small.stories Deep, human-centered profiles that showcase the real story of small business owners’ commitment and resilience to build a business that grows their time, money, and impact. If you know a small business owner whose story deserves to be told, nominate them here! How Scoviah Nakuti Turned a Medical Crisis Into a Mission to Feed Uganda’s Mothers and Children Some businesses begin with a market opportunity. Others begin with a moment of desperation that refuses to become defeat. Scoviah Nakuti’s story is the second kind.Read More → The Quiet Determination Behind Winnie Moloto’s Push to Put Qaboha Foods on Every Shelf in South Africa A product begins in a humble kitchen, shaped by a cherished recipe and a bold vision, then fights its way onto major retail shelves through grit and unwavering discipline. This is the journey Winnie Moloto is living with Qaboha Foods, and her story is still unfolding.Read More → How Rabbi Chaim and Nell Mahgel-Friedman Have Kept Berkeley’s Jewish Heart Beating for 19 Years There is a particular kind of small business that a neighborhood does not know it cannot live without—until it almost loses it. Afikomen Judaica, tucked into Claremont Avenue in Berkeley, California, is that kind of business.Read More → A Year of small.news: Catching Up With 6 Small Business Owners We’ve Featured One year ago, small.news set out to tell the stories of small business owners building something worth paying attention to. A year later, we went back to ask them what’s changed.Read More → How Yonela Guqaza Turned a Childhood Spark Into a Proudly South African Brand Some businesses are born from spreadsheets. Others from a spark. For Yonela Guqaza, founder of Nhella’s Chilies, it all started in a bustling kitchen at age 12, where her older sister unveiled the magic of cooking and ignited a passion that still burns brightly today.Read More → Jallen Dola Provides Job & Business Opportunities to Women and Youth in Her Community Jallen Dola, Founder of Jadenco Enterprises—a small business that sells leather apparel and household goods in Nairobi, Kenya—is breaking barriers in employment and business creation for the women and youth in her community who did not receive formal education.Read More → Mbali Leboe Named Her Salon After the Women Who Made Her Mbali Leboe did not plan to build a beauty salon. She planned to work in electrical engineering. She earned her N1 to N3 certificates, passed interviews, cleared fitness tests, and attended inductions — and watched every single opportunity dissolve into a rejection letter at the final moment.Read More → Raven Robinson Built a Firm for the Stories That Actually Change Things Raven Robinson has spent her career at the intersection of two disciplines that are rarely practiced together with equal fluency: public relations and political communications.Read More → From Solar to Steel: How Tebogo Maphere Is Rewiring What Small Business Can Do There is a particular kind of small business owner who does not wait for the market to come to them. Tebogo Maphere is that kind. As the founder of Monyem Holdings, he has spent years identifying gaps in the communities around him and building businesses to fill them — not just for profit, but for…Read More → Rosa Benavides Spent Years Waiting for Permission to Speak Rosa Benavides grew up in Boyle Heights, the eldest of five children in an immigrant family, learning early what responsibility felt like. She worked a grill at 15. She studied hard. She became the first in her family to graduate from high school and attend university — eventually making it from Boyle Heights to UCLA…Read More → Melodie Bissell Protects Children and Vulnerable Adults from Abuse For Melodie Bissell, Chair & Sr. Safeguarding Consultant of Plan to Protect, over 20 years of abuse prevention for children, youth, and vulnerable adults started with recognizing a single global need. In 2006, Melodie and her two co-authors were writing the third version of Plan to Protect®, a safety manual and program designed to protect…Read More → Jevonda Perkins Built a School for the Children Schools Were Leaving Behind There is a particular kind of frustration that belongs to parents who know the education system well enough to understand exactly where it is failing their child — and feel powerless to fix it from the inside.Read More → Charity Jose Believes Food Can Change More Than Your Diet Around the world, people are rethinking the true purpose of food. It is no longer just about filling plates or delighting taste buds, but about nourishing health, building community, fueling economies, and protecting the planet all at once.Read More → Jenni Strous Knows What Gets You the Interview and What Loses It Jenni Strous did not plan to become a small business owner. She planned to be an HR Practitioner and was, until retrenchment forced a reckoning. What came next was not a straight line, but a series of calculated pivots, honest risk assessments, and a growing realization that the skills she had honed for someone else’s…Read More → Nthabiseng Mkhize Turned an Abandoned School Field into Soweto’s Organic Farm Nthabiseng Mkhize is not a farmer by training. Before 2019, she and her husband, Gregory, were marketing agents for a vitamin company, building a living far removed from soil and seedlings. When Covid collapsed their supply chains and brought that chapter to a close, they came home to Soweto, and Nthabiseng looked at her community…Read More → 1 2 3 4 Next Page