As you might have been able to tell, The Retro has been hibernating. Behind the scenes, we’ve been slowly winding things down. Moving out of our office, letting our stock dwindle, and shipping out well overdue records bit by bit, as best I can.

When I first started The Retro, it was a high school project, to show universities I had something beyond my exam scores. Did I ever think it would take me on my first entrepreneurial journey? Absolutely not- I was lucky.

The Retro is where I learned so much, made so, so many mistakes, and where I began to understand what good looks like for my next journey.

From a business model perspective, that means having a plan beyond buying second-hand goods in bulk, every single month. It’s a treadmill I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

The knock-on effect of that is the sheer work required to prep, pick and pack every order. Now I love logistics, but I spent so much time in the business over the past year packing away, that I neglected to work on the business. And when I did try to improve things, shipping lagged.

I know many of you will have been frustrated. I was in myself, and is a big driver for sunsetting the old boy. Next time, I will live by on time, in full – and make sure that can be done without a huge resource requirement.

To the team who worked with me over the time. Thank you. Thank you for tolerating me, learning how to lead, how to manage, and how to get my own shit in order. I don’t think I’ve got there fuly- but I’m working on it.

To you, the humble customer. Thanks for all of your patience, kindness, and for choosing to spend some of your hard-earned pennies on us. That was a treasure, the excitement of a Stripe notification is one all business owners never get over- and one I’ll always see as a privilege.

As the above says, it’s a Goodbye for now. We’ll be back. Probably a new name, a new website (God I’m excited to try Shopify) – with bags of energy, passion, all to serve record and music fans, this time with something a little bit different.

Pete.