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What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From The Founders Of The Pussyhat Project

This article is more than 7 years old.

If the Women’s March On Washington all started with a single Facebook invite, then we could say the fashion statement that unified its estimated half-a-million attendees -- as well as its 600 sister rallies around the world -- all started with a Groupon deal.

Jayna Zweiman, 38, and Krista Suh, 29, discovered their love for needlework last June when they first visited The Little Knittery in Atwater Village, CA. There, the Los Angeles residents took discounted knitting classes led by Kat Coyle, owner of the local yarn shop.

“She really knows how to foster a community so that regulars come in and knit together and talk,” says Zweiman.

Fast forward to November 9, 2016. The day after the U.S. presidential elections, plans for the Women’s March began to sweep across social media. Zweiman badly wanted to attend, but knew she couldn’t because she had been recovering from an injury.

“I really wanted to go because it seemed like an incredible opportunity to stand up together,” says Zweiman. She asked herself: “How can a person who can’t be somewhere still be present and have visibility?” With a background in architecture, she often thinks about space, design, and colors – and how all three can interconnect to make an impact.

Zweiman and Suh, who is a screenplay writer, believed that a sort of nationwide knitting circle could somehow help pull supporters of the march closer together and asked their instructor, Coyle, to design the “pussyhat.” The pink headwear that resembles cat ears alludes to comments Trump made in 2005 about grabbing women by their genitals. The founders of The Pussyhat Project say the double entendre was vital to making a political statement. But they say the wordplay was less important than creating a fashion statement that was accessible, affordable and easy to adopt for all women.

While accessibility, affordability and adoptability are important themes that many entrepreneurs aim for when developing a product or service, it’s important to note that The Pussyhat Project is not a business. Its co-founders haven’t sold a single hat and largely relied on volunteers. “We created a platform for designing and distributing these hats,” clarifies Zweiman. More than 150 knitting shops across the country offered to be drop-off and pick-up destinations for the homemade hats. Meanwhile, a knitting enthusiast and her god daughter volunteered their family’s home in Reston, VA, to be a hat-collection site for incoming D.C. marchers.

The Pussyhat Project website, which they created using Squarespace, simply listed these locations, stated the project’s mission, and gave instructions for how to knit and sew a pussyhat. What was the impact? The website so far has 4 million pageviews. In addition to the 12,000 sent to the house in Reston, the online hat registry counted 60,000 -- but aerial pictures from marches around the world show that is a gross underestimation.

Here are tips gleaned from the women behind The Pussyhat Project that may help your startup, nonprofit or digital campaign make a splash.

When it comes to social media, look for niche networking platforms

While the Women’s March capitalized on major platforms like Facebook and Twitter, the pussyhat’s online presence started on Ravelry, an online community of more than 4 million knitting and crochet fans.

“Ravelry is the Facebook for knitters,” says Zweiman. “There are chat rooms and discussions of patterns and people post photos of their work.” When Coyle unveiled the pattern for the pussyhat, the Ravelry community roared back with approval for both the design and the cause.

Tap (and empower) small businesses networks across the country.  

“We reached out to local yarn stores across the country and asked to have them listed on our website,” says Zweiman. “These local allies were hosting knit-alongs, volunteering to be drop-off and pick-up points and were offering knitters discounts on pink. They acted as hubs for community.”

The yarn shop at Cast Away & Folk / credit: Michelle Feileacan Photography

As a result, there’s been a run on pink yarn across the country, boosting local businesses like Cast Away & Folk in Santa Rosa, CA. “It was really overwhelming being a shop owner during all this,” said Justine Malone, owner of the shop’s yarn department. “We had no idea it would take off in the way it did. It was sort of mayhem every ten minutes. Someone was in our store or calling us about pink yarn for three weeks straight.” Malone’s shop kept reordering every shade of pink yarn to refill their stock, then got creative by using different weights of yarn and new patterns.

Meanwhile, Lynn Coe of Knit 1 in Chicago says she sold enough pink yarn to cover her shop’s rent for the next four months. She says she struggled to balance the tremendous demand for pink yarn while fulfilling volunteer tasks for the march. But she says the hard work was worth it: “We were helping people with knitting hats while updating our spreadsheet. But overall I’m thrilled that there was a sea of pink hats across the USA.”

Make it accessible

Says Zweiman, “Kat, the designer of the pussyhat, aimed to create something that’s distinctive and easy to make.” For starters, they chose what knitters call “worsted weight yarn” because it’s durable, affordable, easy to find and knit.

“I’m a beginning knitter so I like that the thicker the yarn the fewer the moves,” says Zweiman. “It’s the kind you can find in bargain bins or find in a local knit shop.”

West coast women knitting pussyhats for marchers in D.C.

Timing is everything

“We launched our website the night before Thanksgiving. We wanted to get word out ASAP while people were together with families and friends.”

And keep it simple

Zweiman adds: “On November 23, we launched our simple website with our manifesto, a description of the project, and shared it via Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I think it spread because people were looking for a way to be present and contribute to the march. So many people couldn’t participate because of financial or scheduling reasons, so knitting the hat and gifting it to a marcher was a great way to connect.”

What’s next?

While the partners haven’t quite figured out life after the march for The Pussyhat Project, they do want women across the country to continue wearing their hats long after January 21. But Zweiman says she’s aware she has two ingredients that many startups and nonprofits need: proof of concept and a call-to-action: “We have a small team of people who helped foster this movement where thousands were making these hats in less than 60 days. These are handmade products, not from a factory – that’s really powerful.”

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