Donate today and get a Marketplace mug -- perfect for all your liquid assets! Donate now

From This Collection

Retirement might not be in the cards for everyone

Feb 21, 2023
Shelley Rivers, a substitute teacher in Iowa City, Iowa, says she never even had the expectation that she'd fully retire.
Putting enough away to comfortably retire might be beyond many Americans' means.
(Photo by Graeme Robertson/Getty Images)

How ASMR videos earn bonus revenue for this cleaning company

Feb 15, 2023
“It has become so easy,” said Samad Abdulai, owner of C3 Laundry Services.
Samad Adbulai, owner of C3 Laundry Services in Accra, Ghana, is seen with a truck full of rugs.
Courtesy Abdulai

Alaskan siblings challenge Native knockoffs with their own Indigenous designs

Jan 16, 2023
In Juneau, Rico and Crystal Worl draw from their Tlingit and Athabascan heritage to create designs for everyday items like playing cards.
Trickster Co. incorporates Native design into everything from apparel and jewelry to basketballs and playing cards.
Donovan Johnson

On their first date, this now-married couple decided to open a business

Dec 30, 2022
Aryn Henning Nichols and Benji Nichols run Inspire(d) magazine from Decorah, Iowa.
Benji Nichols and Aryn Henning Nichols of Decorah, Iowa.
Courtesy Aryn Henning Nichols/Silver Moon Photography

How a Buffalo child care center saved itself by closing temporarily

Nov 25, 2022
The worker-owned co-op shut down in the spring due to staffing shortages. It reopened by raising wages and tuition.
A classroom at The Rose Garden Early Childhood Center. The worker-owned co-op closed down to revamp its pricing and wage structure.
Maria Hollenhorst/Marketplace

“Newsflash: Not all horses have perfect hair” 

Nov 24, 2022
After designing an “Afrocentric” hairpiece for her horse, Chanel Rhodes set about making colorful horse wigs for sale.
As a little girl, Chanel Rhodes never saw people like her riding horses. Now she’s an equestrian entrepreneur.
Courtesy Chanel Rhodes/Andrew Garces

Prepping the party for a winter World Cup

Nov 21, 2022
The Nomad World Pub has hosted a monthlong watch party for the past six World Cups. Now the party's on for this year's winter World Cup.
The Nomad World Pub's World Cup event in Milwaukee draws thousands each day over the course of the monthlong tournament.
Courtesy Michael Eitel

For public good, not for profit.

Teaching women and nonbinary folks the art of woodworking

Nov 16, 2022
There aren't enough instructors to keep up with demand at Jess Hirsch's Fireweed Community Woodshop in Minneapolis.
Jess Hirsch turns a bowl from a log, the subject of one of the classes they teach at Fireweed Community Woodshop.
Courtesy Studio Zu

How the pandemic pushed this nonprofit worker to start her own businesses

In addition to her day job, Jennifer Barton of Buffalo now sells mugs and other goods she makes, plus owns a community art studio.
Jennifer Barton at her studio in Buffalo, New York.
Brandon Watson

At a historic Buffalo, NY, inn, fair wages mean there's no such thing as a labor shortage

Nov 1, 2022
Joseph Lettieri, co-owner and operator of InnBuffalo off Elmwood, almost sold the hotel in 2020. Now, it's the busiest it's ever been.
InnBuffalo Off Elmwood co-owner Joseph Lettieri said business is the busiest it's ever been.
Courtesy Ellen Carlstrom