Community Highlights: Meet Ryan Newcomb and Creighton Bowman

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Newcomb and Creighton Bowman.

Hi Ryan and Creighton, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
We are Creighton and Ryan and we are new small business owners! The pandemic brought about many changes in our lives. We moved from LA to Phoenix and gave up our longstanding and successful careers so we could be closer to family. Creighton had been a freelance and celebrity hairstylist for some 25 years and Ryan worked in TV Production for 15 years.

We had talked about starting a record label and opening a record shop for several years but the right opportunity never presented itself. Everything fell into place once we got to Phoenix and we expanded our record shop idea to include vintage and antique home decor. Our mission with both Rewind Vintage & Antique and In The Q Records is to have people want to do business with us, whether it’s a customer at our shop or a musician with whom we are planning a vinyl release.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Becoming a small business owner has been extremely rewarding but there have been bumps in the road. Most of our difficulties stem from the basic fact that we’ve never owned a record label or retail shop! There have been many sleepless nights brought on by the anxiety of not knowing how to work in Quickbooks, how to handle inventory vs the cost of goods sold, where are we getting more inventory, taxes, etc.

Marketing and social media are other aspects we weren’t really prepared for. But through all of the stress of starting two businesses from scratch, we couldn’t be more proud that we did this on our own. The satisfaction of knowing we have accomplished our goals makes all of it worth it!

We’ve been impressed with In The Q Records and Rewind Vintage & Antique, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
At ITQ, we just want to put great music on vinyl. We have many musician friends that have had less-than-stellar label experiences and we simply don’t want that for us. We believe that no musician should have to give up ownership of their music and we have no interest in owning anything we release. Financial transparency is very important to us, and we have no issue with sharing that information, at any time. It’s just the two of us which means we can keep our overhead low so that more of the profit goes to the artist. We also believe the creative direction of the physical release should be driven by the artist because, ultimately, it’s their vision and we want that to be seen. At the end of the day, we’re doing this for the love of music!

At Rewind, we specialize in mid-century home decor but we also carry fine antiques and more current pop culture-related items. We prefer our inventory to be as eclectic as we are! Additionally, we have an evergrowing and highly-curated new and used record section where you can also find all of the In The Q Records releases. Rewind is located in a diverse area of Phoenix known as the Melrose District aka the “gayborhood” and we’ve become somewhat of a “safe space” for the LGBTQIA community, which feels pretty incredible.

Obviously, our ultimate goal is to make a profit so that we can keep the lights on, however, we do not want to take advantage of our customers. Just because something is “worth” a certain dollar amount, we take into consideration how much we paid for the item and then price it accordingly. We also do as much research as possible on every item that goes out on the floor because we want to be competitive with online shopping. More often than not, our prices are lower than what can be found online and there are no shipping charges!

We all have different ways of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
We define success in a couple of different ways but having a proper work/life balance is paramount. Our previous careers were extremely stressful and time-consuming, leaving little personal time. Being able to run both businesses and still have time for our personal lives is a reminder that we are successfully driving this ship.

We also have to consider success from our customer’s perspectives. The vast majority of people that walk through our doors compliment us on how welcoming and well-designed our shop is. At that moment, we feel incredibly successful, whether or not they buy anything!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.intheqrecords.com / www.rewindon7th.com
• Instagram: @intheq_records / @rewind_on7thave
• Facebook: @intheqrecords / @rewindon7thave
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/rewind-vintage-and-antique-phoenix
• Other: www.intheqrecords.bandcamp.com