It's generally a rare thing for the person you're interviewing to burst out laughing. But that's what happened to me, recently, on a call with Ernie Tedeschi, the director of economics at the Yale Budget Lab who in March wrapped up a three-year stint on the White House Council of Economic Advisers. The question that evidently tickled Tedeschi: Was the "vibecession" fake? The vibes around the economy — as in, the way consumers and businesses say they feel about it — have been changing lately, and not because the economy itself is markedly different from how it was in the recent past. Inflation is down from its peak, but it's up a bit from where it was earlier this year. The labor market is still strong, and consumer spending is still solid.

Despite the relatively steady environment, people are feeling a whole lot more enthusiastic. In November, small-business sentiment reached its highest level since June 2021, surveys for the National Federation of Independent Business' optimism index found. The number of business owners who said they expected the economy to improve and thought it's a good time to expand increased significantly. Corporate executives' expectations soared for the fourth quarter, the Business Roundtable's economic-outlook survey found. CEO forecasts for hiring, capital investment, and sales improved.

Consumer sentiment has been on the upward slope for multiple months, surveys from the University of Michigan found, and it is continuing that trend heading into the end of the year. Underneath the top-line number, however, there's been a significant partisan shift. Republicans' expectations around the economy improved in December, while Democrats' got worse. It's part of a trend in economic sentiment: People feel a lot better about the economy and their prospects when the political party they support is in charge. So I wanted to know, was Americans' deep sense of economic pessimism over the past year — and the recent turnaround — just a politically driven mirage?

After the embarrassing-for-me chuckle, Tedeschi responded. "The short answer is no. The vibecession was not fake. The long answer is no, but … ," he said. Perceptions of the economy have to do with more than the economy itself. That doesn't mean that people were lying or that their answers didn't have some real economic motivation, but there's clearly more to it than the material conditions in front of them — it's also about their ideological leanings and how that shapes what they believe is ahead.

"Perceptions of the economy are definitely deeply partisan," Tedeschi said.

When people say the economy feels bad, they can mean a variety of things — prices are too high, the news they read is negative, the president is old. Feelings are not facts, including when it comes to GDP. Politics colors a lot of the way businesses and consumers say they see the world around them, including when it comes to money.

It's easy to say the shift in sentiment is partisan flag-waving — now that Donald Trump is headed to the White House, Republicans are going to say everything's great, and to the Democrats, it's all terrible. But that's not really what's happening, said Joanne Hsu, the director of consumer surveys at the University of Michigan. When people say their expectations are better or worse, it's not simply the outcome of the election they're responding to but the policies they believe are on the horizon.

"With the election of Trump, people have an idea of how economic policy might change over the next year and over the next four years. So people are expecting tariffs. They're expecting action on immigration," Hsu said. "The thing is that people across the population really disagree on whether or not these policy changes are a good thing or a bad thing for the economy."

Democrats are worried that Trump's threatened tariffs and promise to undertake mass-deportation efforts will make things pricier. Republicans, on the other hand, think that these policies will be good for the economy and that Trump will help bring down inflation. Independents, Hsu said, are in the middle.

To a large extent, it makes sense that small businesses and corporate executives feel sunnier about the future. The deregulation and tax cuts that are likely to result from a Trump presidency are music to the business community's ears.

"They're optimistic that policies that they like are going to get enacted over the next four years," Tedeschi said.

Businesses don't love the idea of tariffs, but many are hopeful that there are ways they can get around them or that the president-elect isn't so serious about them. Or they just plan to pass along any price increases to consumers anyway. (There may be some amount of denial going on among corporate executives and Wall Street investors, all of whom seem to be ignoring some of the potential downsides of Trump's policy promises and the instability he could represent.)

Overall, the response is fairly logical — if you think what's to come is good for you, you feel good about it. If you think it's not, the opposite.

Over the past couple of years, there have been a lot of efforts to explain the vibecession, the phenomenon where the economy, on paper, looks pretty good but consumers say it's terrible (even though in many cases, they say that they, personally, are doing just fine). No one has come up with a definite answer on what's going on, though high prices — even as inflation has cooled — are likely a big part of the equation. But the fact of the matter is that people are channeling a lot of things when they evaluate the economy, which is a nebulous concept to many people in the first place.

In a particularly polarized political environment like the one we're in right now, a person's red or blue stripes are inevitably going to influence their evaluations. As much as it may be policy-related, it is also partisan, and it's partisanship that's getting worse.

Hector Sandoval, the director of the Economic Analysis Program at the University of Florida, released a study in early 2024 looking at the impact of national elections on consumer sentiment and spending intentions. The research found a "significant boost to consumer morale" when a person's affiliated party won a presidential election. It also found that over the decades, the swings had become more pronounced.

"It actually became more extreme," Sandoval said. In 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected, there was some partisan change, but it's something one might "not really even bother" to note, he said. It happened in 2000 when George W. Bush was elected, but also to a relatively benign degree. "But then, I will say, 2008, 2016, 2020, especially 2016, those are where you are surprised how the gap is just becoming more and more," Sandoval said.

Michigan has been consistently asking its survey respondents about their political leanings monthly only since 2017, but Hsu said polarization had become increasingly evident in its data over the past 40 years. The gap was especially pronounced under the first Trump administration, she said.

Whether you think the economy is good, bad, or wherever in between, we can all probably agree the way that we measure people's feelings about the economy is a bit broken. It's no longer really possible to say, "XYZ economic data says this, so consumers will feel ABC." It's not clear whether this is a temporary pandemic-driven blip or a permanent shift in how people relate to the economic forces around them. What makes this even more complicated is what consumers say they feel isn't even reflected in what they do. Throughout these past years of turmoil, consumers have said everything is terrible and spent a bunch of money anyway. Many people's bank accounts, especially those in the middle- and upper-income brackets, are fine.

"People are spending as if they are much happier than they are," Tedeschi said. He added that this disconnect between the vibes and the data meant that when the vibes get better, it might not mean much, tangibly. "Even if consumer sentiment recovers, even if the vibecession goes away, it may mean that there's not much of an upside for the real economy," he said.

Economic sentiment is, of course, an economic indicator, but it's also a political indicator. In some respects, it might be a better guide as a poll of political job performance than for how people are actually doing financially. While the vibecession was not fake or some giant mirage, there's more going on beneath the surface. If you're a Republican, you're feeling real good about February. If you're a Democrat, enjoy the last of those good vibes now.

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

• Small businesses on TikTok are telling their customers about their worst business struggles.
• "My small business is failing" and other messages have become common hooks.
• It's a good way to build authenticity, marketing experts say — as long as it's done smartly.

In the last couple of years, small businesses have littered TikTok with confessionals.

"My small business is failing," is how they often begin.

"If you've been following me for the last couple of months, you may think that it's not," craftsperson Laura Craine said in a post last year. "But in reality, I haven't received an order in weeks."

Another TikToker said: "On the outside, it might look like everything is going well and I'm making lots of orders, but I'm just not."

Ranging from straight-up claims of failure through to warts-and-all insight into the toughest days, each post aims to grab a precious few seconds of your attention, and maybe a portion of your cash.

They resonate well with users "who want to see more than the polished, curated success stories that once dominated social media and Instagram," Inigo Rivero, cofounder of UK-based TikTok marketing agency House of Marketers, told BI.

It also comes "as more small business owners are embracing radical transparency" on TikTok, Rivero added.

And in many cases, it seems to be working.

I remember thinking: 'I can't do this.'

Emma Molloy has long known the power of lifting the veil on her vegan-friendly doughnut business through TikTok, and being transparent about the ups and downs of making her four-year-old business work.

But the hardest moment for her company, Cat Burglar Dough Co., came in August. She had just given birth and was exhausted. Sales had been poor, and she had just learned that her maternity cover had fallen through.

"I was in a real corner and I remember just sitting there thinking, 'I can't do this,'" Molloy, 30, told BI.

She posted about her worries on TikTok, saying: "This month I've come closer than I ever have before to quitting," but added that she was determined to carry on.

A couple of days later, she was sitting on the floor with her baby when her phone suddenly started buzzing nonstop.

Notifications were flooding in. "Order, order, order, order," she said.

Over on Facebook, an influencer named Lisa Dollan — more familiar to her hundreds of thousands of fans as Yorkshire Peach — had just posted a glowing review.

"We had about £3,000 [about $3,800] worth of orders in a week," Molloy said, adding that the business turned a corner after that.

Business Insider wasn't able to independently confirm the amount.

Dollan didn't respond to BI's request for comment. It's unclear whether Molloy's emotional post prompted her reaction.

But some business owners told BI that posting some variant of "my small business is failing" has brought them unusual engagement, new customers, as well as encouragement at a time when they sorely needed it.

The pull of schadenfreude

Creative duo Caitlin Derer and Joseph Lattimer hopped on the trend in August, with a video that has been watched more than 1 million times.

"For us that's huge," they said.

They used the format as a vehicle to talk about how hard they were working and what they needed to turn the business into a success.

Their business, Collectable Cities, makes art toys for the high-end souvenir market, but the pair had reached the "soul-destroying" part of the business where practical issues turned the spark into a slog, Derer said.

"Then you see someone else make a video, where you can feel their pain through the screen and it's like, 'I should be also sharing some of this,'" she said.

The response to their video spanned thousands of comments, giving them exposure to new customers, as well as a wealth of feedback and suggestions.

Alice Bull, founder of Gratified, a TikTok-focused strategy and content agency, says she finds these kinds of posts compelling and has even ordered from businesses after seeing them. She characterizes it as a "storytelling hook," one of five tried-and-tested approaches that she says tend to produce results on the platform.

Bull regularly encourages her clients to not just showcase their products, but to pull back the curtain on their own stories.

"Telling stories, especially on TikTok right now, is one of the most powerful things you can do, particularly with a small business," she told BI.

"Anything you can do to connect with the audience that will potentially become your customers is absolutely vital," she added. "And one of the quickest ways you can do that is by being slightly dramatic."

She said that research shows that emotionally positive content gets the best engagement, but negative content has its own pull.

Indeed, one 2023 study that tracked the eye movement of TikTok and Twitter users suggested that viewers spend more time on negative rather than positive content.

It works because people immediately want to know what happened, Bull said. "You want to either experience that emotion with that person or understand what they went through" in order to save yourself from the same fate, she said.

It can also be a smart way of adding context to unpopular decisions like price hikes, Bull said.

Staying authentic

Done right, the hook can tap into the authenticism that has underpinned other TikTok trends in recent years, like deinfluencing and the "social media isn't real" hook.

But there's an obvious business risk to telling the world you're failing.

People who adopt this strategy need to weigh up the risk of harm to their long-term reputation with the benefits of appealing to people through honesty, Bull said.

There's also a potential ethical problem that comes with virality — if declaring your troubles is such an effective cash lever, there'll always be the temptation for successful businesses to exaggerate or even lie about their struggles.

Indeed, so many iterations have proliferated on the platform that it's been boiled down to something like a script, with audio from particularly successful versions borrowed by others, who simply paste it over their own visuals.

Rivero said that quality also matters.

"I'm not just going to buy a product just because I like the story," he said. "It needs to come hand-in-hand with a good quality product."

He added that a dropshipper who makes the same complaint as a one-person craft business is unlikely to get much sympathy.

Building trust

Laura Craine said that the massive response to her "small business is failing" post was part of what rallied her to carry on with her craft business when she was almost ready to close shop.

"At the time, my videos weren't doing great," she said. But this one took off, bringing her hundreds of new followers and a wealth of supportive feedback.

Craine's business, With Love And Dreams, preserves personal items like wedding blooms or human remains in resin to create memorial keepsakes.

The fact that she handles sensitive and irreplaceable items means her business depends on maintaining a deep wellspring of trust. Being completely authentic with her audience just made sense.

"I want people to see that I'm a real person," she said.

• Alex Teo, 36, left his corporate job to take over his family's joss paper business.
• The journey has not been easy in modern Singapore, where religious affiliations are declining.
• Teo's career goal is to reinvent the traditional business for the younger generation.

The latest smartphone, a three-story villa, and a private jet. Alex Teo has sold it all — for the dead.

Teo, 36, is the third-generation owner of Ban Kah Hiang Trading, one of Singapore's oldest joss paper businesses. They sell incense sticks, joss papers, and paper effigies — or paper replicas of real-life objects — which are designed to be burned as part of Chinese ancestral worship outside homes and in temples.

His grandfather opened the shop in the 1950s before his father took over in the early 1990s.

But it's an increasingly tough business to run in Singapore, where religious affiliations are waning. Many joss paper business owners of his father's generation have closed down because their kids did not want to take over, he said.

So, at 28, he stepped up. "I thought it would be a pity if I were not to continue it," he told Business Insider.

Now, he's on a mission to reinvent the traditional business for the new generation.

He had no interest at first

During traditional Chinese festivals, believers in Chinese folk religion burn joss paper — also known as "hell money" — as an offering to deities or ancestors.

Some also burn paper effigies of the latest products, such as cars and cameras, for their ancestors.

"The belief is that by burning these items, they will become 'real' in the afterlife and can also be used by their loved ones there," Terence Heng, a sociologist from the University of Liverpool, told BI.

Although Teo grew up helping at the shop, he was never very religious and had no interest in taking over. After graduating from college with a degree in business management, he worked for the public service and then an insurance company, assessing medical claims.

But things changed in 2016 when his dad got sick. His parents, then in their late 50s, asked him whether he could take over.

"I thought, 'Should I give up my corporate job? But I would have to give up some social life,'" he recalled, explaining that most people in the industry are significantly older, unlike the colleagues he had formed friendships with in his previous jobs.

Teo, who now has four kids, said his wife supported the career switch. "She thought that if I were to do my own business, I would have more time for her," he said.

He was also enticed by the thought of being his own boss.

"If I work hard in the corporate world, I can only wait for my bonus. But here, I'm the boss. If I work hard, I earn more money," he said.

The business of religion in modern society

Still, his journey has not been easy. Since taking over the business, Teo says he has seen retail sales fall as the younger generation drifts away from religious beliefs.

In Singapore, between 2010 and 2020, there was an increased proportion of residents with no religious affiliations across all age groups, data from the Singapore Department of Statistics showed. The same data showed that the percentage of Taoists and Buddhists — religious groups that use joss paper products — fell by 2.1% and 2.2%, respectively.

The decline in religious beliefs is part of a wider trend across the world. In the US, around 28% of adults described themselves as atheists, agnostics, or "nothing in particular" when asked about their religion — up from 16% in 2007, a 2024 Pew Research Center survey found.

Meanwhile, complaints about the environmental impact of burning joss paper have been simmering in Singapore.

In February, the Singapore government ran a second campaign to improve burning etiquette by encouraging people to pray in temples instead of outside their homes and to clean up after prayers, per a press release from the Alliance for Action.

Teo said that in the past, business at his family's retail shop would pick up during festive periods like Lunar New Year and the Hungry Ghost Festival but lull during other times of the year.

Running the retail shop also affected his parents, who worked over 10 hours daily and wanted to retire.

So, in May last year, Teo sold the retail shop to focus on wholesale distribution to companies and temples from their warehouse.

Teo saw it as an opportunity to invest more time in innovating their products to meet the needs of a changing consumer base.

"We had to think about how we can prolong tradition and culture to fit into the current modern mindset," he said. "If we were to continue to sell the traditional way like my dad did, I don't think we can be sustainable."

Keeping up with the times

In 2023, Teo partnered with his close friend, Chris Huang, who works in FinTech, to establish Base Genesis, a modern joss paper startup.

The pair invested a mid-five-figure amount to set up the business. While Teo focuses on operations, Huang oversees finances. They've since hired seven employees who work on branding, marketing, and livestream sales.

Their new business aims to innovate traditional joss paper products to appeal to younger generations — from packaging to sustainability.

Early this year, they were approached by MullenLowe, an advertising agency, to develop an eco-friendly hell note. The "Eco Hell Note" has a denomination with 48 zeroes — the largest possible denomination of money in the Chinese language. Instead of burning a stack of notes, burning one piece would suffice. Teo added that their note is ashless and smokeless, unlike traditional notes that create smog when burned.

"Burning joss paper is deep-rooted in our Chinese culture," he said, adding that a ban on the practice is unlikely to happen despite frequent complaints. "So we have to come out with a compromise to control the pollution and not become obsolete," he said.

Teo, who sources the paper from China, said the team had to experiment with different types of paper to determine which material is the most eco-friendly.

Developing such products doesn't come cheap. Although they have not decided on a price for their Eco Hell Note, their eco-friendly products are slightly more expensive. A pack of 500 "Eco-friendly Gentle Smoke Joss Sticks" costs 11.50 Singapore dollars, or $8.50. In comparison, a pack of 500 traditional sandalwood joss sticks costs SG$10.

"Everything takes time and money. You need to do a lot of research and development," said Huang. Each phase will come with additional costs, and it will take time for the company to grow, he added.

Their Eco Hell Note is not yet available for purchase, but the pair hopes that it will take off among younger Singaporeans once they launch it in time for Tomb Sweeping Day, a tradition for honoring ancestors in April next year.

Heng, who researches Chinese religions, said their eco-friendly products would be better received by the younger generation, who are more eco-conscious. While they are not as religious, they may keep up the practice out of filial piety.

"It does still align with the demands of ritualistic burning, where a physical object is transformed into a spiritual one. It's a really good first step in finding solutions to burning joss paper," he said.

Beyond innovation, Teo hopes to expand the business to the Western market, specifically to those who engage in these religious practices.

"We will maybe tweak the design to cater to their taste. For example, come out with a hell note in US dollars," he said.

These are more experimental ideas, Teo said. "But we are still keeping in mind the tradition and culture. That's what we are trying to preserve."

• Samantha Shih sold her custom clothing company 9Tailors to join LookSky as chief brand officer.
• Shih founded 9Tailors in 2008, growing it through challenges like the financial crisis and pandemic.
• Her C-suite role both doubled her salary and allowed her to balance her work and family life.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Samantha Shih, a 43-year-old chief brand officer from Boston. It's been edited for length and clarity.

After graduating from Brown University in 2003, I worked as a consultant at Deloitte for three years before spending a year in China. There, I started making custom clothing, which inspired me to open a custom suiting and shirting company. I founded 9Tailors in Boston in 2008.

Launching a business was challenging because I had little experience in retail and fashion and had to learn everything from scratch. I had some business strategy knowledge from working at Deloitte but didn't have operational knowledge.

I learned and grew the company for 14 years. In 2022, I sold 9Tailors and jumped ship to work for a startup.

Launching a company in 2008 was tough

I had a lot of friends who were getting laid off, but I was optimistic. You can only go up from the bottom, so I thought it was an excellent time to start a business.

The company started online, keeping no inventory and making everything to order. This allowed us to identify our target customer — young professional males looking to dress up for work or weddings.

We've been profitable since year two, winning awards and garnering press until the pandemic threw everything off track. Running a high-touch custom clothing company that needed in-person contact and relationships was stressful. We pivoted toward making masks and sold out immediately.

Around this time, my brother called me one day out of the blue

My brother told me his former boss was advising LookSky — an Asian direct-to-consumer fashion brand looking to enter the US market — and they wanted to speak to a fashion industry expert. I had no set expectations for these calls — I enjoy helping people and sharing industry and fashion insights.

What started as one call turned into three or four calls. I met with the chairman, CEO, and the rest of the C-suite team. The company's chairman asked if I was interested in joining them.

I had to think about it. 9Tailors was never busier after the pandemic; there was so much pent-up demand for suits, shirts, and dressing up, and our revenue kept growing.

Two things made the decision easy for me

LookSky allowed me six months to transition out of my business and design my dream job description from scratch. Although I suggested the position of creative director, they offered to hire me as the chief brand officer. I was pleasantly surprised they wanted me at the C-suite level.

I loved running my own business but wanted to make more impact, so the opportunity arose at the optimal time. At LookSky, I would have the opportunity to scale a personalized experience to potentially millions of users.

Also, I had my first child in 2017 and wanted to spend more time with him instead of working crazy retail hours. I had started feeling worn down.

I accepted their offer and nearly doubled my salary at 9Tailors.

Balancing both jobs for a while was tough

During the six-month transition, I worked about eight hours daily, six days a week on 9Tailors. Then, after my son went to bed, I dedicated time to LookSky, often for team meetings or marketing and branding projects. I thrive on being busy, so it was manageable.

LookSky asked me to sell my business, but I couldn't talk about it until we signed the papers and closed because it could destabilize my clients and team if it didn't go through.

The final sale was to my CMO. Even though several businesses expressed interest in buying, I preferred to sell to someone who knew the company, our clients, and how we operate.

My last day at 9Tailors was the same day I announced my departure and the sale of the business to the team. To help transition, my husband, who worked at the company for a good chunk of the 14 years that I did, stayed on for another six months.

I work remotely for LookSky, as most of my team is in Asia

Working remotely was initially a shock because I'm an extrovert who loves being around people, but one of the biggest advantages is having more control over my schedule.

Mornings and evenings are typically dedicated to team calls. Afternoons provide a window for productive personal time — I might work out, dive into a business book (I'm reading "Good to Great" by James C. Collins), or listen to a startup or tech podcast like Lenny's Podcast, Hard Fork, or How I Built This. Best of all, I can attend my son's events and activities.

Last summer, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which was a shock

After hearing of my diagnosis, my team could not have been more supportive, telling me to take as much time as needed. I like being busy and productive, and work actually allowed me some reprieve.

I've found a company that nurtures my strengths and encourages and supports me in learning new skills. I'm surrounded by bright people who motivate me to do my best work. I've grown and developed tremendously.

I don't miss running 9Tailors, though I'm incredibly grateful for the experience. While I might consider running another startup in the distant future, I'm genuinely happy with where I've landed.

Have you been poached and want to share your story? Email Lauryn Haas at [email protected].

• I bought a storage unit business with my husband because we couldn't afford my daughter's college.
• The business is nothing like I expected, and the customers can be difficult.
• Thankfully, the business pays for itself and for our daughter's college tuition.

The good news is that I have a new pizza oven. The bad news is that it's bigger than my kitchen and weighs a ton.

It belonged to a restaurant owner who closed up shop, moved his equipment into a space at my storage-unit business, and then relocated to Eastern Europe. Before he left, he canceled his credit card payment.

A friend advised me to auction the pizza oven off. But my business is in a rural area, and no one here wants my oversized oven. In fact, I contacted every restaurant within a 40-mile radius offering this behemoth for free. I even called the local senior center and some churches just in case they wanted to add pizza production to their service offerings. No takers.

This is just one of the problems I now face as the unlikely owner of a storage-unit business.

We bought the business to pay for college tuition

When our daughter, Lauren, was born, my husband and I started a savings account to finance her college education. It's a great idea on paper, but by the time she was in middle school, we realized our efforts had been mostly thwarted by life's unexpected financial emergencies. Our savings would barely cover one year of college and then would be gone.

At a family meeting, we decided that instead of taking on student loans, we'd rather go into debt buying a business that would generate cash flow.

We found a fixer-upper mini storage business for sale and used Lauren's college savings as seed money to make the down payment. We paid $325,000, and it was a huge risk.

Owning a storage unit business isn't always easy

Before we bought the business, I assumed people would store their stuff, pay their rental fees, and eventually move on. I visualized a cycle of mostly passive income with the occasional hiccup that comes with any entrepreneurial project. I doubted that I'd get to know my customers because we wouldn't have much interaction.

Reality has been different. My phone number is posted on the side of a building. When people call about renting a unit, I'm the one who answers. I've learned that moving in or out of a storage facility often coincides with a life-changing event. People tell me their stories. They start new businesses and need space to store supplies. Spouses die, and survivors want to hold on to precious keepsakes. Moms get fed up with overflowing closets and want an orderly household. Renters get evicted and need to store furniture until they figure out a housing solution.

One man called in a panic. His U-Haul was full, and he wanted to unload it immediately. An hour later, after he dumped his mess and locked the door, he told me he was a landlord and that his tenant hadn't paid rent in a year. Courts had just given him possession of his property, but he was still required to store his tenant's possessions for a certain period of time. A month later, when his bill was due, he told me he wouldn't pay.

"Contact my tenant," he said. The tenant told me she didn't want the stuff either. Since my husband was out of town, Lauren and I shoveled out the unit — half-eaten pop tarts, soiled diapers, and wet laundry, along with every conceivable household item. We donated what was salvageable and took the rest to the landfill.

I also talk with customers when they can't pay their bills. One customer calls monthly to ask for extensions, and during our conversations, we've gotten to know each other. I learned he was feeding a colony of feral cats, and the expense of all that food was bankrupting him. Another customer called after he moved across the country. He said it didn't make sense to come back to California just to retrieve "that old junk." But then he told me that his mom's ashes were in his unit and started to cry.

Sometimes, I talk people out of renting units. One potential customer had just split up with her boyfriend, and as I explained the cost of renting storage space, I sensed her reluctance. She was worried about money. "Are you sure you want this space?" I asked. "What if you had a garage sale instead?"

"That's a great idea," she said. And just like that, I lost a customer.

Though it's difficult, the business makes financial sense for us

Owning a mini storage business has been more interesting and challenging than I thought it would be.

So far, the income the business generates covers all its expenses and just enough to pay for college. It's enabled my family to pay for our daughter's college expenses without going into debt, and I've learned interesting lessons about business and humanity.

And if I ever need a fallback plan, it's given me a perfect leg up to start a pizzeria.

• Small-business optimism may rise after Trump's election win, potentially boosting hiring intentions.
• Optimism surged post-2016 election, with small businesses planning to hire more employees.
• Improved labor market conditions could enhance consumer sentiment and boost wages.

Welcome to the vibe-spansion.

Yes, that's a portmanteau of vibes and expansion, and it's the upbeat version of its better-known cousin, the vibecession.

The term vibecession, a play on the word recession coined by content creator Kyla Scanlon, has been used to describe how people have felt about the economy for the last few years. While the National Bureau of Economic Research hasn't declared an official recession during that time, as there's been no significant decline in employment and consumer spending, inflation and a floundering job market have left consumers feeling downcast about the economy.

That could be about to shift.

That's because the optimism of small-business owners, and their intentions to hire more employees, are probably set to rise after Donald Trump's win in the presidential election earlier this month, with the president-elect promising to cut taxes and regulations.

"Small business owners lean Republican," said Oliver Allen, a senior US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, in a November 12 note.

Numbers from the National Federation of Independent Businesses' November survey aren't in yet, but the 2016 election period saw a substantial shift in small-business optimism. Even with higher interest rates and a slightly slowing economy, one would expect some sort of positive jolt to outlooks, experts say.

"After Donald Trump was elected the 45th President in November 2016, the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) small business optimism index skyrocketed. It was truly a reflection of 'animal spirits' coming to life and this behavior is likely to be repeated," Goldman Sachs' Chief US Equity Strategist David Kostin wrote in a November 18 client note. "We expect an improving small business operating environment will boost the sentiment and spending of SMBs in 2025 and lift the earnings and valuation of stocks with revenues tied to that spending."

Admir Kolaj, an economist at TD Economics, agrees.

"Although the economy is on different footing now and facing a different set of challenges, we anticipate we're likely to see an improved mood among small business owners to cap off the year," he said in a November 12 note.

NFIB data shows that optimism bleeds through to concrete actions. Hiring intentions also jumped after the 2016 election, and they have tracked closely with actual job openings.

Of course, job openings had already been on the rise in the years leading up to 2016, while they are falling today. But the expected jump in optimism, and the presumptive knock-on effect in hiring intentions, could turn that around.

With inflation having cooled off and interest rates starting to fall, more job opportunities flooding the market could be what consumers need to feel better about the economy.

When there are more jobs available, the labor market becomes more employee-friendly, and workers are able to command higher wages. Higher pay could help consumers feel like they're finally able to get ahead, assuming it doesn't fuel higher inflation again with many of the pandemic supply chain hurdles now out of the way.

Workers will also feel less trapped in their current jobs when openings are more abundant, according to Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor. About two-thirds of workers feel "stuck," he said. With openings falling since 2022, the number of quits has dropped dramatically.

"Once the job market heats up again, that will open a relief valve to release the bottled up pressure, by giving workers the option to quit in favor of better options on the market," Zhao wrote in a November 19 report. "For the time being, employers may be benefiting from unusually low turnover rates, but they shouldn't be complacent—a wave of revenge quitting is on the horizon."

The turnaround may not be easy. Unemployment has been trending upward, and the tough credit environment for small businesses may mean that continues. Uncertainty stemming from Trump's tariff proposals could also hamper hiring and business investment.

But the idea that a rosier outlook from small-business owners could boost labor conditions is plausible. The past data is there to support it. Whether the post-election bump in optimism will be enough to spark a hiring spree and improve consumers' attitudes this time around will become evident in the months ahead.

The vibe-spansion could be upon us.

• Natalie Fischer quit her corporate job to become a solopreneur creating financial content.
• She's generated over $150,000 from her business in 2024.
• Fischer shares 4 tips for transforming a side hustle into a career.

Being an investing influencer started as a hobby for Natalie Fischer during the pandemic. Now, it's her full-time job.

Like many people, Fischer started seriously getting into the stock market in 2020. The pandemic was a prime entry point: markets were volatile, rates were low, and she had built up a healthy level of savings.

She began sharing her investing journey on social media through Instagram stories and received an outpouring of feedback and questions from family and friends. Fischer couldn't keep up with the barrage of DMs and started a TikTok account, @investwithnat, to create videos answering common investing questions.

In 2023, Fischer took a leap of faith and quit her corporate job to focus full time on finance content creation as a solopreneur, or a one-person business. Now, Fischer creates videos about financial independence on social media platforms and partners with different brands to create user-generated content.

She's been quite successful: so far in 2024, Fischer's brought in over $150,000 in revenue, contracts viewed by Business Insider show. And that's in an increasingly cutthroat creator economy — according to Goldman Sachs, only around 4% of content creators globally generate over $100,000 a year.

If you want to transform your content creation side hustle into an actual career, Fischer has the following advice.

Take the transition slowly

Fischer's success didn't emerge overnight. She started creating TikToks in 2020 but didn't actually start money until a year and a half later, primarily through producing user-generated content for companies. From there, Fischer began getting more sponsorships. She did this while working her full-time job as a data analyst.

"The best way to transition is to actually just start that project on the side while you're working a full-time job and basically wait to see how it goes," Fischer told Business Insider in an interview.

It's helpful to collect data on how your content is performing and monitor progress. Fischer waited until she had a year and a half of revenue data from her side hustle before deciding to take the leap.

"If I just quit my job not knowing how much money I was going to make, that would just be so stressful," Fischer said.

Once Fischer realized the paychecks from her side hustle were at the same level as the paychecks from her corporate job, she felt confident enough to go all in.

Prepare your emergency fund(s)

It's standard budgeting practice to have an emergency fund that can cover three to six months of living expenses. As a solopreneur, Fischer made sure she had not one, but two, emergency funds: one for personal use and one for her business, with enough money to cover six months of expenses for each.

Having a backup plan gave Fischer more bandwidth to focus on growing her business. A business emergency fund also ensured that Fischer would be able to sustain her business even if it encountered financial challenges as she transitioned to becoming a full-time content creator.

If being a solopreneur didn't work out, Fischer's backup plan was to go back to the corporate world, and the emergency fund would help Fischer weather the financial transition.

"That gave me a lot of comfort knowing that if worse comes to worse, I can always get another job," Fischer said.

Monthly income fluctuates, so diversify your income streams

Part of the reason why Fischer wanted to prepare emergency funds was because, unlike receiving a steady biweekly check in the corporate world, her monthly income as a solopreneur fluctuates.

The unpredictability of her income can make financial planning more challenging. Fischer makes sure she has a variety of income streams so she's not overly reliant on a single source of revenue.

Fischer built her baseline income around user-generated content by signing contracts to create content for companies' social media pages, websites, or advertisements. These contracts are month-to-month and easy to project. On the other hand, the frequency of sponsorships are more variable and therefore harder to forecast.

Fischer is also looking to upskill and expand into interactive events. She recently completed her certification in financial education and hosted a money workshop at a conference. Thinking ahead about new business lines, Fischer has her eyes on being a speaker at universities and schools.

You can do both

Being a solopreneur and working a corporate role aren't diametrically opposed.

A year after quitting her 9-to-5, Fischer is now considering getting a part-time corporate role in addition to running her own business.

"I'd be interested in a part-time project management or marketing role to diversify and expand my potential," Fischer said.

Not only does a part-time role provide more predictable income streams, it also provides exposure to new work environments and skills. Fischer has found that as a full-time content creator, she has a lot more flexibility with her time than she did at a traditional office job. Fischer has seen fellow solopreneurs balance a content creation business, a corporate role, and even write a book at the same time.

Fischer's takeaway from the last year of running her own business is to not limit your options as a solopreneur — there are countless ways to build your brand and business.

"I found that I have a lot more time on my hands, and so I'm able to explore different avenues," Fischer said. "I can do it all."

Are you a successful solopreneur looking to share your story? Reach out to Christine Ji at [email protected]