My store was born on Instagram. I didn't have an advertising budget — I had an eye. I knew how to photograph a hand-dyed scarf so it stopped you mid-scroll. In the early days, that was enough. The chronological feed meant if I posted at the right time, my followers saw it.

Then the algorithm changed. By 2019, studies found that Instagram's organic reach had fallen roughly 25% compared to the prior year. Posts from small business accounts were getting buried in favour of paid content and personal posts. A business with 10,000 followers might only reach 200–300 of them organically.

For me — a 40-year-old woman running a one-person operation from a garage, competing with 27-year-olds who had portfolios and ad budgets — this wasn't an inconvenience. It was an existential threat. Every piece of inventory I'd hand-selected was now invisible unless I paid for it to be seen. And paying for reach meant learning an entirely new skill: digital advertising. The playing field I'd built on had tilted overnight, and it tilted toward people with money. Money I didn't have.

My business was built on curation — finding scarves, bags, and jewellery at weekend markets and sourcing unique pieces my customers couldn't get at Target or Amazon. Many of those beautiful, affordable accessories — silk scarves, hand-beaded bags, artisan jewellery — had supply chains running through China, India, and Southeast Asia.

When tariffs began climbing, I faced a brutal equation. The cost of my goods went up, but my customers — women who understood that buying something small and beautiful was an act of self-respect — couldn't suddenly afford to pay 30–40% more. And I couldn't ask them to.

Larger competitors could negotiate bulk pricing, diversify suppliers, or simply absorb the hit. I couldn't. I was running a garage operation with no investors. Every dollar of increased cost came directly out of my already thin margins. I had to make painful choices: drop products I loved, find cheaper alternatives, or accept less profit on every sale and hope volume would save me. Some nights I'd sit with the numbers and think, this is where it ends. It wasn't. But it felt like it.

My business was online-only, which should have been an advantage. And in some ways, it was — demand for e-commerce exploded as people stuck at home turned to online shopping. But "opportunity" doesn't mean "easy."

Global supply chains fractured. Ports locked down. Shipping costs skyrocketed and timelines became unpredictable. For a one-woman operation sourcing unique accessories, getting inventory became as hard as selling it had once been. Consumers were seeing out-of-stock messages at a rate 235% higher than before the pandemic.

At the same time, the pandemic pushed every competitor into e-commerce. Major retailers poured resources into online channels. Suddenly I wasn't just competing with other small curators — I was competing with every boutique, department store, and brand that had finally gone digital. Half of the retailers who didn't have online channels before the pandemic opened one during the first months of COVID.

And there was a quieter pressure: my customers were women. Women who lost jobs at disproportionate rates. Women managing children at home. Women tightening budgets. The women who understood that getting dressed in the morning was its own small act of courage were now wondering whether they could afford that courage at all. I understood. I'd been that woman. That's why I started this.