Crochet designers know that putting your pattern out to all the places on the internet can be tedious and time-consuming. You spend hours a week listing products on Etsy, Ravelry, LoveCrafts, your own shop—hours you’d rather spend designing. As a professional designer herself, Michele Costa felt these common pain points. After talking to other fiber designers and learning they were experiencing the same frustrations, she decided to create a solution. In this episode, she’s talking about gosadi, a software for crochet and knit design that streamlines the e-commerce process and saves you valuable time in your handmade business.
What gosadi does is we really streamline that process. It’s a pattern and e-commerce management tool. We have a lot of really great features that make it special. But at the core, what we are is, we create time.
– Michele costa, ceo of gosadi
A Software to Streamline the Crochet Design Process
Michele’s Fiber Arts Journey
Michele’s journey in the world of fiber arts began in 2010 when she opened an Etsy shop. What started as selling handmade goods evolved into a broader community-focused approach with her blog, Stitch & Hustle, becoming a hub for makers. Her passion for building a supportive community led to the launch of Stitch Up Events, a retreat-style gathering for fiber artists and makers. Along the way, Michele encountered various pain points common among designers, inspiring her to seek solutions.
From Maker to Code Curious
Michele’s determination to address pain points in her own business led her to become “code curious.” A class on CSS and HTML sparked her interest in coding, setting the stage for the birth of gosadi. Michele’s commitment to learning and adapting to the needs of the maker community fueled the app’s development.
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Introducing gosadi
Gosadi is a pattern and e-commerce management tool designed to streamline the laborious process of selling patterns online. Michele recognized the significant time investment required to upload patterns to multiple platforms. Gosadi acts as a hub, allowing designers to enter information once and seamlessly share it across various marketplaces. The goal is to create more time for designers, enabling them to focus on their craft rather than getting bogged down in administrative tasks.
How does gosadi improve the e-commerce process for fiber designers?
The core functionality of gosadi lies in simplifying the pattern-sharing process. Designers can upload information once and have gosadi translate it for platforms like Etsy, Ravelry, and others. The app aims to be revolutionary, creating efficiencies and saving designers hours of work each month. Michele emphasizes that gosadi currently focuses on digital products, simplifying the process by excluding inventory management concerns.
Community-Driven Development
What sets gosadi apart is that it’s the first website to fully integrate with Ravelry, a vital platform for the designer community. Michele highlights the collaborative effort with Ravelry in shaping gosadi’s features. The app’s development embraces a community service-driven approach, ensuring it aligns with the needs and heartbeat of the fiber arts community. Michele says by the end of 2024, gosadi will fully integrate with Etsy as well.
How can fiber designers get started with gosadi?
Gosadi is currently in beta testing, offering a unique opportunity for designers to try the platform for free and provide valuable feedback. Michele encourages beta testers to actively engage, share their experiences, and suggest improvements. The beta testing period, initially set for six months, will be extended to incorporate additional features and optimizations based on user input.
Connecting with gosadi
To stay updated on gosadi’s progress, designers can connect with the team on social media platforms using the handle @heygosadi. The official website, gosadi.com, serves as a hub for information, newsletters, and educational blog posts. Designers can sign up for beta testing and explore the potential of gosadi in streamlining their pattern management and e-commerce processes.
Wrapping Up
Gosadi is poised to be a game-changer for fiber designers, offering a solution to the time-consuming aspects of pattern sharing and e-commerce management. Michele Costa’s journey from a maker to a code curious entrepreneur reflects her commitment to empowering the fiber arts community. As gosadi continues to evolve through beta testing and community feedback, it represents a step toward a more efficient and collaborative future for designers in the ever-growing world of fiber arts.
Meet Michele from gosadi
Since 2010, Michele Costa has been actively involved in the fiber design community as a maker, a professional designer, and an event planner. Through her interactions with other designers, she noticed common pain points that knit and crochet designers experience. Now, in her role as CEO of gosadi, Michele is addressing those frustrations and streamlining the e-commerce process with a brand-new online hub for designers.
