This week on the pod we chatted with David Mifsud, co-founder and board member of Missouri Star Quilt Co., a family-founded quilting company.
MSQC got its brick-and-mortar start during the 2008 recession, but that didn’t stop them from becoming one of the biggest quilt brands in America – online and in retail.
Here’s what we learned from one of the most heart-warming, interesting brands we’ve had on the podcast to date!
The Takeaways: 👇
💥 Missouri Star Quilt Co. succeeded by breaking down industry barriers:
There are usually three obstacles that prevent people from getting into quilting:
- It’s too expensive
- It’s too time-consuming
- It requires too much skill
MSQC strategically worked to break down each of these barriers and make quilting more available to more people.
For example, to cut costs, they run Daily Deals where one product is significantly marked down.
To reduce the amount of time involved, they started selling more pre-cut fabric and quilting kits.
And to teach quilting skills, they published tutorials on YouTube (like, way before it was ever cool 😎).
🤯 How they grew without spending a dime on paid marketing for the first 8 years.
“We didn’t have a marketing budget, so we basically had to be creative in how we got customers.”
When they got started, David and his business partner noticed there was a lack of interesting quilting content on YouTube… So they got to filming. 🎥
Luckily, one of the founders Jenny Doan is fantastic in front of a camera.
These authentic, genuine quilting tutorials were one of the secrets to their early success.
Now they have over 230M views and 800K subscribers, and the biggest YouTube channel for quilting in the world. 🚀
“I think it was a real blessing to grow organically, and the result of that was an extremely loyal base.”
💸 The mechanics of their “Quilter’s Daily Deal”
In order to lower the cost barrier of quilting, MSQC began running “daily deals.”
Each day at midnight, they heavily discount one product – anywhere from 30-100% (yep, you read that right).
But it’s not just a deal. It’s an experience. 🙌
- Shoppers can only buy one of the products on sale (exclusivity factor).
- The deals are always shared with a story, crafted to teach, inspire, make you laugh, or even make you cry (value factor).
Many of their customers look forward to the Daily Deals, even if they don’t buy anything!
