How I started Purple Rose

This is the story of how my little business was born!
I’m in no way a business expert but I hope it’s helpful to see how things came about for me and my haphazard little biz

It all started with Bobbin!

Those of you who follow my Instagram stories will know all about my dog Bobbin, the sweetest little cockapoo you will ever meet! Well it all started when he arrived…

It had been a pretty tough year to say the least and I was struggling with depression which was stopping me from doing pretty much everything. It was decided that if I had a little life that I had to look after that it might help. So along came Bobbin!

How is this relevant you ask? Well, naturally the first thing I did with this cute new bundle of fluff was stitch him! Well, I suppose the actual fist thing was cuddles but pretty soon I set to immortalising him in thread.
It’s not one of my best works, in fact I wish I had the time to go back and redo it because I’m sure I could do so much better now! But it is the piece that truly marks the start of Purple Rose

No, I didn’t do it with starting a business in mind and of course I haven’t sold it or anything like that! But as I was stitching it and soon after I began to get requests:

“Oh I’d love one of my pet”

“My friend would love something like this”

“Could you make one for me?”

That was that! I started to take a few orders and work away at them. Again, looking back I see so many ways in which I would do these artworks differently now, but they are all well loved in their new homes

Online or in person?

It’s a well known fact that a lot of small businesses start out on etsy. I did.

It’s relatively easy to start a shop and feel like you’ve got a handle on things…but its not necessarily that easy.
Just cause you’re on the platform with lots of other creative shops doesn’t mean people are going to see your products. In fact it’s almost the opposite, given that when you search for anything on Etsy there are simply hundreds of shops and results!
There are what feels like hundreds of hoops to jump through and then when you finally do get a sale, the fees take half of it back!

Now that’s probably exaggeration, and I really don’t mean to discourage you from it! It’s a wonderful platform for so many creators and I regularly buy stuff through Etsy, but its never been successful for me as a business. I think I had the shop running for 6 months to a year and got maybe 2-3 sales. It just wasn’t viable so I decided that in-person trading was the way to go

Let’s go to a show

I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sustain a business only doing pet commissions and was nervous about making a living purely from selling artworks so I came up with a plan.

As well as selling pet commissions I would also sell a wider range of products; ready made dog hoops, animal embroidery kits and even stitched felt patches! I was marketing these to the people who had already expressed an interest in my business, animal lovers. For the next six months or so I visited a handful of dog shows to tout my wares and… sold hardly anything

I realised that I didn’t know how to get into the part of the market I needed too. Or rather, didn’t have the capital to advertise to them. The people I was meeting were lovely but mostly not at all interested in paying for handmade. I knew I had to change something but I wasn’t sure what…

Handmade is the only way

I realised that I needed to focus on the handmade aspect of my work. The commissions were drying up so I chose to focus on the kits instead

I came across an advert for exhibiting at Kirsty Allsopp’s Handmade Fair, and I thought this was exactly what I needed! I only had a few months to prepare and no idea what to do but I made a plan and got to it. It was quite an investment at over a grand for a small space so I had to make it count!

I set up my own website to look how I wanted to too. I was tired of Etsy and wanted to be more individual and feel more professional. I prepared lots of kits to take with me. I think I ended up taking around 200 kits consisting of about 8 designs. Half of which I had designed in the three months leading up to the show! I didn’t know if this would be enough but I knew I had to sell around 80 kits to break even, so that left plenty of room for profit right?

Well no.

I made only around 75% of my costs back. The show was quiet, really quiet. We hoped it would get better but it just never did.

I was selling, lots of lovely people came by and purchased kits and offered words of encouragement but it just wasn’t enough. There were stall holders in tears because they were going to have lost so much money.
It was sparsely organised and the advertising just didn’t bing people in. We were promised 20000+ visitors and I don’t know the actual numbers but my guess is only around a quarter of them actually showed, that what it felt like anyway

(Three guesses as to why they rebranded the next year as ‘The Handmade Festival’ !)

Don’t loose hope!

My main focus following the show was keep going!

I’d had such encouraging feedback that I knew I was on to a good thing, I just needed to find my market

It just so happened that around this time I had started to gain a significant instagram following, I’m not at all sure of the numbers at this point but I believe there were a couple of thousand! I’d been working hard at posting content every day when I could and it was finally starting out pay off!

It was just before Christmas too, and with my new website up and running I was seeing sales, lots of them over the next few months in the Christmas rush. This was all I needed to keep working for my dream!

Since then I’ve improved things a little here and there, I’ve had triumphs and setbacks but its basically been the same. Purple Rose Embroidery was working

The Ups and Downs

I’m constantly trying to come up with new ways to keep Purple Rose thriving!

I joined Patreon in January of 2019 so I could offer monthly subscriptions for kits and patterns, and at a discount too! Although my band of patrons is growing slowly they are a wonderfully loyal bunch and give Purple Rose some highly valued security. They are the reason I am still able to do this and I’m forever grateful!

I tried to bring out a line of cushions and tote bags printed with my Blackwork designs. This didn’t work at all! I don’t think I sold a single one for a good few months after the launch. Now they are no longer on the website and instead I use them as gifts for my patrons and giveaway prizes for my Instagram followers. Not all bad in the end cause they make great gifts! But in business terms a fail

I started creating my very large and detailed Blackwork designs, these were initially meant just for me as an artistic exercise. I didn’t think anyone else would ever want to try and stitch them! They have since become some of my most successful designs and I’m absolutely thrilled I can justify creating more!

I wanted to try running workshops. I love teaching people new things and have always felt that to do this in person would be very fulfilling. So I set up a workshop, and it ran well, everyone went away happy and had fun which was great! It didn’t run financially well though. I made the money back by selling the leftover workshop boxes through the shop but I don’t think I’d ever run one by myself again

So its not all plain sailing, it never is. There are constant ups and downs on this business rollercoaster, I’m sure they’ll be more this year and many more in the years to come, but if you put the work in then its worth it!
It certainly is for me and I’m so grateful to every single one of you that helps make this possible!

Lottie xxx