom (9:45). Rather than sales-oriented goals, he shares his hopes for helping online brands explore offline concepts (12:55). With so many featured brands, Matt created a unified point of sale through a consistent rule set, carving out in-store quadrants, and training staff to be brand experts (17:26). Matt speaks on discovery and utility with a rotating, pop-in business model (25:02), and reveals plans for opening a second store in Chelsea Market (28:01). Finally, Matt talks about combating the noise (36:09), creating a dignified retail experience (49:59), and bringing people together (54:27).

Also mentioned on the show:

Link and images can be found on the Lumi Blog.

85 Holding Space with Matt Alexander, co-founder of Neighborhood Goods