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Edited by
Bret Begun● How the hottest company in jigsaws handled
sudden and exponential growthBloomberg Businessweek March 1, 2021++
S T R A T E G I E S
If it’s possible to generate buzz in the world of
puzzles, Rachel Hochhauser and Jena Wolfe were
doing it. Their company, Piecework Puzzles, had
received glowing media coverage for its vibrant jig-
saws that look like art book covers. By the end of
2019, Piecework’s catalog featured six puzzles for
sale in its online shop and on the shelves of design-
savvy boutiques. There’s the 500-piece Disco
Queen, a thirst-inducing tableau of Seventies-era
cocktails reflecting rainbow prisms on a mirrored
table, and the 1,000-piece Forbidden Fruit, a still
life of cleaved melons and citrus on a bunched
white tablecloth. At $26 to $36 each, they make
sophisticated gifts for housewarming parties, andare good for toting along to the Airbnb or gluing
together and hanging as artwork once finished.
When they started Piecework, Hochhauser
and Wolfe were already partners at Major Studio,
a 5-year-old creative agency based in Los Angeles
that does marketing and branding for clients such
as Google and Radisson Hotel Group. They antici-
pated a slow and steady year of building their own
brand. “It was feeling very manageable to have
this second business together,” Wolfe says.
From February to March 2020, Piecework’s
retail sales spiked 910% as families trapped at
home looked for alternatives to staring at a screen.
The company’s inventory, which normally lastedA
PUZZLING
YEAR