Rose Kirshner has always been driven by one passion: dance. It fueled her early education, shaped her professional performing career, and ultimately led her to own two dance stores in the San Francisco area.
From Dancer to Store Owner
Kirshner’s path to business ownership is a familiar one in the dance community. She began dancing at the age of 4 with the Berkeley Ballet and later studied dance at Cornish College of the Arts at Seattle University. After graduating, she returned to the Bay Area and performed with several smaller professional companies, most recently No Strings Attached Dance Company directed by Lissa Resnick. Because dance is not the “most lucrative career,” says Kirshner, she supplemented her income by working at a local dance store, San Francisco Dancewear. “I learned a ton about fitting pointe shoes and apparel.…I just sort of had a knack for learning [those things].”
When Kirshner found out, in 2018, that San Francisco Dancewear was closing, she felt compelled to open her own store. With few options in the Bay Area, dancers needed “a place as close to a one-stop shop” as possible. That same year, she launched SF Dance Gear, and despite having no prior business experience, she was determined to make it work.
While Kirshner faced a steep learning curve—especially with the behind-the-scenes aspects of retail, such as hiring, payroll, business licenses, and leases—she says, “Being the type of person that I am, I just wanted to learn and I wanted to succeed.” For anything she didn’t know, her approach was simple: “OK, I don’t know that. Let’s research.” While she didn’t work with a business consultant, she did lean on her mother for both bookkeeping and payroll support.
Applying Dance Expertise to Retail
After fully embracing her new identity as a business owner, Kirshner stepped away from dancing. She continued teaching yoga for a while but has now stopped to fully focus on SF Dance Gear. Now, she occasionally takes open adult ballet classes. Still, in her store, she draws on her experience as a dancer, particularly when fitting pointe shoes. Having the knowledge of the physicality of dance means she can “help problem-solve what other dancers might be feeling,” she says. “[You can] say, ‘Oh, OK, you’re feeling that pressure in your big toe because you’ve got tapered toes. I totally get it. I have that too. Let me tell you about what I’ve done to help with that, and here are your options.’”
Filling Another Void
Providing much-needed expertise to dancers is what inspired Kirshner to open a second location in the East Bay in June of this year. An area dance store was closing because the owners were retiring. Once again she felt compelled to fill the void. “It’s a big passion of mine to be here for the dance community that I love,” she says. When the store closed, she took over its inventory and has since added some additional pointe shoe options to offer the best fittings possible.
Service as Success
Kirshner says she has a wonderful staff of eight across the two stores who help keep operations running smoothly. While she’s aware of the competition from online retailers, most of her customers recognize the value of an in-person experience, which motivates her to focus on providing the best possible service. “If [a store] isn’t giving good customer service, why would someone come back?” she asks. Although she has ambitions to expand product offerings and provide the best options for dancers, “so long as we’re just serving our customers…, I’ll call that successful.”
Erica Iacono is a writer living in New York City who often writes about marketing and small businesses.