What you may not know is that the thINCubator is located on the 2nd floor of a great building in historic Bagg’s Square in Utica. It’s a neighborhood that has been totally transformed over the past several years because of local entrepreneurs. And now it has its very own bakery – Utica Bread.
Last night I saw a tweet from Brett Truett, who has been doing his part to make the city better for a long time, and is even converting a building he owns in the neighborhood into a mixed use property. Because Utica bread officially opens on July 8th at 7a.m., he wanted to help build buzz around the business, support local entrepreneurs and be their first customer…. so he’s camping out the night before the official opening.
I rushed down to the building to help Brett pass the time around 10pm, catch up, and talk about why he decided to camp out in front of the bakery. In our 5-minute video we’ll talk about the transformation of the neighborhood, building buzz, and the crazy story of how he came to call this neighborhood home.
While I didn’t camp out overnight, the tweets, posts, and periscope feed DID generate quite a buzz online, and other people who saw the activity came down to visit, meet Brett, and see what the excitement was about!
It just goes to show that all you need is ONE devoted fan or customer, someone who will share your story, help spread the word, and maybe even camp out for your opening, to help boost the awareness of your business. We are ALL media companies now thanks to our smartphones and the tools available to help us share what matters to us and what we think is cool. What you need as an entrepreneur is not just a great product or service, but a good story, a willingness to share that story, and one true fan. Not bad for 10pm on a Tuesday. Thanks to Tim, Melissa, Chris, Tracey, Cliff, and the whole Utica Bread crew for entertaining us last night and we’re looking forward to some delicious bread today!
We also Periscoped several conversations last night with the owners of Utica Bread, and chef Tim Hardiman took our live viewers (over 137 of them over the course of the broadcast) on a behind the scenes tour of what the night before opening a bakery looks like. Yes, it’s vertical video but you’ll get the idea.
