I hope you are well. I'm at 27-year-old straight woman, looking to open a sex-positive shop in a fairly large city. There's nothing like it so far, and I know there's a need for one. I use to teach sexual health in high schools many years ago, but all of the funding for sexed was cut and unfortunately I lost my job. Since then I've been trying to find the perfect way to continue work in the field, and contribute in a positive way. Any tips on opening your own sex-positive shop?

A Shop Of My Own

I passed your letter along to some super smart, super helpful folks who've opened, who own, or who help to run sex-positive shops all over the country, ASOMO.

Evy Cowan and Jeneen Doumitt, co-founders and co-owners of Portland's SheBop:

Evaluate your focus, while education is a large part of what we do as a sex positive business, it is still ultimately a business and you need the skills to manage and run that business. The first thing you need to do is write a business plan. Your business plan is essential to keep you focused on your mission and goals. As a sex related business, you will most likely experience discrimination from banks, landlords, and other people and organizations you may not expect. Even as a sex positive shop, finding a brick and mortar location can be more challenging than you think and location can make or break any business.

Jennifer Pritchett, owner and founder of Minneapolis's Smitten Kitten:

1. I was 25 when I opened Smitten Kitten! You can do this! But you'll need help. Line up a business advisory team that includes a lawyer who specializes in helping entrepreneurs and an equally small-business oriented Accountant. I didn't have this—rookie mistake!

2. Funding your start up will be extra challenging and typical ways of raising capital (bank Loans and, more recently, crowd-funding) won't be available to you due to the perceived risk of adult retail business. Don't fret though, you can get this off the ground with as little as $35,000.

3. Open in a neighborhood that you are intimately familiar with and know your municipal zoning laws better than the people who wrote them!

4. When in doubt, reach out for help! Smitten Kitten's mission to make ethical, safe and top quality adult retail and sex education accessible to everyone INCLUDES helping new entrepreneurs like you!

Claire Cavanah, co-founder and co-owner of Seattle and New York's Babeland:

All the advice I can think of applies to any specialty retail store—build good relationships with your customers, employees, vendors, neighbors and the communities you're a part of. Keep overhead low. As for the sex store specific advice—a good landlord is a huge asset! We lucked out in Seattle and looking back I now appreciate how chill he was always was with our use of the space. He was one in a million.

Jack Lamon, Worker-Owner at Toronto's Come As You Are, a worker-owned cooperative:

Opening and running a feminist, sex-positive, or otherwise ethical sex shop may well be one of the most challenging experiences of your reader's life—although it also has the potential to be extraordinarily gratifying if you can get through all of the hard.

Honestly, I would give almost the same advice to anyone looking to 'do what they love' with their life—whether they are artists or entrepreneurs, the pitfall is almost always administration. That is, you may be an amazing sex educator and have a great enthusiasm for sex products, but if you don't have at least a basic understanding and enthusiasm for the administrative side of the job, your shop will most likely fail.

As much as I wish the members of our co-op could spend our collective days browsing the Lelo website and chatting with customers, most of our time is actually spent paying bills, figuring out margins, placing orders, sorting warranty returns, interfacing with our bookkeeper and accountant, paying taxes, doing payroll, yelling at UPS, dealing with local bylaw officers, and crying because yet another bank/payment processor/web host won't do business with us because they don't do "adult."

Further, while doing retail-based sex education is almost infinitely interesting and gratifying, the flip side is that the vast majority of your customers will be pretty sex negative. They'll make fun of your products, they'll mock people who practice marginalized forms of sexuality, they will say unbelievably racist things about condoms, and at least 30% of the phone calls you receive on any given day will be prank calls—oh, and Amazon sells that vibe for way cheaper. And if you're me, they'll misgender you at least 80% of the time.

Cass King, buyer and educator at Vancouver's Womyn's Ware:

We would say: Know your market. Don't try to carry everything for everybody. Hire professionals, especially accountants and designers. And never, never, never assume that you can tell your clients' proclivities just by looking at them. In this business, people will surprise you every day. Best of luck out there from Womyns' Ware!

Good luck, ASOMO!