Ask Laura Rasmussen \u201985 to describe her days as co-owner at 3 Kittens Needle Arts, a yarn and needlepoint store in Mendota Heights, Minnesota, and her focus is clear: \u201cI\u2019m all about the numbers,\u201d she says. For fourteen years, Rasmussen has handled payroll, accounting, vendors, and all of the buying for the shop\u2019s yarn department. And numbers show up in her nightly knitting sessions, too. \u201cIt\u2019s a weird juxtaposition that floors people sometimes\u2014a numbers person who\u2019s also creative,\u201d she says. \u201cBut people often don\u2019t realize that there\u2019s a lot of math involved in knitting and crochet, from simple counting to some algebraic-type equations that get thrown in as you move along. It\u2019s one of the reasons why I think teaching kids how to knit and crochet is such a good idea: They\u2019re practicing math at the same time.\u201d We asked Rasmussen to share what else she\u2019s learned as a small-business owner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I tell my kids that everyone has their own path to lead, and theirs may not look like the one they expected. I majored in economics and history, and I thought that I would go into the corporate world. But I deferred my MBA and worked in marketing, then for a student loan guaranteeing organization, then for my husband\u2019s small business for eighteen years. Then the opportunity to buy 3 Kittens happened. My eventual business partner said, \u201cAre you interested?\u201d and I said, \u201cProbably not.\u201d She said, \u201cDo you want to meet?\u201d Six months later, we owned the store. It was always a little bit of a dream to own a yarn store, but it wasn\u2019t where I thought my life was going to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When our store was closed for in-person shopping early in the pandemic, I started doing Facebook Lives\u2014at the beginning almost daily\u2014because I just needed to get my products in front of people. I learned that on social media I could pull a skein of yarn out and explain why it\u2019s my favorite yarn in a way that doesn\u2019t happen when people are browsing websites. I was also part of organizing a Zoom yarn shop crawl with thirty-six stores across North America. People around the world joined in, and it brought new customers to all of us. Small-business owners have to constantly try new things. If it doesn\u2019t work, then move on to something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before we bought the store, my business partner and I talked with the owner of a Minneapolis yarn and needlepoint shop. I had known her for years, and we were upfront with her that we were thinking of buying 3 Kittens. And she talked with us, even though our businesses would be in direct competition. I was impressed by that. Since then, I\u2019ve had people ask me about buying a yarn store, and I\u2019ve tried to emulate her approach. Even though we\u2019re all in competition with each other, it doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t work together\u2014a rising tide lifts all boats. I think it\u2019s very important to practice kindness in all aspects of running a small business: your customers, employees, vendors, and competition. It will pay off in the long run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I\u2019m working with other yarn store owners, there\u2019s a spectrum of scenarios\u2014from a really collaborative effort to one strong personality who runs the whole thing. Some people are always going to volunteer for everything, and some want to be there for idea generation but not the grunt work. And that\u2019s okay! You\u2019ve got to let that go because otherwise, you can create tension and drama that\u2019s just not worth it. But if it\u2019s really, really bugging you: Get out of that collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My biggest piece of advice to small-business owners is that the numbers matter. If your numbers don\u2019t work, your business isn\u2019t going to work. My son is a serial entrepreneur and recently started a business with a great idea, but the numbers just weren\u2019t playing out, and he decided to close it. So many people, especially in creative industries, think that all they need is a good idea. But you\u2019ve got to have the accounting to back that up.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rasmussen shares lessons she’s learned as co-owner of yarn and needlepoint shop 3 Kittens Needle Arts.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1077,"featured_media":17452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17413"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30683,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17413\/revisions\/30683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}