From hobby to full time - today Matilda makes a living from her e-commerce

Art. no. 117764394 09 Jun 2025

A desire to control your own time

Do you also dream of making a living from your hobby? With her webshop Organic Knitters, Matilda Kruse is doing just that. Abicart had a chat with her where she tells us how it all started, why she also opened a physical store and what her recipe for success is.

Matilda Kruse, founder of Organic Knitters.
Matilda is 35 years old and lives in Mariestad with her partner and two dogs. The idea for her e-commerce was hatched through her interest in knitting. She knitted a lot in her spare time and felt that she missed the creative part of her day job. With the desire to learn something new and a large dose of curiosity, she tried opening a webshop.

"I had a desire to control my own time and start something where I could realize my own ideas. In the beginning I had no clear goal, but since it was fun and the company grew slowly but surely, I have chosen to continue, says Matilda.

The result was Organic Knitters, which Matilda herself describes as an online store and now also a physical store with carefully selected yarns in natural materials, a large proportion of which are environmentally certified yarns.

From boxes in the apartment to a physical shop

Today, she works full-time in her shop and makes a living from the business. She runs it all on her own with good help and support from her family.

"In the first few years, I worked full-time in social services while I set up the business in the evenings and at weekends. Then I went down to part-time and a few years ago I chose to quit my job and focus entirely on the business," says Matilda.

In the fall of 2020, she took the next step and opened a physical store. Partly because it was getting crowded with all the boxes in the apartment and partly because it was getting lonely working from home.

In the beginning, the stock was small and fit in a couple of boxes in an extra room in the apartment. It grew and grew and eventually took up all the closets and storage spaces in the house. That's how it was until September last year when I finally signed a contract for a shop. The storage space is still small, but a lot of it fits on the shelves in the shop itself.

However, it's thanks to e-commerce that the business is viable, she doesn't have the physical store just to increase profitability.

No, exactly. The reason why I chose a store instead of an external warehouse, for example, was because I wanted a pleasant place to work and to meet customers during the day. It was getting lonely working from home! However, it is the online store that carries my business, as Mariestad is a small town, the customer base is not enough for such a niche yarn store as Organic Knitters. I have loyal customers all over the country and several of them have already visited the physical store. I hope that even more will find their way here when the restrictions are eased and we can move around more again," she says.

Knit-alongs have spread well

Although Matilda humbly finds it difficult to talk about the success of her business, she can nevertheless agree that she has succeeded well and made some progress.

"Yes, of course. One of my big goals has been to be able to work full-time and make a living from the business, and I'm actually there now! The key has been to let it take time, to slowly but surely build up a clientele with many satisfied and returning customers.

Part of the success, she says, is her work with social media - and of course, loyal customers.

"A big key has been to work on engaging customers in activities, so-called knit-alongs, which have taken place in social media and which have further spread my patterns and my brand. My customers are fantastic! I hardly ever get any complaints and have very few returns. I make sure to always have a friendly and service-oriented approach in all customer contacts. Somewhere I read the tip to see every customer contact as a chance to build trust and create personal contact. I have taken that with me.

How do you stand out and reach out to customers?

I am personal in my communication via social media and in my monthly letter to customers. Organic Knitters is not just a brand and a shop, it's also very much me, the person behind it.

Matilda's top three tips for success

We asked Matilda to share some tips for those of you who might also be thinking about realizing your idea and starting up an e-commerce business:

1. Choose an area that you are passionate about, where you can constantly innovate and develop.
2. Adapt and build the business according to how you want your work situation to look. For example, is it important to be able to work from home? Use an external warehouse. Is it more important to meet your employees or customers? Choose a different solution.
3. Go all out when it comes to customer service! And try to engage with your customers. Not only will it bring more sales, but also a lot in return in the form of positive feedback.

Finally - how do you see the future? What is the goal?

The goal right now is to be able to free up more of my time for pattern design, marketing and to continue developing the brand. One hope is to be able to hire a person in time who can help with a lot of the practical bits, packing orders and helping customers in the store and more. At the same time, we are expecting our first child and a big challenge in the near future will be to combine entrepreneurship with parental leave and family life.

We thank Matilda for the chat and wish her all the best with both the business and the addition to the family! If you are curious about Organic Knitters, you can visit their website here.