From Viral Crocheter to Published Author: How Lisa Ha Built a Business She Never Planned
Lyric Kinard 
How Lisa Ha Built a Creative Business by Accident (and What You Can Learn From It)
It’s a refrain that I repeat over and over and over. I love it when one of my podcast guests says it too.
If you've been waiting until you feel “ready enough” to start teaching or selling online, Lisa Ha of Get to Hooking Crochet has something to say, “you're going to have to be willing to be bad in public first.”
Lisa joined Lyric on Creatives on Camera podcast fresh off a whirlwind three years that took her from "let's just see what happens on social media" to published author, international course co-creator, and a combined following of over 300,000 people. None of it was planned. All of it was built on showing up, paying attention, and being willing to throw her hat over the wall before she knew how to climb.
In this conversation, Lisa and Lyric dig into what it actually takes to turn a creative platform into a real business. We talk about the mindset, the metrics, the hard calls, and the liberating truth that you don't have to have it all figured out before you begin.
You don't have to be the best to teach
One of the most reassuring moments in this episode is when Lisa and Lyric both say what so many creative teachers need to hear: you don't have to be the world's greatest crocheter, quilter, or fiber artist to teach. Collecting patterns and making things from patterns is one skill. Teaching is another. They are completely separate.
Lisa's definition of a beginner has shifted dramatically since she started crocheting in the 1980s. When she taught her first in-person class, she assumed her beginners were more advanced than they actually were and that mismatch caused problems. The lesson? Know your audience, and be crystal clear about who your content is for. As Lyric puts it: all frustration comes from unmet expectations.
That applies to class descriptions, tutorials, and social media content alike. When you understand who you're serving and you name it clearly, the right people show up ready. And the wrong people self-select out.
Vanity metrics vs. the one number that actually matters
Lisa is refreshingly honest about what most social media creators get wrong: they optimize for views. But views are set by an algorithm that nobody, not even the self-proclaimed gurus, fully understands or controls.
The metric that actually tells you something is this:
how many sales did you get from that video?
Your sales content will perform poorly by every vanity metric. Views go down. People unfollow. And yet, out of your 300 or 3,000 or 30,000 followers, one person says yes. Because they are attached to your brand. They want what you uniquely have to offer. And that one person matters.
Lisa also watches how many people make it past the three-second mark, how many reach the end, and what the quality of the comments looks like. Is it reaching people who needed to laugh today? Are the right people showing up? Those signals tell her far more than a view count ever could.
The "hat over the wall" philosophy
An architect friend once told Lisa: the way you scale an insurmountable wall is to throw your hat over it first.
Because then you have to climb because you want your hat back.
That is exactly how Lisa approaches everything. She decided she wanted to sell her own book and retain more of the money from her sales. She didn't know how to do any of it. So she built a website, listed the book, and waited for orders to come in. Then she had to learn taxes. Fulfillment. How to print mailing labels. She recently spent three hours remitting ten dollars in sales tax to her state and now she knows a lot about that.
She launched a pilot online course with her collaborator Z of Three Stitches Crafts in South Africa before they knew exactly how they'd deliver it. They're still figuring out the platform. They release one week of materials at a time because it takes the whole week to get ready. And they're taking careful notes on everything for next time.
This is how a business gets built. Not with a perfect plan. By throwing your hat over the wall.
Deciding which doors to walk through
One of the richest threads in this conversation is the idea that just because a door opens doesn't mean you have to walk through it. Lisa has had brand collaborations, charity requests, collab invitations, and speaking opportunities all arrive at once on top of a full-time job that already runs 50 to 60 hours a week.
You want to say yes to everything.
Lyric and Lisa talk about the importance of knowing your why. If your reason for building this business isn't strong enough, you won't make it through the hard times. But when your why is clear (for Lisa, it's community, and being a soft landing place for people who need a break from the weight of the world ) then you know which opportunities fit and which ones to leave at the door.
That clarity also protects you from the desperation spiral. Lisa notes that people want to buy from a winning team. When you come at your audience from a place of need "I need you to buy this" they can feel it.
The heart of every business, she and Lyric agree, should be: how can I help you?
Want help figuring out what your why is? We have a fantastic little worksheet for that:
What Lisa made last
An angry uterus. For book number two. Two fallopian tubes with eggs attached, currently in progress. We love her.
You can buy a signed copy of Lisa's first book, Snarky Crochet, directly from her at:
Get to Hooking Crochet
If you're international, she'll mail you a signed bookplate.
Get to Hooking Crochet
YouTube: @gettohookingcrochet
Instagram: @gettohookingcrochet
Facebook: gettohookingcrochet
Tiktok: @gettohookingcrochet
Ready to take your first step toward teaching online? Grab Lyric's free checklist, 12 Questions Before You Build Your Course, and figure out if your idea is ready to become a real class:
AVT Resources:
Academy for Virtual Teaching
Join the Campus Commons Community
Never stop creating,
Lyric
Categories: : Podcast