The Hustle
Years in Tampa Bay
8 (for each of us).
Hustle (job)
Co-Founders, Market Mafia, LLC
What do you do?
Market Mafia promotes “local living made easy.” We hope to be an inclusive resource for market organizers to get the word out about their events, assist visitors to find upcoming community events to attend, and support vendors find new opportunities to get their brand out! Our website has a calendar of events with local market happenings in the Greater Tampa Bay Area (from Sarasota to Lakeland).
You can filter what type of market you’re looking for by refining searches too. A few filter examples include: City, coffee, cocktails, pet-friendly, produce, etc. Soon we’ll be adding markets in Miami and Jacksonville! We also blog on our favorite vendors and markets, offer our insights on market day adventure ideas and collaborate with other small businesses.
Why do you do it?
We whole-heartedly have a passion for makers markets. The entire experience is one that can’t be put into words for us, and we know there are others who share that love too. Local markets promote discovery, inspiration, meaning, intrigue, bravery and community. We enjoy helping others find these experiences and appreciate them like we do.
What was your Catalyst? (How did you get started?)
We both love shopping and interacting with vendors and makers at local markets in our area. It’s what we would do on the weekends with our friends and family, but it was tough to find out where and when local markets were occurring. We saw a need for a directory of sorts, and the ball just started rolling from there.
What’s a common misconception or unknown aspect of what you do?
It is really difficult to keep up with all the market schedules and accurately maintain the calendar of events. St. Pete and Tampa have had such a huge influx of makers markets over the past few years; we are literally finding new markets to add every single day.
What’s the most challenging part of your Hustle?
The learning curve for being entrepreneurs in general. It truly is an on-the-job, active learning process. Technology isn’t our forte either, so that’s been a real eye-opening lesson in site development/management too. We’ve come so far from where we started back 18 months ago, but we recognize that we still have so much to learn.
What’s the most valuable piece of business advice/insight that’s helped you?
“How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” It’s pretty solid advice, and a great reminder that even (or especially) when you feel overwhelmed, you have to take control, buckle down and just start somewhere. It’s tough honing in on next steps for our business and determining what we want the future of Market Mafia to look like; we’ve realized how many directions our website could take us. We have to constantly be working in the now, reminding ourselves of what we want our next step to be.
