The Brotique started online, and at some point the obvious next question was whether the brand could survive contact with a till. The answer was two Edinburgh shops, one on Queen Street and one on St Stephen Street, taking an ecommerce business into bricks and mortar.

Retail teaches you things a website never will. Footfall is real, rent is real, and a customer standing in front of a shelf gives you feedback no analytics dashboard can match. The shops meant fit-outs, merchandising, signage and the daily operational grind of physical retail, all of it carrying a brand that had only ever existed on a screen.

Building and running them is its own story, and a longer one than this card allows. Full write-up to follow.