Skip to main content

Making It Work 2021

How creators and businesses are trying to thrive

The Verge presents a second edition of Making It Work, a special issue about how small businesses and creators have found clever and creative ways to adapt to the current climate and get paid. Whether it’s taking farmers markets online, becoming a tour guide on TikTok, or moving bike part sales from Amazon to the real world, these are stories about how the internet has enabled scrappy underdogs and thoughtful problem-solving.

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole

The farmers market is moving online

As demand for bikes surged, Amazon got in the way

The rise of the TikTok tour guide

How small developers compete with the defaults on your phone

A guide to platform fees

Who’ll make the next million-dollar NFT?

Dating’s hard when you live the #vanlife