We were lucky to catch up with Shannah Mills recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Shannah, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I first started my business creating random crochet items and other crafts with no real niche or direction. I have always been a cat lady and one day I saw a pattern for a crochet cat crown and decided I needed to make one. I thought it would be a good post on Instagram if nothing else. Soon a friend requested one for her cat and then I had requests for Halloween cat hats. I decided to start selling them and with the help of a couple of large Halloween focused Instagram accounts I was getting quite a few orders. I never thought cat hats could be such a great idea, but there are so many cat lovers out there it has become quite the endeavor. So to sum it up, I came up with the idea for my business by accident and it was the best thing to ever happen!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I began crocheting about 8 years ago and immediately fell in love with it. I would mainly make gifts for family members and friends back then. This was before it became popular again and I definitely heard the phrase “old lady” more than I can count.

My business is still fairly new, beginning 2 years ago. It provides crochet hats for cats as well as other crafts from time to time. I always say there are two types of cats out there. The ones that will allow clothes and the ones that will kill you if you try. I got lucky with my 3 cats who tolerate wearing hats and one of them actually loves dressing up most of the time. He is my main model on my Instagram page and online store.

Each of my hats is created from my own personal patterns and I’m so proud of the fact that they are crochet. For those that don’t know, crochet is a very slow craft. It can take me anywhere from 1 to 6 hours to create one hat. Crochet can not be done on a machine so there is no way to quicken the process. Each of my hats are definitely a labor of love! It has been amazing providing so many unique hat options for all the cat lovers out there and it makes me so happy to see photos of cats wearing them.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

My audience on social media is still a work in progress, but i am so grateful for the growth I have had in the past two years. I have had a lot of help along the way from friends and colleagues. My friend, Zanah Danae, who does brand and social media consulting has been an amazing resource and I owe her a million thanks for helping me get started! In the past year, I have gotten a lot of growth from posting reels often and from my customers tagging me in their posts.
My advice for those starting out is advice I have received countless times:
Make sure your page has a clear and focused niche.
Post often. Reels are a great resource for many accounts.
Show your face sometimes and try to connect personally with your audience.

I also have a full time job in graphic design so it is hard to stay active sometimes, but I try my best and hope to continue growing in the future.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I sell on my own site as well as Etsy. They both have pros and cons. I am able to have lower prices on my website because there are less fees, but more people find my Etsy shop because of their promotion features. That is a great tool in my opinion, but because there are quite a few fees on Etsy my prices have to be higher. I will continue to use both shops until the benefits don’t outweigh the fees.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.shannanigansstudio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shannanigansstudio/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shannanigansstudio
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShannanigansST

Image Credits
Shannah Mills