When My Sugar Daddy and I Built a Business from Scratch Together

I first learned how to knit when I was 11 years old, and ever since then, it’s always been something that I do in my downtime. Throughout college, it was a way for me to deal with stress, and I even was able to sell a couple of hats and scarves for a little bit of extra spending money.

But, one thing that so many people in the fiber arts community hate to hear is, “Would you ever want to do this full-time?” Because, like, yes, duh. I would love to knit full-time. But the truth is, it’s not easy to make a full-time living making single sweaters that take hours and hours of labor.

Still, I always had that itch in the back of my mind that would say, “Maybe you should do this full-time. You could figure it out.”

But, you know how life goes. I graduated from college, I got a part-time job at a yarn store, and I started sugaring in order to continue living in the city that I loved. And knitting was just something that I would do in the Uber on the way to see my sugar daddy.

One day, I got to the event that my sugar daddy had planned for us (a fundraiser at an art museum), and when I showed up in a nice dress with my huge knitting bag, he raised his eyebrows. I explained to him, with a little bit of embarrassment, that I was working on a Nordic-style sweater. I was almost finished, so I needed to carry around a bigger bag. He laughed, took me over to coat check to leave the bag, and then led me into the event.

On the drive home, he asked to see what I was knitting.

I pulled out the sweater and was surprised to see his reaction. I never took my sugar daddy as a very arts-and-crafts kind of guy, but when he saw my work, his eyes lit up. He started asking me questions about how I knit with more than one color at a time and where I found the instructions on how to do it. And he got even more surprised when I told him that, actually, this was an original design based on traditional Nordic patterns. While I was inspired by existing patterns, all of the measurements, extra design details, and colors—all of that was my design.

I felt pretty proud as he flipped through my design notebook and saw how much math and drawing were involved in the process. He asked me whether these designs would be something that other knitters could buy and make themselves. I told him that yes, it was technically possible to make money selling patterns to other knitters, but I was just doing this for the fun of it.

And then he turned to me and said, “You should do this full-time.”

Ah, that sentence that I had heard so many times before.

I told him that I was grateful for the compliment, but that knitwear designing was very different from knitting as a hobby. To actually make money from it, you have to invest in a team of test knitters and tech editors, and you have to have the time to come up with new designs and build a social media presence.

As the driver was pulling onto my street, my sugar daddy handed back my design notebook and looked at me seriously.

“Look,” he said. “If you’re really passionate about this and you want to make a business out of this, I think you should. I want you to put together a business plan, a real one, and pitch it to me as an investor. And in the meantime, I’m going to do some research of my own and see what’s possible in this sector. But, just from what I’m seeing right now, you clearly know a lot about this world, and I already believe in your work.”

And with that, he said goodnight and left me, heart beating like crazy, on my doorstep. Immediately, I pulled open my laptop and Googled, “how to put together a business plan, a real one.” And I got to work.

That happened a year ago, and in the time since then, I’ve published three patterns, which have ranked highly on fiber art websites. And, I’m currently putting together pitches to knitwear magazines to have my work published next year. And, here are a few things that I’ve learned about starting a business with my sugar daddy:

It’s humbling as heck

There was so much that I was embarrassed to admit to my sugar daddy that I didn’t know how to do. All of a sudden, he was expecting me to have business plans and figures and projections, and I was a communications major in college—i.e., totally unprepared.

But I realized that it was better to feel humbled and start opening myself up to learning than turn down an opportunity that I had always dreamed about. So, I did the embarrassing thing and admitted when I didn’t know how to do something so that he could help me.

You have to separate the sugar relationship and the business relationship

Sugaring is already kind of a strange situation because it’s kind of like a business relationship. What I mean is that, while you care for each other, you’re both there for a specific reason, and you can prioritize being logical over being emotional.

But, it’s one thing for a sugar relationship to be like a business relationship and another to be in a business relationship with your sugar partner. Those two things are not the same, and luckily, my sugar daddy clocked that early on. He made sure that even if we were going to talk about business on a date, that portion only took up a limited amount of time so that we could also focus on enjoying each other’s company.

And, it also meant that if we were having trouble with the business, we had to make a real effort not to let that negativity seep into the relationship. For example, there was one time that one of my pattern releases got delayed because my editor was late turning around her edits, and I refused to hire another one, even at the advice of my sugar daddy. It meant more work for me because I had to reach out to people who had pre-ordered the pattern, and well, the details don’t matter; what matters is that my sugar daddy, aka my biggest investor, was pissed about it. And I mean, that part was tough. I had to show up to our date all dolled up and mentally ready to have a good time when just hours ago, my sugar daddy had called me to share his disapproval. But we had had dinner reservations for months, and he had already paid my allowance (completely separate from the business arrangement). So, we made a toast to keeping work and play totally separate, and we ended up having a great night.

When you find the right sugar daddy, you get a mentor, but you’ve got to be willing to put in the work

One of the challenges of becoming a business partner with a sugar daddy is learning to take ownership. Because while you might be used to this person taking care of things for you as a sugar daddy, they are not going to solve all your problems as a business partner. And it will be up to you to put in the extra work to earn their investment and mentorship.

But that being said, once you kind of prove how serious you are about doing a good job and bringing your vision to life, then the right sugar daddy will be such an important person in your life. I look back, often, at that moment in the car, when my sugar daddy so easily could have just not been interested in my knitting, or I so easily could have brushed off his comment. But, because I already had the passion and motivation, and he saw my potential, it was just the right spark to start something really good.