A Pittsburgh fashion startup wants to redefine how businesses approach manufacturing

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Nisha Blackwell didn’t set out to be an entrepreneur, until 2014 when a simple, heartfelt gift sparked a journey she never saw coming. 

With a decade of business experience, Blackwell now serves as a model for other entrepreneurs who want to make a big impact with small-scale manufacturing. 

It all began when Blackwell made hair bows as a birthday gift for her friend’s daughter. Crafted from a bag of secondhand clothes, the bows were a hit, catching the attention of several parents who wanted to be Blackwell’s first customers. 

What started as a creative project quickly turned into something much bigger – a business, a passion and a turning point in her life, she told Technical.ly. In 2015, Blackwell founded Wilkinsburg-based Knotzland, a small-scale manufacturing operation specializing in bow ties and accessories made from upcycled textiles and materials. 

“That was my first taste of entrepreneurship,” Blackwell said. 

Now, Blackwell is being recognized on a national scale for Knotzland’s unique business model. Recently, she was named on Recast City’s inaugural Spark 10 list. The economic development consultancy recognized Blackwell for her role in sparking catalytic change through small-scale manufacturing. 

Blackwell is fueling business growth with a new “distributed production model,” employing 29 people who sew for her from home, said Ilana Preuss, founder and CEO of Recast City.

“This method gives more people in the community an opportunity to be part of the success, while also giving them a front-row seat to learn how to replicate this business model,” Preuss said.

Blackwell’s business model relies on a network, made up of mothers, grandmothers, retirees, students and sewing enthusiasts within a 20-mile radius of her storefront, who make the colorful bows that define her brand. 

“I grew up not having a lot of money and within a family and a community that had to use resources to their full capacity,” Blackwell said. “I had to look in my closet and be creative and that realm of sustainability is something that now in my journey, I can celebrate.” 

Once a member of the Ascender’s startup accelerator program and a graduate of TALI’s first Emerging Leaders Program for Black Pittsburghers, Blackwell now looks for ways to help Black and brown entrepreneurs like herself. When she isn’t working for her business or caring for her young child, Blackwell dedicates her time to consulting for local programs and offering mentorship to people in her community. 

In this edition of Technical.ly’s How I Got Here series, Blackwell discusses the challenges she’s encountered with small-scale manufacturing and how small business owners can find success by tapping into community support. 

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. 

How do you approach leadership? 

The word “leadership” makes me cringe a little bit because there’s a community that is built. It’s built based on skill, agreements and collective understanding. While I am the person who may hire for the work, I am very much also a part of that ecosystem of individuals who work alongside each other. We’re all really a team, a community and a collective. 

I like to look at it more collectively, like, “Hey, we have this project coming up. Do you have the mental health capacity? Do you have the materials that you need?” And if there are mistakes, we work with you to correct those mistakes so that you are still paid fairly for your time. 

I know “accessibility” is thrown out there a lot, but it really is about creating accessible, flexible income opportunities. 

I’d say there are two ways I try to approach leadership. A) It’s from a collective understanding, and B) How do I foresee ways that we can continue to be relevant, present and keep bringing in opportunities for people to make income?

What challenges have you faced with small-scale manufacturing? 

The challenges that I face with small-scale manufacturing are hands down, funding related. It’s hard to tell a story of massive scaling and growth and selling a company when that’s not necessarily your story, but that’s the story folks who are investing in small-scale manufacturing want to hear. 

There are a lot more qualitative aspects to the work that we do. It’s flexible. You do it all on your own time. It’s slow fashion, so we can’t crank things out.

We’re also concerned about well-being, livelihoods and things like that. 

Sustainability is not just an environmental approach, but the sustainability of humans. That is not always understood from a capital and investment standpoint. It’s hard to put that to paper and put that in writing – how life-changing a small business can be in that realm. 

How does technology impact your business? 

Technology is why we still exist. To point back to the global pandemic, we had to pivot quickly and a lot of our learning sessions and onboarding sessions happened online. 

From Slack to Asana, we utilize all those tools to improve our efficiency. Automating admin tasks has transformed how we do business and transformed our workflow to help improve the customer experience, as well as our sewists’ experiences. 

I’m always keeping an eye out for new technology that allows us to do that. 

What is innovative about your business model? 

I would say it is the local and decentralized production model that makes us innovative in our unique space. 

It’s not a new model. It’s very much a branch of the cottage industry that has always existed. We just happen to make bow ties and utilize manufacturing processes and tools that help us do it more efficiently. 

Also, the ability to reclaim and repurpose textile waste and materials and put them back into the life cycle. It’s our dual mission that makes us innovative in this space. 

What advice would you give someone trying to start a small business? 

The advice I would give to someone looking to start a small business like mine is to start in, and with, a community. 

Oftentimes things are built and then the community buy-in is an afterthought, but when you build alongside the people who you will also be hiring and who you will also be hoping to support and grow your business, then that helps create more sustainable relationships. 

Also, be open to across-sector collaborations. We don’t all have to be in the same sector to help each other. 

I have worked with many organizations, both locally and across the country, to help figure out some of the challenges that entrepreneurs face and be a voice for some of our challenges. From a consulting realm, I’ve consulted with other small businesses and entities that serve small businesses with programming as a mentor and an advisor. 

One of the organizations that I most recently worked with was Catapult Greater. They’re an organization that offers supportive services for entrepreneurs in the culinary side of things, but they also do a lot of work around home ownership. I’ve also worked with Ridgeway Capital’s Origins program, helping to design and implement some of that program in the early days. 

I have also worked with New Sun Rising to lead different cohorts of leaders who are running organizations. I work with Radiant Hall Studios. It’s an organization that provides studio spaces for working artists, and I’ve been doing a lot of the work for their residency program.