016: Afraid of Having 700 Subscribers?

Growth is scary. And sometimes we want to hold back. On this episode, you'll hear how Cheryl got over her fear and watched her subscribers go from 350 to 700 in only 5 days. What were her challenges she faced and how did she handle it? I can't wait for you to meet her.

Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. And now here's your host, Sarah Williams.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. I have a super special guest on the episode today. I want to introduce you to Cheryl. She's the founder of Hypnotic Yarn. She has a wonderful subscription called Yarnable by Hypnotic Yarn. She's going to tell you all about it. I can't wait for you to hear her journey, and we've got some super juicy nuggets that we're going to drop today just for you. So Cheryl, thank you for joining Uh, let's tell them a little bit about Hypnotic Yarn and your box. Let's just tie that all together for them.

Sure. Thank you so much for having me today, Sarah. I'm super excited to be here. Um, so my name is Cheryl and I am a knitter, and my love of knitting drove me to start a hand-dyed yarn business, and it's something that I absolutely fell in love with. I started that back in 2017. Uh, and then about 2 years later, I went ahead and branched off into the subscription box side of things, and I launched Yarnable into the world. And, um, it's been, I think, the best thing that I've ever done for my business.

I love it. So those, those are people that are listening, and they may not understand what yarn would be, what hand-dyed yarn is. Can you tell the, the non-knitter what your box is about.

Sure, absolutely. So I buy bare wool yarn, and I hand-dye every single skein. And I think what a lot of people don't realize about hand-dyed yarn is that it is a labor of love. It is, it is boiling water and heavy lifting, and it is not glamorous at all. But I absolutely love to do it because I get to play with color. So you can kind of think of like tie-dye, but on wool. And so I love it. In my box I include a skein of hand-dyed yarn, and that's sort of the star of the show. But then I also include a few other goodies and extras that might be knitting related, or they might not be. They might be more designed to spoil the knitter themselves. So it's kind of a surprise for my subscribers every month what they're going to get for their extras.

So it's a super specific ideal customer that you have. So you have a knitter, and so this yarn could be for any of their projects that they're working on, not for a specific project that you're teaching. Is that correct?

That is correct. They can use it on anything that they would like. I do offer pattern suggestions with links, so if they're not sure, I've kind of curated a collection of things that they could that they could use that would work with my style of dyeing, because there's definitely different styles of yarn. So that way, if they're stuck, they can go then go find something fun to make.

Awesome. So tell me how this all started. Tell me how you got into this process of dyeing the yarn and then creating a business around it.

Sure. So I am that girl who walks into a store and everything she sees, I can make that. I could do that. And, and I've done a lot of things. I've actually tried quite a few different things. I'm, I'm definitely a maker at heart, and I'm also an entrepreneur at heart. So I've tried a few different handmade type of businesses. But when I got into knitting, I discovered knitting like video podcasts on YouTube, and before that I, I really didn't watch a lot of YouTube videos, but I didn't have anybody to teach me how to knit. So I learned mostly by watching YouTube videos, and in that process I discovered that hand-dyed yarn was a thing. I was watching all these YouTubers show this beautiful yarn, and it was so different than craft store yarn. I mean, it was wool and not acrylic, and the colors are amazing, and I thought, of course I can do that. And so I did. I went ahead and tried it. I'm kind of a jump right in sort of person, and I just dyed my first skeins and And I started selling them, and that's how I grew my business bit by bit, skein by skein.

And at what point did you say, I think I want to start a subscription box? Did you— do you have an online store? Do you have a physical store? Where were you at in, in your journey when you said, I think I want to start a subscription box?

I started an online Etsy shop, so that's where I first started selling my yarn. And then about a year in, I moved over to my own website on Shopify, and I was still just sort of selling, you know, one-off skeins of yarn, and I was doing pretty well. However, what I found was that I was hustling like crazy for every single sale, every single month, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it was It was really draining, and I also had a full-time sales job, which was really intense and high pressure, and I was starting to burn out because I just thought that, like, there has to be a better way than trying to get new customers every single month to my shop.

Or every single day, for that matter. I feel like when we were— I feel the same way before I started my subscription box. It was like I needed to make X number of sales every day. Just to pay the bills, just to pay the rent on the building, just to pay for a paycheck for my one employee that I had. But that meant I had to wake up every single day and hustle and sell. And I didn't know if I had those sales every day. I didn't know at the end of the week if I would have enough sales that I would make all my, you know, expenses for the month. And so I totally relate to what you're saying there about just having to hustle every day. And, and we don't have to do that anymore, right? We don't, We all have to.

Yes. And I had a big lofty goal of leaving my full-time job to run my business full-time. And I just, I looked at, you know, the current business that I had and I thought, you know, how am I going to reach that goal when I don't know if I'm going to be even able to break even every month? So I needed to really find a way that I felt comfortable knowing, like, I was gonna, I was gonna get there and I could get there in a reasonable amount of time, if that makes sense.

Yeah, you were trying to create security for yourself. You didn't want to— you didn't want to leave the paycheck that was hitting your bank account every 2 weeks or whenever you got paid without knowing that you had that in your own business, right?

Yes, exactly. Yep.

So you launched Yarnable, or did you start with those mystery boxes? Is that how you started it?

I, yeah, so my subscription box kind of came about organically in that I didn't even really know what— I didn't even know there was a subscription box, um, you know, offering. I didn't know that that was a thing out there in the world. I just knew I needed people to be able to sign up and sign up once and, and then, you know, kind of be in it with me. So I started with these kits or clubs that I called them. And, and at first people just like prepaid for several months. And then, you know, I started researching and I found out, oh, you know, you could get apps with Shopify and you can do this like recurring revenue thing. And I thought that was really cool. So, you know, I tried that because again, I just jumped sort of into things. If it sounds like it might work, I'm going to try it out. And, and it did. And people started signing up and it was small at first. But it wasn't really a box. It was just you got an exclusive skein of yarn that no one else could get if you were in this club. But there were no extras. There was nothing fancy. But you did renew every month. So it was like a one-and-done sign-up. And, and once that bug sort of bit me, then, then that was it. I, then I got serious after that about launching an actual subscription box.

I think, I think that once you start seeing those recurring payments like hit your bank account, like that next month, you're like, oh, it's coming and I didn't have to wake up and hustle today, right? Like, that's the mentality that, that those payments are hitting your bank accounts. You're like, I've already sold that. I just have to go fulfill that now. And it's, it's a whole different mindset on really serving your customer versus selling your customer all the time. And when you get these subscribers and you can start spending your time serving them versus selling to them, it just changes everything for your business.

It absolutely does. I, I felt like it changed my entire mindset about what my business was. And like you said, instead of spending so much of the little time I had, you know, trying to go on social media and, and like kind of hawk my wares to the public, I was able to really like focus and love on these people and develop like really deep relationships with these, you know, like first 30 members that I had. Like, they were— those 30 people were my people, if that makes Yeah, I totally understand that.

So now let's, let's talk about how the business has changed, because I know that you said this is where your challenge has come in. Like, I, every time I do a podcast interview, I ask the interviewee, like, what has been your biggest challenge throughout this process? And for you, you know, you told me that your biggest challenge was business looks different at 50 subscribers to 250 subscribers to 500 subscribers to now 700 subscribers. And you have to remember, if you're listening to Cheryl's story here, she's hand dyeing these— this yarn. So let's just talk about the processes, because I know when I had 50 subscribers, that process looked very different than what it does for me now. So walk me through how the business and the processes changed as your steady growth came came upon.

Sure, absolutely. So it changed in many ways. I would say almost every way. Every time I sort of like hit a new level, there was a series of changes. And like, for instance, when I first started, I was dyeing yarn in my kitchen on my stove, like a couple skeins at a time. And I could absolutely do that when I had 30 members. You know, it might take me a couple of days, but it was doable. You know, then you start getting into 50, 100, 200 members. I could no longer dye yarn on my stove in my kitchen, so I needed to move into a more dedicated space, which unfortunately for my husband meant that he lost his man cave and took over our basement. You know, and then the bigger I grew, I needed to start investing in equipment that you know, I didn't have before, you know, commercial sink, commercial dyeing yarn. We use a lot of like commercial restaurant equipment because there's a lot of like hot water and things involved. And so now after my last open cart, I invested in even a whole new type of equipment that actually requires that I dye yarn in a bit of a different way. And I just sort of had to adapt to that. But, you know, now I can dye 200 skeins of yarn at a time, you know, in an afternoon.

That's, that's so— I just love it because I feel like our journey has been very similar from me having one machine in my extra bedroom monogramming to now, you know, my warehouse with multiple machines and different rooms for the machines. But I want to go back because you just said something that, you know, sparked something for me. But you said after your last launch, and I want to— I want you to tell everybody listening What happened during your last launch? So you came into my world back in October when I hosted my very first coaching week and you jumped in. You were getting ready to do a launch early this spring, early this year, right? Was it February that you did this big launch? You've been working on doing another launch and during the middle of this launch, things were happening for you that had never happened before. You were getting so many signups. And I remember that morning that you posted in our group about, oh my goodness, this is happening and I don't know what to do. And I'm ready. Can I close the cart early? And I— let's talk about that a little bit.

Sure. Oh my goodness, Sarah, it was crazy pants. Um, when I I had my last launch, it was in early February. Prior to that, I had been bringing in about like 100 to 150 new members, and I opened my box quarterly. So I have a closed box model. So I open quarterly to new subscribers. And this time when I opened, you know, I was sort of expecting the same thing, but I usually add like a little extra percentage for growth. So I was expecting around the same. And this time when I opened, I think I reached that like 100 to 150 number within the first like 15 minutes to a half an hour. Those boxes were gone.

And I was like, what is happening? That's your mind. Like, oh my goodness, what is happening?

What is happening? Who even am I right now? Whose business is this? Like, it was just, it was absolutely insane. And now, and this had come right off of I had just left my— I did finally leave my full-time job. I left my job in October and this was the first launch since I had done that. So it was just the timing was like really great for it as well.

But you were scared. You were scared.

Terrified. I was beside myself. I mean, at first I was like, oh, this is really great. Like, wow. And, you know, truth be told, most of my new members do come in right, right away. They come in, you know, a lot of them aren't sure. If there's a limited number of spots and they, and they just want to get in really quickly. So I thought, well, this is going to calm down a bit, you know, this is certainly not going to continue. But it did. It continued throughout that day. And I was getting, you know, so many new members. I had 350 at that time before I opened. And I opened, I think, for— I want to say 5 days And by, you know, day 2, I had already, you know, gained hundreds of new subscribers. And so that's when I messaged in the group and I was so thankful. I remember just thinking, I'm so thankful I have this group that I can like put this out there too, because I had really nobody before that to talk to. Nobody I know runs a subscription box.

Nobody understands what you were going through in that moment and how to problem solve with you, right? That's, that's really the benefits there. And so We talked, I jumped on, I jumped on camera. I think I jumped on and I said, listen, like this isn't happening to you. It's happening for you. And I, and I just really wanted you to open yourself up to what this could mean for you. And we had to problem solve. So we had to problem solve on, okay, the first problem was I don't have enough product. Can I get more? And what were those things that you had to kind of run through and problem solve when this was happening?

Sure. So I had already ordered my items for that month's box, assuming, you know, that amount of growth that I expected to have. And I even went quite a bit over. I think I was at 350. I ordered, I want to say, like maybe 550 items, assuming that I would probably have a lot of extra. And then when I went well over that, I thought, well, you know, one of the items was shipping internationally. Um, I, I just, I only had a few weeks to get more product in, you know, I didn't know if I had enough yarn. I'd have to dye that extra yarn. Like, how was I going to do that? It just overwhelmed me all at once. All the things became very overwhelming.

But once you could really just sit with it, and I think it just, you just needed, and it really could have been anyone, it really didn't need to be me, but you just needed someone to tell you that it was was okay and that it was gonna be okay and that this is your moment, right? You're having this amazing launch. You went from 350 subscribers to 700. You doubled your large subscriber base within a matter of days, and you just needed to know that someone knew what that felt like and knew that it was doable. And so you did all the work. I mean, you're the one that figured everything out and you made everything happen. But sometimes we just doubt ourselves. We doubt that we have the capacity to serve all people. We doubt that we have the problem-solving skills to figure out the things that we need to make all of this happen. And we just doubt our, we doubt our ability to serve in a high way, in a, in a big way like this. And I think you were just having those doubts and you were having those fears, but you totally handled it. You totally handled it.

I did. And I think that what it really came down to was, you know, in my head I was telling myself it was the product and it was these things, but what I was really afraid of was letting my subscribers down. I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to, you know, figure it out, and I was going to let these people down. And that is what terrified me. And all of my non-subscription box friends said— because I was going to shut it down at about 600 subscribers— and they all said, yeah, you probably should, you should just— no, no. As soon as you saw my message, I mean, you must— you answered like within seconds, and you said, you know, You absolutely not. Don't you dare shut that down. You know, you welcome these people in and you're going to be okay. And, and I, and I did. I think I brought in like another 100 people after that call. And I'm, and I'm so happy I did. And you know what? It all worked out just fine.

It does. It always does. We always put in our mind that whatever is happening is the worst case thing and it's never— it's not going to work out, but it always does. And I think that whether you're at 50 subscribers or 5,000 subscribers, you're always going to have those things that you're going to have to problem solve and you're going to have to deal with that. I mean, just yesterday I realized I'm 100 shirts short that I have to go out today, but we problem solve things and we— that's what makes us great entrepreneurs. That's what makes us great business owners. And that's what puts us ahead of 90% of the rest of the population is that we're just born problem solvers. And if you let things like that stop you, that you're stopping your growth, you're stopping your potential. And where you were concerned that you couldn't, you know, take care of all these new customers, how disappointed would those other customers, those other subscribers be knowing they couldn't get in on your box? So you just allowed them to be a part of something super special that you have going on. And I just, I loved it. I loved your, your whole launch, like just pushing through the hard things making it happen. And now you're getting ready to launch again, and you're going to keep growing, and I'm just excited for you.

Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm honestly just so grateful that you were there for me in that moment, because, I mean, you say it could have been anybody. I don't think that I believe that. I think that it was you, and you showed up for me in that moment. So thank you so much.

Well, I truly believe that's one of best things that Launch Your Box has is our community. Like, aside from the training, aside from the industry experts, aside from all of that, it's, it's having those people that you can ask anything to. We as entrepreneurs, we sit here a lot of times in our homes, we do business alone, and our friends don't get it, our spouses a lot of times don't get it. And so You know, there comes a point when your friends are going to stop inviting you to lunch because all you do is talk about your business. And so having those people in your corner that we have in our community that we can ask about a landing page, we can ask about a logo design, we can ask about launch craziness is just super important. And it just makes you feel like you're not doing things alone.

Yeah, it's so true.

I want to touch on one more thing before I let you go today, but We talked about this massive growth that you had during your last launch, and I know that you attribute, um, this growth to a couple things that you had been doing in the form of affiliates. And so I'd like for you to talk about how you formed relationships and, and made these affiliates. And if anyone's listening that doesn't understand what an affiliate is, it's a person that promotes your thing, whatever it may be. And in this case, it was Cheryl's Box. And then they get a percentage of that sale for promoting it. It's like influencers and affiliates are kind of the same thing, but they're getting a commission for promoting your box. So talk to us about how you worked this affiliate program into your business.

Sure. So when I first launched Yarnable as a subscription box, I knew right away that I wanted to incorporate some sort of affiliate like model into this. I, I knew that I didn't have that big of an audience, and, and I just, I felt that the quickest way to get what I had in front of the most amount of people is to reach out to people within my niche that had audiences larger than mine, but within, you know, my sort of same customer base, people that I knew they were reaching, people that I knew would love what I had to offer. So I knew that I wanted to do that right away, but I was also really afraid to reach out to some of these people because they had audiences that were a lot bigger than mine. I will say that I, I started small and I kept it small. So I reached out to people that I had at least made some sort of acquaintance within the knitting community. So they weren't really cold, cold calling, you know, these, these influencers that I wanted to work with. They were people that I felt at least knew who I was. And, you know, they had at least messaged with me or something in the past year. And I decided that I wanted an invite-only affiliate program. I didn't want lots and lots of people to manage. I just wanted to work with a few people who I could really develop relationships with and that they were really going to go sort to all out for me, um, to promote this box, you know, in exchange for a commission every month.

And I love how you said you didn't want a lot of people to manage, because an affiliate system is a lot to have to manage if you start letting any of— any— anybody affiliate for you. And I do the exact same thing. There's only a handful of people that affiliate for me, and it's someone that I'm connected to. So it's not some— it's not a stranger, just like Cheryl mentioned, it was someone that she knew in some way, whether they were close or not. They knew of her, they knew, they knew of her. And the same for me. This person is a subscriber there. So they are a person that likes the things that I have in my box. So ultimately they're going to promote them in the way that I would want them to. And I think that's really important when you talk about having an affiliate for your own subscription box. So continue on, Cheryl. I'm sorry if I cut you off there.

No, not at all. It's absolutely the truth. It's a hard thing to put together and it's a hard thing to manage. So I wanted to keep it, you know, really kind of nice and tight. And I set everything up that I needed to on the front end before I started inviting people. I had, you know, some content that they could share, just some ideas of how they could share. I didn't know if any of them had affiliate experience before. I think in the knitting community, at least at that time, that wasn't so much of a thing. I really saw more of that in like digital marketing sort of applications. So I kind of had to— I don't want to say handhold, but I just felt like I wanted to make sure I could lead them a little bit. And I picked a variety of people. I picked some YouTubers that had knitting podcasts, and yes, that is a thing on YouTube. And I picked a yarn shop owner who has a physical brick-and-mortar store, and she opens her box in the store every month, and she records it and puts it on Instagram. I tried to pick a variety of people so I would reach people in all sorts of places because my customers kind of live everywhere. Um, and I would credit my affiliates for bringing in probably at least half of the new subscribers that joined Yarnable in that last launch.

It's a great, it's a great way to build not only your audience base so they can come into your world, because at this point they're a cold audience. They don't know you, they don't know of you. They're bringing them over into your space. So maybe these people are watching the box openings and they already like the person that's opening the box and they relate to that person and they know that person, but now they're recommending you. So now they want to go follow you, or they love your boxes. So they want to go subscribe, um, to your box. And I think the best affiliates are those that consistently open the box. It's not like a one-and-done thing. They want to see the person that they follow consistently open it. It's a habit. It's a, um, you know, it's that law of 7. You have to see something 7 times before you make a purchase. And so when you have affiliates that are consistently showing up in front of their audiences and they're doing box openings, they're just creating trust. They're building, you know, this relationship between you and them, which then their followers see as a positive relationship. And it can really bring a lot of people into your world that you might not known or might not had access to before. And I think it's a huge win for you. And I— it's a direct reflection of how awesome your last launch was.

Thank you. And I also found something that was really interesting with using affiliates who do, you know, these public unboxing videos and post them either on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube is that, you know, I try to include other handmade items in my box as well. So when I'm negotiating with other makers, you know, one way that I add value to them potentially, you know, giving me better pricing and, and wanting to be in my boxes, I can tell them, you know, hey, you know, I'm getting these unboxing videos happen every month, and if your product is in there, you know, you'll also get the benefit of reaching, you know, these people who I know are going to love your product because I wouldn't be including it in my box if, if I didn't think that my audience was absolutely going to love it. So I found that there was quite a few advantages to having affiliates who do these consistent unboxings every month. And like you said, that really is key that they're consistent and people I look forward to them. Uh, it's been, it's been more than what I even thought it was going to be when I first started it.

Yeah, it's a great, it's just a great thing to do. Just to one, I love how you said that you're helping these other small businesses. They're gaining traction because of you. You're creating revenue for them just by having it in your box. And you're just, you're just spreading your impact, just keeps growing and growing, Cheryl. And I love it. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you here this question that I love to ask all of my podcast interviews. Is somebody's— what, somebody's listening, not watching, they're listening. And they're thinking, I want to start a subscription box, but something's holding them back. Something is making them say, I'm not ready. What advice would you give to anyone listening that wants to start a subscription box but hasn't done anything yet?

Sure. So I actually think that the best thing that you can do, especially if you're starting a subscription box, is make sure that you're really clear about who your ideal customer is for the box. Because I'm sure you've heard the saying, when you try to speak to everybody, you end up speaking to no one. I have found that to be extremely true, and I know that if you can narrow down who your box will best serve and spend your time really nurturing that specific audience, then they're going to show up for you. You even when things aren't perfect, when things go wrong. And spoiler alert, that's probably a lot of the time, you know. It's never perfect. It's always a little bit messy, you know, especially at the beginning. So if you find people that want to go on the journey with you, um, it's, it's the best thing you can do. And I think that, you know, people— we talk about the word subscriber or member And I like to remind, especially people starting out, that it's a real person behind that word subscriber, because it's super easy to get caught up in how, you know, how many subscribers do I have, how many people are on my waiting list, and they kind of just turn into numbers. But you definitely need to know that. But when you remember that it's a real person and you love on them, whether it's 10 people or 1,000 people, that they're going to stick with you. And then the process becomes so much less scary because these are people who are cheering you on. They're not just a box number, but they're people who want to see you succeed.

And they turn into— it's more than it turns from a customer to a friend all the time. And so they grow with you. They, they're help— they're researching for you. And I just think it's awesome. Cheryl, if anyone is listening that is a yarn lover and wants to find you and see what you're up to, where's the best place they can find you at?

Sure, they can find me on Instagram as @hypnoticyarn, and my links are all in my bio where they can find my website and, you know, Facebook and all that if they want to connect on any of those platforms.

Awesome, Cheryl, thank you so much. You shared so much knowledge with us today, and I know our listeners are loving it. So thank you so much for being on the podcast, and we'll see you back here next week for our next episode. If the idea of creating a subscription box is swirling around in your head, I encourage you to head over to launchyourboxwithsarah.com, get on our waitlist, and grab some of our free downloads to help you get started. That's launchyourboxwithsarah.com.