Utahns Lizzy Bean and her husband Spencer have built her cross-stitching hobby into a booming national internet brand.
As a young girl of eight she learned cross-stitch from her mother and grandmother. Later, as a young adult, she wanted to try another project.
“I couldn’t find anything that was appealing,” Bean explains. “It was all these older style patterns and they were huge patterns. A lot of time, cross stitch patterns can be very large, with hundreds of colors and very overwhelming.
“I wanted something more contemporary and modern looking and fun and small and bite size. That’s how Stitch People started.”
She says they built Stitch People into a strong online presence by listening to their audience.
“The reason we started doing patterns for people was because we were paying attention to what people were saying online about my finished portrait photographs,” she continues. “They were saying ‘Oh, this is so cool, I’d love to figure this out, I’d love to make one of these for my own family.’ We just paid attention and kept giving people what they wanted.”
She says it was through that audience-driven process they started to gain more online followers and the brand took off.
Stitch People, based in Orem, is a DIY book/kit that provides the tools for people to create their own cross-stitch creations.
There is more information at stitchpeople.com.
Opportunity is knocking at a feverish rate. Pay attention.