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Business Insider
20 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Love, money, and yarn balls
Crystal Sloane is a pro at turning spun cotton into intricate, handmade figurines. There are seasonally themed ornaments like Santas and snowmen at Christmas, or radishes and turnips that can be personalized with the face of a loved one printed on them to celebrate spring. Crystal has been selling her work on Etsy since the dawn of the site 20 years ago. She got successful enough at dreaming up and making the quirky, vintage-inspired, custom items to quit her graphic design job in 2009 and pursue her artistic career full time. Two years later, and pregnant with her first child, she realized she needed to hire help. Instead of finding someone to pack orders and send emails and paying them out of her then $75,000 earnings, Crystal looked to her husband, Ben. He wasn't as happy with his job as a therapist at that point, and Crystal needed the help; so he quit to work for her — or, as they would debate and determine, with her. They started juggling the business baby and a new baby, but now, what was once Crystal's handmade hobby business has been supporting their family for 14 years. In a survey by Etsy in 2024, 83% of US sellers identified as women. Thirty percent of sellers said they did their work full time, rather than as an Etsy side hustle. More than half said that they sold their first goods on Etsy and that they started the business to make money while doing something they enjoy. The average Etsy seller said they spent just over half their time making and designing items, while the rest was eaten up by administrative work. Nearly 80% said they wanted to grow their businesses, but more than half said they didn't want to have to hire someone else to help. For some, there's no need to put out an ad on Craigslist or Indeed. Enter: the husband helper. Move over, Instagram boyfriend — this is a promotion that involves more work behind the scenes than just finding the perfect photo angle. Some successful shops run by women are doing so well that they can turn into not just full-time jobs, but careers stable enough to support spouses and families, too. It's a trend that also lives outside Etsy: More women are starting businesses, and more people want to work for themselves. These artists are living new twists on the family-run business, one that often involves a side-hustle turned career in crafting, an area dominated by women. Etsy has emerged as a place that, for those who hit it big, can bring life-changing money. Working with a spouse isn't all smooth sailing. At first, Crystal says, she had some trouble giving up her full autonomy over her shop, Vintage by Crystal, and Ben asked many detailed questions as she delegated. Over time, it became not just Crystal's project, but a company fully run by the couple, and Ben's name now appears alongside hers in the online shop. She still manages the artistic vision and works with her hands to make teeny tiny details for the ornaments, but he now manages the business side. "It was just a learning curve," Ben tells me. That also meant managing expectations and the work style of his wife. "I was so used to doing everything and being in charge of everything and having it all done my way," Crystal says. "We argued for a second about which kind of packing tape we should get, but then I was like, wait, that, that's his business." Etsy couples are a niche of a larger trend: 2021 data from the Census Bureau's Annual Business Survey indicated 10% of US businesses were owned and operated by spouses — and another 11% were jointly owned by couples but operated separately, with men more likely to be the main person operating the business, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. In 2023, McKinsey found that family-owned businesses generated higher profits (an average of $77 million between 2017 and 2022, compared with $66 million for other companies). Family-owned businesses that are less than 25 years old also grow twice as fast as other ownership structures, as founder entrepreneurial energy can lead to more aggressive growth that slows over time. Kathy Marshack, a psychologist who's the author of "Entrepreneurial Couples: Making It Work at Work and at Home," says much research on family businesses largely focuses on the economics and business side, but less on the effects on the family. "There's still a difference between romance and work partnership," Marshack tells me. "I have plenty of those couples who come in and say: 'What are we doing? Our marriage is falling apart, and our business is successful.' And it's because it gets hard; those boundaries are hard. Am I your lover right now, or am I your boss?" But relationships and business partnerships do have threads in common: "One of the greatest preventers of burnout is feeling connected to your colleagues," says Karen Bridbord, an organizational psychologist who specializes in executive coaching for company founders and is a certified therapist with The Gottman Institute. "I would argue that is important in a marriage as well." When people feel that they're carrying their weight and their spouse or coworkers are doing the same, satisfaction increases. For some couples, spreadsheets and brainstorming are all part of the romance. Gabriela Baiter and Drew Downie saw a matched ambition in one another — for them, a romantic getaway was a weekend coming up with business ideas on the Oregon coast. In 2017, they found their big break in an eyesore in their small apartment: an ugly dog bed for their 13-year-old black Labrador, Gable. The two turned a cobbled-together prototype into a scaled-up business and now run Lay Lo Pets, designing stylish dog beds from Palm Springs. Baiter quit her marketing career to go full time for Lay Lo in 2023, and Downie followed, leaving behind his work as a creative director in 2024. "We had this moment and this realization of like, is this a hobby or is this a business?" Baiter says. Since they both started working on Lay Lo full time and launched a virtual dog training component, their gross revenue from the business has more than doubled, they tell me. Being in business together means the meeting day never really ends, but Baiter and Downie see that as a perk. "I could not imagine building a business any other way," she tells me. Ideas come to them early in the morning, when they're making pancakes for their kids, or when they're on vacation in tiny hotel rooms (their pet company came to be over shared frustrations in their tiny apartment, after all). The push behind Etsy is that anyone, even a novice crafter, can make it big. Sarah Cambio bought a used sewing machine off Facebook Marketplace in 2020 and taught herself to make doll and baby clothes. She figured she might sell some stuff on Etsy while taking care of her three kids full time, using the money for little expenses or as fun spending money. She tried out a few items, but her shop started to boom when she listed six fabric crowns for children that sold out immediately. Sarah called her husband, Brent, from the crafts chain Joann, unsure how much fabric to buy with the new interest. It was the turning point of a business that's since ballooned. Brent started helping her to set financial goals or find new ways to source materials, so they wouldn't have to drive an hour from their Maryland home to buy what she needed. Brent, Sarah says, sees the big picture of the businesses, leaving her to handle the creative details, such as intricate embroidery, small pom-poms, and ribbons. "I tone him down, and he tries to hype me up a little bit," Sarah says. The shop, Flower Lane, made its first $100,000 in less than a year, the couple tells me. That rapid jump meant a shift in focusing on Sarah's career after moving around for Brent's — earlier in their marriage, Sarah took care of the kids primarily while Brent was in the Air Force, but her success on Etsy let her art become a focus for the family. "She didn't really have time to really set down and establish a career," Brent says. "I was just happy to see her get back into her artistic self, and it made her happy, so I was happy if she made $5 million or $5." On their first date, Adrian Krawiec told his now wife, Emily Phillippy, that he believed she would one day own her own jewelry store; he says he wanted to flatter her, but he also saw her dedication to her art, as she showed up an hour late, held up working in her studio. Over the next decade, she slowly went out on her own as a designer, and Krawiec pushed her to join Etsy, though she's left the site since to focus on her store. Her business grew, and when Phillippy went to open her storefront for Emily Chelsea Jewelry in Philadelphia in 2021, Krawiec quit his job at corporate Ikea after 18 years with the company and started working for Phillippy — just as the two had their first child. They draw clear lines about the business; they avoid talking work at home, and it's distinctly Phillippy's. "Her name is on the building," says Krawiec, who works as the senior director. "I've always looked at it like it's hers, and largely speaking, my job description has always been to make her job as easy as possible." It's easy to blur those boundaries accidentally, either by bringing work home or slipping out of boss mode. "Adrian helps the business so much in making it so much more profitable, so much more organized, and so he still is involved a lot in the decision-making, and I still will be like, 'Should I do this?' And he'll be like, 'I don't know, you're the owner.'" Krawiec plans to start working at the shop less and become more of an advisor, the couple tells me. It will mean more autonomy over the business again for Phillippy and a chance for Krawiec to explore other parts of his life. "I'm such an independent person, and we did it for four years, but that was not my vision," Phillippy says of working closely together. Marriage vows are forever; business plans are not.
The Drive
5 days ago
- Automotive
- The Drive
This Old John Deere-Powered Ford Ranger Service Truck Will Outlast Us All
The latest car news, reviews, and features. If any automotive icon has earned its rep, it's the Ford Ranger. Go ahead and laugh, but few other trucks have been so overworked and yet so impossible to kill as the tiny, mighty Blue Oval. There's a reason so many trade pros and farmers still choose old Rangers in 2025. The one you're looking at here is an exceptional example, and while there's a lot to ogle at on the exterior with the paint-matched service bed and everything inside it, I'm most interested in the John Deere engine under the hood. Brad Jones uses this truck as a service rig on his farm in upstate New York, but it didn't start out that way. He initially built it as a fuel-efficient commuter in 2016 when he was driving about 100 miles a day. It's a 1990 Ranger that started life as a two-wheel drive short bed with the 2.3-liter four-cylinder. Jones bought it off Craigslist for $400 with a bad fuel pump that he never bothered to fix because he 'always had a soft spot for any Deere engine.' Jones decided any four-cylinder model would do, so he landed on a 4039T out of an industrial air compressor. That works out to 3.9 liters or 239 cubic inches, and a turbo helps it make 120 horsepower in factory form. The engine had 8,800 hours on it when he bought it, but he told me, 'I didn't care. They run forever.' The first big trial was mating the 4039T to a roadworthy transmission. It wore an SAE 3 bell housing and flywheel, but after some shopping around, Jones found an adapter from Phoenix Casting and Machining that enabled him to hook up to an M5R2 five-speed out of an early '90s F-150. He initially went with a 2.73 gear ratio in the stock 7.5-inch rear-end for better fuel economy, and he was able to manage 30-32 miles per gallon with that setup. Not too shabby. While the engine itself is mostly stock, Jones has done a little work to wake it up. The injection pump is maxed out so there's enough fuel to match the air from the upgraded T3/T4 hybrid turbo. Getting it to fit under the hood required some ingenuity, but a custom-made manifold that mounts the turbo on the side does the trick just fine. The exact power figures are unknown, but Jones estimates it's somewhere around 150 hp now. Once he switched to farming in 2019 and cut his daily commute way down, Jones changed his Ranger accordingly. He found an all-aluminum Reading service bed on Facebook Marketplace—a rare find in its own right—so the build's new look started there. Because the utility box is a long bed, some frame extension was in order. He fabricated it all, reversed the rear leaf springs to set the axle in the right spot, and most everything lined up well. It's easy to undersell how involved this project has been through every iteration, though it only got bigger from here. 'I couldn't have a two-wheel drive service truck, so that's where I installed a front Dana 30 straight axle out of a 1996 Jeep Wrangler with custom long travel control arms and coil springs,' Jones said. 'The rear is now an 8.8 with 4.10 gears.' A new 4×4 transmission came next, and a two-speed transfer case was sourced from a 1999 F-150. Lots of little fab jobs here and there have been required, but now, Jones has a go-anywhere service rig that still does well on fuel. Even with a six-inch lift and 33-inch mudders, he says it still gets 20 mpg or so. 'Overall, the truck performs well. It does everything I ask of it,' Jones concluded. And if you ask me, it looks great doing it. Got a tip or question for the author? Contact them directly: caleb@
Hindustan Times
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Trump's military parade a big flop? Report reveals calls for seat fillers in exchange for $1,000 in crypto
Donald Trump's military parade scheduled to happen on Saturday (June 14) suffered a bizarre incident recently when a Craigslist ad appeared to ask people to be a part of the crowd as 'seat-fillers' in exchange for $1,000 in cryptocurrency. This is in regard to the parade being organized on Constitution Avenue in Washington DC on the occasion of the 250th Army Day and the President's 79th birthday celebrations. 'T-Mellon Events is looking for seat fillers and extras to provide their time for space maximization and attendance perception for an event taking place in Washington DC on June 14th,' read the ad. The crypto name wasn't mentioned although the payment was claimed to coming from a company called FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT LLC. The ad also requested these 'extras' to dress in red, blue, and white colors along with gold accessories. ALSO READ| Will the Trump military parade be televised? Here's where to stream it live 'Extras and Seat fillers will be paid a flat daily fee and will be provided a lunch of fast food and soda. We encourage people of color and ethnic groups to sign up for maximum perception control and these individuals will be prominently displayed on the televised broadcast and local viewing screens to be seen by the VIP platform,' it added. People were, however, quick to spot the gaps in this article and took to social media to express their disbelief. If it weren't obvious already, it appears the ad is completely fake and has been published as a way to crack a side joke at the already controversial parade. The company organizing this giveaway- T-Mellon Events- has no digital footprint of their company or work. The image shown in the ad is actually from a Russian military event and the FIGHT FIGHT LLC company has a share in the meme $TRUMP cryptocurrency. ALSO READ| 'Nobody's gonna be there': Trump fears empty birthday parade, insider says The event is scheduled to go on as planned. Tickets can be booked by registering via an online form.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Breaking down Craigslist ad seeking seat fillers on day of Trump's DC parade
On June 11, 2025, a screenshot of an alleged Craigslist advertisement seeking "seat fillers" for an event in Washington, D.C., on June 14, 2025 — the same day as a military parade on U.S. President Donald Trump's birthday — began to make the rounds on social media. The purported ad read, in part: T-Mellon Events is looking for seat fillers and extras to provide their time for space maximization and attendance perception for an event taking place in Washington DC on June 14th. Extras and Seat fillers will check in on the morning of June 14th at 9:00 a.m. Extras are required to wear Red, White and Blue clothing and will be provided a RED hat to wear. GOLD accessories are acceptable as well. The team will advise the extras where to stand or sit according to the line of sight from a VIP viewing platform area. Extras and Seat fillers will be paid a flat daily fee and will be provided a lunch of fast food and encourage people of color and ethnic groups to sign up for maximum perception control and these individuals will be prominently displayed on the televised broadcast and local viewing screens to be seen by the VIP platform. It also listed compensation as a "flat fee of $1,000 paid in cryptocurrency - Provided by FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT LLC." One X post (archived) that shared the alleged advertisement garnered more than 1 million views and 28,000 likes as of this writing: Posts about the Craigslist ad seeking seat fillers also gained traction on TikTok (archived) and Facebook (archived). Dozens of Snopes readers emailed us and searched our website to ask if the Craigslist ad was real. The ad itself was real and was posted on Craigslist (archived) on June 10, 2025. Snopes was unable to definitively confirm whether the ad was a prank or posted by someone from Trump's camp, which is why we've left this claim unrated. However, several elements of the ad suggest it may have been intended as a joke. First, the company mentioned in the advertisement was listed as T-Mellon Events. Searches for "T-Mellon Events" on Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo did not return any results directing us to the supposed company. Instead, they showed news articles and social media posts about the Craigslist ad. The alleged company name could be a reference to billionaire and Trump megadonor Timothy Mellon, heir to Pittsburgh's Mellon banking family. Snopes also looked into the photo in the ad and found it wasn't taken in the United States. Using RevEye, a reverse image search tool, we found the original image shared by The Associated Press on May 9, 2025, captioned, "Russian servicemen attend the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Russia, Friday, May 9, 2025, during celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany during the World War II." The ad also said participants would receive a flat fee of $1,000 paid in cryptocurrency, which could be poking fun at Trump's crypto-related ventures. Fight Fight Fight LLC, the company listed in the ad as providing payment to seat fillers, administers Trump's meme coin. A customer support representative for the meme coin's website, told Snopes via an emailed statement: "It's fake, we have nothing to do with it." Snopes reached out to the White House and Craigslist for comment on the ad's authenticity, and will update this story if we receive a response. We also emailed an address associated with the ad and await a response. Social media posts that call out supposed Craigslist ads soliciting paid actors frequently pop up before events connected to Trump. Snopes investigated a Craigslist ad that offered to pay "minority actors" to hold signs at a Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June 2020, and another soliciting actors to play Trump supporters in Phoenix in November 2019. For further reading, Snopes also looked into claims that a Craigslist ad proves the 2025 anti-ICE demonstrations in Los Angeles were orchestrated. "Seat Fillers Needed - June 14th - Constitution Avenue - DC - Talent Gigs - Craigslist." Craigslist, 10 June 2025, Accessed 12 June 2025. Debusmann Jr, Bernd. "Who Is Donald Trump's Reclusive New Mega-Donor, Timothy Mellon?" 21 June 2024, Accessed 12 June 2025. "AP PHOTOS: Russia's Victory Day Parade Begins." AP News, 9 May 2025, Accessed 12 June 2025. Weissert, Will, and Alan Suderman. "Trump Hosts Dinner for $TRUMP Meme Coin Investors, Raising Ethical Concerns." AP News, 22 May 2025, Accessed 12 June 2025. Khalili, Joel. "Trumpworld Is Fighting over 'Official' Crypto Wallet." WIRED, 4 June 2025, Accessed 12 June 2025. Ibrahim, Nur. "Did a Craigslist Ad Seek 'Minority Actors' for Trump's Tulsa Rally?" Snopes, 15 June 2020, Accessed 12 June 2025. Huberman, Bond. "Did a CraigsList Ad Seek Actors to Play Trump Supporters in Phoenix?" Snopes, 22 Nov. 2019, Accessed 12 June 2025. June 12, 2025: This story was updated to include comment from Fight Fight Fight LLC.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Craigslist post seeking military parade attendees is 'fake': White House
"Seat Fillers Needed - June 14th - Constitution Avenue - DC," reads the title of the June 10, 2025 post on Craigslist, a website for classified advertisements. The listing claims "compensation" will amount to a "Flat Fee of $1,000, paid in cryptocurrency" provided by "Fight Fight Fight LLC," a company affiliated with the launch of a Trump-themed meme coin in January. Its description continues: "T-Mellon Events is looking for seat fillers and extras to provide their time for space maximization and attendance perception for an event taking place in Washington DC on June 14th. Extras and Seat fillers will check in on the morning of June 14th at 9:00 a.m. Extras are required to wear Red, White and Blue clothing and will be provided a RED hat to wear. GOLD accessories are acceptable as well. The team will advise the extras where to stand or sit according to the line of sight from a VIP viewing platform area. Extras and Seat fillers will be paid a flat daily fee and will be provided a lunch of fast food and soda. We encourage people of color and ethnic groups to sign up for maximum perception control and these individuals will be prominently displayed on the televised broadcast and local viewing screens to be seen by the VIP platform." Screenshots of the advertisement rocketed across social media platforms including Facebook and X ahead of Trump's $45 million military parade, which is meant to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the US Army but will also coincide with the Republican president's 79th birthday. "No one is going to trump's stupid parade so he has to hire seat fillers!" says a June 11 post sharing the listing on X. American troops have been transporting tanks and other hardware to the nation's capital for days for what will be the biggest parade in Washington since 1991, after the first Gulf War. The event is expected to see nearly 7,000 army soldiers march past historic landmarks including the Washington Monument, helicopters soaring overhead and military vehicles rumbling along the route. Protests of the heavily-fortified event -- which critics have likened to similar displays of military might in autocratic countries including Russia and North Korea -- are also anticipated. To accommodate the parade and its crowds, Washington is slated to experience road closures, disruptions at some public transit stations and a temporary suspension of all evening flights involving Reagan National Airport. The Craigslist post offering payments to potential attendees is not connected to the White House and does not appear to be sincere, however. AFP could find no evidence that any entity named "T-Mellon Events" exists. No other listing mentioning such a group appeared on Craigslist as of June 13 (archived here). The language of the listing also appears to make fun of Trump's ventures into cryptocurrency, obsession with crowd sizes and well-known love of McDonald's. "This is obviously a fake ad," White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly told AFP in a June 12 email. "Thousands of Americans will join President Trump for the Army Birthday Parade because they are excited to honor our active-duty service members, veterans, and fallen heroes." Reverse image search reveals the picture attached to the listing is an Associated Press photo showing Russian servicemen at a May 9, 2025 military parade in Moscow celebrating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II (archived here). Lisa Rodriguez-Presley, a spokesperson for the US Secret Service, also told AFP there will be no bleachers or seats along the parade route. The special agent in charge of the service's Washington field office said the same in a June 9 briefing -- negating the need for so-called "seat fillers" (archived here). He also said the event is not ticketed. Fight Fight Fight LLC, meanwhile, told TMZ and the US fact-checking website Snopes that the company had nothing to do with the Craigslist listing (archived here and here). AFP reached out to Fight Fight Fight LLC for comment, but no response was forthcoming. AFP also contacted the parade's organizers, Craigslist and the Craigslist account that posted the advertisement. The US Army declined to comment. AFP has previously debunked other misinformation around paid rally attendees here.
