It seems unfathomable that one little arts and crafts project meant as a child’s present could potentially turn into a multimillion-dollar legacy for them instead. But here we are. You really never know what artistic spark might change your life.
That’s what happened to Mike O’Dell, a 50-year-old nurse anesthetist living in Oklahoma City. According to an interview with CNBC’s writers Megan Sauer and Ryan Johnston, O’Dell sat down on his kitchen floor in 2018 with an idea. “He drew a Star Wars stormtrooper on a 5-by-6.5 sheet of graph paper, cut the pattern into smaller sections, and sewed fabric onto the paper. Then, he stitched the pieces together on a sewing machine and discarded the paper remnants.”
A year and a half later, he finished the quilt. But a light bulb went off. He found the process, which is called “foundation paper piecing,” to be rather easy, even for a novice quilter. He shares in the interview, “I wasn’t a quilter before I started writing patterns, but my wife was. When she started, I watched her make nine-patch quilts and sew the pieces of fabric together in a grid, like tic-tac-toe.”
He explains it’s really just a paint-by-numbers process, similar to pixels in computer programming. “It reminded me of my first job, when I was still in high school, with a computer company. I did their instruction manual and drew pictures the same way—pixel by pixel in a computer program. That’s how I drew the stormtrooper. It was 1,260 pixels, and it was easy enough for a beginner like me to do. My ignorance was actually a benefit, because when you’re an expert at something, you tend to make assumptions. When people don’t know stuff, they have to ask a lot of questions.”
In 2020, Legit Kits was born. Years of hard work were put in, which included building a small but mighty staff. In January of this year, O’Dell got more funding for the company from Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary after he made a funny and convincing pitch on Shark Tank. On their website, O’Dell describes what they do: “Legit Kits puts award-winning, beautiful artistic quilts within reach of any quilter who can sew a straight line.”
Per CNBC’s Make It, O’Dell estimates that the company grossed over $1.25 million last year, with an additional $150,000 in quilt kits sold in-store.
To this day, Mike is the CEO and Creative Director of Legit Kits, but he still works at the hospital four days a week. This helps to prove that a lucrative side hustle can come from sheer determination. When asked if others could possibly “replicate a crafting business,” O’Dell answers, “There are so many opportunities out there. I took something that’s generally crafty and I added to it.”
Even with all this work, he still keeps his sense of humor and knows (now that he’s broken even) there’s a lot more to turning future profits. O’Dell jokes, “You have to write your goals down, so there’s a five-foot sign in my office. It says, ‘World Quilt Domination.’”
