Homespun E3 | Missy Luukkonen

[Music] hey welcome to Homespun today I am talking to Missy Lucan from the little green bean Missy thank you so much for being here you're welcome happy to be here I so excited that you're willing to come and chat with me so we've met before but yes we have so I'm I feel like I know some of these questions that I'll probably ask you but um hopefully more people can get to know you and know your story because I think it's really interesting so why don't you share kind of how you ended up starting your business well it was really an accident I didn't ever plan to start a business um I had had knee surgery and I was recovering from that and I'm a really good patient no I'm not I get bored I can't just sit around um so I was sewing all kinds of different things but at the time I was using burlap wait you had knee surgery and you were still sewing like well yeah so my husband built me this table that I could pull over my recliner so I could still have my knee elevated and I had a sewing machine at the time that had a push button so I didn't need the foot pedal so I could still sit and sew because he knew how bored I would be so I had to have something where I could still sew and do all the things without really having to use my knee because it was my right knee so it was I was going to say even if it wasn't like still you usually have to have that up out of the way so push button and special table it was yeah it wasn't immediately like after surgery I gave myself a couple weeks but I had weeks off of work so I had some time to fill and so I was at the time sewing things from recycled coffee bean bags which are made out of burlap yeah they're very messy um and I was just making these tote bages just for fun and then once my knee got better and I was recovered I decided well what am I going to do with all these tote bag like I made all these bags but I didn't know what to do with them so um I signed up for this craft show okay and we went and it was fine and we sold a bunch of them but I still had a bunch left and I wasn't sure what to do and so I decided to open an Etsy shop that's awesome yeah and then it just kind of started that's where it started and somebody had asked can you make stockings for Christmas time and so I learned how to make stockings and then somebody had ordered some stockings from me and she said can you make me a custom tree skirt that matches the stockings that you made me so I figured out how to make tree skirts and it just kind of started there and my busy Seasons at the time were the holidays okay um and then I would fill the rest of the time with other little projects like birds and owls and all kinds of different things I just played around with different Fabrics different projects different making a lot of tote bags all kinds of things and Etsy just really started to grow um so that was really where it started um I had a friend at the time I was working for a corporate office and this was just still never intending to be a job was at the time it became a side hustle okay it was extra money for us to make sure our kids had a really good Christmas extra money for things like vacation um and then I had a friend say you know you should really start an Instagram page for your business specifically okay so I did and I think that was 2013 okay wow and and everything just kind of went from there and every year I sold more and more like every year my sales were increasing year over year I kept having increases and I was getting really really busy to the point where I had to start hiring help because I'm still working full-time have little kids at home yeah and then doing this side hustle I was going to ask you that how long did you keep your your regular job I left my regular job I think it was 2018 okay wow was it 18 or was it 18 it was 2018 that was when I was to the point where I knew I had to make a choice I had to pick one over the other because I couldn't keep doing both yeah and I loved my job I was a visual person um can I say who I was working for I don't know um for Maurice's corporate office their corporate office is in duth Minnesota so I worked on the visual team and I had a great job that I loved and I loved the people that I worked with so it was a really hard decision to leave because it was a great company to work for and I can imagine that leap is scary right going from having a a team of people that you work with that you can rely on to to help support and to then venture out on your own right that is a serious leap of faith it it really was and at the time my husband was also self-employed he had his own business so I had all of the benefits the insurance which I miss deeply Health dental 401K all of that um so what I did when I was really to the point of making the decision is I made a I made a list of who do I need to talk to and can we even make this work so I sat down one day with all of my papers and receipts and really like crunched all the numbers made a list of people to talk to like I needed to figure out insurance I have kids you know like it's not just us we have to make sure that they're taken care of and um so we had to figure out insurance we had to figure out like our own 401k and I met with I met with several people and then my financial adviser met with him and he thought I would be crazy to not leave and do this on my own oh I love that he was so supportive he was yeah he said no I absolutely think you should do this oh I'm so glad because you don't always hear that no he was great and he's been super supportive and like he shares my stuff on Facebook and yeah he's was a great part of an early champion of of what could be that's really cool yeah he really was so that's amazing so so from side hustle to every day did you struggle with burnout yeah big time yeah it was hard because it's a lot of pressure to make enough income to support your family um when you're making products and at the time when I left I was taking orders for products so I would post a tree skirt and then people would order however many they wanted that one so there were times I was making like 20 or 30 of the same item over and over again and I really wanted to get to a model where I could just make product list it and sell what was already made rather than taking orders because when you're taking orders you're taking orders I there's so much unknown so many variables maybe it's hugely successful and all of a sudden you have to make a hundred that's pretty overwhelming it is and you just never know what people are going to want and then there was never time to do anything else because I was constantly fing so all of my time went to that and that was causing me a lot of burnout because I had other things I wanted to do but I never had the time to do them because anytime I wasn't working you know I felt like you know I was had to pick do I spend time with my family do I work on the things I want to work on to improve the business like it's a constant tug well and I think that's something that so many of us can relate to right especially um in the creative industry because there's a certain amount of time that's required to make the things that we make whether it's a pattern or a product right uh so how did you resolve that what what worked for you well eventually I was able to switch my business into a restock model which is where I would make a bunch of product and then I would list it for sale on a certain day and when they sold out they sold out which was great and that was working well for a really long time um I should back up before I left Maurice's my boss at the time had been in New York and he had come back and said you need to make gnomes they're everywhere in New York City they're everywhere and I didn't make them for like nine months like it was always in the back of my mind like him telling me that and the Gnomes were really what pushed me to be able to leave that job so I think it's kind of ironic that my boss was the one to say you need to make gnomes it all worked out how it it worked it did it really did um and he was always really supportive um but yeah so I started this restock model especially with gnomes and that was great because then I could make what I could make in a two week span I usually would do a restock every other week or so and then once we sold out we sold out and it worked great um people could you know get gnomes but then I also had the flip side of people being mad because they couldn't get what they wanted and they wanted to be able to just order things at will but I was no longer offering that service and my gnomes were were made from recycled sweaters so I could only offer so many it wasn't like I could take an order for them because once that sweater was gone I was buying them at thrift stores garage sales um wherever that kind of one-of aind appeal yeah yep it was more one-of aind thing so I know I deal with burnout and it affects people whatever profession that they're in it's kind of across the map so what was the first sign that you noticed that something had to change so I started doing the restock model which was great but again we were back to the pressure of constantly and at this point my husband is working with me full-time so our sole income is based on what we make and sell and he does all of the shipping and anything we have done um in our shop our wood shop so he he does all kinds of different things but the bulk of our income is coming from these restocks and so every week I am thinking about okay how much more do I have to make to keep sustaining this leev our level of income where we're at you know we still have to pay our mortgage what you're relying on yeah yep it's it's paying this is literally how we pay our bills there's no other source of income and so the pressure of restocks is is also it's own you know I wasn't taking orders anymore but now the pressure is more on me to make enough to keep people happy and I was I'm a people pleaser I I don't want to disappoint anybody so then the more people that would complain the more it would make me feel like I have to make more I have to make more I don't want anybody to be upset cuz they didn't get something um and then you know 2020 was great with Co I shouldn't say that it sounds terrible cut that it's real but for business 2020 was good everybody was home people were shopping business was amazing even 2021 was still good but then in 2022 we started to see a shift and a change and people weren't shopping the same way anymore people weren't buying as much home decor they weren't buying those things that they could you know that they didn't need as much and so I started to see a decline where I would have a restock previously in previous years we would sell out of product and we're talking hundreds of items in minutes and then we were still selling out but sometimes it would take you know hours which is still good and I feel weird even like feeling like I'm complaining cuz I'm not but it just got different it's like oh but wait we're still selling out what is my what is my problem but I was so used to selling out in 10 minutes or lesses there were times we would sell out in five minutes and it was which is it is interesting to hear you say that because it's almost like this unreasonable pressure right yeah it really was it was a lot of pressure but at the same time it it's it's it goes both ways because it was a lot of pressure and it was exciting and very fulfilling but then at the same time then you go on Instagram and you read the comments from people that are mad and then you feel bad about it it's like but wait this was a great thing like look at what my business just did but then at the same time I feel bad because somebody on Instagram is mad because they didn't get a gnome like really you can only do so much EX that's the other thing I was one person I did have a team of people that would come and help me they were wonderful and I miss them because I don't have them coming anymore um we would have so much fun when we would work they would come usually one or two nights a week and we would just it was like girl night every time they would come cuz we were busy working but we were talking and telling stories and having a lot of fun um but it the pressure still always fell back on me to keep making more keep people happy you know don't disappoint anybody because they couldn't get what they wanted and last year so 2023 I was done I could not like I remember this very vividly we were getting ready to do our final like Easter restock like our busy season was always the fall so August through Easter okay and then I had a couple of months where it was way less pressure way less busy where I could just kind of relax and I remember going into that last restock my girls were there I told them I don't know what we're going to do after this and they were like well what do you mean I'm like I don't know if I'm going to keep doing restocks and they asked well what are you going to do and I had no idea M so I didn't know where it was going to go where it was going to take me and then I came here last year really yeah yeah so my last Easter restock was right before I came here your visit my visit last year um and then we went on vacation and then I came back and I'm like okay it felt like a complete reset that's where I had time to just figure it out that's perfect so what did you decide I decided on a sewing membership I decided I really wanted to focus more on sewing learn quilted um work on more of the things like that I even observed and learned while I was here and teaching like I really like teaching people you're a fa teacher thank you I really enjoy it I have a lot of fun doing that and I have these great um business coaches that I have been working with for the last gosh almost two years now and they are so supportive and so helpful especially with all the stuff like people don't realize what it goes in what goes into running a business all the behind the scenes so much behind the scenes everything like when I worked for a corporate office we had teams of people we had a marketing department we had a tech department we had all these departments where all these people did all the stuff and when you run your own business you have to do all of it yourself or figure out who do I hire to do these things exactly but then you're the one paying them and you have to identify your strengths and what you can handle and what you have to trust to hand off which can be really scary yes absolutely so I worked with my coaches and developed sewing membership where every month I release an exclusive pattern to the people in the membership they can't buy the pattern anywhere on my website um we do a live demo every month we do a live class with whatever that pattern is where they can come they can ask questions they can get help um and they can ask questions and get help anytime anybody in the membership um we have a private Instagram page we have Community page like we have all this stuff inside of our membership and that's been really really fun to have that and then I've just been focusing more on writing patterns and doing more teaching just even online just on Instagram doing demos and lives and different things where I just share share what I know share what you're up to yeah absolutely so how did people respond to that shift because that's a pretty big shift from what you were doing yeah and some people still message me and I really miss your gnomes and I wish you would still make stuff like that but most people get it and they love what I'm doing now I've had a huge response on Instagram specifically from people um my follower account has grown substantially in the last year ever since I switched to really a sewing and teaching Focus they're really loving it and most people are super supportive super kind and they love to see what I'm working on and what I'm doing and I've had so many people message me and say things like I don't even SE and I just watch this entire 20- minute tutorial and I don't so well you make the cutest thing so it's easy to just get Ed and see what how it's going to come together I love that I love that so much and I'm glad people have been supportive yeah they really have been cuz I know for me you know being online for many years now there can be really great days and and really hard days by putting yourself out there yes yeah you definitely are opening yourself up for all kinds of things so what do you think the future holds you know I ju I don't know but so far I'm having a lot of fun just sewing and like I said quilting and I'm learning all kinds of different techniques I watch your guys' stuff all the time and it's always so inspiring and so fun to watch and trying new things and you know this year I'm really focusing on my growth in that way and working more with Brands like Missouri Star I'm having so much fun doing that yeah and we love having you here it's so great and I think there's like it's contagious to spend time with other creative people and learn from them and see what they're up to and it kind of for me at least re my own creativity and so I can see why that would be fun yeah I love watching others too to see what they're doing and then put my own spin on something and just learn how to make new projects and learning new techniques and different ways of doing things you know when I was here for birthday bash I had never I had dabbled in making quilts but I had never really made a quilt and then I decided I'm just going to do this and you know that's just kind of what I do is when I want to learn something I just figure it out because there's so many places to learn things you know your guys YouTube the missoury star YouTube is so good there's so many great things on there I swear you can look up anything and find how to do it there's a lot there's a lot but it's so good because the tutorials are so clear and easy to follow and I tell people all the time you can do these because people will comment oh I wish I could sew like you or I wish I could put a zipper in you can you absolutely can you can I believe anybody can do anything they want to cuz there is a wealth of to tutorials and videos out there for people to watch and if you don't get it by watching one person's tutorial you just have to find the right person um I've been learning crochet this last year it's something I wanted to do and I found there there's a lot of videos out there some are really good some are not as good and you have to find the person that you click with that really teaches in a way that helps you learn so sometimes it might take watching 10 or 15 different videos before you get it but I think anybody can do anything they want to do I think so too and and the other part of that that I think having tutorials available online solved is it it eliminates some of that like public shame if you mess up right when you can learn at home and try and try again and not be embarrassed by your failures because the facts of the matter are we fail at things all the time and that's part of learning and growing and so being able to to learn at home and and do those things where we feel safe and can just test it out is a huge part of the creative growth process I think I think that holds a lot of people back is the fear of failure yeah and you know having somebody criticize them and I've had people tell me before like horror stories of I went to this CL this quilt class and the teacher was horrible she didn't like my machine it was too old and all these things that people feel they're going to be judged from where at home it doesn't matter and it doesn't matter anyway if you go somewhere and somebody's judging you then you need to go somewhere else their problem not yours exactly exactly cuz really there are no quilt police in the real world there should not be um and I tell people all the time like my seam ripper is my friend I love my seam ripper and I use it all the time and I've been sewing for Years everybody makes mistakes reason it's a tool right yeah absolutely and I think that's part of the process that so many people don't get to see you know on Instagram we share the the final result right after we we as creators and designers have maybe made those mistakes the scenes to get to the final product but they're real and they happen and it's just part of the creative process it is and that's something I try to do more on Instagram is share the mistakes absolutely because it makes people feel better yes because we all make mistakes and we all screw up and it's relatable none of us are perfect no nobody is so if anybody's telling you they are no they're not they are full of it they they really are yeah so I like to share all of it the real the mistakes you know I think you do a great job of that and I think that's why so many people relate to what you're putting out there which is is really cool so if you could sit down with anybody from history oh gosh and have a cup of coffee or whatever your your drink of choices and just sit on the front porch and talk who would that be anybody about anything yeah the only person coming to mind is Keith Urban and that shouldn't surpris gosh love that it shouldn't it shouldn't do you want to share a little bit about why I just love his music and I have been following him for many many years um yeah I mean anybody who follows me also knows that yes um I and I just think he's such a great person like just I mean I don't know him I don't know that he's really a great person but he seems like it you know from behind the scenes um just stuff I've SE videos I've seen and just interviews I've seen him in and I I have met him a few times and he is just as kind in person so yeah that would be awesome that's the only person that comes just manifest that I think that's in your future you know Keith we live on this Lake you could come and maybe you get them sewing who knows you know you never know oh there you go I love that so the name of your company it isn't super obvious that it's tied to quilting and sewing so can you tell everybody where little green bean came from yeah so when I first first started back with the Recycled coffee bags and I just you know I'm sewing with them I decided you know I'm going to open this Etsy shop I kind of need a name like what am I going to call all of this and I didn't know at the time I had no ideas and I didn't know obviously where this was going to go yes but I wanted something that at the time related to what I was doing and so my husband and I were on a road trip and we were trying to come up with something so we were both just throwing things out there and coffee burlap coffee bags they um the coffee beans inside before they roasted are green oh okay and they're little they're little beans right and so we just kept throwing things out there until we came upon the little green bean and cuz I wanted something related to coffee but I didn't want it to sound like a coffee shop sure I wanted to be sure that there was no confusion as to what we really were and it still doesn't say what we are but it doesn't imply that we're a coffee sh is what I wanted to avoid and so once we landed on the little green bean it just stuck and over the years I've never even thought about changing it you know I just I've changed my logo I've changed that part of it several times but as far as the name goes it just feels like it works and it really does and it's funny because obviously I I had heard the story and knew it was tied to to the coffee bags yeah but it also like you know kind of in inspires this image of growth and like starting small which is it relates to your story which I think is really cool does yeah and I still have a Jar full of those little green beans with our original logo on it that I've always kept I love just up on a shelf I want to see a picture of that okay I'll send you a picture but yeah I actually thought about bringing it today and then I forgot all about it but I have it up on my shelf cuz I'm like cuz my room would be covered in those little it would be covered in burlap if you've ever worked with burlap yes you know yep and Mike would always ask me why do you always wear black when you're working because I would be furry because I was covered in this burlap residue but also on the floor of my craft room were all these little green coffee beans all the time were they just left over in the bag they were just left over in the bag yeah cuz they would just dump them so I would we have a roster in duth where we they would just give out the bags for free cuz they were going through thousands of bags it was a coffee company and so you could just go there anytime and you could take as many as you wanted so the other great thing is my material was free I wasn't paying anything for that part of it I mean I had to buy the fabric and some of the other things but that part I wasn't paying anything for and so even after a while we would drive down to Minneapolis because there's a Caribou Coffee and they have a huge roasting Center down there and we would get bags from caribou and I got some really great bags at the time that with the original Caribou logo on it and so that was just really fun but yeah we had these beans everywhere cuz when they dump it into the machine they're just loose you know and so they don't always they're not shaking it to make sure they get every last one out of there you know that's so funny I it just never occurred to me that they would make it all the way back to your house while you were working yeah yeah they they were and I had to be careful because I'd Ed my rotary cutter to cut them open there's beans inside so I quickly learned I I had to use scissors because I was I was going through a lot of blades at the time because how frustrating that can be no yes you just want to keep working at least me like I'm I'm not good at all about changing my blades or changing my needle and then once I finally get around to it I'm like oh that was so nice why did I wait so long oh I know I do the same thing where it's skipping stitches and then you're going over it again a couple of times why do I keep doing that why am I doing this myself just go change the blade exactly yeah I love that Missy so were there any early sort of creative roadblocks that you know or stumbles That You Came Upon that didn't work out the way that you thought they might when you were designing and planning all kinds of times and I think that happen happens in the creative industry is you make something and you're really excited about it and you think it's going to sell really well and then you list it and it doesn't you're like oh shoot nobody liked that you know okay I guess I have to go back to the drawing board and it's I mean it happened quite a few times one time in particular was when I was making um when I first started making Birds okay so I've made little fabric birds with cute little wire feet and the first time I made those I made them out of burlap and I thought they were adorable I thought they were going to sell super well and it was like crickets when I posted them and this was back when I was taking orders for things and I sold a couple here and there but it wasn't what I expected you know we were selling so many tree skirts and stockings and I was trying to come up with something for spring so I designed this bird pattern and they just didn't sell like I thought they would and so I was like well all right back to the drawing board you know which we often have to do and I started with something different and so I made some other things for a while and then I came back to the birds there's something I just kept thinking about them and I've learned that if there's something that keeps popping up in your mind you're supposed to do it you know if you forget about it and you don't think about it again you weren't meant to do it but if it's something that keeps coming back to you there's a reason why it keeps coming back to you yes I agree so with the birds one day I just started playing with fabric like cute fabrics and they started to sell and I was like oh and this was years later like that sat in my brain like I always say that a lot of times things will just I let I let them marinate in my brain for a while until I'm really ready to work on it and I started making those birds and I would I was doing restocks and they were selling like crazy and then again though the pressure to keep making more and because I would make 25 and they would sell out in five minutes yeah and then okay so then next time I would double it and I would make more and they would sell out like how many more can I make in a week and and at this point I'm by myself still I'm just doing everything on my own um my husband was in the garage making the feet for me doing all that part but you know for the most part it was just me yeah yeah it's so much pressure and I think it's a good reminder too that it wasn't it's not like you found the solution for that in two days no like it it took a while yeah it took years it was yeah it was a big change and you you just stick with it and I think so often um we do run into these creative hurdles and it at least for me when I'm in it it feels like I'm never going to get through it but but I can totally relate to that that idea just kind of lingering in the back of your mind and coming back to it I I read a book called Big magic have you read that one by Elizabeth Gilbert yes but it's been a while like I feel like I could reread it the reason it came to mind is when you talked about um when it keeps coming back to you it's something you should do and she talks about uh creativity as kind of an energy that does that and so uh can totally relate to that that that when you are a creative and you're spending time making things that if if it's if it's yours and it comes to you and you make it great otherwise it might go to someone else and they'll come up with it and all of that is okay yeah so how do you deal with um the pressure to to come up with new ideas all the time um you know it's a lot but I've learned to just sit with it for a while and just let things come as they do and see where things really go um I've learned to just kind of slow down with my business and just work on the things that really make me happy and bring me joy and I'm not doing the things I loved making gnomes I absolutely loved it but when I felt pressure to make 100 every two weeks yeah you got sick of making gnomes you know what I mean like it takes the joy out of it it really does and I mean when I would make them like there would be times where I was dreading it like oh my gosh okay I got to just start cuz I I need to make we we need to make money this month you know and so I just got to the point where I've let myself just sit with things and when they come to me when it's you know something that's ready to be made then I will work on it and in the mean time I'm working on things like my sewing membership and I'm working on you know just developing different patterns like I've got probably five or six patterns in my brain right now that I haven't even started yes you know we were just on vacation and the whole time we were there we had this weird beach bag that was just like one great big bag and I'm like okay I could do so much better with this so I've got this idea of what I want to do and it's just you know these things but I haven't had the time to do them but I know if if I keep thinking about it yeah it'll come around then yeah then I'll find the time and I'll make it happen it sounds like you've got to this great place now in in your career and your business where you can really trust yourself and and and rely on your instincts and and still still enjoy the process yes instead of having just pressure all the time I don't feel the pressure like I used to anymore I've gotten to the point where yeah I can just relax and make things as I'm able and have so much fun in the process of making things and sharing that process on Instagram as I go to with with my followers and with my sewing group and it's just been a lot of fun I love that I love that that's what it's really all about it really is yeah you got to do the things that bring you Joy so where else do you seek inspiration are there any people that you're following maybe other seers or creators that just inspire you there's inspiration I find it everywhere you know I find it when I go on vacation I find it when I go for walks I I come up with ideas and I just see inspiration all over the place um there's so many great seist on Instagram um so many wonderful people that I follow um jod from Pleasant home is one of them she's I have been friends with her on Instagram and followed her for so many years um and she's doing some machine quilting now and it's just so much fun to watch her business evolve from what it used to be way back I mean ear in the early days um and then another person is Kate from quilting with Miss Kate she is she's just always happy so happy she's always so happy I mean the girl lives in Maui how can she not be happy but she's just so much fun and she sends me these quick little messages all the time that are she makes me laugh all the time she is hilarious she's so funny but yeah her and I go back and forth on in DMS just talking to each other and she's just so much fun to watch her get excited about the projects that she makes and she's just always happy I love that I do too she's just fun she is really fun and she she's also very real which I think very real is so refreshing MH that's I mean that's who I relate to the best are people that are down to earth they're real they're they're just real people and they share all of it like The Good The Bad and all the in between yeah she posted one the other day and just had me rolling so funny so funny all the time um we were talking in DMS one day and I had shared a picture of some Frost in keep in mind I live in Minnesota she lives in Maui and she said something about it being too cold and I said oh it was 40° today it was really nice and her reply back to me was okay Elsa and I laugh so hard at that I'm like I will forever be Elsa with her because that's funny she's just so funny and just so relatable so yeah I really enjoy her I love that yeah well thank you so much for being here and for sharing some of your story and can you tell everybody where to find you online yeah so I am primarily on Instagram at the littlegreen bean.com my website is also little okay so Instagram let's back that up y so I'm on Instagram at the little green bean and then my website is littlegreen bean.com awesome so everyone be sure to check that out and see what Missy is up to thank you so much for being here thank you for having me this is so much fun I hope you'll come back get to perfect we'll see you next time [Music]