It's o.k. to stay small

Every few months, I read an article about some indie maker who started a small one person business from their kitchen table and now have 25 employees working out of a 5000 square foot studio.  For about thirty minutes, I either: a. feel like a failure because after nine years I'm still a one woman operation working out of her basement or b. (if I'm buzzing on five cups of coffee) start working on a plan to expand my business.

American society has a "Go big or go home" philosophy.  We're an Amazon, Starbucks, Kardashian, Shark Tank kind of people.  The maker movement was a push back to that corporate, take over the world, mentality.  When Etsy was founded in 2005, it was a haven for indie makers, many who had left the corporate world, who were looking to quit their day jobs and sell their handmade, small batch goods from their one person studio.  For many, it was a lifestyle choice- a choice to live a simpler life, be their own boss, set their own hours, pursue their art and craft and connect with their customers.  However, the Etsy culture changed around 2012/2013.  Two companies, Three Birds Nest and Grace and Lace (both selling clothing and accessories)  burst on the scene boasting astronomical sales of 500,000- 1 million annually.  Obviously, one person wasn't single handedly making all these items for sale.  Those kind of sales require a small workforce to take care of customer service, design, manufacture and shipping of all that product.  In response, Etsy changed the rules of the game to accommodate sellers that had outgrown the one maker rules of the platform.  Now, "makers" don't have to actually "make" anything, they only have to be "creators" of an idea and are allowed to have the actual manufacturing done overseas.  So much for being a maker platform.

Now, on Etsy, the top sellers have sales in the tens if not hundreds of thousands a year.  These sellers are definitely not making their wares from their home studios- they're probably not making much of the product themselves at all but, rather, overseeing the production and business side of their shops.  It's easy to look at their sales and wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Fortunately, however, usually after I'm able to meet up with a friend for coffee in the middle of the day or take the dog for a long walk on a particularly nice morning or even drop off customer packages of items I have enjoyed creating and making, I remember that I love what I get to do everyday.  I really do.  I love working by myself- it fits my introverted personality.  I love making a pot of coffee in the morning and putting on my slippers and going to work in my little home studio.  I enjoy discussing ideas with customers and getting a note back about how much they loved what I made for them.  I like flexibility in my schedule and being creative every day.  The truth is, I don't want a large business.  I don't want to manage people.  I don't want to work a set schedule.

Here's the message I want to give other makers and creatives.  It's ok to stay small.  It's ok to only be known in your town and not the world.  It's ok to make a modest living.  It's ok to not want to corner the market and have 150 employees.   It's not about the numbers.  It's about creating a lifestyle where you are your own boss and you wake up looking forward to the work you get to do (well, most days).  It's about creating meaningful work for yourself.  I'll say it once more  for myself and for you, it's ok to stay small.

The Devil Wears Yoga Pants

There's a new bully in the business world and she's not wearing Prada or working out of a fancy office in Manhattan.  Surprisingly, she's a stay-at-home  mom working from her kitchen table with a pot full of coffee and a desk top vinyl cutting machine.

In October 2011, an arts and crafts company called Silhouette released a home desktop cutting machine that allows crafters to design and cut a variety of substrates from paper to heat transfer vinyl for fabrics.  Prior to this, vinyl decorating on apparel and occasionally mugs and glassware resided almost exclusively with professional printers as the cutting machines were rather large and quite a bit more pricey than the new desktop versions.

I have been selling on the popular maker site, Etsy, since 2012.  When I started, there were only a handful of other sellers making what I sell- printed throw pillows and tote bags.  There were quite a few more sellers making t-shirts, most of them screen printed.  The market was competitive but for the most part civil.

Then, somewhere around 2013, an entrepreneurial minded mom made her baby an adorable Onsie from vinyl she had cut with her desktop cutter and posted a photo of it on her Facebook account.  She started getting requests from friends to make them for their babies too and setup an Etsy shop to sell her creations.

Fast forward to 2015.  A quick search of Etsy for Onesies yields over 230,000 listings.  Mugs with sayings yields a whopping 635,000 listings.  While some of these are made with more traditional screen printing methods, the vast majority are now made with vinyl.  What began as a wonderful way for stay- at-home moms to work from home has now become a fiercely competitive, maker eat maker business.

Don't get me wrong, Etsy has always had it's share of power hungry, greedy crafters intent on crushing their competitors and cornering their little corner of the crafting world.  But for the most part, Etsy crafters were of the hipster,  live authentically and make the world a better place kind of crafter.

Not any more.  This new variety of vinyl cutting crazies are mean and ruthless.  Everyday on Etsy Facebook forums people post about some scheming crafter seeking to trademark every popular phrase for the sole purpose of not allowing other sellers to sell products with that phrase.  When they're not busy applying for Trademarks, they're convincing their friends to buy competitors' products and leave bad reviews or  blow-up their Facebook feeds with nasty comments.

Etsy used to be a wonderful community of makers, supporting one another with their passion for handcrafted wares made by independent crafters.  Thanks in large part to the new generation of cut and press crafters it has become much like any other large corporation with a Miranda Priestly around every corner, sporting a messy bun and yoga pants, scheming at her kitchen table to corner the market and take you down.