Ryan Savin first touched a piece of leather in 2016. Three years later, he changed his career, became a skilled leather craftsman, has 180,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, and a flourishing leather brand.
His one-man leather business, Little King Goods sells minimalistic-looking wallets, journals, tote bags, iPad covers, belts and cable collectors — all of which he designs and builds himself in addition to posting YouTube videos of himself crafting each product.
But his three-year journey from being an electrician to a leather craftsman and filmmaker was not easy as it required dedication, passion, and a lot of learning.
Savin says he always had a passion for working with his hands that led him to into the trades profession where he worked as an electrician for 10 years in Toronto. But his career just did not give him the creativity he was yearning for.
So during the time he was an electrician, he went to school for multimedia design.
“I fell in love with photography and videography,” says Savin who began shooting weddings on the side.
“That got really busy for me to the point I was turning down photography jobs. I didn’t like what I was doing as an electrician. I wanted to go back and do photography full time.”
Settled in his career as an electrician, he was scared to make the jump towards freelance work.
“Once you’re a freelancer, you get no benefits, no nothing, you gotta make your own hustle,” says Savin.
“I had that drive. I really loved being that entrepreneur. I loved branding.”
And so in the year 2015, he took a seven-month parental leave after the birth of his first child and ramped up his business for wedding photography. This is when his career took a drastic turn.
“I needed a camera strap. I wanted a leather camera strap. That’s where all this happened,” says Savin.
Because of the high costs of leather, he decided to buy some leather and a DIY kit on Amazon to try his hand at crafting a leather strap himself.
“I knew nothing about leather so it was a really long journey to get here. But I fell in love with it. As soon as I picked it up and I’m like oh my God, this reminds me of my grandpa’s old bags and belts,” says Savin.
“Then I made a leather camera strap and I fell in love with it and I started making belts, stuff for my camera where I can store batteries and stuff,” says Savin.
He says he initially wanted to create things for fun but then seriously began considering it as a career.
“It came to the point where every day, I began hating my job. I would be thinking about okay what design can I make next out of leather?” says Savin.
“It consumed my life. Everything I learned in college and the fact that I love working with my hands would be perfect for this brand.”
In 2017, he got laid off and so he took that as a sign to focus on building his leather brand.
“So I was like I’m going to focus all my time, energy in this business and see how it goes,” Says Savin.
He says with the support of his wife who is a musician, he had the understanding of an artist to push him towards his art along with his parent’s support to provide the space for him as he moved from Toronto to Morriston in 2017.
“I couldn’t have done it without them,” says Savin.
Savin says his products are based on three words: clean, simple, and rugged.
He says his designs are mostly geared for men but also have designs for women such as tote bags and long wallets.
Savin says his passion for design allowed him to scout for the exact vision that led him to work with local artists such as Andrew Fraser from Guelph — known to create murals in the city — who produced branding for his logos.
“To learn it all, I didn’t have a teacher, I wasn’t an apprentice, I was on Instagram, I was on YouTube trying to figure out how to do this,” says Savin.
“Once you have a drive for something, you want to learn it.”
He says he would stay up until the early hours of the morning just learning and critiquing every aspect of his creation such as perfecting leather edges.
“The learning process took a long time and it happened in such a short time because I put so many hours during the day and since I was doing it full time, i didn’t have to do it after work,” says Savin.
Little King Goods products are available online only, eliminating any hiked fees that usually come with selling in consignment stores. This way, he says his goods are affordable.
“I just got an email two weeks ago that on our online store, we sold 1,000,” says Savin who also sold additional products in markets, his initial Shopify store.
The creation of the products takes anywhere between 45 min to a day depending on the size of the product and the kind of stitching required.
“The thing that people don’t realize is that this is the last wallet that you’re going to buy,” says Savin who uses primarily vegetable tan leather and chromian tan leather that he orders from the U.S.
Savin also provides downloadable pdfs on his website for people who want to try their hand at building their own wallet.
“I sell pretty much templates for everything,” says Savin who wants to provide a resource to the high number of crafters that follow him on social media.
He says leathercraft is the smallest slice of the pie of what his business is about.
“Everything else that I do for this business, that almost has the priority,” says Savin about his YouTube channel, photography, marketing, fulfilling orders, shipping, talking with suppliers, and making relationships.
“If you want to survive in the leathercraft world as a full-time crafter, you have to be a true entrepreneur. I’m glad I started doing everything so I know how much work goes in one particular part.”
Savin says his goal for the future is to dedicate 100 per cent of his time to content creation on youtube where he can share his creative ideas and products and successfully merge his love for photography, filmography and leather while having full control of his brand.
