4: How We Bought Fort Orange General Store: Risk, Family, and Trusting the Leap

In this episode of Small Business, Big Life: Inside Fort Orange General Store, Joe Slichko and Erica Cubello share their origin story—how a late-night Instagram scroll turned into buying a brick-and-mortar small business in Downtown Albany.

What started as a joking text—“We should buy this”—quickly became something neither of them could shake. Erica had been a longtime customer and admirer of Fort Orange General Store, and when she saw the post announcing it was for sale, the idea took hold. Despite having four kids, newly combined households, demanding full-time jobs, another existing business, and a wedding to plan, they decided to explore what felt impossible on paper.

Joe and Erica walk listeners through the emotional and logistical reality of purchasing a small business. From selling a family home filled with generations of memories, to running financial spreadsheets, navigating outside opinions, and trusting their instincts, this episode captures the tension between logic and belief that so many entrepreneurs face.

They also share the deeply personal story behind how the purchase became a way to honor legacy—particularly Erica’s grandmother—and why naming their LLC after her felt like the right decision. The episode reflects on how meaningful transitions often require letting go of something familiar in order to step fully into what’s next.

The conversation expands into what it means to build a business while raising children, blending families, and modeling entrepreneurship in real time. Joe and Erica talk candidly about fear, self-doubt, family input, financial risk, and why there were countless reasons not to buy the store—and why they’re grateful they did it anyway.

Listeners will hear:

• How instinct and preparation intersect in entrepreneurship
• The emotional side of selling a family home to fund a business
• Why community matters in small business ownership
• What kids learn when they grow up inside a family-run business
• How legacy, trust, and timing shape major life decisions

This episode is for aspiring entrepreneurs, family business owners, and anyone standing at the edge of a big decision, wondering whether to take the leap.

Keywords: small business podcast, buying a small business, retail entrepreneurship, family business, brick and mortar retail, business origin story, entrepreneurial risk, Fort Orange General Store, Albany NY small business, community-driven business

Transcript

 Hello, and welcome to Small Business, Big Life, Inside Fort Orange General Store.
 Where entrepreneurship meets marriage, kids, and controlled chaos.
 I'm Joe Slichko, and with me, as always, is my wife, business partner, and owner of Fort
 Orange General Store, Erica Cubello.
 Hey, Joe.
 How are you today?
 I'm doing fantastic.
 How are you?
 I'm doing great.
 Thank you.
 I'm really excited to talk about this episode.
 Well, what a natural transition, because in today's episode, we are going to tell our
 origin story, dun, dun, dun, dun.
 Actually, we're going to tell the story of how we came to own Fort Orange General
 Store.
 Mm-hmm.
 We are.
 But, Erica, before we do that, you know we have to ask our listeners to please like or
 subscribe wherever they listen, because it really helps us grow.
 And more so, it gives us the feedback that they actually care about what we're talking
 about.
 Yeah.
 And we're not just talking to dead Erica's.
 That would be weird.
 No, we're doing this for our community.
 Yes, we are.
 Hopefully.
 So, please give us that feedback.
 All right.
 Erica Cubello.
 Mm-hmm.
 Joseph Slichko.
 I think you should start this story and share with the world all our amazing listeners
 that have been on this journey with us.
 How you broached the subject of purchasing the Fort Orange General Store.
 Well, it's really silly, but it's a fun story to tell.
 I have always loved Fort Orange, and I was a customer of the General Store for many
 years prior to owning it.
 So, naturally, I liked and followed their page on Instagram.
 So, this, you know, I would see different stories and things pop up on the feed occasionally.
 And then one day, over the summer, two years ago, I was laying down with our youngest to put
 him down her nap, and it's the perfect time to aimlessly, mindlessly kind of scroll and
 see what's happening during the day.
 The old doom scroll.
 It's usually pretty productive, but that day I was especially tired so I was doom scrolling.
 But it ended up being a really productive one because I saw that Fort Orange General Store
 had just gone for sale.
 And Schuyler, the former owner, was in front of the store, posed and made a beautiful caption
 about selling Fort Orange, and I was like, "Oh my god, no way is this real."
 So he screenshot it, and I sent it to Joe in a text, "We should buy this, exclamation
 point."
 Totally joking, right?
 Like, yes, it would be amazing, but this is a joke.
 How are we ever going to buy a store, okay?
 We have four children, we just combined households, maybe a month prior, planning a wedding,
 I run a business already, teach full time, Joe's a principal full time, like all the reasons
 why we can't.
 So there I am driving, and I may or may not pay a little too much attention to my phone
 when driving, so I'm not condoning that.
 It's a flaw of mine, so please, no one else be like me, put your phones down while you're
 driving.
 This moment, the text came through, I looked at it, let's pretend I was at it like a
 stoplight or something, and I said, "Huh, that looks pretty cool."
 So I texted back, "We should do that."
 Yes, very enthusiastically.
 Now, I'm normally the naysayer.
 The voice of reason is how I like to portray it, but I'm normally the one to kind of articulate
 all the reasons why something doesn't make sense at all.
 Strangely enough, you're usually the one that says, "Go for it."
 Well, that's when it comes to you and things like this, which we'll get into.
 But for most things, I can see why we shouldn't do something or why something would be frivolous
 or blah, blah, blah, blah.
 Not this time, so I shoot the text back, yes we should, let's do it.
 And I couldn't believe it, but that's all I needed.
 That's all I needed to set the ball rolling, i.e. couldn't get it out of my head, right?
 I just went all in on this idea, and I found the listing agent I was on the phone the next
 day.
 Which is, I went all in on the idea, and it was, it was crazy and exciting and a lot of fun.
 So I was at this moment in time trying to get my house that I had owned for 11 years, up
 for sale, to be put on the market in about a month.
 I remember like the next day or two being in my old kitchen and painting the cabinets like
 all the little marks to make it perfect again and calling the listing agent, getting on the
 phone with them, getting some questions answered, talking to my dad, talking to Joe, all the things
 like trying to figure it out.
 So eventually we go down to the store, we kind of check it out, we meet with the listing
 agent, Joe meets with the former owner, and it all just starts happening.
 So it was one of those situations where this is not like anything that you plan for and
 it's out of a fairy tale, out of a movie.
 So Schuyler whom we absolutely love and adore, former owner, he's selling the store and we're
 going to have him on.
 So I'm not going to tell his whole story and that will be a treat for all of our listeners.
 But he's selling the store in an emotional way, I'll say.
 So he's looking to pass the torch to the right people, not necessarily the highest bitter.
 Right.
 And you're like, yeah, okay, that's not business.
 That's Schuyler though.
 And we fell in love with him.
 So we met with him, I think that day, I followed up another meeting with him a couple of weeks
 later to go over financials, we ended up talking family, 90% of the time, just really getting
 to know each other.
 And it was a scenario where you sharing, Erica sharing, and Instagram post, put two sets
 of people together.
 And again, I don't want to speak for him, but he knew that we were the people to take over
 Fort Orange and to carry the legacy forward.
 And we felt he was the person to go into business with, to take our first step.
 Yeah.
 And like, we don't know each other.
 We're strangers at this point.
 And, you know, in any type of sale, in any type of business, you want to be as informed
 as possible.
 You, you don't, you want to be logical, right?
 But there was just something about this that felt extremely real and truthful.
 Like he wasn't trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
 He wasn't trying to sell this for a ridiculous price to make money off of it.
 We could feel how much he loved this place.
 And he could feel that back from us so that like, you know, it was, it was almost like, he
 is interviewing the people he wants to carry on this legacy.
 And like Joe said, we don't want to put words in his mouth, but, and we will have him on to
 tell his story of it all.
 But I think that's what we have gathered from, from this transaction and for knowing him
 for the last couple of years.
 So anyways, we, we just know, we both know that this is what's supposed to happen.
 And like I had said previously in the episode that I was getting my house ready to sell my
 grandmother's house that I had purchased 11 years earlier.
 And it, it all just fell into place, right?
 And that was emotional for you.
 It was really hard.
 I never thought that I would not live in that house, let alone not own it.
 My, my mom grew up there.
 My grandmother lived there her entire life except for the last like couple of years.
 And I bought it from her actually July 13th, 2013.
 I saw four to orange go for sale on July 11th, 2024.
 So 11 years later, almost to the day.
 And I sold my house very quickly.
 It was September or at least September.
 And we were able to purchase this store in late November.
 And without, without that house sale, without my grandmother, this never would have happened.
 And I feel like, you know, she, what Joe was trying to say was I, it was very emotional for
 me because and we will tell the story of my grandmother more deeply in another episode.
 But she's always been a very strong role in my life, even after her passing.
 She, she would visit me at my house that I sold.
 And I knew she was there when big changes were happening because I could smell her genite,
 her powder that she put on.
 And it's a very, you know, distinct scent.
 So I was so afraid to lose her.
 So afraid to sell the house because I didn't want to lose that.
 But I think that she let this happen.
 And it was her way of saying do this despite a lot of other reasons not to, right?
 And I mean, I'll even take it a step further and say she made this happen for you, for us.
 Because without, you know, the sale of her house, we would not have had the money to put
 up the store.
 So that was the practical side of it.
 But and again, you've mentioned it, we'll get into her story and her guidance, you know,
 with you and on you, your entire life that kind of led you to this point, like she groomed
 you for this almost.
 And this was a way to honor her and keep the memory of the house alive as you moved on
 to your next phase.
 And it all happened magically at the same exact time because it was meant to happen.
 It was.
 Yes.
 There, there were a lot of things happening at the same time as Joja said.
 And and I think that this was her way of saying it's okay to move on that I'm, I want this
 to happen for you that she was saying that that these are the right choices you're supposed
 to be making this and by selling the house, we were able to not only buy the business, but
 kind of start our life together in a more real way.
 Like everything is now together and combined, I was able to move into our beautiful home that
 we live in together, start this new business that we manage and run together and really integrate
 it all into our family life.
 And to pay respect and keep her legacy going, I thought it was only appropriate to name our
 LLC after her so that that memory and that honor is always there.
 She's always a part of our life and our business.
 And that was a great, beautiful idea that you had and when you shared it, it was, it was
 awesome.
 It gave me goosebumps when you told me.
 Thank you.
 I was a little scared because we are on our engagement, like, get away.
 We were playing around with the idea.
 So this was what, like, six months prior, probably that we should start a business and we
 should do this and what would we name it and we were like trying to come up with silly
 names, which one really stuck and I loved and I was so torn between, like, honoring our
 idea of a business name and then going in a complete, separate direction with this new
 idea, but it did make the most sense to name it after her.
 And they're still room for that other idea to grow in the future so we won't drop it just
 yet.
 No, no, it's ours.
 But yeah, that's how, that's how the story of owning the business and buying the business
 and keeping the memory of my grandmother alive and it all and her pictures sit on our
 counter at the store behind by the cash wrap and what's really sweet and it's probably going
 to make me cry, but it replaced Schuyler's grandmother who watched over that store when he owned it
 and he had a beautiful story to tell about her and why she sat there and then it just made
 it that much more right for us to take over and because my grandmother was going to sit
 there now.
 So, great job.
 You got through it.
 So now let's talk to all of our entrepreneur friends out there, those that have done it
 and those that are thinking about doing it.
 We have four kids, we're combining households.
 I switched jobs the day before we closed on the business.
 We're planning a wedding, all the things and we need each other's finances, you know,
 we were at that stage where we're like, hey, how much money you got, how much money you
 got, what you're debt like, how are your student loans, like we're having those conversations,
 you know, as people do when they come together and this evolves, how did that go, Erica?
 Well, smoothly, there were all the reasons why we shouldn't, why we should be careful,
 you know, not only is like what Joe just outlined, we met very quickly and got engaged only
 after a couple of months and planning a wedding six months after, you know, meeting each other
 and that's a lot for anybody, right?
 Any logical person.
 So of course, like my family is questioning things and posing different ideas and then
 to add in this layer of selling the house by business, why aren't you investing the money,
 why aren't you setting your kids up with funds for college, like why aren't you doing this,
 is this a good idea, this is a risk, you don't know what you're doing.
 What if this, what if that, all of the things and, you know, that only makes your own questions
 and self doubt, like heightened and, you know, more emotional and am I really making the right
 decision, am I crazy, am I taking on too much, am I making the right decisions for my kids,
 like all the questions, so I guess what it comes down to is then that first knowing, right?
 Like where the idea happened, Joe was on board, there were no questions, then the idea
 wouldn't get out of my head, right?
 And when I get something stuck, I know it's real.
 And then the sale of the house and those subtle reassuring moments that like Joe and I had
 had many conversations about how is this going to affect the family, how's it going to affect
 the kids, can we take this on and just the support that we both felt from each other and like
 knowing that this is what we want to do.
 Agreed, and, you know, I'm the spreadsheet guy, so I have all, you know, our finances
 mapped out, we're looking at those, we're combing through them, you know, we're balancing
 that with, you say investment, we were going to invest this money in something.
 What was the best thing to invest in, so we're looking at, you know, those things, some
 of which we're looking at for the first time, you know, trying to figure out, you know,
 that's the smartest thing to invest in right now, what's tanking, what's not.
 All the while we're having these conversations and, you know, digging through the stores
 numbers, you know, making sure it's viable for us, you know, despite our love of Schuyler,
 we still have to, you know, do our legwork, which we're doing.
 And I think the only concern I ever had was not if you could do this because that never
 crossed my mind.
 You're a boss, you've been a boss since the day I met you, which is why I fell in love with
 you.
 One of the many reasons why I fell in love with you, but a big one.
 It was, is it going to be too much and pull you in too many directions, given everything
 that we just shared, you know, all the changes in life happening, plus you already own
 a business.
 And that was a really big worry for me because my first business consumes a lot of time.
 I was not managing it properly.
 No, I see that, but I was just very worried like, can I really take this on too?
 You can talk about that business.
 This is our podcast.
 You can do a little shameless plug, seriously spotless ladies and gentlemen, green cleaning
 company.
 It's been around for, what, 11 years, I think 11 years, yeah.
 And we happened to sell various seriously spotless green cleaning products right at the
 Ford Orange General store.
 They worked better than anything you could buy in a big market store.
 I make it all myself right here in our own kitchen, essential oils, things you find right
 in your pantry, everything's non toxic, safe for everybody in the earth, family pets, kids,
 everybody.
 So anyways, seriously spotless, look it up Instagram, Facebook, seriously spotless.com.
 All right.
 Quick divergence of a story that I wasn't playing to say, but here we are.
 So one of the first times I'm over Erica's house when we start dating the little ones there
 and he's sitting on the kitchen floor, he's what, two at the time, most likely.
 He was only like one and a half, wow, he was young and he opens the cabinet and he grabs
 his glass bottle and he starts spraying it in his mouth and I flip out like panic attack,
 it is happening.
 And Erica's like, what, it's not that big of a deal, stop doing that, blah, blah, blah, blah.
 And I'm like, are we going to the hospital?
 Is he going to die?
 What are we doing?
 And that's before I knew exactly what went into her products.
 I made the products when I had my first son for that reason, not that I'm like leaving
 the cleaners around or the cabinets unlocked for them to just eat the cleaning supplies,
 but should an incident like that happen, because that's very scary when you become a new mom
 or dad, what you don't think of things that you think about when you are a parent.
 Like, thousand and one new worries come to your mind and one of those is toxic things.
 What are they going to put in their mouths?
 So I was cleaning people's houses, I was using chemicals that are horrible and side effects
 are insane and a big reason for creating this line was my son, my oldest son.
 And so the cleaning line has been around for nine years since he was a baby.
 I developed it, tested it, tried it out on my own stuff.
 And one of the reasons I made it was to make sure that it would be safe in an emergency situation
 like that.
 And clearly it was, because he's perfectly fine, tried and tested.
 I wouldn't let him but it in his mouth if I hadn't tested it for it, so delicious.
 It's not delicious, you don't want to drink this stuff, but it's not going to kill you.
 I know, I'm just teasing.
 All right, so we don't listen to anyone and we buy the store.
 We listen to Schuyler and ourselves and we buy the store.
 Well, we, I mean, we do, we have input from our family.
 My dad's a big part of helping us make financial decisions, he's a financial advisor in CPI.
 So we go to, I've always gone to him to give me a sounding word on my business decisions.
 And this was a big one and he helped guide us with all of the things we should be looking
 for.
 You know, as a father, he gave his input, risk, you know, is this going to be the right decision.
 As our professional, he told us it was not a bad decision.
 So we went with that, we went with that angle, that perspective.
 Not to his credit, he gave us the fatherly advice because he owns his own business and has
 done so and has lived it and could probably sit here and tell all these stories, you know,
 from his point of view back when he was starting out.
 So you always want better for your kids, you always want different for your kids, you always
 want to take all the sting away of everything for your kids, even if it is green cleaning
 products in your mouth.
 But so, you know, we appreciate that feedback of, you know, be careful, is this really what
 you want to do?
 Here's my story.
 Do you want to do the same thing?
 And then when we say yes, he's there to help us, which is really cool and awesome.
 It is.
 Thank you, dad.
 So then there's the children, young at the time, a little bit older now and hey, we bought
 a store.
 Well, what does that even mean to, you know, a child, a two-year-old, a seven, eight, 14,
 15, you know, running the gamut, year old, and how is that going to affect my life as
 a kid when, you know, the world revolves around me, even though there's three other kids here
 plus dog and three cats, running around, causing chaos.
 So do you want to talk a little bit about how they've grown with the store?
 It's been incredible and it was the best decision to make, I'm going to get emotional again.
 Just seeing them take it on as their own, you know, Joe's son loves to have all the ideas
 right, like we should sell this and we should sell this and maybe we should put this in front
 of the windows so that people see it, but that's as far as he'll go.
 Somebody else can do that.
 He's the idea person.
 Right.
 He's the idea guy.
 Now he needs a snack.
 And now he needs a break.
 Then we've got my oldest who's just a workhorse and he wants to get his hands dirty.
 And we don't want him to, you know, like he's wants to learn how to do the tagging gun.
 All the fun stuff that couldn't be very dangerous.
 But I mean, he's such a hard worker and it makes my heart so full to see him there.
 He wants to learn the register, greet the customers, ask if he can help them, like he's in it.
 And then there is our youngest who, he's young, he's three.
 He knows Ford Orange, you know, we were out to dinner the other night at Fightins and he
 looks up on the wall and he goes, that's Ford Orange because the F and Fightins is almost
 the same Curse of Ass as Ford Orange and he talks about it all the time.
 He asked us the other night, hey mummy, are we going, are we going to Ford Orange in the
 morning?
 That's how he says it.
 So like it has become a part of their life to be there and they love it.
 And it's the best decision we've ever made.
 And then we have our oldest daughter who's in the thick of high school and probably the least
 in it because she's, you know, that social butterfly of being everywhere.
 However, she's top of her class and I'm a little proud of that, but she's taking these college
 business courses in high school and she and her friends are launching their own clothing
 company like out of nowhere and she will never concede and give credit this way.
 But I like to think that's a little, you know, bit of the entrepreneurial spirit that she
 gets from us in the store.
 And I'm excited to see how that grows and what the future brings as she goes through her
 little journey of college and all that fun stuff that's coming up.
 But it's all right there and they're all doing their thing in their own way at their own
 pace just like you and I.
 It is. It's beautiful to see how this decision has affected each of them in their own way
 and how they are growing and becoming interested in what we do and want to be a part of it.
 It's very cool.
 So let's just review with some very quick answers to some quick questions.
 Okay.
 All right.
 Was it a good time to buy the store?
 No.
 Was it the smartest and least risky decision we've ever made?
 No.
 Were there a billion reasons why we shouldn't have done it?
 Yes.
 Are there probably still a billion reasons why we shouldn't have done it?
 Yes.
 Would you have changed any of it?
 No.
 That's the point.
 And that's awesome.
 No, it is awesome.
 It's been, it's been a lot of fun.
 It's been a lot of fights.
 It's been a lot of crying and frustration and just amazingness because it has opened up a
 whole different world that we didn't know existed and what it comes back to is just again
 our community of patrons, businesses around us, people that we've met through the business
 and friends that we have gained along the way that I wouldn't trade it for anything.
 And to go back to the beginning of the podcast when we told the story and it really is a story
 of community.
 Ford Orange was born of community, Schuyler is a pillar of the community and has built
 Ford Orange for us to take over and further in the community and having your grandmothers
 support and backing along with the family, your dad, our children, let alone our fellow
 business people down in Albany and all the organizations that are phenomenal to us and
 all the local leaders that you like to rub elbows with that have been phenomenal to us.
 And even Albany Police Department in the last episode that we talked about, it's a community
 and that's what keeps us going and it's awesome to be a part of it.
 It does.
 It is everything that I have ever wanted that I didn't know I wanted wrapped into one.
 I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be right now.
 You're talking about me, right?
 Of course, Joe, who else am I talking about?
 And on that note, why don't we call it an episode?
 Thank you so much for being a part of our show today and listening and we would love to hear
 your thoughts about how you might have started your business or if you are an entrepreneur
 looking to start a business, what questions do you have, what worries do you have, anything
 that you want to get off your brain and ask us?
 We might not have all the answers, that's for darn sure, but we can provide a space to
 talk through things and ask it all out.
 That's what we're here for.
 We're here to tell you where we messed up, where we took that gamble, where we succeeded,
 but I think more importantly, where we stumbled, I'm not going to say fail, but stumbled because
 I think that's where you learn the most and we're still doing it, so you can stumble and
 still succeed.
 Yep, every day, every day, if you do not learn something new, if you think you know everything,
 then you have a lot to do, you have a lot to learn, you've got to grow.
 So we would love to hear from you in the comments on our podcast, you can text, and we will
 get that, and we just, we want to hear from you, we want to hear from our listeners.
 You guys are the best, and we want to thank you all for listening, and we look forward
 to sharing our lives with you next week on Small Business, Big Life, Inside Ford Orange
 General Store.