In 2005, friends Lauren Lolo Reskin and Sara Yousuf decided to go for it and open their own record store. Only a few years earlier, peer-to-peer file-sharing service Napster had completely changed, for better or for worse, the way people interacted with music. Physical album sales were down, while sales of digital files and iPods were up.
But for Reskin and Yousuf, the idea of opening a record store at a time when retailers like Sam Goody and Tower Records were calling it quits was never about making money. It was about catering to a Miami customer base the giant retailers were poorly serving.