Out with the old...

Happy 2019!

I, for one, am kinda pleased to see the back of 2018.  It was a tough year, for many people I think, not just me.

There were some highlights, like the outstanding success of Bohemia Gothic that took me by surprise!  There were also times when I was ready to burn everything to the ground.

It’s an interesting thing reaching four years in business.  About one in ten small businesses fail in their first year and 70% don’t make it to year five.  I wonder if that’s because after working pretty much 24/7 trying to get things off the ground and growing for so long, the owner finally hits the wall.  

This yarn business has been a steep learning curve!  Just when I think I have a handle on everything the next challenge presents itself.  I guess that’s partly why it’s so much fun. It’s also hard work, exhausting, and sometimes frustrating as hell.  

To be honest, it sometimes feels like some kind of endurance sport that’s a cross between mountain climbing and base jumping!  You spend a whole lot of time slogging up the cliff face to where you think you want to be. Then you find when you get there you actually have to take a big leap of faith and hope that you land safely, so that you can start climbing all over again.  I spend a big chunk of my time making decisions that have a lot of zeroes attached to them.  It’s both exhilarating and terrifying!

I’ve been doing a lot of that in the last 6 months, so while things have looked pretty quiet for Outlaw Yarn since the launch of Gothic,  I’ve actually been really busy behind the scenes planning for this year. Part of this planning has involved making some tough decisions, driven in part by the rising raw materials costs that have hit all of us yarnies.  It’s going to be difficult to say goodbye to some favourites.  But pressure creates diamonds, right?

So, 2019 is a year of change for Outlaw.  A lot of change… in fact, at last count, it’s about 48 new things, which includes 2 new yarns, and I haven’t even counted a whole new brand in those numbers!  

That’s a lot of jumping off cliffs.  Hope you will join me for the ride!