Edu-preneur shares a yarn about founding her niche

Photo Credit: Jacie Davis Photography, 2024

Pru Raymond is a entrepreneur who founded a business by combining her expertise as a professional educator with her passion for yarn craft. In doing so, Pru has grown a successful niche business, unrivalled in Australia. Over the last eight years, Pru has sold out knitting workshops all over Australia and USA, collaborating with other small businesses to support a sustainable yarn craft “ecosystem”.  Pru is passionate about Slow Fashion, and sees her range of indie knitting patterns as a way to empower mindful makers. A range of Pru’s books, designed to support knitters on their learning journey and their real-life travels to yarn stores are available on Amazon globally.

FF: Can you tell our readers about your background?

PR: My professional background is in education: I have worked in education at a secondary, tertiary and systems leadership level for almost 20 years. I was teaching History, English at a Catholic Girls’ College when I decided to start a side hustle teaching community-based knitting workshops. I also enrolled in a Masters in Educational Leadership… So there wasn’t a grand plan to get out of education when I started my business… in fact, learning is a pillar of Dear Pru!

My personal background is that I am a first generation Australian. My grandparents were WWII survivors: my dad’s parents survived the Blitz and my mum’s parents survived the Holocaust. Following the war, Mum’s family were in a Displaced Persons’ camp in Germany and were accepted to travel to Australia in 1949. A few years later, Dad’s family emigrated from the UK. They weren’t “Ten Pound Poms” but that was the era… Grandma, Dad’s mum, was the one who taught me how to read knitting patterns and encouraged me to experiment with different textures and designs. I often think of her when I knit, or make mince pies and trifle!

FF: What inspired you to start your business?

PR: In 2017, when I started my business, I had been teaching for 10 years, married for three, had a house, a well used passport, but I wanted more. Many people at this point in their life consider parenthood… I did. I came to the realisation that I didn’t want to be a mum. But I did feel called to give life to something new and grow a fresh, green shoot of my life. I love knitting, and teaching, so combining them to teach knitting workshops in my local community seemed a logical and fun endeavour. I had no idea my business would grow to what it is now, but I’m so glad I took the risk to try something new.

FF: Where is your business based?

PR: I live in Adelaide, South Australia, but my business is mobile: I travel regularly interstate and overseas to teach face to face workshops. 2024 was a banner year for me: I taught workshops in Boston and Santa Rosa, just out of San Francisco, and I completed my goal to teach in every state and territory in Australia!

I am also online: I have an online store, primarily to sell my knitting patterns as digital products. I also have a Ravelry store and a range of books for sale on Amazon, globally. I do teach online as well: in January I ran some workshops for an American yarn store.

FF: How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?

PR: I pitched my idea for a “Beanies and Tea-Cosies” knitting workshop to a couple of businesses and as soon as I got hired, I registered a business name and an ABN. I initially used a different business name, but it didn’t stick. People kept calling me Dear Pru because of the old Hotmail address I was using… not very professional maybe, but it shows that business name inspo can come from unlikely places!

FF: What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?

PR: I use a range of tools to connect with the global knitting community, share my offerings with potential clients and promote my personal brand. The most outrageous strategy I’ve used was becoming a contestant on ABC’s Hard Quiz. I also use more traditional methods: Insta, YouTube, website, email marketing and attending local networking events.

FF: What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?

PR: The biggest challenge has been to define my business terms and stick to them. It can feel really scary to ask another business to honour your needs in a contract, but it’s so important for healthy, sustainable growth as a business. I would highly recommend that all start-ups take the time to write out their “ideal contract”: one that is fair, honours their professional integrity, protects their intellectual property, and clearly states what goods and services they are willing to provide in return for a specific sum of money and/or in kind payment, and the schedule of that payment. Requiring a deposit has really helped in determining how serious another business is about working with me, and protecting my investment of time and energy.

FF: How do you stay focused?

PR: I use a colour-coded digital calendar system to stay focused. Every task and meeting is an event in my calendar. Different shades of green indicate money-related activities: marketing, discovery meetings, publishing; fuscia for creativity eg. product design and development. I also have categories like “exercise” and “leisure” because as a solopreneur my personal health and wellbeing is linked to the prosperity and sustainability of my business. At a glance, I can see if there’s one colour/ type of work dominating my calendar and make adjustments.

FF: How do you differentiate your business from the competition?

PR: There are lots of designers and expert knitters who offer classes in Australia, USA, Europe and UK. I couldn’t tell you how many of them are professional educators. However, I can safely say am the only professional teacher in Australia offering to travel to yarn stores and offer a program of unique classes over the course of a weekend. I call this a “stackable knitting retreat” and it’s a game changer. A lot of businesses draw people away to a beautiful hotel… I am all about drawing them in: activating the space within the host business, to re-invent it as a creative community hub and learning space. At the same time, by increasing the purposeful interaction with the products on offer, hosts benefit from an increase in sales.

FF: What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?

PR: I market my stackable retreats B2B, and my class menu is a good strategy to move the sales conversation further. It’s a seven page PDF that provides a brief overview of each of my classes, highlights the “best sellers” and provides a little bit of basic info about pricing. I update it annually and email it out to businesses I have worked with previously, with a question about re-booking for the following year. I have a simpler one page flyer with some key information I send to businesses I haven’t worked with yet, and follow up with the class menu if they express interest.

FF: What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?

PR: My advice for new entrepreneurs is to look around for peer mentors, to share your journey and support each other with your insights and contacts as you go. It helps if they are in different industries with some common elements, for example, I met an entrepreneur at a networking event that ran mobile cooking classes for kids. It was helpful to talk about designing, marketing and selling creative learning experiences B2B. Even though what we were teaching was different in nature, there were a lot of similarities in how we ran our businesses.

FF: What's your favourite app, blog, and book? Why?

PR:

My favourite book: I am really enjoying the Chronicles of St Mary’s series by Jodi Taylor. It’s about a historian who conducts “practical research” into significant historical events via time travel! I’m up to book 5 of 13 and there are also some short stories about the Time Police and other characters to explore too. My preferred method of reading these days is listening via the Libby app: it’s free, you just need a library card to access!

My favourite app: I am obsessed with Duolingo. I love learning Spanish this way! The learning journey is depicted as stepping stones with a variety of games and exercises with lots of rewards and other strategies to incentivise the learning. It’s come a long since I last used it 10 years ago! I also love the Waterllama app which is a fun, cute, very visual way to improve your hydration!

My favourite blog: While I write a blog, I don’t tend to read any, sorry! But I do love listening to the Huberman Lab. It’s a podcast about neuroscience, health and wellbeing, sleep, drawing on the wisdom of experts.

FF: What's your favourite business tool or resource? Why?

PR: I draw on the services of the business development team at my local council a lot. They run networking events regularly and offer grants for business projects. I would highly recommend exploring that option wherever you are: local councils all offer some form of support program for small businesses. They may even become a client! I teach at lots of local libraries and community centres.

FF: Who is your business role model? Why?

PR: My business role model is Tanya Keen, owner operator of Yarn Trader, a bijou local yarn store in historic Port Adelaide. She has won business and entrepreneurship awards, and is on a prestigious business board. Tanya has really supported me in my business journey through her collaborative, innovative approach and sound advice.

I am also grateful to Libby Trainor Parker and Matthew Trainor who run Prompt Creative Centre in the Adelaide CBD. Being a part of their Vaulting Ambitions incubator program provided a strong basis for the growth of my business in 2022, when I quit my full time job.

FF: How do you balance work and life?

PR: I am really trying to get better at this… it is very easy to dedicate every waking hour to nurturing you fledgling business and snarl at friends, family and anyone who get between you and it. But burn out is real, and creatives need joy, play, relationships, sleep and exercise to keep their creative engines running well. So, this summer I have made a point of going to the gym, to the beach, spending time with friends, reading and sewing. The test will be to maintain this balance of work and play once “knitting season” starts again. My calendar system, if I stick to it, should help with tracking this.

FF: What’s your favourite way to decompress?

PR: I really enjoy knitting! Even though I’ve made a business of it, I still enjoy knitting as a pastime. I also enjoy other creative pastimes like sewing, embroidery and cooking. I find it difficult to sit still and read a book, although I love stories, so I tend to listen while I’m knitting or sewing. But when I’m cooking: I love to blast some tunes and dance around the kitchen!

FF: What do you have planned for the next six months?

PR: We are about to enter Australian Knitting season (March-September)! My first gig is teaching some workshops at the Australian Yarn Show in Canberra. The classes are sold out… but some of my classes in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Tasmania still have tickets available, and more locations are due to be announced soon.

I’ve also got some exciting new knitwear designs I plan to publish in the coming months. They will be available for purchase as digital downloads on Ravelry and my website.

FF: How can our readers connect with you?

PR: The best way to stay connected with me is to sign up to my newsletter, The Last Monday which comes out on the last Monday of each month. There’s lots of community photos and stories, plus discounts and giveaways. To subscribe for free, complete the sign up form in the footer of my website.

I also have a great community supporting me on Instagram, and would love your readers to follow me there.

·       Website: www.dearpru.com

·       Instagram: www.instagram.com/dearpru_

·       LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/pru-raymond/

·       You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/@dearpruknits

·       Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/designers/dear-pru