Patterns and Profits: Brown Eyed Quilter | The Hustle

[Music] can you go from Rags to Riches with just a needle and thread I'm Emily Sall I'm 22 years old and I'm the owner of browney quilter Emily uses her sewing skills and her longarm quilting machine to finish quilts for customers around the country this is insane you went from this little machine to this gargantuan Beast of a piece of equipment she works from her own Studio on her family property and has some pretty unusual co-workers in this episode of The Hustle we'll go behind the scenes to see how Emily switched from a tabletop sewing machine to a 12T long arm quilting machine to expand her business we'll also learn how this major piece of equipment paid for itself over time all while being an essential element to Emily's business Emily's knack for quilting comes from her family after getting some practice on her grandmother's sewing machine Emily got one of her own as a Christmas gift then one day Emily received an email that changed everything in March 2020 I got an email from Etsy and they said if you can make and sell fabric face masks they will sell and you'll make money on it and I was like if they think it's big enough to send out an email maybe I should try it so I made one real fast and put it on sold within the first 30 minutes being up so then I was like okay let's put up another one and I just kept selling and selling and it turned out I made 3500 in the first like 6 to 8 weeks in order to move from masks to quilts Emily needed bigger Machinery she couldn't do the volume volum of business she wanted sewing by hand on her small sewing machine this meant resourcing a bigger better piece of equipment resourcing means acquiring and managing assets that can grow a business to stand out in the crowded quilting Market Emily needed a longarm quilting machine a longarm quilting machine is a sewing machine on steroids unfortunately for Emily getting access to one was like finding a needle in a hay stack the closest dealer and place that you could rent out this machine was actually like an hour an hour and a half from where I lived and there wasn't a ton of like other long R cters in the Los Angeles area Emily decided to take a risk on a huge investment she went all in and put down $20,000 on a machine of her own so what was it like laying down 20 grand it was a little bit scary but I had enough money from making masks to buy second like best machine that the company had and then my parents helped me by helping upgrade to the highest grade machine so that then I could be a dealer and rep for the company if I bought the machine and then didn't enjoy it or business didn't go well I could sell the machine and pretty much have the same amount of money I had before well I love hearing about the business but I want to give it a try myself you think you can show me how it's done let's go do [Applause] it here it is wow so this is the brown eye quilter HQ yes all right so you think you can show me what's going on here show me how to quilt today yeah Emily's machine is a huge part of her business it's built for larger more intricate projects than most sewing machines magnets and heavy rollers keep the fabric steady and give her a smooth surface for stitching now we're going to roll it up on this bar so when I start the machine it's um Stitch regulated so however fast IE goes how fast the machine will [Applause] Stitch so now we're going to go to the back of the machine and start stitching all right let's do it this is really cool the the Red Dot over on this side stitch is exactly what I'm doing here on the quilt top on that side of the machine it's incredible that was intense I'm sweating right now that was awesome it's like a video game it feels like one row down and probably 10 15 more to go oh my gosh okay not bad right looks good I'm very proud of myself oh my I'm Blown Away Emily's skills are a rare find and our machine is a valuable investment it's what the business World calls a capital expenditure or capex a fixed long-term asset that pays its owner back in value investing in capex could mean buying real estate intellectual property or in Emily's case heavy machinery I've probably worked on hundreds of people's quilts lots of my clients are actually from all over the us but I have noticed a lot of other long arm Quilters have a very long wait time like 2 to 3 months even longer and right now my turnaround time is in one to two week range a lot of people do want them faster and I have had people switch over from other long armors just because it's was taking so long it's never cheap and with a high upfront cost there's always risk unlike operational expenditures or Opex that's things like rent wages or materials you spend money on every day PEX brings long-term advantages and risks of its own I brought out my original machine that I started with this is the machine that I made most of the masks on as well as my first twins siiz quilt you did a quilt on that I did a quilt on on this there's not that much space so you roll it up and have to try and get it to go all the way through stitches this is incredible look at this when we talk about resourcing this is exactly what we think of finding new equipment finding ways to scale your business up and I can't think of a better glaring example than this to this buying a machine you can rent out or sell means maintaining it adding accessories and covering those expenses with profit if you aren't pricing your services in a way that covers expenses you might not recoup that upfront cost the LA cting machine is basically my only piece of equipment for my business my machine and my creativity so far Emily's investment is paying off to work quickly and handle more volume Emily kept resourcing she invested another $10,000 and fitted her machine with a computer system she can always guide it by hand but with that system her machine sews patterns all by itself okay I've set up the computerized system all you have to do is Click sell all right here we go this is going to be some of my best sewing work yet not done by me but you can see it tells me the number of stitches and what percentage it is complete got it this is really cool it's showing it in real time what it has done already this whole row is over 15,000 stitches how many did you do freehand before you got the computer system I did about 200 freeh hand that's totle the hands on I was here every single second for every single stitch before I added the computerized system that's a lot of quilts that's a lot of hours how many does it take you to do one um I would say probably 3 to 5 hours for each one so doing the math there that's what anywhere between 600 and 1,000 hours of manual labor quilting these together yeah turning assets into revenue streams is a sound business strategy and a great way to ensure return on investment or Roi return on investment is the money you make compared to the money you first put in the more money you make the high higher your Roi will be whether she's trimming padding or sewing cool patterns into a family heirloom Emily's work is well seamless and with her longarm quilting machine Emily is sewing up success she's even going to offer new products and classes to train people on her machine and if you're looking for a comfy quilt this brown-eyed quilter has you covered one stitch at a time to start small it doesn't have to be a big machine like this you know there's lots of people who do know other so related things or any kind of business have big plans but also you know work on what's in front of you and build up to that so what did we learn from Emily today growing a business usually takes resourcing acquiring and managing assets that help you operate Capital expenditures like Emily's quilting machine are a one-of-a-kind resource an expensive kind but they pay off in long-term value making wise Investments and turning them into new forms of Revenue is a good strategy for your Roi return on investment as the browney quilter shows us passion persistence and the right resourcing can help you make the cut get in that getting that Charles yeah dude you're on camera man five lounds of that all right 15 come on 15 thanks so much for watching the hustle to make sure you don't miss out on any more videos like this please subscribe at prageru.com today and if you want to learn more about business visit Prager kids.com to download worksheets lesson plans and more