🔴 The systems that built a 6-figure craft business

Six figures in revenue, 70% profit margins, and a lean, course-focused operation with a global audience — all grown from paper flowers.

Our guest this week is Quynh Nguyen, founder of Pink and Posey, who transformed a wedding favor into a multi-armed business spanning courses, coaching, content, and museum collaborations through systematic reinvention.

In this episode:

— Natalia Pérez-González, Assistant Editor

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By Natalia Pérez-González

Scaling niche art into a sustainable business is notoriously difficult, but Quynh Nguyen grew a six-figure business around paper flowers, including courses, coaching, content and commissions. That systematic approach took her from working weddings to a notable collaboration with the Cleveland Museum of Art, where her blooms filled a 1600s Delftware vase.

This milestone was a product of active reinvention — her career as a creator and paper flower artist is a result of happenstance: over a decade ago, a friend, whose wedding Quynh was working on, asked her to make a few flowers. Since then, she’s been keeping pace with high-end event designers and clients like Nordstrom, supplying thousands of flowers for luxury events, including six- and seven-figure galas. Boxes of 10,000 blooms would leave her Seattle studio for installations across the country.

The work paid, but it was grueling and unsustainable — the Cleveland exhibit only became possible once she stepped off that hamster wheel and rebuilt her studio around teaching, building systems, and cultivating a global community of paper artists.

Today, Quynh runs a multi-armed creative business:

She’s also executed an increasing number of unique collaborations — like limited-edition beers and wines inspired by her blooms — that signal just how far her paper creations have traveled. In 2024, her business generated $112K in revenue with roughly 70% profit margins, powered by low overhead and a mix of physical sales, courses, workshops, brand collaborations, and book sales.

In a 2024 study, 70% of e-learning professionals earning more than six figures a year said online courses were their number one revenue source, and Quynh positioned herself perfectly to capitalize on this trend.

She'd been creating tutorials on YouTube, but during COVID lockdowns, she saw an opportunity to offer something most paper flower content lacked: comprehensive instruction with voice guidance, multiple camera angles, and downloadable templates, rather than the silent demonstration videos that dominated the space.

Quynh prices her paper flower courses between $25 and $85. New courses launch at a higher price point, then drop once demand slows and her core students have purchased. Over time, she’s steadily raised those launch prices — a reflection of her growing production quality and the increasing depth of her instruction.

Her mastermind, Paper to Profits — a cohort-based course where participants learn together — emerged from a 200-page handbook she co-wrote with attorney and fellow paper flower artist Jessie Chu. The six-week pilot (which had recently concluded at the time of our interview) had 24 participants priced at $750 each and sold out immediately; she’s now expanding it into a six-month cohort at $125 per month, with plans to host in-person gatherings to deepen the relationships.

Paper Talk, the podcast she’s run for six years with co-hosts Jessie Chu and Sarah Kim, now boasts more than 170 episodes and has become both a marketing channel and a sponsorship engine, featuring supplier partners such as Kai Scissors, Aline's Tacky Glue, and Italian paper manufacturer Cartotecnica Rossi. These relationships evolved into event sponsorships and international opportunities, including upcoming workshops in South Korea and Italy.

Instagram remains Quynh’s strongest customer acquisition channel, but the mix is broad. About 40% of her revenue still comes from physical flower sales, another 40% from courses and masterminds tied to the podcast, and the rest from workshops, book sales, and collaborations.

Her weekly schedule reflects this balance: early in the week is dedicated to editing and research; midweek is reserved for clients and projects; Thursdays are for recording; Fridays are for filming and flower-making; and evenings and weekends are reserved for studio time.

It’s a rhythm that reflects not both artistic and operational discipline. By channeling her artistry into education, community, and media, she built revenue streams that compound over time, proving that niche creators can transform a specialized skill into a durable, multi-channel enterprise.

A few things that stuck with me as I listened through this week’s conversation:

Learn more about Pink and Posey here.

Quynh's transformation from custom flower maker to education entrepreneur offers a replicable framework for creatives looking to scale their income.

Quynh's first principle is simple, tried, and true: go out of your way to form genuine connections.

Her international workshop — which drew students from Australia, Korea, Japan, and England — happened when she had only 2,000-3,000 Instagram followers, but the key was meaningful engagement:

This approach fostered relationships that ultimately led to business opportunities, like her collaborations with Nordstrom, and her CBS Sunday Morning appearance opened doors to brewery collaborations and east-coast-based workshops. Even her museum commission traced back to a board member who saw her on television.

Quynh’s course pricing reflects a deliberate customer journey: $25 for older courses creates low-risk entry points, $85 for premium content rewards returning customers with advanced techniques.

This strategy recognizes that creative education involves relationship building, not just knowledge transfer. Students who succeed with basic courses become invested in the teaching style and community, naturally progressing to higher-ticket offerings.

While competitors offered silent YouTube tutorials, Quynh created comprehensive educational experiences. Her innovation wasn't the craft itself — it was the systematic documentation, complete with voice instruction, multiple camera angles, PDF templates, and SVG files for cutting machines.

She went further by accommodating different learning styles: visual learners could turn off audio, auditory learners could listen to detailed explanations and stories, and kinesthetic learners got hands-on templates. She added subtitles and translations when competitors ignored accessibility.

This advantage extended into business education with her "Paper to Profits" handbook, which emerged from recognizing that creative entrepreneurs often lacked basic business knowledge. She and co-host Jessie Chu systematically addressed common questions about entity structure, bookkeeping, pricing psychology, and tax planning.

The Paper to Profits mastermind succeeded because it addressed universal pain points with peer learning rather than just expert instruction. Participants learned from each other's questions and challenges, creating accountability relationships that extended beyond the formal program.

Quynh plans to expand the six-week program to six months with in-person gatherings, recognizing that community formation requires time and shared experiences. The pricing shift to monthly payments ($125/month) reduces psychological barriers while increasing total program value.