‘Quitting wasn’t an option’: How tariffs took an emotional and financial toll on founders in 2025
2025 was supposed to be a banner year for Wild Rye, a women’s outdoor apparel startup. It had plans to carry out a rebrand, launch an anticipated ski outerwear collection and hit up outdoor trade shows across the country. Most importantly, it was in discussions with investment groups — one of which had expressed interest in forking over $3 million to $5 million — and was on track to be profitable by the end of the year.
But then, come February, U.S. President Donald Trump slapped tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China, the last of which was home to products like Wild Rye’s apparel. As costs started mounting, “I remember being in full panic mode,” founder Cassie Abel told Modern Retail. Abel scrambled to look into moving production out of China, but soon, Trump began putting tariffs in place for other countries, too.
After Liberation Day in April — when tariffs on Chinese goods soared to a total of 54% — Wild Rye paused all of its production. It raised prices on its existing products. It canceled an upcoming trip to Asia with its product team. And investors who were once eager to back Wild Rye were now pressing pause on deals, citing an uncertain environment. Abel dealt with mounting stress as tariffs on Chinese goods ticked even higher, up to 145%, then went back down and continued to yo-yo.
“It took a huge physical and psychological toll on me,” she said. “In early August, I went to the doctor, having had fainting spells. I thought I had a brain tumor or something wild like that. It ended up being anxiety around what was going to happen on Aug. 12,” which was supposed to be the end of a 90-day pause on higher rates for Chinese tariffs. Still, closing up shop wasn’t ever on the table, Abel said. “My house is fully leveraged for the business, so quitting wasn’t an option,” she said.
Abel is one of numerous entrepreneurs who told Modern Retail that their year was completely upended by tariffs. The extra costs of tariffs were daunting on their own. But for many founders, the emotional toll of trying to keep their businesses afloat in a wildly fluctuating economic landscape was debilitating, too. They spent long stretches of 2025 calling suppliers in a panic, putting off important launches and slashing growth plans, just to make it one more day.
The U.S. has collected about $257 billion in tariff revenues so far this year. Per The Associated Press and PBS, $167 billion of that stemmed from tariffs Trump has imposed in his second term so far. Whether Trump was allowed to invoke a national emergency to enact these tariffs is now up to the Supreme Court, and experts say the administration could be forced to issue tariff refunds. But for many small-business owners who spoke to Modern Retail, the damage — to their growth, to their bottom line and to their bank accounts — is already done.
Nicole Cuervo, the founder of adaptive intimates brand Springrose, told Modern Retail that she grew grey hairs and had sleepless nights from the tariff turmoil. “It was such a stressful process,” she said. “And it was all man-made friction, which was the most disappointing part. This didn’t need to happen.”
‘We’re not in a position to easily swallow that’
Companies from various sectors — including furniture and apparel — told Modern Retail that they had to make concrete changes to their businesses as tariffs mounted in 2025.
Interior design company Havenly, which manufactures about 95% of its furniture abroad, estimates it paid $8 million in tariffs in 2025, CEO Lee Mayer told Modern Retail. Next year, she is projecting that to triple to some $24 million, due to existing orders and extra tariffs. The company is currently dealing with a 25% duty on upholstered furniture, which is set to rise to 30% on Jan. 1, 2026. Havenly also gets rugs from India, where total duties are now as high as 50%.
“That’s dollars that could have gone to grow our team,” Mayer said. “They could have been used to develop new products, or for R&D. … We’re not a public company, and we’re not in a position to easily swallow that without making cuts. … We’re weathering it because we have to, but it’s just such a waste of dollars.”
Havenly, like other businesses, had to make sacrifices over the last 12 months. It stopped all new product development on interior design. It raised prices, halted hiring and pulled “a number of launches” for some of its brands. The team also scrambled to reduce its manufacturing in China and now gets a lot of its materials from Cambodia and Vietnam. About 8% of Havenly’s production now comes out of China, but it used to be much higher — around 70% — a year ago.
There are a few silver linings for Havenly, Mayer said. “We’ve been able to, over time, negotiate a little bit with our vendors,” she said. “So next year looks a little more stable.” But with all of the shifting tariff rates, “It was really hard to understand what was going on,” she continued. “If this had been rolled out with more care, I think it would have done a lot less damage.”
BleuBully Bedding, which sells bedsheets made from beechwood, has had to deal with Trump-era tariffs for most of its life. The company soft-launched in 2024 and had to pay more than 30% in tariffs by the time its second import came in during the spring of 2025, said founder Stephanie Griffith. Griffith, like Wild Rye’s Abel, looked into moving production elsewhere, but was often told, “We physically can’t make this,” Griffith told Modern Retail. Building her own factory in the U.S., Griffith calculated, would cost millions of dollars.
Right now, tariffs are a “stranglehold” on a small business like hers, Griffith said. She’s taken to raising prices but worries about isolating customers. Paying money in tariffs also means BleuBully has less money for developing new products and new colorways, Griffith said. “I’ve had to order less inventory, which is sad,” she said. “It’s an emotional roller coaster.”
Springrose, which is part of the adaptive fashion space, was one of the luckier brands when it came to tariffs. It was able to get an exemption for some of its products because they are made for people with disabilities. But getting those permits from U.S. Customs and Border Protection was extremely time-consuming, said Cuervo, Springrose’s founder. “Our product was basically on a boat on its way [from China] to the U.S., and we still hadn’t heard back whether we could use the [exemption] code or not,” she said. “I was panicking.”
Springrose’s products got approval “five days ahead” of the products’ arrival, Cuervo said. The brand still ended up paying about $4,000 in tariffs to bring in some other products from Colombia. At the time, “We didn’t know how to incorporate the new [exemption] code into our import documents,” Cuervo said. Trying to get that money back has been a six-month-long process. “I can do a lot with that [cash],” she said. “Every penny counts.”
Silver linings
Some brands, even when dealing with tariffs, have been able to grow. One example is Burlap & Barrel, a spice brand that gets its products from markets like Mexico and Chile. The company, which held a “tariff sale” in the spring to get extra cash, is now up 30% for the year, said co-founder Ethan Frish. Most of that comes from direct-to-consumer sales and demand from home cooks trying to save money due to price increases, he estimated.
Burlap & Barrel, unlike some other brands, has been able to hold prices steady. “We found ways to save money elsewhere, to cover the tariffs,” said Burlap & Barrel’s other co-founder, Ori Zohar. “We renegotiated corrugate prices, and we changed our approach to shipping. … These made us a leaner, more efficient kind of company, and we’ll get to keep those savings and continue to pass those onto customers.”
This isn’t to say that Burlap & Barrel hasn’t made sacrifices due to tariffs, though. The company scrapped plans for a holiday advent calendar. “This was a particularly complex [launch] with special packaging,” Frish said. “But, honestly, it was kind of a relief to take it off our plates.”
Wild Rye, for its part, was able to bounce back somewhat after potential investors said they needed to step away. Earlier in 2025, the brand launched a WeFunder campaign to raise money from friends, family and fans. Wild Rye raised $600,000 in the first two weeks of the campaign and has raised almost $1 million to date. Armed with the extra cash, the company can now forge ahead on upcoming product launches for 2026 and beyond. And customers are continuing to support the brand; its Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales were “more than double last year,” Abel said.
It remains to be seen whether Trump’s latest tariffs will stay, as the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the matter in 2026. Nevertheless, across sectors, Trump’s second-term tariffs complicate what it is like to do business in the U.S., sources told Modern Retail.
“Some people thought [these tariffs] were going to be transitory,” said Kyle VanGoethem, vp of corporate development at fulfillment and warehousing services provider Stord. “[But] some [brands] said, ‘This is a dynamic change, and I need to start to rethink how I do things.’ Those are the ones that are succeeding.”