We were lucky to catch up with Chandi Agee recently and have shared our conversation below.
Chandi, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
In 2011, I was newly divorced and living with my brother and sister-in-law in North Pole, Alaska. I needed to start my life over and find direction and clarity. I remember very vividly sitting on the couch one day with the sun streaming on my face, and I asked myself this question: “What would you do with your life if money were no object?”
And clear as a bell, in an instant, the answer came to my mind. I wanted to own a hand-dyed yarn company. And so, I trusted that instinct and began the process. I ordered supplies and started dyeing yarn.
It was difficult at first, and I had a ton to learn. But I had a stubborn determination to make it work. The first year or so, I hardly sold any yarn and had to get a job to support myself. When the time came that I realized I was making more in the yarn business than at my job, I decided it was time to quit the job and jump full force into the yarn business. It was scary, but I knew my soul would wither and die if I continued to work a job that didn’t fulfill me creatively.
With fear in my heart, my feet shaking in my boots, and hands ready to work, I plowed full force into making Expression Fiber Arts the absolute best hand-dyed yarn company I could envision. I combined my love of knitting, crocheting, spinning yarn, weaving, and dyeing, with my passion for business. My husband Tim was able to quit his job and work full time with me. We’ve now relocated to beautiful Charlotte, North Carolina and have an amazing team.
Simply put, we strive to inspire joy. We take inspiration from the world around us and turn that into yarn colorways and luxury fiber blends with the hope that it brings more joy, more wonder, more excitement, more color, more self-expression (the reason for our company name) and more creativity into our customers’ lives. If they find even a hint of happiness in our products or website, we’ve done our job.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m Chandi Agee, Owner and Founder of Expression Fiber Arts, which is a hand-dyed yarn company that I own and operate with my husband, Tim Agee. We sell our hand-dyed, luxury yarns and related tools and notions, along with knit and crochet patterns, online at www.expressionfiberarts.com. Tim and I work with a team of ten home-based dyers; four warehouse and shipping specialists; three employees who handle customer service, marketing, and product and content management; and an international team of amazingly creative knit and crochet pattern designers. We source our custom-spun, luxury yarn bases from fiber mills around the world, and then hand-dye those skeins into colorful bundles of happiness using a variety of dyeing methods.
Simply put at Expression Fiber Arts, we strive to inspire joy. We take inspiration from the world around us and turn that into yarn colorways with the hope that it brings more joy, more excitement, more color, more self-expression, and more creativity to your life. If you find even a hint of happiness in our products, then we’ve done our job. We truly hope to leave the world a better place than we found it, and we choose to use yarn as our medium!
Expression Fiber Arts began in 2011 when I found myself at a turning point in my life. I was newly divorced and living with my brother and sister-in-law in North Pole, Alaska. I needed to start my life over and find direction and clarity. One day while sitting on the couch with the sun streaming on my face, I asked myself, “What would you do if money were no object?” And instantly without hesitation, I had my answer. I wanted to own a hand-dyed yarn company.
And so, I trusted my instinct and jumped right in. I ordered supplies and immediately started to dye yarn. It was difficult at first, and I had so much to learn. But I adopted a stubborn determination to succeed! During the first year, I worked as a receptionist to support myself, but it wasn’t long before I realized I was making more money selling my hand-dyed yarn than I was in my day job. It was time to quit that position and devote myself wholeheartedly to the yarn business. I was scared, but I knew that my soul would wither and die if I continued to work a job that didn’t fulfill me creatively.
I committed myself to making Expression Fiber Arts the best, hand-dyed yarn company I could envision. I combined my love of knitting, crocheting, spinning, weaving, and dyeing with my passion for business. Along the way, I remarried, and soon my husband Tim was able to quit his job and work full-time alongside me. Later, we relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina, and in 2017, we were able to move the business out of our house and into a 2,500 square foot studio. We have since grown at such a rate that we more recently moved into a new space that is nearly twice as large as our previous studio.
We’ve been growing our business and our team ever since. Over the years, our sales and customer base have grown at a pace I didn’t dare to imagine, and that has allowed us to add additional staff and delegate many things that Tim and I were handling all by ourselves. Although we have a warehouse and workspace in Charlotte, our yarn is sold exclusively online. And while our home-based dyers and shipping specialists are located in and around the Charlotte metropolitan area, other staff work remotely from other states. Additionally, we work with pattern designers who are located all around the world.
I feel quite fortunate that I have found my creative niche, and we’ve been able to stand out in a crowded marketplace, while also building a community of loyal customers. During the last 15 to 20 years, the yarn and fiber industry has absolutely taken off, and an incredibly diverse array of unique, high-quality, boutique products for every conceivable interest and preference are now available. No longer are makers limited to the mass-produced yarns that are sold in large retail establishments.
This has presented both an opportunity and a challenge. Increasingly, knitters, crocheters, and other makers are looking for the highest possible quality of yarn for their projects from producers who share their same aesthetic sensibility. With so many options available and the ease with which small producers can sell their products online, standing out and securing a viable percentage of the market can be a challenge. Throughout our years in business, we have implemented a robust and consistent advertising and marketing strategy and worked with designers to produce knit and crochet patterns that feature our yarns. These patterns, which are often free for a limited time, and their corresponding video tutorials have helped us to add to and enhance the value of our core product lines, while also enticing makers to work with our yarns.
I believe there are two parts to any successful business – the passion part and the business part – and you can’t address one without the other. For a business to be successful, I think you need both. You can be all passion, dreams, and hopes, but without structure, processes, consistency, and planning, you won’t have a business. You’ll have a dream. You can also be completely pragmatic, take action steps, set rigid goals, and march endlessly toward those goals, but without passion you’re likely to feel lost when you reach those goals. Why did you want to achieve those goals in the first place? I believe that money and success, while very nice, make for cold and lonely nights if you haven’t tied your business to your passion.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
In 2011, I was newly divorced and living with my brother and sister-in-law in North Pole, Alaska. I needed to start my life over and find direction and clarity. I remember very vividly sitting on the couch one day with the sun streaming on my face, and I asked myself this question: “What would you do with your life if money were no object?”
And clear as a bell, in an instant, the answer came to my mind. I wanted to own a hand-dyed yarn company. And so, I trusted that instinct and began the process. I ordered supplies and started dyeing yarn.
It was difficult at first, and I had a ton to learn. But I had a stubborn determination to make it work. The first year or so, I hardly sold any yarn and had to get a job to support myself. When the time came that I realized I was making more in the yarn business than at my job, I decided it was time to quit the job and jump full force into the yarn business. It was scary, but I knew my soul would wither and die if I continued to work a job that didn’t fulfill me creatively.
With fear in my heart, my feet shaking in my boots, and hands ready to work, I plowed full force into making Expression Fiber Arts the absolute best hand-dyed yarn company I could envision. I combined my love of knitting, crocheting, spinning yarn, weaving, and dyeing, with my passion for business. My husband Tim was able to quit his job and work full time with me. We’ve now relocated to beautiful Charlotte, North Carolina and have an amazing team.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
We use a variety of tactics to foster brand loyalty and to let each and every client/customer know that they matter to us. All of our communications, whether marketing, customer service, or business related, are positive, uplifting, and above all, helpful. We have a robust email marketing list that we use to communicate with customers on a regular basis. We also have a strong social media presence on the most popular platforms. Furthermore, we regularly host live, online events, so our community can interact with the owner(s) of Expression Fiber Arts. We also have a Facebook Group of nearly 9,000 individuals from across the world, and this platform has helped us to build a sense of community.
Additionally, we regularly host make along events (knit and crochet events where participants make the same item during a set time period), and these events also help to grow the Expression Fiber Arts community. We film and distribute video tutorials on a weekly basis to help support our customers and to let them know that we are here to support them as they use our hand-dyed yarns. These are only some of the strategies we use to keep in touch with our customers.
Our customer service strategy is based on guaranteeing that our customers are 100% satisfied with what they receive from us. We are problem solvers and will go out of our way to help a customer who needs additional assistance or who has questions about our products.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.expressionfiberarts.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/expressionfiberarts/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/expressionfiberarts/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/expressionfiber
- Youtube: youtube.com/expressionfiberarts
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@expression.fiber.arts Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ExpressionFiber/ Blog: https://blog.expressionfiberarts.com/ Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/designers/expression-fiber-arts Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/expressionfiberarts
Image Credits
Expression Fiber Arts