Eric Lugo didn't know that when he launched his sewing workshop business, Stitch Lab ATX , as a side project in May 2025, it'd become his full-time focus within weeks.

Lugo also couldn't have predicted it'd become so successful within two years that offerings would grow fivefold, classes would regularly sell out and he'd start getting requests to host private events.

The idea came to him a few years ago: Lugo learned to sew from his grandma when he was 5 and got serious about it as a teen, eventually launching his fashion brand, Casa Amiré , and becoming his friends' go-to guy for tailoring and alterations help . Dresses needed hemming, jeans needed shortening. Lugo was happy to lend his talents, though the requests piled up.

So one day, in April 2024, he thought: What if he taught his friends how to fix their clothes themselves?

"It really made me think: Wow, this is — I think — a pretty important skill that a lot of people don't know how to do," Lugo, 29, of Austin, Texas, tells CNBC Make It.…