These grown kids saw their parents' businesses struggling. They called on TikTok to help — and it worked.

Growing up, Marguerite Richards remembers her writer dad Lloyd Devereux Richards "typing away" at his work desk at their home in Vermont. When his debut novel, the FBI thriller Stone Maidens, was published in 2012, she was thrilled for him.

“I honestly couldn't believe it happened," Marguerite, 40, tells Yahoo Life. "Getting published was a huge win, obviously, for an unknown writer.”

But that was just the first hurdle, as sales "weren’t so great," she says. "He continued writing, but no one was reading the first book and it just broke my heart."

That's when she came up with an action plan: “I said, 'What if I made a TikTok, so people could know about your book?'”

Lloyd, 74, didn’t even know what the social media platform was. “He called it ‘Tic Tac’ at the time,” his daughter says with a chuckle. “I mean, he’s not exactly a social media guy.”

Nonetheless, on Feb. 8, she posted a TikTok video in hopes that it would drive readership. In it, Lloyd is seen hard at work at his writing desk. Overlaid text says: "My dad spent 14 years writing a book. He worked full time and his kids came first. But [he] made time for his book. He's so happy even though sales aren't great. I'd love for him to get some sales. He doesn't even know what TikTok is.”

Within a matter of days, the post — which now has more than 51 million views and 45,000 comments — drove Stone Maidens to the No. 1 spot on Amazon’s Bestseller list, catching the family by surprise. “I didn't know what my expectations were. I just thought, Oh, TikTok, whatever. It’s a good place to get the word out," says Marguerite. "I didn’t think it was going to go viral, let’s put it that way.”

Lloyd's stunned reactions were featured in several followup videos posted by his daughter, one of which has him saying, “These last couple of days, I can’t understand it. I feel blessed.”

His book is far from the only intergenerational success story to emerge on social media this year. Other supportive kids — the daughter of a restaurant owner, the son of a dad who recently lost his job and the affable daughter of an app founder — are among those who have tapped into the positive powers of the much-maligned platforms, or, as Amazon called it in a tweet about Lloyd's novel, "the internet at its wholesome best."

'I just have a lot of empathy for my parents'

Jennifer Le found herself in a situation similar to Marguerite's earlier this year, when she helped her parents, owners of the Vietnamese restaurant Lee's Noodle House, in Santa Rosa, Calif., tap into the massive reach of TikTok.

Le, 21, says things were at an all-time low due to a series of catastrophes that began in 2017, when her parents took a giant financial loss after the Tubbs Fire, "just a block away" from the restaurant. Then, of course, came the pandemic. Through it all, Le saw the impact it was having on her parents. "My parents have been feeling stressed, sad and upset," she tells Yahoo Life. "I just have a lot of empathy for my parents. I care about them a lot, and I just wanted to help them. So, I recorded a video. I didn't expect it to blow up."

In a seven-second clip shared on TikTok, Le filmed her dad appearing somber behind the counter of their empty restaurant during dinnertime: "It makes me so sad to see my parents just wait for customers to walk through the door to eat at their Vietnamese restaurant," she wrote in the video.

"TikTok do your thing & help support my parents Vietnamese restaurant," she captioned the post. "My parents haven’t been having that many customers & been feeling stressed dealing with financial issues. If you want to check it out, they make delicious Vietnamese food."

Within days of posting the video — now with 2.6 million views, 160,000 likes and more than 3,700 comments — Le says people were traveling to eat at Lee's Noodle House from hours away. In a matter of weeks, the restaurant became so flooded with customers that, at one point, it nearly ran out of ingredients.

"There was a moment when I cried because someone wrote really nice comments [in the post] about me being a good daughter," she says. "That was always my goal: to help them in life. I just want them to be happy and stress-free. They've been through so much."

Indeed, stories like Le's reverberate across the Internet — including in spaces like LinkedIn, where Patrick McCarthy recently took it upon himself to help his dad Pete find a job after he was laid off.

“My dad lost his job yesterday. I would tag him here, but he doesn’t have a LinkedIn,” McCarthy, 31, wrote in a post alongside a picture of his dad. “I know whoever is reading this and this LinkedIn community can make magic happen.” Eventually, McCarthy tells Yahoo Life, generous users helped his dad create a LinkedIn account of his own, which made a huge difference.

"Ever since I hit 'post' on that story about my dad, the outpouring of support has truly been unbelievable," he says. "We have had a number of folks offer to assist with resume edits and polishing at no cost, and that was his first priority. With that done, he's focused on applying to roles and finding opportunities that are the best fit for him." And, as one of the 830-plus commenters noted, "YOU are amazing! As a professor of marketing, I teach the power of LinkedIn ... and I hope with all of my heart that it will work for your Dad as well."

The idea of "paying it forward" for your parents is a common theme in these stories, says Jeff Foulk, who is also familiar with the potential power of social media.

The creator and founder of Argo, a boat navigation app, Foulk tells Yahoo Life that downloads were few and far between until his daughter Megan, 20, posted a video on TikTok — and that it went viral, forever changing the way they do business.

"The whole thing was crazy," he says. "A lot of people wonder, how can I get something to go viral? But it isn't something you can plan for. I certainly didn't expect it to happen with Argo."

The 11-second video, which Megan made when she traveled with her family to a Chicago boat show in January, shows her dad holding up flyers for his app as a line of people pass by. The camera zooms in on Foulk's crestfallen face: "Help blow up my dads boating app," the overlaid text reads. "He’s worked so hard on it and just wants people to try it out."

"I had no idea she even did it, and very quickly she noticed there were a lot of likes coming in," Foulk says. "Every time she refreshed it, there was about 100 more likes."

By the next day, over one million people had watched the video and Argo had received nearly 100,000 downloads — soon tripling to nearly 300,000, which "crashed the app," the creator says with a laugh. To date, the post has had 28 million views with four million likes and 61,000 comments.

"I got thousands of emails back," he says. Megan followed up with several videos filming her dad's reaction to public response: "He can’t believe the power TikTok has and the support all of you have given him," she wrote in one.

"I was sitting No. 1 on the [Apple store] for three or four days, above Google Maps, as the No. 1 navigation app in the world," Foulk tells Yahoo Life in disbelief. "We've certainly done well."

As for Megan, who is currently traveling outside of the U.S., Foulk couldn't be prouder. Together, they have big plans to carry the business to the higher levels. "It's a free app," he says, "I'm still putting an awful lot of money and time into something that's not making a lot of money at the moment, so I've got to monetize it."

Marguerite, looking back at her viral story, says she's amazed by the army of supporters that rose up to help her dad, saying it's a testament to the human spirit and the power of connection.

She advises other struggling writers and artists to "keep going" and to remain authentic. "I think if people share themselves, it can be so powerful," she says.

As for Le, she says that with every "down" in life, there is also an "up," advising to "never be afraid" if you happen to be down because "your luck could change" at any moment. She adds: "It's like my dad says: 'There's a lot of hardships, but at the end of the day, it's about doing what you're passionate about."

That sentiment is what resonates with people the most, she believes.

"People grew up with me here and they grew up eating the food here with my parents," she adds. "And they're all so happy that this is happening. It's amazing."

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