The most effective way to value a struggling retail business is by focusing on the underlying real estate rather than the operational performance of the store.

“my goal was to buy all of those businesses because they were all dying department stores, but underneath hidden in those dying department stores were these huge real estate portfolios that were worth tremendous amounts of money.”

He claims it is a good idea to prioritize having snacks in the store for customers.

“I think it's an important part of any business model when it comes to selling movies.”

He claims that presenting the store with high-quality shelves is essential for building a successful business.

“I think presentation might be everything, Max. Cuz like they can buy the same movies everywhere else. We're trying to build an empire.”

Business owners should not sacrifice the quality of their retail location to save money on rent because the savings will be offset by higher marketing costs.

“if you're opening a retail business do not save money on location period end of story and that's coming from a lifetime Cheapo if you want to save on location you're going to pay more than what you saved in marketing to get people to hear about you”

A successful strategy for entering a stale consumer category like candles is to use extreme branding and irreverent marketing, similar to the approach taken by Liquid Death.

“if you want to call it the liquid death of candles what did the liquid death do differently all right they took a really boring category and they made it pretty extreme pretty counterculture”