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How to Open a Business in Brooklyn

 

Opening a Business in Brooklyn: Marketing, 2.0

A lot of success in Brooklyn depends on eschewing traditional advertising in favor of social media and Web 2.0 interactions with customers, several business owners said. In the hyper-connected circles of Brooklyn, someone is more likely to hear about your business through Twitter than they are through a newspaper ad.  With that in mind, the Small Business Development Center has been holding seminars about how to adeptly use social media.

'Word of mouth is very important in Brooklyn,' Castano, the center's director, said. For businesses, that means having a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a blog and contributing to your business profile on Yelp. Restaurants, bars, and stores have helped build customer loyalty by offering rewards for people who 'check in' the most on location-based social networking service Foursquare. Project Parlor, a bar in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood, offers customers a free drink on their first check in; if you become 'mayor' (i.e. check in the most) at O'Barone, a Red Hook Italian restaurant, you get a free glass of wine.

Ann Jhun, co-owner of the Park Slope bar The Sackett, worked as a marketing director for years, but said she no longer believes in advertising.

The bar instead relies on word of mouth, Twitter updates, and its Facebook page to actively communicate with its customers on a personal level.

'You just have to try to engage people, try to get more followers, entice people with specials and events,' she said. 'Brooklyn is all about bloggers and kids with opinions and people who want to be heard. Because we want our bar to be a community, it just makes sense to create this community in a virtual space as well.'

Social media helps drop.io share ideas with its users and with other companies, Greenwood said. The company has created partnerships with the Brooklyn borough president's office to distribute official press releases through its PressLift service.

'There's a lot of great technology but we're also connecting it to people who have real needs for it,' he said.

In a further effort to change the boundaries of the customer-business relationship, drop.io has started hosting regular 'Startup Storyteller' events, where people can hear horror stories, tales of triumph and cautionary advice straight from different company founders themselves. The idea is to create a forum for people in Brooklyn to help one another out, and to provide a peak behind the curtain of how these companies do it.

'You wouldn't be able to have a conversation like that in an environment that felt hostile,' Greenwood said.

Dig Deeper: The Business Owner's Social Media Toolkit

 

Opening a Business in Brooklyn: Opportunities Abound, But So Do Challenges

Even with a collaborative atmosphere, opening shop in Brooklyn has its perils, and operating in a growing part of the city presents its own physical and psychological challenges.

As his Ferra Designs business grew over the years, Ferraroni added a line item to estimates to account for towing and parking tickets.

'It happens all the time," he said. 'No matter what.'

Mork of Crop To Cup uses public transit and a Zip Car from a nearby lot to make all his deliveries. But if the business keeps growing, he's expecting his transportation costs to get more complicated. Sixpoint brewery faces added labor costs and delivery upcharges from operating in New York City, which means the beer made locally can sometimes be more expensive than something from a West Coast brewery.

The creative mindset and local loyalty can backfire too. Ferraroni said the Web-based culture of many of the borough's young transplants often has them expecting advice and help for free.

'They think you're Google,' he said. 'They're rolling over here to the shop, a lot of these young cats, asking a zillion questions.'

Brooklynites are eager to root on their local businesses, but are suspicious of anyone trying to use the Brooklyn brand without really being involved in the community.

'If you want to come here, we welcome you, but you really have to know your customer base and naturally, organically fit into the demographic of the borough,' Blue Marble's Miesen said. 'People really sniff out an imposter very quickly. They're swift and decisive with their purchasing decisions.'

Dig Deeper: What Makes a Great Startup?

Opening a Business in Brooklyn: Additional Resources

New York City offers a business express interactive checklist to help you find out what steps you'll have to go through to open a business in different sectors.

The Brooklyn Small Business Development Center offers counseling, classes, training, and help finding financing.

New York City has the country's largest network of business improvement districts, areas where property owners and commercial tenants have agreed to tax themselves to pay for sanitation, maintenance and capital improvements. A list of the districts is available here.

Tim Donnelly is a freelance writer and managing editor of Brokelyn.com. His work has appeared in Billboard, The Atlantic, Thought Catalog, and The New York Post. @TimDonnelly