city slickers

Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Unsplash

Support for small businesses is sweeping across US cities: This month, leaders in New York City, San Francisco, and Chicago announced new small business policies and proposals that remove red tape and simplify ownership of brick-and-mortar spaces.

New York City: Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently announced his administration’s Overhauling Procedures and Expanding Navigation (OPEN) package, which includes over 50 regulatory reforms that cut down on the permits, paperwork, and fines for small businesses.

• Though the mayor’s office said the reforms will affect “nearly every type” of small business, 25 of the reforms particularly concern food service and food retail shops. OPEN also updated the city’s Business Owner’s Bill of Rights and made it more accessible.

San Francisco: On the other side of the country, District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan also wants to increase the municipal tools available to small business owners in the city.

• Chan announced legislation recently that would help small businesses with landlord disputes and aid workers in purchasing businesses from their owners. The goal, she said, is to insulate businesses from rising rent and other costs, and Chan has labor unions behind her.

Here’s how entrepreneurship hubs are making life a little easier for small businesses.—TC

      

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growing your business

Erin Cabrey

On Bleecker Street in New York, wedged between a series of neutral-toned buildings, sits the pinkest shop in NYC.

So says the fuchsia, fluorescent sign inside Colorful Natalie, the 500-square-foot apparel and accessories boutique that’s become known by passersby for its rosy exterior, and for those on the internet as the must-visit tourist destination for NYC merch.

It lives up to the name: Its pink walls are adorned with racks of pink hangers holding its many (mostly pink) NYC hoodies, tees, and tanks, along with accessories like slippers, scrunchies, hats, and jewelry—nearly all designed by founder Natalie Acopian.

The store, which opened in 2024, has risen to popularity as Acopian has taken to social media to showcase the store and chronicle the highs (lines down the block) and lows (a very vocal critic of her pink storefront) of the day-to-day operations of her shop, accumulating millions of views and nearly 250,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok.

Chatting with Retail Brew inside Colorful Natalie, Acopian shared the store’s journey from curated e-commerce fashion shop to souvenir hot spot, and the wins and pain points of going viral as a small, self-funded business in NYC.

Local color: Colorful Natalie started in 2019 in Los Angeles after Acopian, having garnered a social media following for her graphic designs and fashion content, graduated college and launched an e-commerce store of items she curated.

Putting in a few thousand dollars, she garnered $300,000 in sales in her first month, she said, enough to fund the venture herself. Moving back home to the East Coast during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, she hosted popular pop-ups at Chelsea Market before deciding to open her own brick-and-mortar location. The prospect of a long-term lease and massive retail competition made the hunt difficult.

“I was told ‘no’ so many times,” she said. “They were like, ‘Who are you? What are you doing?’ I was just this—I mean, I still am—this young girl. They were just shocked.”

Here’s how Acopian overcame the skeptics and opened new doors—literally and figuratively—for her business.—EC

      

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This Week in Funding

Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick raised $1.7 billion for his new robotics startup Atoms, with a16z leading the round and Ben Horowitz joining the board. The company is building “physical automation” for food, mining, and transport, according to its website. (the Financial Times)

Fintech startup Natural raised $30 million in a Series A round led by Kirsten Green at VC firm Forerunner. CEO and co-founder Kahlil Lalji told Tech Crunch it has a “good shot” at taking on giants like Stripe, relying on AI agents to automate payments. (Tech Crunch)

AI and robotics company Humanoid closed $152 million in a Series A round led by Prime Movers Lab. Schaeffler, Bosch, Fubon Financial Holding Venture Capital, and Aglaé Ventures also participated. The company told investors it expects to have beta robots out in the world as early as Q4 this year. (Reuters)

Athleticwear brand Lululemon participated in a $30 million Series A funding round for Syntetica, a French startup that developed a single process to recycle nylon fibers from mixed textile waste. The round, led by the French government-backed fund Ecotechnologies 2, will reportedly bring the tech out of the lab and into production with plans for a commercial facility. (Textile World)

Stat: 11. That’s how many apps David Svensson launched since February thanks to vibecoding. He’s part of an Apple App Store renaissance that has doubled the pace of new apps so far in 2026, compared to last year. (the New York Times)

Quote: “I went to the Jeff Bezos school, so when I came in, my whole focus was customer obsession.”—Lyft CEO David Risher, on how he helped the ride-sharing app turn a profit (Wired)

Read: “Welcome to the dead internet,” says 21-year-old founder Zuhair Lakhani. Read about how his startup, Doublespeed, uses phone farms to create AI influencers like “a 62-year-old mother in Phoenix or a Gen-Z skater in Atlanta.” (Intelligencer)

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