#92 - Scaling up Without losing your Creative Spark - ‘Handwerkbeurs Edition'

Textile crafting is not just a creative outlet; it’s a growing industry filled with passionate entrepreneurs navigating sustainability and market challenges. From unique yarn offerings to balancing day jobs, these makers share their stories of perseverance and ambition. 
• Importance of sustainability in textile crafts 
• The journey from hobbyist to business owner 
• Challenges in competing with online marketplaces 
• Insights into marketing and communication strategies 
• Personal stories from various artisans at Handwerk Beurs 
• The need for community and support among craft business owners 
• Emphasis on ethical practices in marketing and customer engagement 
• Aspirations for growth and expansion in crafting businesses 
• Discussion on the balance between creativity and commerce 
• Exploration of unique products that meet modern consumer needs

Welcome to the ad section. Here at pattern shifts. I do not work with sponsors.  I'm not the kind of content creator that makes a living in this way. I use my podcast to reach as many people as possible that might meet my help, small business owners. In the fiber crafts community. , what I will do is talk about my services and products. Throughout my episodes.

And sometimes in little ads like these.
You'll hear me talk about my community, about my bullet journal workshop, my

Chapters

• 0:00 Supporting Small Textile Craft Businesses
• 12:00 Exploring Small Business Challenges in Textiles
• 21:27 Crafting a Colorful Future
• 33:08 Nurturing Textile Craft Business Growth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to Pattern Shift in 2025. You might notice that my voice is a little bit off. I have been coughing for the last month again, I don't know what's going on. It feels like I've been coughing for one reason or another for three quarters of a year now, so my voice gets creaky. It's fine, let's go ahead and start with the new episode.

Speaker 1: 0:37

Are you running a textile craft business or dreaming of starting one? Whether you are trying to make a living or something extra on the side, turning from crafter to business owner can be a steep learning curve. It doesn't have to be With 16 years of experience in running small business in textile crafts and a drive to build a solid alternative to fast fashion. My mission is to provide you with no BS, actionable exercises and strategies in a language that makes sense to you that you can implement right away so you can organize, build and grow your business. Don't burn out before you get started. Build a solid base.

Speaker 1: 1:11

With the help of Pattern Shift Podcast and the Yavol community and its programs, I have visited the Handwerk Beurs in the center of the Netherlands, which is a needle craft fair, and I visited last Sunday, which was Sunday 12th of January. I interviewed a bunch of small businesses that were selling there, basically just giving them three questions to figure out who they are, what drives them and all of those kind of quick, important things that I need to know in my quest to support business owners in the needlecraft industry and questions that you might find interesting to hear those answers. So let's just start off by letting you know a little bit about the reason why I wanted to go there and interview them. If you're a first time listener just shortly, what I do is I support small businesses and needlecrafts to help them find the balance that they need in their business and life and give them some practical tools so they can organize their business around their needs and do some ethical marketing and branding that feels right for them and, at the same time, also take care of themselves so that they can keep enjoying what they do, so that, in turn, us makers can enjoy their products and make our outfits instead of buying fast fashion, and make our outfits instead of buying fast fashion. Like that's the fastest. I can explain Whenever somebody comes up to me at a party and asks me what do you do? I'm getting better at it. It's just not really quick to explain, but that's what I do. I just love supporting people that do a great job. Yes, so this is as it usually is.

Speaker 1: 3:27

I try to be honest about my own journey in ethical marketing and branding and finding my balance in my business. Being clear and honest about that is going to help you to understand what it is that I think is important in small business. So, as you probably know if you're not a first time listener I have been struggling and battling social media, loving it as well. It's been. It's just such a crazy ride, isn't it For a lot of us. So I'm always looking for ways to find new people to welcome into my community in a way that really feels authentic and real and productive. So not throwing a bunch of things in the air and seeing what lands, but really thinking it through and then doing some experiments and then taking what I've learned and turning it into something that works.

Speaker 1: 4:38

So what has been working for me are two things, mainly when it comes to marketing. Communication is either my existing customers talk about my work and how they have been enjoying it to other people in the industry and they then come in my direction, which is my preferred method. I love that it's real, it's honest, it's warm. I love it, it's human and it's also quite cheap. It's one of the best ways to do marketing. And then the second bit is that I literally go and talk to people where they're at. So I talk to the business owners when they're working, so that could be in their shop, that could be on a festival or whatever you might call that a market, and then I try to make myself not too intrusive. So I was thinking about a way how can I make this work for both of us? So I'm going to interview them and I'll do it quickly and I'll ask them questions that help me get some insight in who they are, what they do, where they are in their journey, if they might want my help or can use my help, and at the same time also conveying all of that to you as my listener, so that they then in turn get a little bit of an audience for their business.

Speaker 1: 6:19

I'm always so I'm laughing about myself because I'm here talking with my hands. So I'm laughing about myself because I'm here talking with my hands. Like my full body is moving and I can hear my actually my earrings touching my headphones. I'm going to take them off for a second. I'm not even going to cut this out because this is how it works and I kind of love that kind of stuff, although I do take out a bunch of ums. I have to be honest, although I do take out a bunch of ums, I have to be honest, I haven't been able to be so in the moment that I can speak without using ums.

Speaker 1: 6:55

So then I first of all ask them would you like to answer a bunch of questions for my podcast? I'll take five minutes of your time. You can cut me off at any moment. Any customer goes first. If you don't want to do it, it's fine, and that's kind of the way I approach people.

Speaker 1: 7:18

And this particular day there was one of the people I ended up interviewing was really, really shy, definitely well shy might not be the word because I don't even know them well enough to say that Um, an introvert, absolutely an introvert feeling not really comfortable in answering any questions. At the same time, she immediately expressed that she knows it's so important, but it's one of the things she doesn't feel that comfortable with. Of course, I then think there's so many things that I can help you with and do for you and figure things out, but that's not why I'm there at the moment. So I have to kind of curb my enthusiasm a little bit. And what I did in this case is I said you know what I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna walk around and I'll come back later and you can think it through if you want to do it or not. And I gave her some gentle nudges. I don't know what I said, but then I came back and she still needed some support. She was working there with somebody else. They were also supporting her in making this decision.

Speaker 1: 8:32

The weird thing is she did a wonderful job. It was so professional. She knew exactly what to say. Sometimes it's not that. Sometimes you just need to kind of take that leap and come from what they call a growth mindset and think about what will happen if I just take that leap and try it. So that was really interesting and it was a good way to get to know each other, just showing that there was definitely no have to and I wasn't going to put my microphone under her face and just start talking. So that's not my style.

Speaker 1: 9:14

I think if you don't know who I am and I'm walking around there and I'm interviewing, I have a really, really small microphone on my phone so it doesn't look super professional and I guess some people might think I don't know who you are, what the hell you're doing, I'm not interested. But yeah, for me it works that it's not invasive, it's not aggressive, and so that's how I like to do it. Of course, the quality of the sound is not great. I always kind of cringe a little when people in podcasts apologize for sound Like that's just how things are, you don't need to apologize. So I'm not apologizing, I'm just letting you know if you're sensitive to creaking sounds. There's a. It's not great, the sound is not absolutely fabulous and I don't think it needs to be. We're on a market, on a fair, so there's people in the background, but there is also a little bit of a creaking noise every now and then. But the interviews are quite short. So that is my.

Speaker 1: 10:26

That's what I found out interviewing people, speaking to them where they are and then moving from that into keeping in touch with them later on, just letting them know that the episode is airing, or also just asking what they need, and sometimes actually a bunch of times in these interviews I got so excited when they started talking about their business, that I immediately wanted to share some thoughts with them or some things they might try or ideas. And what happened was a bunch of these interviews. I just started to talk to them about their business and I stopped myself and stopped the recording then and there were just little nuggets of experience that I shared with them or ideas that I shared with them at the spot. And then the idea is that they'll be listening right now and hopefully they'll listen to some other episodes I made and hopefully they'll look into my community online and the services that I have to offer on my website and the services that I have to offer on my website. So that has kind of been the way forward for me, because as a business, I don't need that many clients, I just need a few, and I just love talking to people when they're doing what they love doing most, and I'm a huge problem solver.

Speaker 1: 12:00

I'm a very creative mind, I can say so. I can be a great partner in all those kinds of things. So, yeah, it's just, I just it's my thing, I love it, and I'm really happy to have kind of embraced for myself that marketing is whatever works for you and your customers and it's not a set of strict rules that you have to follow, because everybody else is doing it, and it's always good that you take that to heart yourself as well. Good that you take that to heart yourself as well. So every moment in my business is a moment and an opportunity where I learn. I'm not a guru by any means. I'm somebody with a specific set of talents. I'm creative, I have experience and love to help, and all of that I bring together in what I offer. So, moving along swiftly.

Speaker 1: 13:05

First of all, let me say this because I wanted to interview her as well a little bit, but the day flew by and basically I just have some sound of us meeting at the door and Françoise of Bad Cattoo Yarn offering me a ticket for the show. So she invited me in. She's been one of my clients and I've loved working with her. I love what she does and, yeah, it's an amazing person. And I wanted to say thank you, françois, for inviting me and offering me the little bracelet. You will hear that in a second. It's Dutch, but just for ambiance sake I'm putting it in. I've just arrived, I've parked a car, I've arrived at the Handwerkburs and today I'm going to interview, hopefully a bunch of small businesses in fiber crafts and slow fashion, to see what they're up to this year and how things are going. So I hope you like this and have fun. Let's start with our first interview. I'm going to get this conversation going, so reach out to me with your thoughts and ideas. You'll find all the information in the show notes.

Speaker 3: 15:16

And let me know what you think. My name is Maaike. We are from the Handwerk Tempel, a business that has been started by Sylvia Verhoef and we exist about three years now. It was a long wish from our owner, in combination with more sustainability in the craft world and to make a nice connection between sustainable yarn and accessible for everyone. So we have a big shop with lots of place for workshops so everyone can join us. You call it the boat fair example, which means craft sample. Yes, something like that.

Speaker 1: 15:48

How would you say your business is different from another?

Speaker 3: 15:53

yarn business. Well, first of all, we have a lot of sustainable yarn. So, for example, our seaweed. We are the only one now who sells the 100% seaweed yarn. We get it from Belgium and we dye it our own so we can make every color. Lots of seaweed is only available now in a combination with, for example, cotton or in a plain color, and we have a big shop, a big place where everyone can come and join us for knitting, weaving, spinning, crocheting, and we like to give you advice and really help you with your project and not just sell yarn. We sell the package.

Speaker 1: 16:33

Nice, so why should I choose seaweed?

Speaker 3: 16:36

for the museum Cotton yeah, for example, cotton is also a really nice yarn, but it is very evasive. It uses a lot of water. There are how do you say it? Chemicals they use to produce and this is biological produce. For as much as possible, we use cornstarch. It's been used to uncolor the seaweed, to make it, and then we color it back with prosciutto dye. But in all, it's less invasive for the planet. And to make everything more sustainable, we need to make use of other resources.

Speaker 2: 17:15

I don't know if you can answer this question. What would you?

Speaker 1: 17:18

say, is hard as a small business in this industry. What is a challenge for?

Speaker 3: 17:24

you the online business. There is a big business in online shops and they want to sell you as much as possible for as low as possible, and we try to sell quality and service. So that's kind of the opposite of the online business and that's what we are standing for our service, our quality. But that's sometimes a hard fight to the online shops. So you don't have an online shop. We have a shop. People can always email or contact us and we are happy to send you a package, but we are not competing in the online game. No, interesting. Yes, lovely, slow world Better, we have tried to do it, but you have to make a lot of costs for your online shop and you have to make a lot of costs for your physical shop.

Speaker 3: 19:30

Yeah, yeah, and that's a hard one. So for now, we're stuck on the physical shop. Yeah, yeah, and that's a hard one, yeah, so, uh, for now we stuck on the, on the physical shop, but it's still a possibility. We are going to start an online shop, but it's a, it's a balance yeah, yeah, it's always the amount of time and money and people and everything together.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Yeah, thank you so much for this and good luck with selling all these beautiful yarns. So that was Maaike at the Handwerk Tempel and we're moving on with Myrthe from Frogmouse Studio. Well, I've talked to Myrthe a couple of times before on different occasions. She has the most durable illustrations for her brand, so definitely check that out. Her yarns are really fun in color, in style, and she definitely is going places and figuring out the balance of how to run a business as a hobby, potentially bringing in some extra cash.

Speaker 5: 20:36

Business as a hobby, potentially bringing in some extra cash. Listen to Myrthe. My name is Myrthe and I run a hand dyed yarn shop called From my Studio. What inspired you to start your studio? So I've always been crafting. When I was little, my mom would send me to workshops in felting and stuff like that, and my grandma taught how to knit. And then, during the pandemic, I picked it back up and I was like I love this, I want to do this all the time, but, um, you can only collect so much yarn before your house gets too small and you have to start selling it. So that's how we ended up here and how's the journey been so far? Uh, it's been great. It's such a nice group of people. Um, you see all the same people at market so you can make a chat with other store owners and customers that come back and it's really fun to see what everyone's been making. So the longer this goes on, the more I see what people have made with my yarn and that's just really fun. Amazing. What's your?

Speaker 4: 21:28

biggest challenge in running your business, you'd say.

Speaker 5: 21:32

I think it's balancing this, which is it's a hobby, it's not a living wage, so it's balancing putting enough time into this to make it work, with working a day job, where you would actually want to spend more time on this, but you can't really do that. That's pretty difficult. So what would be your vision for the future? So, on short term, I would like to buy bigger quantities of yarn so I can do actual sweater quantities instead of just a few skeins. But largely, I would like to have a physical store where I can have workshops and actually do this for a living instead of just as a hobby.

Speaker 1: 22:11

Great, Last question what would you say makes your brand different from other brands?

Speaker 5: 22:18

I think mostly I despise neutral colors Not to wear, but for dyeing it has to be bright colors all the time. The four or five neutrals that I dye are the least fun time I have dyeing. So definitely more color is more better. More color, more better.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Thank you so much. Yeah, no worries, that was myrta, and definitely more color is more better. That was lovely. So we're moving on with petra. She is the owner of what volley? Um, what the hell do you want? It's a kind of a literal translation, but it's a fun pun on wool and she has a very specific vision for the future. So let's hear Petra.

Speaker 2: 23:07

I am Petra Ruiter. My brand is Watvolley which what do you want? But it's also a pun on mooloo. I'm a hand dyer. I dye mostly stockyard and a little bit of non-superwash yarns and I also spinyard from Dutch wool and I have a small collection of lead lopie because it matches my hand spot very well. I love that, love it.

Speaker 1: 23:34

Yeah, my favorite thing, um, but it's not about me. So what inspired you to start your business in the first place?

Speaker 2: 23:44

there were two reasons. Yeah, one was I couldn't find hand diced yarn which suited my projects, so I started dying my own. And then happened, and my work stopped temporarily and I thought what are we going to do? I'm going to dye yarn. And my husband said but where are you going to keep all that yarn? Because you will never knit all that yarn. So why don't you share less? And I thought, well, why not? Why not? Yeah, let's see if we can make a business out of this. And Well, why not? Why not? Yeah, let's see if we can make a business out of this and maybe can even live out of it.

Speaker 1: 24:17

That's not the case, but I still like it. So that's the next question. Actually, what?

Speaker 4: 24:22

is your biggest challenge in business.

Speaker 2: 24:29

Lots of them, lots of them.

Speaker 1: 24:31

Do you want to be able to live from what you do, or is it something extra? I would like to live out of them. Yeah, so do you want to be able to live from YouTube, or is it something?

Speaker 2: 24:36

extra. I would like to live out of it, but I want to sell different things. I'm now mostly living from the sock yard. The biggest income is from the sock yard, but I would like it to be something else. Right, and that's my biggest challenge. I would like to spin yarn and sell that. So that's actually my last question.

Speaker 1: 25:00

What's your vision for the future Spinning yarn?

Speaker 2: 25:03

Spinning yarn and selling yarn, dutch yarn it doesn't even have to be Dutch, but local yarn from local sheep died by me Spun. It would be nice if I could spin it all and living out that that's not the case.

Speaker 1: 25:21

It's like you know the questions I'm going to ask.

Speaker 2: 25:24

The last one is how is your business different? I dye things I would like to wear and things I like to dye. I wear a lot of muted colors, greens, and I'm thinking a lot about pooling, because I'm a sweater knitter another soccer team so I do not want my yarns to pool, so I have a big focus on that. So I think that's different.

Speaker 1: 25:50

So this is the conscious way of how you dye your yarn, so that wooling is minimal. Yeah, minimalized, yes.

Speaker 5: 25:58

No no, no, no, no no.

Speaker 2: 25:59

It's minimalized and I dyed some neons because I just love dyeing neons, but I'm not one to wear it and I think a collection of non-superwash yarns and some spun yarns from local wool. I think that's different.

Speaker 1: 26:14

So it's like a very passionate creative yes, yeah, how's that for the business part? Are you very passionate business? No, not at all.

Speaker 2: 26:26

Because I would like to sell my spun yarn from local wool but people find it too expensive. I don't think it's too expensive. It is a lot of money, but I don't think it's too expensive for what you're getting. But I'd rather give it away to someone who's very enthusiastic than selling it for less. I'm not selling it for less. There's a lot of education that comes in with the selling.

Speaker 1: 26:49

I think there's an audience for everything, and sometimes it's really hard to acknowledge that the people that you are trying to sell to now might not be that audience.

Speaker 3: 27:00

No, I know.

Speaker 2: 27:01

But that's very difficult. That's completely mindfuck. I'm really struggling to say I'm not doing Sakyong anymore. No more in Ireland. I don't want this. I'm just going to sell.

Speaker 1: 27:12

I think this is going beyond the interview, but I'm just going to keep it. Actually, I'm just going to sell. I think this is going beyond the interview. Yeah, I was going to keep it. Actually, I'm going to stop interviewing and I'm going to tell you something out of my experience that I'll share with you. So, thank you, thank you and good luck. That was Petra. Hand dyed, hand spun yarn. Is there an audience for that? I think so. What are your thoughts? Send me a message and let me know.

Speaker 1: 27:41

So next up is Ingrid. She runs Icke, which is Dutch for me, but also cut up is her name and also a pun kind of brand name. I have to translate this interview because we did it in Dutch and I left it to the end so that you can decide if you don't speak Dutch, if you want to hear what that sounds like. So here's editing sauce dropping in for a little bit. This is not the end of the episode. I am really going to wrap it up and have some conclusions at the end that you might find interesting. So there's a bit of Dutch and then the episode continues.

Speaker 1: 28:25

So Ingrid has only had her business for a year. It looks quite professional in terms of her branding, she's got consistent branding on her skein bands and on her drop in the back of her stall and it looks really neat and tidy and clean and it has good contrast so you can immediately see what brand it is when you pass past the stall. I did notice that she has because she is actually hand-dyeing cotton. This is quite unique in our field, at least where I live, because people usually use wool because of different reasons, but we don't get to see hand dye cotton a lot. So she had that actually on a banner on the side of her stall. I think it would be more visible if it was moved up, because it's definitely a unique selling point for her.

Speaker 1: 29:30

She offers two different thicknesses and she starts by designing crochet kits for amigurumi crocheted animals and she felt like she didn't have the fun colors that she would see in wool and so she started to dye them herself. That is how her business started and then for the future she's thinking about expanding into designing more clothing kits with yarn, with the same kind of yarn and bigger amounts, because obviously as a business it's better to sell larger amounts. At the same time I got the idea and I think that she was saying that it's restricted If you're just working with amigurumi. She wanted to move a little bit beyond that and also offering her yarns to different crafters, not only crochet, but knitters and weavers alike. So here's Ingrid.

Speaker 4: 30:35

And I liked that. And then I saw some really nice garden but it's all mud and it's not suitable for animals. And then I started to paint myself. So you paint? What kind of material? 100% nature. I have two different thicknesses 400 meters on 100 grams and 200 meters on 100 grams. What makes your brand different from all the others? You already have 7 answers it's 100% nature. What makes your brand different from all the others? You have already said the answer it is 100% cotton and hand-painted yes, hand-painted cotton to make hair. And you can also turn it and weave.

Speaker 4: 31:23

I have already done that Exactly, but you hardly see this, so you really have a unique position. Yes, how long ago did you start a unique position? How long ago did you start A year? A year, and it already looks like this? Yes, wow, thank you, I am really impressed. You also have a very clear logo, are you?

Speaker 2: 31:47

working on that a lot.

Speaker 4: 31:49

Yes, I am working on that a lot, but I do want recognition. I think it's important that the recognition of the product and that people can find it. I see a banner behind your stand where you clearly see your logo on the address. What do you find difficult about running your company? What is a challenge? Let's put it that way the challenge is indeed finding the balance, because the painting part I like the colors very much, but I don't paint for myself alone. Of course, I paint for myself too, but also for someone else, and I am very much my own interpretation and that also belongs to my own interpretation and that is also part of your own use. But someone who really loves it won't see that in me. No, because it's a very gated. Yes, we call that. Yes, so you also have self-striping. Yes, because if you make small rounds, it becomes fast. I have had that, but I think the paint is very intense, so I have the minis as an alternative for that, so you can actually find your own colors and decide what you want to do with the color combination. Yes, exactly, it looks really fantastic.

Speaker 4: 33:08

You've been working for a year, so do you have any goals for next year or do you have a vision? Where do you want to go? I really want to make more clothing pieces Haken and Breien More because you have very nice yarn and it looks very nice on a animal, but as clothing scarf hat it's just as nice. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you and good luck, thank you. Thank you for sharing, thank you and good luck. Thank you, bye.

Speaker 1: 33:37

Let's bring them all together. Let's start with Maaike at the Handwerk Temple. What they do is they focus on sustainability. They're offering 100% seaweed yarn how cool is that and creating a space for workshop. Their big challenge is competing with online shop that push for low prices over quality, and their vision is finding the balance between their physical shop and the possibility of going online someday. Now what I got from that conversation was fear about being online and selling online, but what I also heard was that they have this unique product that they are, in fact, now offering to a limited amount of people, just their community. I think they should definitely look into having an online shop and combining the two, and I don't think it's as scary as they think it is, especially if you have a Shopify webshop that really combines everything with a point of sale system. I love that. It just works seamlessly and there's limited amounts of work to get it all going. So that was the thing that struck me most in this short conversation.

Speaker 1: 35:02

Then there's Myrthe from Frogmouse Studio. What she does is she offers hand-dyed yarns in bright, bold colors, and her big challenge is to balance the passion project with a day job. Her vision for the future is offering bigger quantities of yarn so that people can make full projects and eventually running a physical shop with workshops. What struck me most is that balancing part of a passion with a day job. So she's really figuring out how much money do I push into this, how much is coming out, what is worth pursuing and what decisions do I make in the future? She would love to offer bigger quantities of yarn and that means that she is limited in buying the undyed yarn in the amounts that she wants to have. So there's something to learn there and to connect a strategy to then.

Speaker 1: 36:04

Next was Petra Petra Ruiter, of what it's hard to say in Dutch when you're speaking English Wat Wollie, and what she does is she sells hand dyed and hand spun yarns, or she wants to do that, but she now also sells hand dyed yarns and sock yarns and some Let Low Be a mix of different yarns. She wants to sell purely spinning hand dyed yarns in the future and her big challenge is that to make that financially sustainable, because it is a very valuable product when you first spin it and then dye it, or the other way around. And how can that work? When we were talking, I said there's always a way. I mean that I think there's always a customer for what you have to sell, and sometimes the customer is not who you think it is. These kinds of yarns might be amazing for fashion designers or fiber artists, like in another area, the artists that do weaving and need particular yarns. She could potentially spin and dye to order for specific people, so it's not necessarily those crafters that come to a yarn shop that want to knit a sweater, so there's something to work around there.

Speaker 1: 37:41

And then, lastly, it is Ingrid from Icke. She sells 100% hand-painted cotton yarns in vibrant colors and different thicknesses. She mentioned her biggest challenge is balancing creativity with what customers want, and her vision is expanding into clothing items and growing a recognizable brand. Now she has just started with this business, so there's lots of things to learn, but she also has got a really good mind for business, as I could tell. So she's got another job that brings in the money and she does this to decide. Now I think she knows where she's going. It's a matter of making a strategy of how to get to the point where you can do more of what you love and less of that other job.

Speaker 1: 38:42

All right, these were the four people that I talked to A lot of them, quite new to the scene. A bunch of them had started their business during COVID dyeing for themselves, becoming aware that you can only dye so much for yourself before you start accumulating too much hand-dyed yarn and then selling that. They had definitely some overlap in how they approach colors, in dyeing bright colors and fun colors, because it's just more fun to dye and some of them are actually thinking about what the audience wants. Others were more focused on what they love to dye and wear and there was a little bit of overlap but also a little bit of difference in that Lots of bold colors, by the way. So there's definitely some awareness about sustainability in one way or another, just balancing things out for themselves and in their business there's always a little bit of an open mind towards being more sustainable, so that was good to hear.

Speaker 1: 39:57

Not all of that came across in the interviews. Sometimes I had a little bit longer conversations where that was said. The bigger picture we can say is that these businesses are really driven by creativity and fun, but they're also really starting to notice the challenges of scaling up without losing the personal touch, educating customers about the value and the prices and also balancing their passion with making a living, because some of them really do this as a hobby still and are trying to figure out, or are actually practically at this moment figuring out, what it means to spend so many hours and earning this amount of money and what that means to them and their other job or other responsibilities. So these conversations really reminded me why I love doing what I do. I remember myself at that point so well and I also remember the drive that I had to figure it out, to go on this trial and error and perhaps if I do this, perhaps if I do that, and then building things on top of other things and figuring it out, and it's just amazing.

Speaker 1: 41:29

But also so much hard work to a point where sometimes it gets so much hard work that the fun and the creativity of it is pushed to the back. And that's where I come in and that's where I now am in my happy place and listening to them and thinking, okay, we can work with this, we can work with this. There's so many things that we can do to get you to that next level or just get things clear for you, basically building roots or a strategy, or figuring out what your goals are, or even figuring out what the hell a goal is in business, because sometimes that's where we start just really figuring out the basics and we can do it as we go, which I have done. But now I know some shortcuts and I'm really itching in these conversations to just I'm almost jumping on them like let's sit down and work at this, and sometimes I invited them for a call so that we can talk about it some more.

Speaker 1: 42:39

I have such a weird business for people in this industry because they're not at all used to mentoring, teaching, coaching in terms of business, that's not really a thing. It might be in the corporate world, but that's not at all what I do, what we know of business coaching. I have a different approach, and so I'm trying to sell my product to people that don't really know that they might need it. I'm making it really hard for myself. I could do so many other things, but I want to do this because it really excites me and I hope that you've been inspired by their stories as well and that you want to join in on this conversation.

Speaker 1: 43:28

You can do so by reacting to the podcast and just talking to me, or joining our community on yeah-volcom, or just patternshiftfm, for that matter. You'll find it there as well, and if you join our community, you'll get in a place with other people that are going through the same thing. And let me tell you, there is so much we can learn from each other without even getting into each other's spaces, because sometimes people like us feel a little bit scared, they're introverted, they're shy, they feel like they want to protect their business with everything they have, because people are copying things. You are not sharing anything you don't want to share. And at the same time, we can still really support each other in really practical but also some more deeper things like philosophy about what we do and those kinds of things. In addition to that, we do not forget the crafter behind the seller. So all these people, all the people that run these businesses, are crafters themselves.

Speaker 1: 44:47

In the community you can learn about fibers, you can learn about different kinds of things. I recently made this whole stash challenge so you can really get your stash, your personal stash, in order or, for that matter, your professional stash. So there's a lot of fun in the community. It's a really low entry. Feel free to join and hang out with us and if you want to work with me to figure things out one-on-one. That's definitely a possibility. And, of course, I do bullet journal workshops because I think, if anything start by organizing your life and your work and being mindful about it, and the bullet journal is the best method to do it. So I have bullet journal workshops as well. All right, I'm wrapping it up. Thank you so much for listening, and if you wanna invite me to any fair market or whatever, let me know and I'll be happy to come over and interview you and your peers. Bye, know, and I'll be happy to come over and interview you and your peers. Bye.