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Before Krista Leray started her lateral acceleration, she spent six hours painting a 4-inch 4-inch canvas with a thin paint brush on her kitchen table.
“I would wake up and paint all day until 2am,” says Leray, 33. “My Pinky was numb from holding a fist [around the brush] all day. ”
The result: a needle-ready canvas, a craft that is essentially-to-nummers for embroidery. Bartoutpoint was the hobby of Leray college, and after catching it again during the Covid-19 pandemic, she decided to try selling her models on the side.
Leray spent $ 7,000 on supplies, using money she would earn as a full -time blogger and launched a Shopify website for Penny Linn Designs in September 2020, she says. She was inadvertently in a trend: while the pandemia was enraged, the needles affiliations asked for canvas sellers online, and Leray was among the first. She announced the existence of Penny Linn on her blog and her Instagram account, and her 500 first canvas sold in two hours, she says.
Business has constantly built momentum since then. Penny Linn brought more than $ 4.4 million in canvas, yarn and accessory Sales last year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC, make it. The company was lucrative in 2024, with a difference of 36%, says Leray. It has 10 full -time and 24 part -time employees, and a retail location of 5,000 meters in Rowayton, Connecticut.
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The company’s canvas, now made from a variety of stylists, range from approximately $ 30 to over $ 100 for each “Preppy Coastal” model brought from blue and white chinoiseerie vases, bent sun hats and phrases like, “Your email did not find me well.”
Initially, Leray was worried that Hustle Side would not be worth her time. Despite the sale of many canvas, it was time and time, while she could “post a story a minute on Instagram and make a few hundred dollars,” she says.
“I was earning money really good from blogging. It was my pension plan,” she adds.
But fashion and beauty posts felt insensitive to her at the height of the pandemia, and after she had her son in 2022, she felt less comfortable by posting her personal life online. She took her side full time later that year after she exceeded $ 416,000 on annual sales.
Here, Leray discusses whether her business is reproducible, how to earn a hobby and the thick skin you need to run an online business.
CNBC do it: Do you think your side -to -needle rush – or any successful craft business – is reproducible?
Leray: I would say yes to both. I am obviously a person more person. I think there is room for everyone and everything, especially in the needle, because there are fewer physical ways than it was.
Recently there is a lot of internet criticism about winning your hobbies. You don’t have, of course, but if you are really passionate about it and have a unique perspective, why not?
Before Penny Linn, you were a successful blogger. Kinds what kind of skills help you make money from your hobby?
I am very personalized. I know how to connect with our customers online, partly because I am our client. I know what products to create and how to promote them on social media.
I also have a kind of thick leather you need to run a business. I was chosen as a blogger, so I am now able to distinguish between constructive criticism and harmful criticism.
I give myself 24 hours to get bored. In those 24 hours, I can cry and attack and eat cookie dough. I can be bored and sad, angry and disgusted and hurt as I want. I talk to my husband, my mother, with my therapist, with my best friend.
Then, the next morning, after I have a good sleep, I say to myself: this is behind us. We paid the attention it needed. Time to move on.
The design trends can flow and flow. Do you think it is dangerous to commit to a product that can lose popularity?
The popularity of the needle always goes into waves. I think the millenniums caught during the pandemia – we were all looking to get off our phones, away from the news cycle and to do something peaceful about our minds. The result of this was a ton of young needle stylists.
The great thing about the needle is after involving someone – someone who is making it like a hobby, not because it looks cute in tiktok – they find it difficult to crash. That is why people knit in the 1990s. You can create gifts for your friends, your spouse, your children and your grandchildren.
Something something you can set and always come back. For now, we have a 60%return client rate.
Given that embroidery existed for so long, how do you stay away from your competition?
I remember going to a needle store before Penny Linn was also a glitter in my eye. It was very marketed for a specific generation, old. When I created my shop, I focused on the canvas I would like.
I have made some topics of pop culture. I made them younger, cooler and more affordable than when you enter these stores, and they have mass carstries costing $ 1,000 and take permanently to do.
I just wanted the most accessible projects, like an “EW, David” and something to represent my love for New York coffee.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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