In 1996, an 18-year-old boy named Richard Harary landed in Orlando with a suitcase, a handful of dollars, and no one waiting for him at the gate. He didn't speak much English. He didn't know a single soul in the city. But he had one thing that never left him: a dream bigger than his fear.

That dream carried him through a $7,000 luggage shop with a torn awning and no customers. Through 9/11, when air travel stopped overnight and his business nearly went with it. Through building — and later walking away from — a business that made him the second-largest seller on eBay in the United States, because he'd learned a hard truth along the way: revenue means nothing without a business you can be proud of.

When Richard's first daughter was born, he did what most new parents do — he went shopping for her. And what he found, again and again, was the same thing: rows of products, price tags, and staff who could point but couldn't guide. Nobody who understood what a new parent was actually feeling. He knew there was a better way to welcome a family into parenthood. So he built one.

That year, MacroBaby opened across from Orlando's Florida Mall — not just as a store, but as a joint-venture test of a completely new idea in baby retail, built on four simple promises:

- Make every visit to a baby store feel like something worth remembering

- Carry the best and most exclusive brands in the world, including names most American stores had never touched

- Build the largest baby store in the country — with the selection of a superstore and the soul of a boutique

Walk into MacroBaby and you'll notice it doesn't feel like retail — it feels like a celebration. Families come from across the country and around the world to build their baby registry here, many combining it with a trip to Orlando itself. Some come for a stroller. They leave having experienced parenthood in a whole new way — with real ultrasound keepsakes, personalized nursery pieces, product specialists who actually know how to install a car seat, and, since 2018, our Dolls Maternity — a gentle, magical corner of the store where children and grown-ups alike can "adopt" a lifelike reborn baby doll with the help of our own in-store "nurses."

It's why leaders from Nuna, UPPAbaby, Cybex, Skip Hop, Fisher-Price, and Baby Jogger have called MacroBaby out as an industry standard-bearer — and why local news has featured us as Orlando's go-to experts in everything baby.

In 2020, MacroBaby's founder was welcomed to a private dinner with Florida's governor to discuss the impact of Brazilian tourism on the state's economy. In 2026, the City of Orlando went a step further: Mayor Buddy Dyer proclaimed March 6th Richard Harary Day, honoring not just his business journey from an 18-year-old immigrant to the founder of the largest baby store in the United States, but his ongoing commitment to the city — through the MacroBaby Foundation, partnerships with Make-A-Wish, and a standing philanthropic mission to help one family at a time.

It's a long way from that 18-year-old landing in Orlando with nothing but a suitcase. But Richard will tell you the story was never really about him. It was about building a place where every family — no matter where they're from — feels like they've finally found somewhere that gets it.