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Danielle Pattavina is the kind of person you meet once and ask yourself why you haven’t met 1,000 Danielle Pattavinas to fill your community. Their goodness is real. With deep experience in hospitality, most people in New England have been served something great by Danielle over the years (and made the better for it). As if Danielle knew we all needed more of that goodness in our life, they decided to take a leap and follow their dream of opening a neighborhood grocer where their choices in food and wine could be brought home by anyone. That’s where NuMarket and Danielle came together and Momma’s Grocery & Wine was born.
What they wanted
TL/DR:
To open a specialty grocery and wine shop where Danielle could sell great local foods and independent wines
To find the funding to be able to open and grow how they wanted to
To find a new community and new customers in a new place
How it started: After years and years of late night bar/restaurant shifts Danielle wanted move into the next stop of life: owning a grocery. They had years worth of connections with local food producers in New England as well as some of the best winemakers across the world. When your experience can propel you into what you’re most passionate about, for some it can feel like the right time to take the leap. For Danielle, the leap was opening Momma’s.
What happened next: Like so many of us have experienced, finding the perfect space took time. Leases came and went with landlords that didn’t fit what they needed. After missing out on their initial location, Danielle finally got a lease in the perfect neighborhood in the Cambridge/Somerville area.
How do we fund this thing, how we want to?: Danielle wanted funding to be able to open Momma’s and do it in a way that helped them grow, not put them in a hole from the start. They also wanted any new funding to be from people that fit their values of inclusion and a more fair economic system. Bank debt, SBA loans and venture capital were either impossible to get or just didn’t work for the kind of food business Danielle wanted to grow.
New lease, new neighborhood, new community: Despite their deep experience everywhere from Vermont to Martha’s Vineyard, Cambridge was a new place to open a business for Danielle and the Momma’s team. They needed to quickly bring together the customers and people who would be there for what was to come on opening day. It’s one thing to start a business, it’s another thing for that business to find success.
That’s where NuMarket came in.
How they did it
Skipping ahead: Danielle raised $44,360 from 318 future customers through a NuMarket campaign. Here’s how:
Use the campaign to engage existing community.
Danielle announced the campaign to their personal network, allowing them to be part of the campaign and join the nu Momma’s community.
Use the campaign as a method to reach new community
Danielle went door to door in their new neighborhood with handwritten letters asking for neighbors to join their community by contributing to their NuMarket campaign
Share what’s important to the business
Danielle was consistent in sharing why the campaign was important and why it benefits everyone. Keeping money in the community through NuMarket’s model was a key piece
So what happened?
$44,360 and 318 people later, Momma’s Grocery and Wine opened and is thriving.
“Working with NuMarket was one of the best decisions. We have a bunch of folks coming in that I don’t think would have ever. Immediate cash flow.”
Wine Enthusiast recently named Momma’s as one of the best wine shops in the US and a community hub. We agree :)
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