Building a Hobbie Business w/ Michelle Gregory

If you're thinking about starting an online business but you feel like the only way you can actually do it is by becoming some business guru and maybe that doesn't align with you or you don't have any interest in the business stuff or teaching it, fear not. Today I have an extremely special guest. Michelle Gregory is the founder of Knit School and she built an online business around knitting. And this just goes to show that you, you could build an online business around pretty much any topic as long as you have value that you can share with other people. She turned this into an online business by teaching people how to knit, specifically socks. That was her sweet spot. She was able to build a community and an audience and offer them membership sites and online courses even to learn how to knit. In this interview, we're going to unpack not just how to knit awesome socks, but also how to grow an online business even in a hobby niche. If you want to learn more about Michelle Gregory, do check out the links down in the description to visit her website or social links. Without further ado, let's dive into the interview.

Michelle, how you doing?

I am good. Hi, James. It's so good to be here with you today.

I'm stoked for this conversation. Like, we were briefly talking right before we started the interview about how I feel like people, especially when they're starting out or maybe, maybe they're pursuing something and they're just not making as good of money, they think that they have to kind of put themselves into a box where they need to teach how to make money online. And it's a great way to make money, you know, if you want to make that serious money like you were kind of talking about. But there are plenty of people who do make a great income just by teaching hobbies, and you're such a great example of that with Knit School. So I'd love to hear your story of like, what was the infancy of Knit School like? What made you kind of decide to turn it into a business and how did that kind of spark for you?

Yes. So I, so I've been knitting, so I've been knitting for like 34 years. I learned in school, I've been knitting since I was 6. So it's something I have always done and I like, I love it. So I was, I learned really early and then I was working like a lot of people. I ended up in a corporate job and I was like the squarest peg in the roundest hole. Like I'm so unsuited to corporate life. And about 7 years ago I thought, okay, I'm going to have to do something I really like doing. So I opened an online wool shop, so selling a physical product online, and I did that for 4 years and then COVID hit. But while I was doing it, I found that people were— they lacked confidence to do something like they wouldn't try a new knitting pattern. And for me, that's very alien because I'm like, I'm just suck it and see. And that's actually what I— my business, my business mantra is that I'm like, just get in there and do it. And I was like, oh, people aren't very confident about this. I felt like, oh, that's really sad. Plus knitting is kind of isolated, like not everybody does it. It is niche, to be fair. So at the start of lockdown, all the shows finished and I thought, right, it's time. You're just going to have to get on and do this. Are you going to do a membership or are you going to do a set of courses? And I was like, I'm not confident enough to do a set of courses. I'm going to do a membership. So I started my school membership and I had 125 founding members. Now, this is something that I was very in that I had, I had built my audience. And that's one of the other things I would say to people is that having an audience is good. But I also ran adverts to it as well. So I was like, I'm doing this, it needs to make money, it needs to work out. And that's how I started. So that was 3 years ago almost. So we're coming up to the 3rd birthday of it. And it has completely changed since we started as well. And it has kind of evolved into lots of different things. So I now offer standalone courses, I offer one-to-one knitting sometimes. And I also still have the membership as well. And that's kind of, that's it in a nutshell.

Yeah, no, it's so cool. And I mean, I think Like what, what is cool kind of like to think about the beginning of that answer is that you saw that there was a need for it and you had a passion for it. And it's just, it's just crazy. Like people pay for skills and even learning something like knitting, they're willing to join a community to, to jump into it, you know, and it could be anything. It could be mountain biking, could be golfing, could be tennis, anything like that.

And I think what puts a lot of people off is that there's a lot of free content. So, and there is, there's a huge amount of free content. But if you organize it in a way that people like, that makes sense to people, you know, that you take them on a journey with you. And I'm a bit of a, I suppose I'm a bit of a Stu McLaren fan in that, you know, you take people on a journey. But of course, when you start a membership, there's no journey, there's no courses, there's nothing. But it's okay to start like that too, because everybody understands, particularly in a passion business, The people who are supporting you are egging you on. They want you to succeed. It's not like, it's not like used car sales, you know, you know, people who are passionate about golf or about anything like that, they want you to succeed as well, which is really handy. Very useful.

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of things to kind of unpack here. You mentioned something that makes total sense and it is 100% true is that we have to have an audience. Uh, even if it is small, especially if you're going to go the membership route. I feel like courses, you can obviously sell a course, you can sell a handful of courses as you're building your audience. Uh, but when you get your audience to a certain point, you have enough interest and stuff, then you can kind of start thinking about that membership. So it's unique that you went in just straight to that membership, but like you said, you had an audience. How did you go about building this audience ahead of time?

Yeah, so all of my growth, most of my growth, and I think if I went back, I would do it differently, which I think over 7 years is, you know, that's fair. Yeah, I know. You're like, oh, if I knew then what I knew now, right? All organic. So, and by going out and actually meeting people at physical shows and events as well. So by actually going out and meeting people, but also I have a Facebook group. Like, people underestimate it. Depends on your— of course it depends on what industry you're in. So Facebook isn't for everyone, but Facebook is it is where my people are, particularly for like a Facebook group. So I started that by running free challenges. So I would, you know, things like Sort Your Knitting Out, you know, where's your problem, why have you too many projects. So I pick things that are— and it's a bit of a cheat as well. So if you are interested in something, you get to suit yourself as well. So your problems are your customers' problems. So that's one of the nice things about a passion business, is that I know what's wrong with knitters because I am suffering from that issue. So I ran loads of free challenges and kind of brought people in that way. Instagram, some lives. I'm very inconsistent. I do try to do consistent content, but it's not too bad. You know, you just, you share what people will want and then they connect with you and then they join your Facebook group and you do other, you kind of spend a lot of time looking after people and genuinely believing in them as well. Like I'm not, I'm not in my Facebook group every day trying to sell them a course.

Sure.

You know, and I think that's, and I think people appreciate that as well.

Yeah. And I mean, building an audience is building relationships. That's really what it is. Just the beautiful thing is nowadays with like YouTube, blogging, podcasts, whatever it is, we can do it at scale. You can have 100 people or 1,000 people and you're able to build that relationship. So it is an art form. It does take practice, but I, I just love your like hands-on approach of going in, going to live events, connecting with people and like really having a passion, like you put the passion into passion business, like you're saying. And I think it, I think it's like what leads to having us really have fulfilling work in pursuing passion and building a business around it is like, you have to obviously like keep the passion in it. But I feel like when you're, when you love knitting, you love learning about it and then you just kind of share what you know with people who don't know as much as you. And then Yeah. And then they can kind of put it behind a paywall, which leads to courses and stuff like that. But courses are, as you know, much more than just slapping some videos behind a paywall. There's an art to making a good course that's transformative. And you kind of mentioned that when you're knitting, like you said, there's so much free content online. I could watch YouTube videos and learn how to knit myself, I believe. So why, why do you think people will buy someone's course or why people buy your course when there's so much free content out there online?

Yeah, and that's like, that's a great question because everybody worries about that. Plus people worry about having to be the expert, and trust me, there's no knitting expert across every field. So actually we should all let that go.

Like, there isn't a knitting expert.

No, no. And I don't claim to be, and I think actually that's what people want to know that too, because I teach people who've been knitting since before I was alive. Um, so why would you— so why do people do them? And it's like anything, it's Do I want the community that comes with it? Do I want consistency in how it's delivered to me? So like, if you do go to YouTube, which there are amazing knitting creators on YouTube, but you have to look for it and you have to find it. But if you want to go from A to B quite quickly, then you would come and take a course on it. Or if you want, um, like a journey through it, you know, it's not— you— it's like you don't know what you don't know is one of the things particularly around— actually, I think it's probably about everything. So for example, if you come to me, then I will show you neat tricks that you might not even know to search for. Um, and it's those things. So you have getting from A to B very quickly because otherwise you're on YouTube trying to find the right thing forever, or you want the community that goes with it, or you have— you don't know what you don't know. So that's why a lot of people come, they're like, I've learned myself, I've taught myself on YouTube, and there's no curriculum for it, so I want to know. And it varies for different people. Some people don't want to be taught that way, and other people do, and that's great because there's lots of ways for people to learn. And as long as people are knitting, I actually don't mind they come to me or not. I just want people to be knitting.

Yeah. No, there's so much cool stuff here. What I liked about what you said is like why people will buy your course is because you can take them from point A to point B. Obviously a great course is where you have that clear point A, you have the clear point B, you have the steps laid out to take them from where they are to where they want to be, which is point A, point B. But what you mentioned is like you don't know what you don't know. And what people are doing online is they type in what they want to know, but they don't know all the cool, neat tricks from someone who's been doing it for a long time. And you can share that stuff in your content. I mean, I believe that we should share like cool tricks and things like that. People are like, oh wow, that's really cool because that can help us stand out in our content. But people are like searching things and they wouldn't even know how to search a specific technique because they don't even know that exists. And if they did find that technique or whatever, it would take them so much time. So I think if you're listening to this and you're like, I want to build a course, but I'm afraid that there's so much free content, I'm not the expert, etc., like, just think about that. Like, you have so many cool little tricks and ideas and experience that it's your personal experience that you can share inside your course. And it makes it all streamlined. So you can still share in your content, but the course makes it streamlined to get from point A to point B.

Yeah, because like, for example, I bought a Facebook ads course recently, because I— it's not like I don't have— it's not like I haven't— I can't find stuff on Facebook ads. But it not only taught me they ate like the fastest way through them. But it also helped me to know what else I was looking for. So you were able to find really good creators then through that as well. And you're like, oh, like I found somebody on YouTube and I just love his stuff. He doesn't actually sell a course though. So I was like, oh, what a shame. Maybe he should. But it's, it's that, it's no, it's the jump off point as well. You find people who know something, love it, and then you can go on and find more things. I think that's what I see with my members. They start they've taught themselves enough to get by and that's great because like that's super. But it's— there's a huge— it's like endless. It's like most hobbies, knitting is. And I know you're probably thinking it can't be that endless. Literally endless.

I believe I've experienced enough stuff where like I got into golfing a little bit with my dad just to spend quality time with him and go out with him and his buddy. And there's like so much to golfing. But I also was exposed to like pool, billiards and stuff, and I got pretty good. So you want to challenge me? I'm ready. But there's like so much to pool, you know, and I've just like, I've experienced tennis, like all these things. I've just kind of like lightly experienced it just hanging out with friends. But like, yeah, there is so much to everything. There's an entire world to everything. And I think that we can actually leverage that as like creators because we have, if you're like really obsessed with a topic, like you're obsessed with knitting, I'm not obsessed with knitting. I'm obsessed with your story because I think it's really fascinating. But like, you're always learning more. You can read books, you can learn more techniques from other people. And it's just a simple fact of like passing down helpful, useful information to help someone shortcut that. And if they want the fastest path, you can create a course to get them there, you know. And it's, it's all just built around the passion, which I really love.

Yeah. And it is that it's being— and it's also like, people think they have to be the expert as well. Now you can pick an area to be an expert in. So I, I do consider— you laugh— I consider myself like I'm an expert sock knitter. I design socks, I knit them, I've taught hundreds of people to knit socks. You're probably thinking, who is knitting socks? I love knitted socks.

Hundreds of people?

Yeah, like millions of people worldwide are knitting socks. So I— that's one of the things I specialize in. I specialize in another technique as well. But I, um, you're— if you do something often enough, you know enough about it to be really competent at it, and then you can learn the skill and teach other people that skill as well. So I will— my members will ask me for something, I might not know what it is, but I know that I can teach myself it in a way that and then turn it into something that they can absorb in a way they like. So I have a teaching style that works for some people. Now, some people don't like my style because I'm— maybe they might not like what I sound like, they might not like how I do my hands in my videos, but that's fine. But it's, it's about kind of, you will suit certain people and they will come to you for certain things, and you don't have to be the expert. They will just want you to teach them that because you work for them. I think that's the most important thing as well.

Well, I think if you're going to sell video courses too, that you should showcase video content. I always recommend people that I work with jump on YouTube because many reasons. I don't need to dive too deep into it, but it's like one of the biggest search engines.

Yep.

But like you said, like you get to showcase your personality, the way that you talk, the way you think about things, your energy, like all that stuff. So I'd love to kind of dive in a little bit to like expertise and people who, I mean, I'm sure you experience it in your own life or you have where like we get this imposter syndrome. And what kind of tips do you have for people who are like, I'm not an expert because it's one of the biggest mental barriers that people have? What kind of tips do you have for like overcoming that and just doing the work?

I think you have to. So I would start. So it's— that's a great question. So I suppose it's not something you kind of have to turn off. Like my thing is actually physically turning off those voices. Like that's just something you visualize on the wall. Yeah, I'm like, nope, that voice, just going to turn that down because that doesn't serve me at all. It's no good to me. But the other thing thing is to— you have to acknowledge that you're not, like, looking at it, because that's our— I think a lot of people are like, I have to be. You don't have to be. Look at the people who are out there selling things. They've been doing it for like years, and you get to start small as well if you want. Now, some people are big bang kind of people. Great. I'm not myself. So I started with a membership because I knew that I could generate my content monthly and I could do it at a pace that suited me. I didn't feel comfortable going out and selling a full course. I should In retrospect, there was no reason I couldn't have, but I started with what I thought I was capable of. So for example, I have a second business as well that I'm just starting, and I'm starting really small with that. I'm saying, right, this is an area that I know there's a gap, and I know that people aren't teaching it in a way that I think will work for people. This is my tiny niche in it. I look at other people in that particular area, and they are experts, they're brilliant, they're amazing at stuff I will never want to be good at. But I have a small thing that I can do differently that is mine. And I think that's— if you really suffer from imposter syndrome, we all have something we're good at. You just need to kind of draw it out of yourself, right? That's it. Start small if you have to. Don't feel the pressure to be massive immediately. There's a huge pressure to run like 6 and 7-figure businesses, but how many of us actually need a 6 and 7-figure business? You know, I'm, well, I'm kind of, I'm kind of happy-go-lucky like that anyway, but, um, you know, I'd love one and I will work towards, you know, a nice low 6-figure business with it, but you don't have to start at 6 figures. And that, that, that's, that's very damaging. I think it's all small, small steps. Well, I think just do it.

Like, people's mortgage can be like a couple of thousand dollars a month. And even if you got your business to a side income where you could pay your mortgage or your rent, like, that's pretty badass, you know? And then you have your job or whatever it is on the side. And I think that people— I actually, I have a sales page for a course of mine where I talk about like I'm not a millionaire, you know?

Yeah.

And it's okay. Like, I don't have a Lamborghini or a yacht or a mansion. And I kind of use that as like almost like anti-authority because all these people are like, because I'm in like a make money space, but there's so many people are like, you have to be a millionaire. And I even saw some YouTube comment where someone was talking about that, where they had to, he's like, I just want to have like a job where I can enjoy what I'm doing and support my family. And I just, I don't need to be a millionaire. And I was like, exactly. And I looked at the replies and everyone's like, you're going to need to be a millionaire to do that. And I'm like, okay, so if you're making, if let me, if you were making $20,000 to $30,000 a month, would that not support you and your family? You know, it's like, really think about that. That's not a million dollars. That's like $300,000 per year, you know? So you're not even at half a million. It's like, I just, yeah, people don't really understand that. In terms of price, I am kind of curious about this. What, what did you decide? Because you're in a hobby niche, it's not really a make money niche. Typically make money niche, we can charge a bit more because we're going to help people make money back. So it kind of goes hand in hand. But with a hobby niche, it's like you're paying— people are paying you to learn how to knit socks. So how did you go about like pricing your product and getting people in the door for like your courses, but also your membership?

Yeah, so I started my membership at— now this is sterling, but it's about the same anyway. I think at the moment we're nearly parity with the dollar. But anyway, that's a totally different subject. So, but I started at £9.99 and I thought I might have actually started at £9.97. You know, the 7 at the end, no idea. That's just, that's like an urban legend.

$9.97.

Yeah, in pounds. But yeah, about that. And I was like, I knew that my price point would be my final price that I had in my mind was just under $20. So it's a month and you're probably thinking that's not a lot, but you're in an industry where, so for example, a knitting pattern is £3 to £5 and that's how people— and a 100 grams of yarn is somewhere between, you know, £2.50 and, well, the sky's the limit, but we'll say £15 is what people might pay for it. So you're in that space where people can see what £20 will buy them. I shall say dollars because I know your listenership are probably dollars. So do they know what $20 will buy? So it's in that, that was how I framed it. I was like, right, what do I, what do people get for that then? And they probably get a lot actually, but it's, you have to price it for what people will pay. And then I, but what I discovered doing that was I didn't have an annual membership. So I very quickly realized that knitting is slow. My goodness, it's slow. So I very quickly went to an annual membership and I found that people really wanted that. So I priced that at 10 times my monthly rate. So people feel like they're getting a very good deal, but they're also going to stay with me for a year. So my— and now my pricing is, it's $179 a year or it's $20 a month. So I grew over time. I built that up to that so that I had my founding members who joined and they still have that rate and they won't leave me. But they have some of them, they don't really leave, which is— I don't want to trap them, but they stay because it's good value at that price.

You have a good product.

Yeah, yeah. And it's not— but then you have people who come and they pay the higher price because they can see the value that other people are getting it. Plus as well, when you start, I had nothing. I had literally a plan in my mind that my first 8 weeks I delivered my first stressful— I wouldn't recommend this to everybody. I did my first 8 weeks of content pretty much as I went. So like tracks in front of the train. Now I'm 3 years in and I have— I actually have a— like you can go on a 2 12-month journeys with me, but those, they weren't there at the start. So you do start a little bit lower and then build up to what people can get.

Yeah, I'm actually reading— I just read it and I've been meaning to for a long time. The book U² by Price Pritchett, really small book. I believe that it teaches you everything you need to know about transformation and like mindset in 30 pages. It is incredible because there's books that are like hundreds of pages long. They cover it, go into science and all this, and I'm like, I don't care. I just want the practical stuff. This is the book for you. But he talks about making quantum leaps, like how can we provide— how can we put in less effort and then create a huge, a big result from that, you know, with income or whatever, life change, whatever it is that you want. So it starts with like the end in mind and everything, but you, he basically talks about just starting. And when you just start something like a quantum leap isn't a fully planned out thing. It is just an idea that you have, you have the end in mind and you just start, you just like start taking the action. And like you said, like laying the tracks in front of the train. And that's what evolves to where people can look at you now. And like when you first started, they were like, she's trying to start a knitting business, like what? And then now they see you 3 years later and they're like, holy crap, she made it, you know, like it's legit.

Yeah. And it takes, and it takes a lot of, you do have to, there is a certain amount of uncertainty in it. Like you just literally have to do it and you just, it's imperfection. And I know that for a lot of people that's very difficult. And I find that myself now, my new business, I'm like, because I've learned a lot, I'm like, oh, this has to be a bit more perfect. So I'm a bit bit more. I'm actually more nervous about it now. And I'm thinking, what is wrong with you? I was like, just stop. Just go. Just go.

Well, if you think, yeah, I mean, top of that, like on that topic, he talks about this in the book too, where a rocket fails its way to the moon. It is constantly off course and it just does a little redirect to get back on target. And success is the same exact way. Like we just have to launch the rocket and just get going and then we're going to make mistakes. We just always have that target in mind and that's how you're able to just kind of make those small micro-adjustments and get to your target eventually just by progressing.

Yeah, because there are loads of clichés, I guess, in like particularly business to business where people are like, you know, you know, nobody gets to the top without failing. But the reason they're clichés is because they're true. They're true. You know, you have to, you know, it's okay. It's like, you know, the— I don't know if you remember, you're probably— you're younger than I am. A League of Their Own, which I think it was Tom Hanks, that baseball movie. And he's like, there's no crying in baseball. But actually, there's plenty crying in business. If you don't, you know, if you're— depends on what your emotional state is. You just need to cry and then get back up and dust yourself off and then go again. Because there's no, there's no perfect, there's no perfect journey. There are people who have perfect journeys, but most of us are just out there kind of faking it, you know, not faking it, just getting on with it, just not listening. Like, as I know we're on a podcast, but like turning down that dial, that says you can't do this because if any, if someone can do it, you can do it too.

Yeah. I love that. On this kind of topic, I, I always like to ask people like, what do you think is the real separator, Michelle, between people who, who like just kind of like dabble around and keep the idea in their mind versus the people who really like take the action and pursue it?

So I, for me, for myself, for me, I'm a bit of a necessity is the mother of invention, which is actually why I closed my physical business earlier this year. So I'm someone who needs a little bit of a stick as opposed to carrot. So I was kind of, I got to a level with my business and I thought, okay, this is good, it's fine. And then I was like, but if you're going to do more with it, you're going to have to put more time into it. So you're going to have to give up one business to do the other. And there's a bit of a leap in there where you're like, right now I need to make this work. And I think you have to put skin in the game. And I think that's what people are afraid of. And once you do, like, so for example, when I, I left my corporate job, I'd taken a redundancy pack. I was very— I say this like redundancy is a mixed blessing in that I was very fortunate to be made redundant at the right time. But I had to, like you were saying, you don't need to make that much money. I needed to make my bills every month because I didn't want my husband to have to pay that because I think there's pride in that. As well. Of course, you know, I didn't want to be— so my first aim was to replace my— not my salary, because I wasn't going to do that for like a while, but I wanted to be able to pay my bills, and I had to pay them. So I think that's one thing, is absolutely keeping your main job, but at some point having something that means you've got to do it, you've got to go as well. But also the difference between people who just faff about, as we say, you may not need it. And that's what I see with a lot of people. It's sometimes it's need and sometimes it's that like you must give yourself a reason to do it as well. You know, if you, if you don't need the income or you don't need the joy or you, you know, you just really do it, something fun to do, then by all means do it. But if you want to be serious about it, be like you have to be in business as well. And actually for passion businesses, and I see this a lot with some of the people I work with as well, Yes, it's a passion, but you also have to run it like a business. That's the other thing as well. You have to have a need and you have to still treat it seriously as well. And then sky's the limit. Yeah.

And I think it's a nice balance too where this is a business, but I think you can set it up to where it is a business. It covers all the business bases, but you can still have the passion in it.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that that's really— but I think, yeah, yeah. With like knitting, you have to be a lifelong knitter. You have to be committed to just the passion and sharing it and have that element of wanting to share it. So awesome. This has been a super fun conversation, Michelle. Where can people learn more about you, connect with you if they want to start knitting? Where can they do that? I know your other business. Yeah, yeah.

So you'll find me at Knit School. So knitschool.co.uk, and you'll find me on Facebook and Instagram as Knit School from TLYC. So if you search for Knit School, you'll find us. And most of us hang out in the Knit Matters Facebook group.

What is it?

So yeah, Knit Matters.

Knit Matters.

It nearly became Knit Happens, but we just changed that slightly.

That would have been so good.

I know, I know. Knit Happens. Yeah, there's a t-shirt in there somewhere. But yeah, you find me as Knit Matters. And then for my other business, it's more of a digital creatures. So we— it's about kind of technology bits and pieces, but that's very, very new. See, I'm even shy about talking about it.

Hey, this is your opportunity to put it out there. Yes.

So yeah, I know, Digital Creatures Consulting, where we look at— so that part of that is actually, it's one business that spawned another because my biggest mistake when I started my first business was I overinvested in tech. And now I try to help people not buy too much tech because I feel like it's crippling on a budget when you don't have a lot of money spending. I spent massive money on like a Magento website that I did not need. And now that's what I— that's how, that's how I guess it's another passion business, actually. It's— I genuinely believe small business owners should not overpay for tech.

Yeah. And it's super easy, especially with subscriptions. And then email management, I feel like ties into that because I used to do productivity coaching and my email management is solid, but it's like, yeah, I get— when I started to really dive in, I could see all the extra technology subscriptions and I'm like, I forgot that I pay for that. And that's like $70 a year or it's $20 a month. And then they add up and you're like, holy crap, I'm spending a bunch of money on things don't use.

And it's, it's so easy. I think all of us have things we don't need.

We'll have you back on the show after you've, you've built up that one and we can cover all that too.

Yeah, how not to subscribe to every tech that's out there because they all look amazing, but you don't need half of them.

Awesome. Michelle, thank you so much for being here. Uh, for the listener, take one thing that you got from today's episode and just practice applying it. If it's just taking the leap to just start, just do even if it's just on the side, just start somewhere and fail yourself to the moon, basically.

And yeah, till next time, check out Knit School and we will see you in the next one.