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Hey it’s Cues - this is our weekly newsletter about our sliver of Bed-Stuy and its stuff.

• Saturday 4/11, 2pm - Book Swap with Uma @ Cues. rsvp
• Saturday 4/18, 2pm - Art Materials Swap with Jessi @ Cues. rsvp
• Wednesday 4/29, 9am - Donuts & Donations with Mitch @ Mitch's Provisions. rsvp
• Any Friday AM - Coffee with Cues. rsvp

• Saturday 4/4, 10am - Moving Stoop Sale! @ 38 St Marks Place. map
• Saturday 4/4, 3pm - Free Store By Crown Heights Mutual Aid @ St Johns Pl / Brooklyn Ave. map

ICYMI: In Case You Missed It

We sorted through our 1000 items to find ~20 bangers. ‘Ave at it.

SINCE YOU ASKED: “Do you do this full time?”

Bartending for ten years in New York taught me people don’t think work is work. People think money is work.

There’s a simple test to see if someone has work or not-work. Go to any meal with friends or family (extra points if you do this in front of immigrant parents). When the inevitable “what’s up with work” talk starts, pay attention to what’s said. If the talk is about titles, promotions, or how Mindy from HR is being a total bitch again - there’s money and therefore it’s work. If the talk is about tasks: stocked the shelves, made drinks, closed then opened again aka the “clopen” - there’s no money and therefore it’s not-work.

Let’s apply the test to Cues. On any given week, a customer will drop by to pick up an order. They see a thousand items sorted and stored in encoded crates, the photo studio, the dozens of clothing bags ready for distribution, the organization of it all, and that’s when they ask: “do you do this full time?”. They intuit there’s no money. And thus, Cues is not-work.

Fortunately, there’s an industry that can make any not-work, work. It’s called venture capital, or VC.

VC works as follows: you’re a bright young thing out of college who has an idea to do a farm-to-table cat food business. But you’re worried your friends who have money jobs and parents who just went into money debt putting you through undergrad will think you’ve lost your mind.

You know you won’t make money right away. But you still like Mom’s Thanksgiving stuffing (and need all the free dinners you can get). So, VC steps in with money and does a reverse “Johatsu”. Instead of disappearing you from the face of the Earth, they give you enough cash to be at every dinner, breakfast, brunch, conference, TikTok video until you end up on the Joe Rogan show. In fact, you’re now around too much.

This makes sense. Your flimsy cat food business that was doing 1,500 dollars a month in sales is now valued at 2.2 million dollars, “post-money”. Everyone is impressed because you now have a full-time job.

To date we haven’t raised any money.