Advice for starting a small crochet business

This is a really good question and one which requires a massive amount of detail to answer fully! However, here are some quick tips I've put together!

1) Think about your business name, logo & branding carefully! I went through lots of names before settling on 'Cosy Crochet by Tasha'. Make sure that what you choose reflects what you want your business to be and that it doesn't limit you. For a long time I planned to call my business 'Tasha's Crochet Creatures' which would have limited me to just making amigurumi animals and would have meant that if I ever wanted to branch out into wearable items or accessories then my business name wouldn't have fit so well. I'm not sure whether I ever will branch out into making other things, but it's nice to have the option and to not have to change my established business name! 

I also struggled initially with my logo & branding. I had a friend make my first logo and he asked what kind of thing I wanted and I had no idea! He sent over some ideas and I loved them! He'd picked the colours and I just went with it without actually considering whether they felt like 'me'. 

Then @stitchnotes_ on instagram kindly drew an image of me and one of my sprites and I loved it so much that I decided to use it as my logo and to rebrand entirely! 

2) Choose your selling platform. I sell on my Shopify website (physical items and patterns), Ribblr (interactive e-patterns) and Etsy (PDF patterns). They all have their pros and cons and you will need to do some research to decide which is the best fit for you. When starting out, Etsy is undeniably the easiest platform to get set up on and is likely the place you'll get most sales. However, their fees are particularly high which is not great when looking to make money! 

I personally started out solely on Etsy and then when I had a big enough customer base & following on social media, I then set up my own Shopify shop. 

My Shopify website was definitely harder to set up, but allowed for greater customisation options to make it really feel like my own. The fees are lower too, which is obviously a massive plus! However, it is undoubtedly much harder to drive traffic to your own website and you have to be really dedicated with posting about your website and trying to get people to visit it!

Rather than close my Etsy, I decided to keep it open and just sell patterns on there as it was still making me money and helping me reach new customers.

3) Get yourself onto social media and post consistently. This was so tricky for me since I'd never really used social media before starting my business. Keeping up with what works well for the dreaded algorithm makes my head hurt and I still find this so tricky to get right! But what I do know is that you need to make sure your photos and videos are good quality and don't be afraid to really market yourself!

4) Find your unique style. This will take a while but only copying other people's creations will limit your success. You need to find a style unique to you so that people recognise your work.

Of course, when you first start out and are learning, you will find yourself copying...it's only natural and it's a good way to learn. However, if you really want to succeed, you need to find something which sets you apart from the other thousands of crocheters!

My earlier makes on the left are still very cute and there's nothing wrong with them, but you wouldn't know they'd been made by me. I feel like my more recent makes on the right are much more 'my style' and would be recognisable as plushies made my me.

5) Price your work as you see fit. Don't undervalue yourself and don't let anyone else tell you what you should or should not be charging! I have a whole other blog post coming on pricing your work but the main thing to keep in mind when pricing your items, it is a personal choice and everyone's circumstances are different. Price your items as you see fit and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

These are just a few of my musings and I do hope to have time (someday soon!) to start a blog to delve deeper into what I have learned about running a small crochet business over the past couple of years!