A note from Morgan

I'm Morgan, a Texas-based designer and a vendor at markets across the state. I started byword because I needed it.

As the business grew, so did the booth fees. Before paying $750 for a market I hadn't done before, I asked around — vendors I trusted, people who'd been doing it for years. The answers I got were the kind vendors give: yeah, we did okay, it depends. Nobody told me a number, and I understood why. It feels vulnerable and a bit taboo to share that information. I drove home that weekend, having barely made back the booth fee, and with a clearer view of what the industry hadn't figured out: every vendor has the data, but there's no safe way to share it.

byword is the version of that conversation I wish I'd had. Anonymous reports of real sales, verified before they go up, available only to vendors who put their own numbers in. Mine included.

Organizers see the data. Now we can too.