Chick, 27, says it's also the most lucrative job she's ever had. In January, just 10 months after hosting its first class, the studio brought in $25,000 in revenue, according to documents seen by CNBC Make It. She says RecCreate has been profitable since December, and Chick pays her about $5,500 a month..
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To get his business off the ground, Chick took on a job in a “windowless office,” carrying art supplies up and down a fourth-floor walk-up, hoping he would eventually get paid for his art. I believed it.
She was extraordinarily lucky. In 2022, Chick won $50,000 in a sweepstakes drawing she didn't even realize she had entered, providing the seed money she needed to rent physical space in a studio and launch her business. Did.
An unexpected cash injection provided a lifeline. “I'll never go back to an office job…I hope I never have to go back,” Chick says. “I think it's great to be able to make a living doing your dream job. I think very few people can say that.”
When Chick was a teenager living in the Chicago metropolitan area, she says, she would save up high-waisted denim shorts, bleach them, and sell them to YouTube influencers. “I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur,” she says, adding, “I've been doing creative projects on the side for years and years and trying to turn them into a business.” Ta.
At age 18, she moved to New York to attend Parsons School of Design. When she graduated in 2019, it was difficult to find a job for her entry-level design strategy, so she took a salaried office job at a local park. Chick said her salary was low and her office was dimly lit.
Liz Chick of RecCreate Collective's Brooklyn Studio
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Without a professional creative outlet, Chick created a personal creative outlet. She began dyeing fabrics using natural materials such as avocado seeds, onion peels, and dried flowers. She hosted a pop-up shop in her 12-by-14-foot bedroom and sold dyed beeswax wraps (similar to Saran wrap, but made from fabric coated with wax) to her friends.
Before long, Chick was selling his dyed patchwork jackets and bags at weekend flea markets across New York. She changed jobs to fund these artistic endeavors, first working in marketing and then as an environmental educator, tutor, and nanny.
“I've always supported myself, so I really needed to work,” Chick says. ”[But] It was very clear to me…I felt like I had to find the job of least resistance while working on my job. ”
Chick's artistic side hustle took up most of his free time and salary and required manual labor. At night, she was dyeing her fabric in a 20-quart stock pot, but the pot was so heavy that she had to take the water out with her ladle instead of dumping it in a colander. say.
After a pop-up event in 2022, she reached a breaking point. “I carried all my stuff up to the fourth-floor walk-up, and I was just laughing my ass off,” she says. “When I entered the apartment, my roommate said, “What's wrong?'' [realized] That's what I did for hours of unpaid work. ”
The chicks needed physical space. When she started looking for a studio to rent, she saw a big opportunity. She received an email saying she had won $50,000 in a sweepstakes sponsored by Earnest, a private student loan provider and refinancer based in San Francisco.
While researching potential interest rates for refinancing student loans, he unknowingly entered the contest. After her taxes, she pockets approximately $30,000, which she calls “an amount that would change her life.”
The funding came in handy when she found the perfect studio space nine months later. She began renting it in March 2023 for $2,800 a month, and she sublease while she makes plans for RecCreate Collective.
“I've never had a job that allowed me to save money, much less a lot of money to invest in anything,” Chick says.
Back at the studio, Chick watches as Emhoff teaches participants how to embed images in knitwear using duplicate stitches that are layered over existing stitches. They sit in folding chairs across from brightly colored tapered candles, drink tea, listen to music and chat as they work.
It was expensive to make the space cozy and creative. “Vibrators are expensive,” Chick jokes.
Participants in RecCreate Collective's knit painting class
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Of the $25,000 RecCreate raised in January, $9,000 went toward rent, supplies, contractors, insurance, and more. His remaining $16,000 was profit, which Mr. Chick used to pay his bills and reinvest in the business. A portion of RecCreate's profits will go to a fund that subsidizes low-cost tickets for people who can't afford to attend classes. According to Chick, ticket prices typically range from $20 to $50 per session, but in some cases he can go as high as $130.
She believes RecCreate's growing popularity is due to one factor, the same one that inspired her to find her creative outlet in the first place. “In the post-corona digital era…many people work on computers all day long. [are] I'm really looking for a tactile experience. ”
“People are craving spaces where they can see each other in person,” Chick added. “Anyone can sit at home and knit a sweater, but being able to walk into a room full of strangers and connect with them is really special.”
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