When Yamin Zhou co-founded Riverbed Lifestyle, a design brand for handmade pieces, it meant realizing a dream. That achievement came with the hard realities of launching a business in Seattle.
“Since we’re a small business, we don’t have enough money just to rent a whole place for ourselves,” Zhou said in October. “Labor costs are high. Rent is high.”
But on an unassuming spring Sunday at the Ballard Farmers Market, Zhou stumbled upon a solution: an application for a spot at Smål Market, a new shop incubator and collective of local merchants that’s funded by federal dollars. Smål is the Swedish word for narrow and an intentional nod at Ballard’s Nordic heritage.
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