Latest / Weirdly Effective: How Creative Businesses Build Experiences / Megan Eckman Grew Sales 150% by Designing for Roller Derby Librarians

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Megan Eckman Grew Sales 150% by Designing for Roller Derby Librarians · Weirdly Effective: How Creative Businesses Build Experiences

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The best creative businesses don't just sell anything.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: They build an experience around it to delight their audience.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Think a kid that you can't wait to unbox.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: A Kickstarter that has you freaking out.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or a loyalty content that actually gives you stuff you want.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is weirdly effective, the podcast where I sit down with the people who built those experiences, and we dive right into it.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: How they came up with the idea, why it works, and most importantly, what their audience did next.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Megan, co-founder of Fat Cap, and this is a show all about weirdly effective strategies.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Megan.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: At this point, you're probably wondering, hey, isn't there supposed to be another guest here?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is the only episode where it's going to be just me, and that's because I feel like in order to understand this series, you kind of need to understand where it's coming from and why I am obsessed with weird and wonderful audience strategies.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So this episode is gonna be a bit of an origin story to figure out where it all started, where I have been, the businesses that I've built.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: My husband and I added them up the other day, and we are at 11.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: We won't touch on all of them here, but I think it really helps you see that all of the things that are gonna come up in this season, I have lived and done all of them in some way, and they've really helped my business.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so excited to share these stories with you and to really spotlight these people that other people don't ask these questions of, and I think that's a shame.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So buckle up, let's get going.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, for those of you who don't know me, I am Megan Ekman.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: At the moment, I'm running two businesses.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I am the co-founder of Fat Cap, where my husband and I do brand strategy and brand design.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I am also the creator and writer behind PDX Spellbound, which is my cozy fantasy rom-com writing business.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that one is a bit of a case study for Fat Cap because I am doing world building IRL, and that is my jam.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: My love of world building, which is really what all of these guests have in common.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It really started when I was little and I discovered the world of miniatures at the Chicago Art Museum, got mildly obsessed.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then I moved um into historical reenactments because there's something about the way that you can step into a place and everybody is kind of keeping the inside joke going.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So my family would always go to Glen Sheen Mansion in Duluth.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is gorgeous.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: I had tried to set a book there once, but if you haven't been, I highly recommend it.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then the biggest turning point for me when I realized this is something that I could actually do as a living, was when the products around Harry Potter exploded onto the market.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized that people would pay big money for jelly beans that taste like earwax.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it was in that moment that I realized this is what I want to do.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I set off to college and I got degrees in creative writing and art.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And while my parents were supportive of that, they also had the stipulation that I needed to start a business before I graduated.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: No small feat.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: I managed it in the last semester, right um, right before I graduated, but I launched Studio Me, M M-E, my initials.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Very bad naming on my part.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I started an illustration business.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I ran that business for I think three or four years.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I moved to the Bay with my now husband, and it was difficult to make a living doing illustration in the Bay straight out of college.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a lot of ideas of what I wanted to draw, and things didn't quite sell, and then people would give me ideas and they wouldn't buy them, and I really started to doubt who I should be listening to.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it's no surprise, I burnt out.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: When you're responsible for, you know, putting food on the table and making all the, you know, making all the money from art and nobody's buying, it is very easy to burn out.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I burned out.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And one night, amidst tears and probably a Disney movie for comfort, I pulled out um some canvas and some thread.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not ideal things to make an embroidery, but that's all that I had.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I stitched up one of my pen and ink illustrations as an embroidery.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I posted it online, and all of my fans immediately replied, How can I make one of those?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was the nicest thing they could say, because thankfully they didn't say I would like to buy it, um, you know, like because I wasn't gonna go into production for this.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I did one of those classic, like, hold my beer, give me a month, and I will get back to you.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I did.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was suddenly a product designer for embroidery kits for people who did not know how to embroider, like myself.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I started testing these out.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would vend at fairs, and half my booth would be the artwork, and half the booth would be the embroidery kits, and the embroidery kits, time and time again, would sell out.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I took it as a sign and I kept the name but merged the business so that Studio Me simply became an embroidery kit business.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we did fairly well for about another three or four years, and then I burned down again because again I was making designs that I liked, and I was making designs that people said that they would like, and they weren't selling.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it was again this question of like who am I supposed to be listening to at this point?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because if nobody wants to buy what I'm making and they're telling me they want something, but they're not buying it, then I can't listen to them either.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: So when sales plateaued and I was having this kind of crisis, and you know, the gas was getting down to the bottom of the tank.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: I found the wonderful Leela Barker, and she was running Lucky Break Consulting at the time, and I took her brick house branding workshop.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I learned all about brand design from her, and it was hysterical how easy it was.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Everything just clicked, everything made sense to me.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was like somewhere in the back of my head, like the matrix, like I already had the UX CX knowledge.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: I just hadn't like booted it up.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so my husband and I took six months and we completely rebranded our business and we relaunched as Pop Lush Embroidery.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this time around, we built everything around our customer.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: We were world-building with a specific person in mind who actually became one of my best friends.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So at the Venn diagram core of our audience, we were designing everything for one person, and the avatar for them was a roller derby librarian.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you heard me right.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: There are roller derby librarians, and that was exactly who my audience was.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: These women are incredibly knowledgeable, they are very bold, um, they love bright colors and comic books, they go to concerts, and I did everything around that person.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: So our kits changed.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: We suddenly were doing dinosaurs and roller skates.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when we launched that, we had 150% revenue increase year on year.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's insane.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: All from just getting to know somebody very, very well and delivering them everything that they wanted.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, unlike some other embroidery kit companies, we designed everything for total beginners as well.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So keeping in mind that these people maybe were new to embroidery, this kind of it uh it led every decision that we made.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we chose a fabric that was forgiving because when you start out, your hand-eye coordination is not that great and you'll come up in the wrong spot.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And other kids were giving you this fancy fabric that you would just destroy.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we gave you forgiving fabric.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: We gave you full skeins of thread because I knew you were probably gonna have to rip some out and start over, and I didn't want you to run out.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: We designed kit papers that taught you everything you needed to know so you could just open it up and go.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't have to watch a video, you didn't have to call your grandma to learn.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we also designed everything with the um with our wholesale shops in mind as well to ensure that nobody would be ripping open these packages at the at the store, which was happening to a lot of other embroidery kits.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: So everything was designed with an audience in mind.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: But we took it a step further because I'm a little bit weird and I really wanted to get to know these people, and I was so grateful for the fact that they were buying what I was making and truly loving it, that I wanted to make sure that they felt that same appreciation back.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: So in my weekly newsletters to all of them, I started to do things like interviews.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I would reach out to somebody who, you know, had always been a cheerleader of mine and who bought a lot of stuff, and I would send them a list of questions.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they were not your normal interview questions.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: This would be like, what's the superlative that people would use to describe you?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: What's the weirdest thing that you've done?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Show me the embroidery project you're the most proud of.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I would send that newsletter, you know, with their answers out to my entire list.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I would showcase them on Instagram.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: I built system after system to keep to keep giving back the stuff that they were giving me.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: So anytime somebody posted on social media, I was posting it right back and tagging them.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the amount of times that people just could not believe that I reposted their photo.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: One made me very happy, but also very sad because why would I not?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: One, it was free content, like thank you so much for making my day easier.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: But also, you made something so gorgeous and you bought it from me.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Why would I not share the work that you've done?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: So all of these things led to, for good or for ill, people being a little bit obsessed with our embroidery kit business.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so we had to create some subscription clubs as well because we could not keep up with the demand in making full kits for them.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we launched a monthly subscription, and at its height, I think it had about 200 people in it.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a monthly kit that was going out in the mail.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then it quickly launched into, I think we had three or four monthly clubs going at some point.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Some were like mythical creatures, some were floral, um, some people did like just quarterly ones, um, where like send multiple things every quarter instead of you know piece by piece in the mail, mostly to help the international um audience.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: But we kept feeding this empire of embroidery fans, and it was fun.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was no small secret that I did not actually like to sew, but I I built a product and an audience engagement system so well that everybody just loved it and it just it just kept going.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I was kind of again, the gas tank started to get empty and COVID came and you all needed a hobby.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: So my husband and I kept you all sane uh during the COVID.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: We were doing double Christmas months, we were packing for 14 hours a day um once we reset up the global supply chain.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it it took its toll.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: One, I was so happy that we had employment during COVID.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was also a little a little depressing to watch you all have your like life-changing moments, your sourdough starter um debuts, and you write novels and everything, and and I was still working non-stop.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it meant a lot to know that in some small way we helped people get through those years.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then when 2023 hit, I was it was done.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was ready to tap out.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided to pivot.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I realized what I had built was something very special, something that other businesses want but don't always know how to do.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so my husband and I launched Fat Cap, and it was to help other businesses learn how to make an obsessed fan base by building products and experiences all around what their customer actually wants, needs, the journey that they are going on.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so this has been a big change for us, and along the way, I did get a little antsy and I started another business um which really allowed me to play again.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I hadn't been able to play for a long time.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I started PDX Spellbound because I had a book in my head for 20 years that I couldn't get out.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I finally discovered that if I just made it a rom-com, everything got better.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I made the first draft of the book and then I realized I wanted an audience for this to launch to.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's been in there for 20 years.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not just gonna put it out and hope for the best.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I want a runway for this thing.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided let's go back to the things that I do best.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let's make a runway with a subscription.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I set up a monthly, year-long subscription of short stories that all take place in the same world with some of the side characters.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so that launched in 2026.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and as I'm filming now, it's October.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in December, I am actually going to be debuting the books um because I've put them into physical form at Crafty Wonderland here in Portland.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I will be, again, going back to my roots of world building IRL, and I am going to be making the Magical Portland Visitors Bureau in my booth.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So if you come, you'll be able to walk in.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: We will have gorgeous, glossy, cheap tripod brochures, um, showing you everything that we have.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I will have books, I will have bookmarks, um, I will have posters for the organizations that reside within Magical Portland, like our community house for magical cats.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's just my way of building an experience for people to step into my world, IRL, give them a physical old school guest book to sign to get their emails, and if they purchase something, they actually get a passport stamped by me because you do need a passport to get into my magical Portland world.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all of these things that I love the most.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: The things that make me giddy when I see somebody doing something so well and getting people so delighted and excited and feeling like a kid again.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I wanted to find more of, and that's when I decided to do this podcast.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I picked these guests because I had heard about the thing that they had done, and I got very, very excited.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: You will see that in some episodes.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is unfiltered Megan excitement.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole season lying that it's gonna be amazing.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be a few episodes where my husband and I come on and we dive deeper into like the strategies of why certain things work, tips for you to do it on your own business.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but um the majority of the episodes are gonna be me digging into somebody else's experiment and world building, why they did it, who their audience is, why it worked, what they do differently.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So be prepared.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there are some unusual characters coming on here, some unusual businesses and business models.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think you're gonna have a lot of fun, and I can't wait to hear your reaction to all this.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So get ready.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation had you going, okay, how do I build my own version of that?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's my whole job over at Fat Cap, where we help businesses build brands their audience obsesses over.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find the link in the show notes, along with everything today's guest brought up.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Megan, go be weirdly effective.