• Kate McNeil opened All the Tropes, a romance bookstore, six weeks after quitting her job.
• Despite concerns about market saturation, All the Tropes thrives as a niche community destination.
• Passion, perseverance, and local support helped McNeil launch her business.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kate McNeil, a 41-year-old small-business owner based in Atlanta. It's been edited for length and clarity.

The idea to open a romance bookstore started during COVID.

I joined an online group of fellow romantasy readers, looking to connect with other people who also enjoyed my favorite form of escapism. That group had over 2,000 members, and it was difficult to feel a sense of community. Eventually, it broke off into local chapters.

After COVID, I didn't know of any dedicated space for these same readers to meet in Atlanta. That's how I started the journey to opening the first romance bookstore in my neighborhood. In the two years since I opened, more romance bookstores have opened up, including one less than two miles away.

I thought I'd retire from my teaching job

When I launched All the Tropes bookstore, I was working a job I thought I'd retire from. I taught theater at Decatur High School for six years. My students always came first. I didn't want those kids to feel like I wasn't present or that they didn't have my undivided attention, so the bookstore was a back-burner idea for a few years.

I'd get home from rehearsal at 11 p.m., conduct business research until 2 a.m., then get up at 6 a.m. and go to work the next day and teach.

I took my time to gain a full understanding of the market, but there were still challenges

I learned about dealing with publishing companies and book distributors, connected with local artists to showcase their work, and reached out to local authors. One of the biggest challenges was finding a place for the store.

I knew that I wanted to stay on the east side of Atlanta because I lived in Kirkwood and felt very connected to the community.

In 2024, I found a location a four-minute walk from my home, and I knew it was time to make my idea a reality. In May of that year, I quit my teaching job and prepared to open the bookstore by the end of summer on Romance Bookstore Day.

I had 6 weeks to get the store ready for opening day

I received the keys to the bookstore six weeks before the day I planned to open. The timeline I had for opening day came with a lot of risks. I had cashed in my retirement fund, quit my job, and had a large preorder of "Onyx Storm" before there were bookshelves in the store.

There were many times my friends and I didn't leave the store until 4 a.m. A local artist painted the shop; I printed my merchandise at a local shop in Kirkwood; and I created the fabric wall. There were many nights I had doubts that All the Tropes would come to fruition.

I was a mom with two young kids opening a niche business that, to my knowledge, would be the first in the state, but I was prepared. I had my accounts with publishers, and my branding was complete. Perseverance, my husband, my village of friends, and an invested community got me to opening day.

All the Tropes opened August 17, 2024, on Romance Bookstore Day. In the span of a few months, I went from a passionate high school teacher to the owner and operator of a romance bookstore.

An increase in niche romance bookstores in the city concerns me

Even in a city like Atlanta with several thriving independent bookstores, I wonder about the percentage of residents who read for fun and, more specifically, read romance. While becoming a general indie bookstore would allow me to sell so many other things, I still believe All the Tropes can continue to thrive in a niche market, despite oversaturation.

Unlike a large book retailer, All the Tropes is a destination spot people can come from out of town to visit. Our social presence and promotion of local writers and artists also offer something unique to readers.

All the Tropes could pivot to general fiction, but so far, more stores opening has not impacted store traffic or sales.

4 Things helped me turn my business idea into a reality

All the Tropes continues to thrive because of my original vision of creating a community space for romance book lovers to connect. We now have eight active book clubs and continue to see consistent revenue.

Passion, trusting my gut, therapy, and a supportive group of friends are the reason I was able to turn an idea I brainstormed late at night into a successful niche business ready to grow.

We are now ready for a larger space and to expand our three-person team.

Do you have a unique small business story to share? Email the editor, Manseen Logan, at mlogan@businessinsider.com.

• Toy prices have gone up 8.3% since February due to tariffs, geopolitics, and supply chain issues.
• Local mom-and-pop toy stores across the US spoke to the rise and its impact on their businesses.
• Legacy toymakers also grapple with the impacts, looking toward tariff refunds.

Toy prices are rising fast across the country— and local toy stores are struggling to play along.

At Clever Monsters, a toy store in NYC, co-owner Daniel Orlov said he has to recalculate prices order by order, at times cutting into his own profits to keep them at a reasonable level for his customers. Sometimes, he knows before putting some toys on the shelves that he won't make anything off them.

The struggle results from higher shipping fees, tariffs, and customs charges and reflects a broader inflationary moment in the economy.

Toys have historically gotten less expensive over time, but have seen a spike in prices this year, rising 8.3% in the US between February and September. Year-over-year, toy prices were up 6.6% in September, the highest annualized growth rate since 1988.

Orlov said smaller toy stores like his could be particularly affected by these sharp price spikes. "It especially hurts for small businesses like us because we don't really have a pocket; we had to open up credit lines and take loans — bigger companies have a little pocket of collateral that they can use for a bit."

Tariffs, fuel prices, and supply chain woes

Big geopolitical swings are one factor putting pressure on toy sellers. President Donald Trump's on-again, off-again tariffs have added extra costs, and smaller retailers don't have the financial flexibility to wait for refunds like those from the Supreme Court's invalidation of the "Liberation Day" levies. Meanwhile, the ongoing war in Iran has driven up fuel prices and shipping costs for all manner of goods.

Small toy stores, confronting those problems, are facing smaller profit margins.

Helen Dean, owner and operator of Toy Safari in California for 34 years, said her usual 7 to 8% profit margin has fallen to around 5% in the past year. She cut into her own salary and skipped on hiring the two or three college students she brings on during vacation season to cut costs.

"It was summer by the time I started to see that I was going to have to pay more for the items, and that it was going to come out of my bottom line," Dean said. "For a long time, mass market has gotten favorable pricing from major toy companies, and this problem has only been exacerbated by the tariffs and fuel prices and supply chain issues; everywhere we lose."

It's not just specialty mom-and-pop stores; toymaking giants are also dealing with the tariff back-and-forth and broader inflationary issues. An AlphaSense analysis of company filings and earnings transcripts over the last six months found that legacy toymakers such as Hasbro and Mattel have alluded to cost inflation caused by "tariffs, oil-linked resin and freight, packaging, labor," while also discussing the impact of tariff refunds. However, those large toymakers haven't disclosed any major increases in toy prices over that period.

Hasbro's Q2 earnings report highlighted an $8 million adjusted operating loss in consumer products — its physical toy sector — due to "incremental tariff expense, entertainment-related mix shifts, and normal seasonality." Yet its Q3 earnings report highlighted $55 million in relief from tariff refunds; $48 million of this was attributed to the core toy sector.

The Q3 report also noted that tariffs could "increase our product costs and other costs of doing business, result in higher prices of our products, impact consumer spending," and hurt business revenue.

Mattel's gross margin is still under pressure due to tariffs and inflation. The toy company has also received about $90 million in tariff refunds, said Paul Ruh, Mattel's former chief financial officer, at a conference in September.

Scalpers, TikTok and squishy NeeDohs

High operating costs are not the only thing changing the toy market. First, more adults are participating in "Kidulting," said Jay Berino, store manager at the Lowry Town Center Timbuk Toys in Denver, meaning toys are being bought by older demographics who buy into nostalgia.

"As much as we're a toy store and people hear toy store and think of kids, we sell to a lot to full-blown adults, and that drives a huge chunk of our business," he said. At the same time, viral toys such as NeeDohs, which are sensory fidget and stress-relief toys, have helped bring more people into stores.

Sylvia Edwards, co-owner and CEO of Terra Toys in Austin, said that scalpers try to buy up stock from toy shops to resell it at higher prices — fueling the perception of product scarcity and price gouging.

"We're in a crisis where there's way more demand than there is product available, and so when that happens, people will naturally get greedy and increase the price," Edwards said. To manage the issue, stores like Terra Toys limit bulk purchases.

Orlov from Clever Monsters in NYC said they have also placed a limit on scalpers. "I'm only limiting it because this is the kids' store, and the kids are really excited to get that stuff," he said.

The virality of products such as NeeDohs on TikTok and other platforms helps these stores boost demand at a time when the high cost of living means buyers are not looking to spend much on other classic toys. Parents and kids are willing to spend on hyped products — but for much else, they keep their wallets shut.

"Honestly, the trends have been really saving us in that it drives not just sales, but just foot traffic through the store," Orlov said. "The only thing we can do is just stay on the trends, on what people want, make sure customers are happy, build up relationships with our customers, and sort of have a little monopoly on our area on parents who think toys — 'Oh, we gotta come to Clever Monsters. That's just where you go.'"

• Matthew Kelson, now 43, grew up in Michigan and opened his first cinema in his 20s.
• He went on to work for Netflix in Los Angeles before getting transferred to Japan in 2020.
• After leaving his job at Netflix in 2024, he renovated a kindergarten and founded a cinema in Japan.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Matthew Kelson, now 43, who was transferred by Netflix from Los Angeles to Tokyo and is now the founder of CineYama, an independent cinema in Uenohara, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. His words have been edited for length and clarity.

Japan isn't new to me. In middle school, I spent two weeks living with a host family as part of an exchange program. I returned a couple of times as an adult.

I was working at Netflix in Los Angeles when the company relocated me to Japan in 2020. I was based in Tokyo for two years before moving to Uenohara, a small town about an hour and a half by train from Tokyo. I still spent time in the capital for occasional meetings and traveled extensively across Asia for screenings. Otherwise, I worked remotely from home. After a company restructuring, I left Netflix in 2024.

I wanted to stay in Japan. My daughter was six months old when my wife and I moved, and my son was born three years later. We thought it was a great place for them to grow up. I started thinking about how I could utilize my expertise in cinema and give back to the community.

While scouting for locations, I came across an abandoned kindergarten. In 2024, I started plans to turn the old school into a cinema. And in December, I got my permanent residency in Japan through the highly skilled professional fast-track program. A year later, I formed my company and spent another year renovating before opening a cinema in March.

Building my career in film

I spent most of my childhood in Michigan, in the Detroit area. My father was a professor of international business. He traveled for work often. It got me curious about the world around me.

At 23, I came across the Detroit Film Center and took a filmmaking course. A year later, I became a teacher and worked as a projectionist there. Through that, I started working at an independent art theater in the Detroit suburbs. I started as an usher, then became the theater manager.

Within the two years of working there, I fell in love with the film world. At 25, I renovated an old school's auditorium into a theater in Michigan using my savings. The theater ran for two years, but after disputes with the landlord, it closed.

I was looking for a fresh start, so in 2011, I moved to Los Angeles. At first, I knocked on the doors of all the film distributors I'd worked with until I met some people at an independent film distribution company. I joined as an intern and worked my way up. I landed a job on Netflix's creative team two years later.

The journey to opening a cinema in Japan

Getting the permit to renovate the abandoned kindergarten was a long process. I had to negotiate with officials at city hall and the residents about how I'd use the building, establish the company, deal with fire and health regulations, and construction in a language I don't speak fluently.

I learned that pushing harder is not necessarily what gets things done in Japan. It was about patience, building trust, and showing people that I was serious and that the project wasn't going to disappear in six months.

There were days when I wondered why I had chosen to make my life so difficult. But every milestone, from getting the building, the inspection, installing the projector, and finally opening the doors, made me more determined.

When the cinema first opened, the elderly residents seemed cautious. After a preview, they told me they were impressed to see the place cleaned up and put back into use. It's important for me to have screenings that kids and families can come to and enjoy the space.

Tickets cost 1,500 Japanese yen, or about $9.50. We offer a discount to seniors and residents. I stick with showing content that is harder to find elsewhere, so that it gives viewers a perspective on other ways of life and culture.

It's mostly family-run. I manage the operations, and my wife helps out sometimes. My kids stamp the tickets when they're around.

Living up to the challenge

Opening the theater in the US was different from doing it in Japan. I was in my 20s, had little money, and was just figuring things out in Detroit. The one in Japan came after 15 years of working in film distribution, creative production, and international screenings.

It's been exciting living over here, having the cinema, and meeting people from all over the world. While life in the US would've been much easier, I like the challenges in Japan. That's why I was at Netflix for so long, because it wasn't an easy job either. I learned life in hard mode.

In the 1940s and '50s, Route 66 was one of America's most popular highways, driving business to small towns from Chicago to Santa Monica. But today, the road and its people have been largely forgotten. Ghost towns, empty motels, and abandoned gas stations line its path. Chief correspondent Abby Narishkin grew up along the road. In celebration of its 100th anniversary, she drove down the old route herself to visit the people and businesses still keeping this Americana legacy alive.

• Natendrea Jones used Facebook Marketplace to market her seafood-catering business.
• A viral TikTok review in May brought her more than 300 orders overnight.
• Jones now runs Red's Garlic Seafood from her home kitchen and hopes to expand into a food truck.

When TikTok food reviewer Gabriel Rivera DMed Natendrea Jones about her seafood this spring, she assumed it was a prank.

"I thought somebody was playing a joke," Jones, 36, told Business Insider.

The South Carolina native had spent years trying to turn her cooking into a full-time business. She grew up surrounded by home cooking and began earning money young, first by preparing salads for neighbors and family cookouts, then by doing hair and nails.

Cooking remained a side hustle for more than a decade. Jones made seafood platters for friends and occasionally sold pans, but hair and nails paid the bills.

A viral food review brought 300 orders overnight

Jones had been posting her food on Facebook Marketplace for years. The platform didn't strike her as unusual: As a hairstylist and nail technician, she'd previously used Craigslist to find clients.

"I would always post on Facebook Marketplace because that was like my Craigslist," she said. "I was a Craigslist girl."

Meanwhile, Rivera had built a following of more than 2 million on TikTok by ordering food through Facebook Marketplace and reviewing it from his car. When he found Jones' listing, he offered her $200 to make him anything she wanted.

Jones prepared a pan overflowing with snow crab legs, lobster, shrimp, oysters, and fixings. It was not yet a menu item, she said, but it would soon become known as the "Gabriel Special."

When Rivera posted his glowing review in May — "her seasoning is on another level," he said between bites — Jones woke up to a flood of orders.

"I checked my Square. I had literally over 300 orders," she said. "I dropped my phone. I dropped to my knees."

Jones said she generated $50,000 in sales over the following two weeks and later surpassed six figures in sales. She used some of the money to buy supplies, such as new pots and pans.

Going viral created new problems

The sudden growth was exciting, but it was also difficult to manage. Jones enlisted help from family members early on, refunded some orders, and said some customers waited as long as a month for their food.

"There's no way I can do 100 orders in a day," she said. "This type of motion is new to me."

The pace eventually caught up with her. About three weeks after the review went live, Jones said she had to pause orders for a day to reset and catch up on sleep.

"The adrenaline was there, but I crashed," she said.

Since then, Jones has built more structure into the business. Customers order through her website, which adjusts pickup dates based on demand. She uses preorders to determine how much inventory she needs and now schedules pickup windows. On busy days, she said, her home-kitchen operation can handle 50 to 60 orders.

She still gets inquiries through Facebook Marketplace, but said most sales now come through Instagram and TikTok, where she has built sizable followings.

The business behind the seafood platter

Jones' best-selling platters are not cheap to produce. She buys seafood in bulk, along with fresh corn, potatoes, garlic, butter, edible flowers, packaging, and other ingredients. She estimates that she spends roughly $20,000 a month on supplies, though costs fluctuate based on order volume and seafood prices.

"People just say, 'More money, more problems,'" she said. "Sometimes I'll have moments where I don't see money at all — the money is gone, but it comes right back because that's a business."

Her signature sauce is central to the business, she said. Jones spent nearly eight years refining it and is protective of the recipe.

"My sauce is everything — because anybody can make a seafood boil, but how is your sauce?" she said. "I make my sauce from scratch and love and magic."

The business is named Red's Garlic Seafood after her late father, who was known as "Big Red." He was a chef who had hoped to open a family restaurant, Jones said.

Her next goal is a food truck, though she's taking her time to secure the vehicle, permits, and licenses needed to operate it.

"I want to do everything the smart way," she said.

Eventually, she hopes to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant. For now, she said she focuses on making each platter with the same care she brought to Rivera's order — the one that changed her business overnight.

"I make sure every pan has the flavors that it needs," she said. "I put the love and effort into the pan."

• GoDaddy has over 20 million customers, the majority of which are small businesses.
• Its CEO, Aman Bhutani, said small businesses can save time by automating operational tasks with AI.
• Bhutani said entrepreneurs need to focus on what they're good at — not outsource their brand.

GoDaddy's CEO said small businesses should use AI to automate work, but not lose sight of their brand.

As head of the domain registrar and web-hosting company, Aman Bhutani has a bird's-eye view into what works for small businesses. The company said it has over 20 million customers, the majority of which are micro businesses, or those with fewer than 10 employees.

The entrepreneurs behind these companies consistently have passion and expertise, he said. However, they tend to have less technological capability — and even less bandwidth to do time-consuming tasks like creating and maintaining a website, said Bhutani.

"There is not enough time in the day," Bhutani told Business Insider.

Today, business owners can use AI agents to do that type of work with minimal friction, Bhutani said, and they can use the tools to help run parts of their business.

A recent survey from GoDaddy's small business research lab found that US entrepreneurs find content creation, marketing, and business advice as the top three areas where they see the most significant time savings with AI.

GoDaddy offers access to Airo, an agentic tool that builds websites and helps with other operational features. For instance, Bhutani said that Airo can create user logins for a small business's customers to make website profiles, or send targeted customer outreach based on a user's location or involvement with the business.

When to use AI — and when not to

He said that businesses should stick to using agents for tasks that they're not as skilled at, or those that don't differentiate them competitively.

Bhutani said humans should control how their product is unique and not delegate control over their customers' experience. While AI can help with research — the owner ultimately needs to leverage their own knowledge when making decisions about what would work for the brand.

"It doesn't mean that AI cannot suggest those things," Bhutani said. "It can suggest, but the human should continue to control their branding."

While AI tools can save time, "ultimately, you want the human to focus on their area of expertise," Bhutani said, adding that the technology should "enable everything else."

• Gary Vaynerchuk shared what he'd do as a young entrepreneur starting out today.
• The first investment should be time spent making content and learning AI, he said.
• He said AI could be a once-in-a-generation opportunity for young founders — one as transformative as the internet.

Gary Vaynerchuk, 50, says aspiring entrepreneurs should spend every spare minute mastering AI and content creation.

During a Thursday appearance on the "Nude Project" podcast, Vaynerchuk shared how he would approach starting a business today as a 16-year-old with 1,000 euros in capital. The podcast is hosted by Bruno Casanovas and Alex Benlloch, founders of the Spanish streetwear brand Nude Project.

"I would make content," Vaynerchuk said. "The dollars don't scare me at all because it takes no dollars. I would spend every ounce of time learning AI. Like, from what OpenClaw is to Claude Code, to using it to think and ponder my ideas."

Vaynerchuk said he understood why people were still weighing AI's enormous potential against its possible drawbacks, but believes it will be a missed opportunity "to not take advantage of how profound this technology is."

"Much like the internet, much like computers, much like electricity, there will be pros and cons to big technologies. That is the story of man. That is life," Vaynerchuk said.

"This is the most opportunistic technology that has ever been invented," he continued.

Vaynerchuk then pointed to the founders' own success as proof of the internet's power, and said that younger generations often underestimate its impact because they have never known a world without it.

"For 7-year-olds right now, they will never understand how profound AI is," he said.

Vaynerchuk added that young people should use their free time to learn content creation, strategy, app-building, and how to use AI throughout their lives.

He said AI tools and agents could automate chores, save money, and find sold-out items at the best price.

If he were 16 today, he would fully immerse himself in learning tools such as Grok, Gemini, Nano Banana, and Higgsfield. "Everything, everything, everything. All of it," Vaynerchuk said.

The entrepreneur has long been optimistic about AI's potential. In 2023, he said the technology was "coming fast" and that he believed workers could adapt to the disruption it'd bring.

AI tools are lowering the barriers for startup founders and small-business owners to create marketing content, build early product prototypes, and automate routine tasks that once required a bigger budget, specialized expertise, or additional staff.

At the same time, as those tools become more accessible, creativity may be the defining factor in standing out.