For a year, the secret to Abby Price’s success lay covered in dust in her store’s basement.
As a graduate student at Parsons School of Art, Price founded Abode in 2019, a company that sells dried flower arrangements to people in New York on Facebook. By March 2022, she was selling bouquets and home decor from a rented storefront in the city’s Nolita neighborhood and had enough cash flow to buy a $15,000 embroidery machine, which Price said she bought “on a complete whim.”
She didn’t have the expertise or space to actually operate the 100-pound machine, so she kept it in the store’s basement. But as consumer spending fell after the subsequent holiday shopping season, Abode began to struggle until Mr. Price hosted a two-day embroidery event at his store in March 2023.
On the first day of the event, Abode brought in five times as many sales as the previous Saturday, according to documents seen by CNBC Make It. “That weekend, I felt like I was onto something special. I knew nothing would be the same,” says Price, the company’s 29-year-old CEO and co-owner. “I was just really early on[to the trend].”
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The following year, Abbode transitioned into a business offering customizable embroidery products and embroidery services both in-store and online. Total sales for 2024 will be $1.59 million, up from $719,000 the year before, according to the document. As of September 30, the company projected annual sales of $4 million by the end of 2025.
Events account for approximately 25% of its revenue, according to documents. Abbord has hosted pop-ups around the world, including the UK, Spain and Italy, with brands such as L.L. Bean, Ritz-Carlton and Charlotte Tilbury. Pop star Sabrina Carpenter wore Abode’s signature yellow T-shirt with red stitching that read “Live From New York” during her performance on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” on Oct. 18.
Co-owner and chief operating officer Daniel Kwak said that despite its high sales, Abode essentially operates at a break-even level, turning a profit by a small margin. The company is prioritizing brand recognition and growing its revenue streams before aiming to improve profitability, he said.
Find out how a once-little-used embroidery machine changed Price’s life and how she hopes to make Abbod a household name.
A volatile home decor business
Price’s initial decision to turn his Facebook-native business into a New York store was simple. With rents low during the pandemic, she says she was able to use $20,000 between her own savings and a gift from her parents for a deposit and a few months’ rent to try her hand at running her own retail store.
When her six-month lease expired, she doubled down and moved into Abode’s current location in November 2021, which is about twice the size and monthly rent. She took out a $60,000 loan from friends and family to cover the cost of the expansion, which she says quickly paid off.
During the holiday season, customers flocked to the busy retail streets and bought enough Abode home decor products to bring in $60,000 in monthly revenue for the company, Mr. Price said.
Abbey Price, founder and CEO of Abbode, took to the stage on the opening day of the company’s first physical store. She says her boyfriend bought her a giant pair of scissors on Amazon to commemorate the occasion.
Provided by Abby Price
Financially secure, Price splurged on an embroidery machine and paid it off with monthly payments of $1,000, she said.
And just like that, the holidays are over. Abbord’s revenue leveled off at about $45,000 per month in June 2022, Price estimates. “I feel like as the business has grown, so have the problems,” she says. “I kept adding employees, increasing inventory, and investing in this embroidery machine. It all started to catch up with me.”
The slump in sales made Price feel uncharacteristically anxious, and she said she cried in the store’s bathroom on the store’s second anniversary. “Not many people came. I was feeling really overwhelmed and stressed because I knew something had to change here.”
Transitioning to embroidery that will change your business
In March 2023, Price and her team moved the embroidery machine out of the basement because it needed professional repair to ensure it was working properly. To make the physical effort worthwhile, she says, she hosted pop-up events where customers could buy Abode items and have them embroidered for free.
Within hours, yellow sticky notes covered the checkout counter and tons of custom embroidery requests were recorded. Price said it took several weeks to fill all the orders. She started buying more machines and training her employees to use them, and by the end of the year, she says, embroidery accounted for 50 percent of the store’s revenue.
Abbord co-owner Daniel Kwak (left) says his “shared vision and complementary skills” with Price have helped the business succeed.
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Mr Kwaku, a friend of Ms Price’s boyfriend, had been working part-time at Abode since 2022, transitioning to full-time employment and becoming part-owner of the company in late 2023. He was instrumental in convincing Mr. Price to move Abode completely into the embroidery business, he said. Specifically, he says he sees potential in more limited-time embroidery events. Revenue doubled the following year as Abode hosted more events, including partnerships with other brands.
In July 2024, Price and Kwak rented a second location in Chinatown, a $5,000-a-month office, to house machines and embroiderers and take on more orders. In September of that year, L.L. Bean cold-mailed her and asked if she could host a pop-up event to sell Abu Board’s customized boat bags and tote bags. Customers waited in line for up to four hours, and the partnership brought in more than $100,000 in sales that weekend, Price said.
The company currently has 10 embroidery machines and 25 full-time and contract employees. Price said the company partnered with a fulfillment center to complete some embroidery projects off-site in early 2025.
right place, right time
Marni Shapiro, co-founder and managing partner of research and consulting firm The Retail Tracker, says any business with a focus on customization, such as embroidery, needlepoint and knitting services, has the potential to succeed right now.
Nostalgia is prevalent in an uncertain political and economic climate, and companies that offer experiential services could be attractive to shoppers who feel exhausted by the rise of cell phones and artificial intelligence, Shapiro said.
For example, personalized search is on the rise on Etsy. According to the platform, searches for personalized clothing have doubled in the past three months, and searches for personalized decor have increased by 240% compared to the same period in 2024.
Price points out that Etsy sellers are not competitors to Abbode because they can’t offer an in-person experience. Instead, she compares Abode to mid-sized brands like Stony Clover Lane, which has seven stores primarily along the East Coast, and Mark & Graham, which is owned by home goods conglomerate Williams-Sonoma.
Price defines her target customer, the Abode Girl, as a thoughtful gift giver who “knows what’s inside” and cares about “the little things.”
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Abbode is not currently as large as these brands. But if demand continues to grow, Kwaku said Abode could spend on expanding its revenue streams without needing outside investment.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen to people’s spending and the economy,” Kwak said. “We’re self-managed, so we need a significant amount of cash to get us through this situation… We’re going to continue to invest in the business, and I don’t think that’s going to change for a long time.”
Price declined to reveal his annual salary, but said he has kept his salary constant since opening Abode’s first store in 2021 to maximize profits that can be reinvested into the company. In the short term, she says she hopes to add more licensing deals, such as sports team logos and popular brands and characters, and work with more wholesale partners. In the long term, we hope to open Abode stores around the world.
“We can translate the spirit and emotion behind anything into embroidery,” Price says. “The sky really is the limit.”
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC and NBC, which broadcasts “Saturday Night Live.”
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