About
Real businesses, run by real people, in real places.
Margins covers people building real businesses around the world, and how they actually did it. No million-dollar apps vibe-coded in a weekend. No course sellers selling courses on how to sell a course. No crypto get-rich bullshit. This is about real businesses that are mostly self-funded, mostly owner-operated, and mostly started by someone who saw something nobody else did and bet everything on themselves. The kind of business that makes a neighbourhood feel like somewhere instead of anywhere.
The rate at which immigrants launch businesses in the United States, relative to everyone else. It's documented, and it's part of the American story.
But a decade spent working across the world, from Bogotá to Bangkok, taught me it isn't just an American story. It's universal. In every major city around the world, you find people who were crazy enough to bet on themselves.
What interests us is the how. So we sit down with these owners on-site and go through the business itself. What it cost to open the doors, how they made it work against all common sense. Who they are, where they came from, and why it worked for them when it doesn't for most people who try.
Business school takes years, and most of the coursework is outdated, taught by people who've been out of the game longer than they were ever in it. This is the answer, a working reference so anyone weighing the same bet can see what's actually been done, what's actually worked, by people who aren't that different from you.
More Americans than ever (for various reasons) want to leave the country. More people than ever (for various reasons) are identifying as entrepreneurs rather than employees. We're going to fill that gap.
Because the best business school is somebody else's business.
If a founder can't tell us what it cost to start and what it's making now, there's no interview. A nice story isn't a case study. These have to be real businesses, with a lease, a title, and customers who actually pay, not a course seller with a course about selling courses. We ask for the paperwork, filings, invoices, tax returns, to back up the numbers. We don't publish it, we just check it. Nobody buys their way onto this site. If it's here, it's because it was worth reading about.
Sponsors buy ad reads on video and placements on the newsletter. They receive no copy approval, no say in who we cover, and no access to a founder's figures. Featured founders never exchange any payment to appear.
We'll get something wrong eventually. If you notice an error, let us know at producer@margins-media.com and we'll fix it.
We currently have 11 case studies across 8 countries. Go see how people built something of their own.