How I Almost Ruined My Beanie Company (the 2022–23 Recap)

At the surface we are doing one thing, and one thing only. Make the best darn — I mean, yarn — beanies we possibly can…

Especially after we doubled down on our focus in 2021, we’ve attempted to be singular in our aim. But below the tight knit surface is a winding road, ups and downs, and misty fields with dark shapes moving in the shadows. And I’ve always wanted to share bits and pieces of that journey with you.

I’ve barely written or shared anything of substance since our Kickstarter in 2022, but now I am finally carving out some space for myself, and I am ready to open the dam gates like that video.

A bumpy ride

Near the end of 2021, I went into a partnership with an old friend of mine (in fact the very one that gave me my first red cotton beanie [scroll down to read the full story]). It was a tangled, fun, and stressful mess. On my end, it was an attempt to be able to work and provide, while still being able to keep Red Hat Factory running (and hopefully growing). At the same time I was able to be along for a very thrilling phase of my friend’s fast growing company. It honestly seemed the dream scenario there for a while.

On my end, it was an attempt to be able to work and provide, while still being able to keep Red Hat Factory running.

I worked part-time with his company WESN, and he was invested in Red Hat Factory, and giving me guidance as we attempted to run a Kickstarter — the same way that WESN got started. (If you are observant, you can already see the cracks forming.)

And let me make sure I don’t just talk about all the stressful parts (I need to make some tension in the story you know). Doing the Kickstarter project, and what working with Billy allowed us to do, was an adventure for real. He worked out a deal with our old friend and filmmaker, the infamous Simon, and when the adventure began, my friend Ethan joined in, and we had a wild ride to Norway’s West Coast.

It was some good, but extremely stressful months, as Bill gave us advice, and we built, designed, filmed and budgeted for our very own Kickstarter. A lot of new learning, and a new pressure to perform on our shoulders, as we were now working with a partner in the company.

The new partnership and the plan to go for a Kickstarter, did not only involve video creation and setting up a campaign. We had to restructure the entire company to allow for the partnership, and learn all that from scratch. And creating the Kickstarter did, of course, not diminish our existing workload — putting out social media posts, writing articles, answering customer support, sending out beanies, handling the economics and admin tasks behind the scenes. Not the least, what has always been our main source of reaching out — Facebook ads.

And right in the middle of all that, we were hit with a wave from the sideline.

In April 2021, iOS 14.5 was released, causing a wave of destruction to Facebook’s entire ad system. Basically iOS users can now opt out of being tracked by tools such as Facebook. And while privacy is cool, it also makes it harder to track down you guys who actually appreciate good old hand knit goods.

The wave of destruction following the iOS update continued throughout the year, and as the reach of our ads were narrowing and narrowing, I finally realized that juggling all these channels was not as simple as it seemed on the surface. (Is it ever?)

I finally realized that juggling all these channels was not as simple as it seemed on the surface.

So here we were, on one hand part-way into running a Kickstarter campaign, using someone else’s invested money, while on the other hand our (costly) main stream of visitors to our page began drying up. And that was only two of the moving pieces. Both me and my wife worked part time with WESN at the time, we had a 2 year old, and an own company that bled money like that dam gif at the top of the article.

You know those film scenes when the hero is standing one foot on each of two boats, and they are moving apart. That’s how it felt. The income was just not enough to keep us afloat, and I wondered for the fist time if it was time to kill Red Hat Factory for real.

You know how you sometimes play with the thought of giving up on what you want to do. But then there is a point when the play turns to dead seriousness. The stillness of the soul when it hits you: It may never come to pass.

The stillness of the soul when it hits you: It may never come to pass.

The armor comes off

There is a story in the Bible, where young King-to-be David has arrived at the field of battle, and is about to slay a giant. It’s probably the image from the Bible that is the most used in our culture. David vs. Goliath is a well trod allegory.

In the story there is a part where the current King equips David with his own (the King’s) armor, trying to ready him for battle. But it proves too unwieldy for him. And he decides to go out in battle as the shepherd that he is, rather than pose as a King.

Our own story of Red Hat Factory and WESN progressed, and as the cracks were showing, I slowly began realizing where I had gone wrong. Somewhere deep inside, I was wearing someone else’s armor. I was letting myself be led, rather than steering my own ship. And the worst thing, I don’t even know when it happened.

The boats on which my legs where standing sailed further apart, and it came to a point where I had to choose. During the time we worked together, Billy had decided to cut down on side projects and focus in on WESN 100%. And we found ourselves back at the table discussing back and forth how the partnership would morph to fit the new world. In the end I decided I wanted out, and Billy graciously gave me time to pay him back and buy him out of the partnership.

The armor was off, and below that I was back to old Benjamin. And he had a lot to learn.

The armor was off, and below that I was back to old Benjamin. And he had a lot to learn. There wasn’t much to speak of beneath that armor. [I just realized how that sentence might expose me to certain jokes. I’ll leave it in. Have your fun.] And the partnership had served one immensely important function, for which I am eternally grateful. It had exposed many holes in my company. Holes which, if I did not patch them up, would have soon sunk us.

Thus began the Dark Years.

The Dark Years

Just trying to be dramatic of course, but hey, we’re writing a story here.

A lot happened at this point, and we rearranged our whole life very quickly. On the surface the Kickstarter was a success — but to me it remains a monument, a reminder that outside signs of success mean nothing. It is the internal health of the company that means anything. The soundness of the economy and the happiness of the customers and the employees. And while you customers have been pretty happy all along, and we’ve had no employees to displease, the economy was the place where we clearly needed to learn more.

On the surface the Kickstarter was a success — but to me it remains a monument, a reminder that outside signs of success mean nothing.

So here’s what we did. My wife got back into her old work again (she’s very happy there btw), and I began the long and lonely journey of kickstarting back up my own freelance career over a few months. While I have been freelancing on and off since 2009, I’ve never done it full time. So to get myself established with enough clients to make a living, it meant applying for job after job, being rejected hundreds of times, while accepted only a few.

It’s an emotional rollercoaster, as I’m sure many of you know (whether it’s been searching for full time employment, or starting freelancing), but that was the price to pay. Moving into a full time employment would mean the end of Red Hat Factory — at least for now. So I jumped on the ride with a grit I’ve never had before. Somewhere in there, when I thought Red Hat Factory might not survive, I realized that I do in fact 100% want to run my own company. Not join someone else’s venture, however exciting it might be, and regardless of the prospect of going along risk free. I want the risk. I want the reward. I want the adventure. So I ran towards it — without flinching this time.

Thanks to having good close friends, and a wife that was fine with me bringing in barely breadcrumbs for several months, I was able to get on my feet freelancing. (Btw, she got a job right out of the gate as opposed to me. She’s incredible.) And while my freelancing clients remain the priority still today, it allows me to put Red Hat Factory on 2nd place, just waiting to one day take over.

During our partnership we had turned Red Hat Factory into an AB (a separate company — as opposed to before when it was just a branch of my freelancing company) and with that in mind, we made a huge decision. We turned off Meta ads (as Facebook ads are now called), our biggest expense but also biggest method of reaching new people. And me and my wife swore that from now on we will neither take out or put money in to Red Hat Factory until it learns to swim or sink on its own¹.

Me and my wife swore that from now on we will neither take out or put money in to Red Hat Factory until it learns to swim or sink on its own.

It’s the best choice I’ve ever made, but it cost me one thing that’s very central to Red Hat Factory. Patience. (In case you don’t get the reference we usually say we produce our beanies with “knitting needles, a skein of yarn, and a whole lot of patience.”)

The summer after that Kickstarter (summer of ’22), the ads were already dead, but now impossible to run because people don’t buy that much beanies in the summer. We left Red Hat Factory on life support, as I focused on building the freelance career. Life support means that our focus is to send beanies out in time, and handle customer support, but not much else. And once the freelancing income became somewhat stable, I began giving an appropriate amount of heart compressions and mouth-to-mouth to my company.

Something was stirring.

With a newfound attitude to company building, we have been working, sweating and saving money for over a year now. As I was slowly able to put some work into the company, I doubled down on the old commitment from ’21 to focus only on a few things that matter. Last time it was focusing in on beanies only, and leaving other side projects. This time it was focusing in on making the Meta ads work with a sound economy — leaving every other source of visitors on its own.

And that’s what we’ve done. I’ve done the math to know how much freelancing I need to do to be able to put time on Red Hat Factory, and then I’ve put most of that RHF time on figuring out ads.

And as a lot of you can confirm — it has worked. Because you found us through those ads.

The shape of the future

At the time of writing, I can announce, without giving details, that for the first time since we started in 2016, Red Hat Factory is soundly puttering along on its own, without need for life support. The cord has been cut — the Frankenstein’s Monster is stumbling forward.

[Resisting the obvious gif to keep it child friendly]

I am still not putting much time into Red Hat Factory, but for the first time since beginning freelancing full time, I am able to give it an entire uninterrupted day a week. Which is why I write this now. This text is for you, but a lot of it honestly is for me to retune myself to where we are at.

During the Dark Years, after making sure the ads were puttering along fine, I have spent time rearranging a lot of services that we use behind the scenes. How we work with our economy and with our accountants. I have moved web platforms for our shop — a very large task to do on the side of a freelance career. (Our site is way quicker now. Did you notice?) I have changed email services (sorry for the weird emails you’ve been getting as I have been learning.) I feel that we are leaned up and ready for a new season. And since this beast has been chugging along since 2016, it was time to properly update some stuff.

Sometimes you have to go down into the dark earth to uproot and replant stuff.

Sometimes you have to go down into the dark earth to uproot and replant stuff.

Where we are at, is at the beginning of our true independence. We have found our feet, our staff is in our hand, the handkerchief in the pocket, and we are off to the adventure of our lifetime. As you know if you’ve been with us for a while, Red Hat Factory to me is just one big ode to the Spirit of Adventure — and it is only suitable that our own journey would turn out to be one.

Tying up the thread

In 2022, following an old plan that was long disrupted by covid, Kevin (our photographer) came to Scandinavia to make some film. The Red Hat Factory brand film, and another film he made with a Swedish hunter. Kevin is a great film maker, and does a lot of film and photo in the hunting space.

To me it was an experience of rebirth. As I sat with the empty paper and typed the words “Norway to me is mountains,” I felt that I was free to build the brand the way I wanted it to be. Freer than before being in a partnership (and definitely freer now that I was better at handling the company economy.) After the whole journey, I valued my independence more than ever. And I guess I have grown.

So I wrote the script. Travelled with Kevin for a week in Norway (a fantastic trip that you will get to see more footage from later), and when the film was done I had to put a logo on it. But I no longer felt the ol’ logo a good fit.

I designed a new logo, which was followed by designing a Red Hat Factory font (by the way, have you realized how much of a website actually is just font?), which was followed by choosing a new background texture for the website. And then. Boom. I felt it. This is the beginning of the next phase. This is how we look now, and this is who we are now.

And now. What the heck will happen next? Who knows. But you better come along and see.

1. Here my friend Asbjørn advised me to clarify one point. I would never let the company sink as in “not delivering your beanie”. What you purchase from us we will deliver. And should we ever sink, we’ll close the storefront, deliver the orders we have, and make sure we’re able to deliver on the warranty for the next 10 years. ↩︎