I think it´s time to tell the story behind this ROOM FOR CHANCE -POP UP SHOP me and Anu had for a little over a month. It all started when we heard about a local entrepreneur looking for creative people with their own products to fill up her business premises for the last remaining month she was renting it. We called her and set up a meeting the same week. After showing her our creations and talking about the opportunity to put up a pop up shop we already had the keyes burning in our hands and the words “do whatever you like” echoing in our ears. It felt unreal but there was no time to stop and dream. It was time for action.
First there was a lot of sitting infront of the computer trying to create the whole look from scratch. Luckily Anu is the one with mad IT skills. I´m usually the annoying one sitting next you, pointing at the screen and saying things like “that colour should be darker, move that line over there” and so on. (Again a great reminder of the necessity of co-working and using each other´s strengths.)
The name Room for Chance reminds of the inportance of grabing opportunities when they present themselves.
We spent every waking hour working towards our goal. There was baking for the opening night, sorting out products, making the prize tags and, of course, putting up the actual shop.
Once we had all the posters, flyers and business cards printed and the whole interior of the shop done we started a racket in social media. Low budjet and working quite rapidly ment we had to rely on our friends and their friends to shout out about our event. After a hell of a lot of e-mails, invitations and such we were feeling nervous and a bit afraid for the first time. We had been working on some kind of an autopilot to make it all happen in such a short period of time and now it all felt so real. We suddenly realized this had to be awesome so that we could live up to our words.
Nerves or not, we made it. We built our dream in superspeed and however difficult and exhausting it was at times, it was worth trying out. We´ll be backing our things this thursday and we have to say a huge thankyou to Päivi from Hyvää Tekevä. Hope there were more people like her; giving opportunities to passionate people.
xoxo,
pm