From CNBC Make It. In 2024, New York-based frozen yogurt chain 16 Handles brought in $20.6 million in systemwide sales, and in the first six months of 2025, systemwide sales reached $12.5 million, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. “Everybody thought frozen yogurt was fading … but we revived the category,” 30-year-old CEO…
From CNBC Make It. In 2017, Louisa Serene Schneider left her high-paying Wall Street job to build Rowan, an ear piercing business. Today, Rowan offers ear piercings performed by registered nurses at locations across the country. In 2024, Rowan brought in over $70 million in revenue.
From CNBC Make It. Nabeel Khan started his career as an operations manager at Amazon and, over five years, worked his way up to senior product manager. During that time, his annual compensation grew from $50,000 to $432,000.
From CNBC Make It. Jacob Cooper, 29, left his AI startup after facing burnout without any plans lined up. In his new spare time, he realized frozen pizza bagels didn’t live up to his childhood memories, so he got to work. Jacob has spent the past year scaling his new pizza bagel business. Pizzabagel.nyc and…
From CNBC Make It. Maddie Baker, 27, will be the first to admit she was an impulsive spender when she started teaching kindergarteners six years ago. Baker isn’t alone. Almost half of American consumers say they make purchases to boost their mood, according to LendingTree survey data released in July. It took Baker three years…
From CNBC Make It. Prenups are on the rise, says Jacqueline Combs, a Los Angeles-based matrimonial and family law attorney.
From CNBC Make It. While working as a teacher in Atlanta, Georgia, Lexi Smith, 24, found herself dreaming of seeing more of the world and living a simpler life. Eventually, Smith landed a teaching position at an eikaiwa, a private language school focused on conversational English, in the Chiba Prefecture of Japan and moved in…
From CNBC Make It. Cintia Diaz, 33, took on various restaurant roles over the years. Today, she is a private chef and culinary educator in New York City. Cintia offers meal prep services and private dinners for her clients. In 2025, she brought in around $66,000 in gross income.
From CNBC Make It. More companies are leaning into “peanut butter” pay increases this year, according to Payscale’s Pay Increase Preview Report.
From CNBC Make It. Ayesha Rascoe, 40, and Jasmin Melvin, 39, have been friends for over 15 years. In early 2025, the two found themselves divorced and looking for new places to live. They decided to explore buying a home together in Washington, D.C.
From CNBC Make It. Keeping too much of your savings in cash — whether that’s under your mattress or in a non-interest-yielding bank account — could be silently killing your wealth-building potential, financial experts at investment management firm Vanguard say.
From CNBC Make It. In 2016, Steven and Ashley Evans took a chance on an abandoned fire station in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, buying it for $90,000 after it had sat vacant and decaying for years. The building had no working utilities and needed a full renovation. Nearly a decade later, after doing much of the…
From CNBC Make It. Cat Goetze, 29, wanted to spend less time on her cellphone, so she created a bluetooth compatible landline phone. Cat’s business, Physical Phones, currently sells three styles of phones that range from $90 to $110. To date, the business has sold over 7,500 phones. Check out Cat Goetze’s Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/askcatgpt…
From CNBC Make It. Gen Z is graduating into one of the toughest job markets in years. Hiring is frozen, layoffs are rising, and entry-level roles are disappearing as companies rethink budgets and lean on AI.
From CNBC Make It. When Margaret Skiff, 27, bought a $575,000 duplex in Portland, Maine, she became both a landlord and a DIY renovator. Aside from hiring electricians, plumbers and a drywall contractor, she and her mom completed most of the $15,000 in repairs themselves. She funded the renovations with her $113,000 yearly salary as…
From CNBC Make It. American Vanessa Wachtmeister, 34, dropped her law school dreams for a life abroad. She now lives in Berlin on a six-figure salary with husband.
From CNBC Make It. Eileen Tyrrell, 26, earns around $53,000 living in New York City — and at this stage in her life, Tyrrell says she’s content with the tradeoffs she’s making. “Where I’m at right now is so rewarding and so meaningful,” she says. “I have a job that I love, I have a…
From CNBC Make It. Prediction market platform Polymarket is hosting a free grocery event for New Yorkers through the weekend. Until recently, the company wasn’t even allowed to let Americans trade on the platform after legal issues with the CFTC back in 2022. We dive into Polymarket’s return to the U.S. as prediction markets grow…
From CNBC Make It. Financial compatibility is key in relationships because money doesn’t just shape your lifestyle — how you approach and manage money is often reflective of other personality traits and attitudes, says Valerie Galinskaya, head of the Merrill Center for Family Wealth, a specialized group within wealth management company Merrill Lynch. Here are…
From CNBC Make It. While men have traditionally been expected to shell out for engagement rings, many women are changing their expectations around who makes the purchase. CNBC Make It asked people in New York about their thoughts on who should buy the engagement ring in a relationship.
From CNBC Make It. In 2023, Zen Stewart decided to pivot from white‑collar work to becoming an electrician. She’s now a member of the electricians union, earning $21 an hour as an entry-level employee. She’s working to be accepted into the union’s apprenticeship program as she moves toward becoming a fully licensed electrician — a…
From CNBC Make It. Even billionaires are worried about their children’s futures, says Patrick Dwyer, managing director at Miami-based boutique wealth management and planning company Aligned by NewEdge Wealth. Dwyer’s ultra-wealthy clients — primarily people who range in net worth from $100 million to over $1 billion — are specifically concerned that their kids, primarily…
From CNBC Make It. Avery Amstutz, 28, purchased a 1973 Airstream trailer in for $6,000 in 2024. The Memphis entrepreneur transformed it into Byway Coffee Co., a mobile coffee trailer that brought in over $500K in its first year.
From CNBC Make It. When Amanda DeRise’s father sent her a listing for a 140-year-old six-bedroom, two-bathroom house in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, her first thought was that it needed a lot of work. Her realtor even called it a "money pit." But Amanda, 32, and her husband, Vincent DeRise, 34, saw potential in the…
From CNBC Make It. Cami sold her home and bought a working laundromat in Arizona for $300,000. Less than three years later, she quit her nursing job to run the laundromat full-time. It brought in roughly $475,000 in revenue in 2024, including about $119,000 in profits.
From CNBC Make It. Symone Austin was earning $131,000 annually as a UX designer when she lost her job in January 2025, not long after she had purchased her house in North Carolina. Here is how she has managed to pay her $2,800 mortgage and her student loans for the past few months despite the…
From CNBC Make It. In 2015, full-time contractor Chris Broomfield bought a five-acre property in upstate New York with the intention of building Airbnb properties. Then, over the next three years, Chris would make weekend-long commutes from Connecticut to build an A-frame cabin by himself. More cabins would follow, and as of September 2025, Chris’…
From CNBC Make It. Brides with disposable income are hosting more events than ever — and buying more outfits as a result, experts and brides tell CNBC Make It. For many brides, tying the knot is no longer a single-day, or single outfit, affair. It can be an entire multi-event season that spans months, sometimes…
From CNBC Make It. Growing up in Southern California, Ashley Peters had always been interested in Japanese culture and cuisine. During the pandemic, she became obsessed with anime: the characters who never gave up, the friendships, the quiet slice-of-life moments. She was infatuated with the sound of the language and the minimalist aesthetic. The shows…
From CNBC Make It. Ashley Cleveland, 41, left a string of corporate gigs that had her feeling burnt out to recharge abroad. She first took a sabbatical in Tanzania five years ago and now lives in South Africa. She never plans to return to the U.S.
From CNBC Make It. It may come as no surprise that Gen Z, the online generation, are increasingly struggling with loneliness — but an unlikely source is coming to their aid. Dating app giant Hinge announced a $1 million fund for social groups in New York, Los Angeles and in London to put on free…
From CNBC Make It. Naseema McElroy, 44, is a labor and delivery nurse with a personal finance brand in Brentwood, California. In 2015, she accumulated nearly $1 million in debt and decided to learn how to better manage her money. Naseema started her business, Financially Intentional, to document her debt payoff journey. By 2017, she…
From CNBC Make It. Markeiz Ryan left a military career behind to build a new life in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam after being honorably discharged in 2019. He earns around $4,000/month and pays $850/month in rent for his two-bedroom apartment.
From CNBC Make It. American Vanessa Wachtmeister dropped her law school dreams for a life abroad. She now lives in Berlin on a six-figure salary with her German husband Marcus. They pay about $2,000/month for an 1,100-square-foot apartment with a balcony. Vanessa feels happier and less stressed, paid off her student loans and is investing…
From CNBC Make It. Anwar White, 43, thought he’d have a long career in fashion, he says. White started out working in strategic planning at Guess and then in client success at Sears. But after attending Columbia Business School to attain his MBA in 2010, White noticed a common theme when catching up with friends:…
From CNBC Make It. Daniel Tom, 31, owns and operates Bay Area Sanitation, overseeing a fleet of almost 2,000 portable toilets servicing construction sites and events across the San Francisco Bay Area. The company reported $4.3 million in total income in 2025. Produced, Shot and Edited by: Mickey Todiwala Managing Producer: Beatriz Bajuelos Animator: Alisa…
From CNBC Make It. Rick Senko, 41, started his reselling career when he doubled his money by flipping a cellphone on eBay in 2008, when he was an unemployed, single father. Now, his business brings in millions.
From CNBC Make It. With politics among the biggest stressors for Americans, and the political gender gap growing among young people, it can be hard to stay motivated when divisions feel more contentious than ever. Few people understand that like Ella Emhoff, the daughter of former U.S. Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and stepdaughter of former…
From CNBC Make It. Dr. Anna Chacon, 39, lives in Miami, FL and is a dermatologist with her own private practice. Her net worth is about $6 million between her $3.2 million in investments, her $1.9 million home and her $1.1 million office building.
From CNBC Make It. When he was 15 years old, Tuan Le, vowed he would help his parents retire after his family emigrated from Vietnam to Toronto, Canada in 2015. 10 years later, his social video production company, ShortsCut is bringing in over $1 million USD a year in sales. Tuan kept his word and…
From CNBC Make It. Louisa Serene Schneider saw something broken in the ear piercing industry—and decided to fix it. In 2017, she left her high-paying Wall Street job to build Rowan. Today, Rowan offers ear piercings performed by registered nurses at locations across the country. In 2024, Rowan brought in over $70 million in revenue…
From CNBC Make It. Roland Salvato and Malana Moberg sold their San Francisco apartment for $1.45 million and moved to Druelle Balsac, France. The couple bought a chateau and has spent the past few years renovating the 6,458-square-foot property.