More than a decade ago, Pepita Marin left her job at accounting firm PwC to focus on her fledgling online knitwear retail business.
The company, called “We Are Knitters,” currently turns over nearly 20 million euros ($23.8 million) a year.
Marin co-founded We Are Knitters with her colleague at PwC, Alberto Bravo. She left her job in accounting after the couple won a €10,000 grant for their business proposal in a competition for entrepreneurs run by a university in Spain.
Marin told CNBC via email that she was able to leave her corporate job because she felt the “opportunity” at We Are Knitters was “real.”
“I knew I would be my (own) boss one day,” Marin said, although she admittedly thought she would be older when it happened, but she felt like she had to take advantage of the opportunity when it came.
Marin also said she was “always grateful” for the fact that she was able to live with her parents while making no money and trying to get the business off the ground, acknowledging that “not everyone can do that.”
But despite the freedom that being a CEO gave her, Marin realized that she would always have someone to answer to, be it an investor, a business partner, or her employees. On the bright side, running her own business has allowed Marin to balance her work and personal life “without permission.”
Marin said people assume her previous job in accounting at PwC had nothing to do with starting an online knitwear retailer. But she said the experience was “super, super useful for starting up” in terms of managing the financial side of the business and dealing with banks.
If Marin had to give one piece of advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, it would be: “Don’t do it alone, because the road is long.”
“The path is not easy and it is very good to have someone there who shares the successes,” she added.
Pandemic boom in crafts
Marin and Bravo’s idea for “We Are Knitters” came about on a trip to visit a colleague in New York when they saw a “cool hipster girl knitting on the subway,” she recalled.
Neither of them knew how to knit at the time and decided to try it out of curiosity, she said. Marin said she found creating something with her own hands both relaxing and rewarding.
And being a co-founder who doesn’t necessarily have a passion for the product being sold can actually be beneficial, she said, because it allows “a little bit of distance” to focus on the actual business.
They noticed that this trend had not yet caught on in Europe and saw a business opportunity to revive a hobby that was still considered “old-fashioned” in Spain.
This meant they were well ahead of the resurgence of crafts, such as knitting, in recent years and the increasing popularity among younger people.
Research from the British charity Crafts Council, published in June but conducted primarily before the coronavirus pandemic, found that 73% of England’s population bought crafts in 2020, up from 17% in 2006. It also saw the proportion of people under 35 years old were determined who bought something. The share of handicrafts had risen from 17% to 32% at that time.
And arts and crafts boomed even more during the pandemic as health restrictions forced people to spend much more time at home.
British craft retailer Hobbycraft saw its online like-for-like sales increase by 200% during the UK’s first national lockdown.
In the U.S., craft retailer Michaels’ online sales doubled year-over-year in the third quarter of 2020, and total sales rose 15% year-over-year to $1.4 billion.
We Are Knitters primarily sells knitting kits and, unlike some traditional craft retailers, is entirely online. Therefore, the company was not forced to close physical stores when the coronavirus pandemic led to public health restrictions worldwide.
The company has actually seen “strong growth” since the start of the pandemic, Marin said, and people have found it “therapeutic” to spend time on hobbies like knitting during the lockdown. In fact, We Are Knitters saw sales increase by over 300% in the UK alone in 2020 compared to the previous year.
Marin said business has even seen growth in Spain, where the company is based but was not previously one of its major markets as people spend less time indoors due to warmer weather. But Spain had one of the strictest lockdowns in Europe, which apparently led to more people pursuing “indoor” hobbies like knitting.