hey guys thanks for joining me I'm
sitting down here today with Steven he
is a uh I don't know I was gonna say a
legendary Etsy seller I don't know if
you've achieved legendary status we can
debate what what the bar is for that
maybe but uh he's gonna basically tell
us like how he became a top .01
Etsy seller and basically help you
replicate his success which sounds like
a ridiculous plug but he's like a super
nice guy who is like very open about how
he's been so successful so I'm excited
for this interview Stephen thanks for
being here yeah of course you're super
excited to be here thanks for having me
Yeah man so I want to start off by uh
you kind of told me but I want you to
share if you don't mind like how you got
started with Etsy and what your like
initial you know first attempt at it was
and how you kind of you know ended up
where you are today
yeah so I I first found out about
selling on Etsy about two and a half
years ago and I was pretty fortunate
that at that time I had already been
selling online for about three years so
I already had that Foundation of like
what it took to sell in a third party
Marketplace like Etsy so it was like two
and a half years ago it was like June
2020 the peak of covid one of our mutual
friends Jesse uh super successful Etsy
seller um him and his family came to
visit for about a week and I remember
him saying like bro like I launched face
masks on an Etsy store like two weeks
ago and he like showed me his phone I
was like bro you made three thousand
dollars today so
he's like dude I make like three to four
thousand dollars a day right now selling
face masks on Etsy he's like I know
you're working on other projects right
now but like you shouldn't Launch face
masks on Etsy so like dude I'm sold I'm
selling face masks on Etsy 100 so he's
like buy this printer buy this heat
press buy these masks he's like don't
copy me but good luck so like that day
we bought all the equipment uh the week
it took everything to get shipped to my
house I spent that time like setting up
my Etsy account launching all the
listings doing all the research creating
the graphics that way when everything
came I could just turn it on
like I literally made like 17 sales that
first day like 30 sales the next day
like 60 sales like 120 300 sales and
like 500 sales a day by like day five
which that's dream scenario it's crazy
it sounds amazing like telling you the
story now but like keep in mind like
that's 500 masks a day I had to make by
myself in my garage in the dark like and
I still didn't even know how to use the
heat press so like I don't know if you
can see my gray hair but I didn't I did
not have gray hair two and a half years
ago so essentially I was working like 16
hours a day for the next like 90 days
straight we grew out of my garage within
like a week uh by like two weeks in we
had like three employees by like two
months in I think we had like 15
employees we moved into like even a
bigger unit we're averaging like 800 to
a thousand handmade masks a day
um and it was just like
how did you stalk them like I mean I'm
just curious man because like I was
thinking like the FBA angle of it like I
thought about it but I was like I don't
want to get in trouble with Amazon and I
don't know I don't want to hijack your
story but it's like would you have
trouble stalking them and and yeah what
were you saying what was your profits
like yeah not only did we have a hard
time stalking them but we had a hard
time supplying them we're having
inventory coming from the U.S suppliers
from Canada we were buying from China
we're trying to like just anyone who is
willing to sell us a polyester white
face mask we were buying it so and we
were buying it in bulk because like
knowing that like we were just ramping
so fast and knowing that like some
people could be out of stock we were
buying like a month supply at a time
um but yeah dude it ramped up super fast
but when mask mandates ended like in
January the next year like the business
died just as fast as it ramped up so we
went for like 500 a day to like five a
day overnight so it was like at that
point I was like
I've fallen in love with Etsy I've
fallen in love with like selling print
products I fall in love with being a
boss my employees like I don't want to
just like stop what we're doing so
instead of like starting something
different we decided to just like
rebuild our print shop so from the
ground up over the over these last like
one and a half years we just been
launching new print products on our Etsy
shop and we've been able to now build
our Etsy business back up to what it was
doing when we were selling masks so we
made I made my first million dollars in
Etsy selling face masks leveraging you
know the mandates and I made my next uh
1.5 million dollars revenue on Etsy
selling print products so yeah that's my
Etsy story dude that's awesome I I'm
like dying to know yeah like just a
ballpark of like price point you know
what I mean and like if you don't mind
like what were your margins looking like
on like a sale you know yeah so the cool
thing about like when you do something
personalized like you can sell it for a
markup right so we were selling these
face masks for like 10 bucks and we were
buying them for like a dollar and it
costs like a dollar in labor we're
making like Play Seven dollars maybe six
dollars after after um after marketing
expenses so it was super high profit
super high velocity and we we didn't
make we made a lot of money and we were
able to like just take that and then
just put it back into the business to
again we had to rebuild right so that's
kind of how we're able to build to our
next 1.5 million dollars in such a fast
period of time it's because we were able
to like Leverage that Capital as well as
the knowledge at that point
dude that's that's crazy man I love
hearing that um
the whole face mask thing too I remember
like I was super plugged into the kind
of the covid thing like before people
you know people are like yeah you know
in March and I was like yeah I was like
very plugged in in like December you
know of the year before you know what I
mean because like I'm not if it's really
that serious like I'm not gonna risk
anything about me and my family so I was
like I was my brain was working so fast
back then I was like I'm gonna import
Mass from China and then they're like
they're gonna stop exporting so I was
like I'm gonna get them from India and
then I was about to retire all this
money and I was like but what if they
keep my money and don't send them
because then all of a sudden they can't
send them I don't know yeah so we were
pretty fortunate in that like the cool
thing about having a print shop is you
just buy all white face masks and then
you just print a graphic onto it so in
terms of stock in terms of buying
product it was it was super easy for us
because we were just buying white face
masks so we were able to find someone
local for that and but then they put the
the work on our plates to then
personalize and customize and make them
into like the hundreds of listings that
we had
gotcha man yeah it was like and plus
you're selling them at a good price
point like for me it would have just
kind of been like flipping them at like
a multiple which was like highly frowned
upon you know at the time obviously so
uh so what is your Etsy kind of Journey
look like today we know your roots and
you pivoted obviously away from face
masks like do you mind you don't have to
tell us I guess product type but uh like
what makes your business so successful
if you wanted to kind of summarize
because a lot of people watching like
everybody wants your success I want your
success
um what's like what is the gap like why
why aren't we as successful as you yeah
so so it play comes down to like more
than just one thing I think part of it
is I didn't launch an Etsy business as
like a hobby so like if you want if you
do it as a hobby you're gonna get hobby
results like I went into it like this is
my full-time thing I was working 16
hours a day you know we have employees
we got places there's we have a
warehouse right so it's like we treated
it like a business we got business
results right it wasn't like in my spare
time or on the weekends it was like you
know 16 hours a day for like the next
three months and then I still work 40
hours a day on the business right now so
part of it is just like the mindset like
this is like like my this is my bread
and my butter like I feed my children
with this money so I'm not like treating
it like a hobby uh the next part of it
is it's the process so like we sell four
different product categories since the
face masks and it I think it goes down
to like how we find the products how we
build out the products how we launch the
products and I contribute a lot of the
success to the process which we can dive
into that if you want
um but then with that it all it all
comes down to again I think the product
so it's like you you have a poop product
you make no money but if you have a good
product you're going to make good money
so does that involve like uh kind of it
reminds me almost of FBA where like I
personally even in my root of like
Amazon FBA and you you tried FBA right
yeah so I don't talk about that much but
before before this Disney
um I I failed 10 other businesses before
this business so like like in terms of
advice like don't give up because like
it's gonna it's gonna hit eventually so
I I did try FBA three times and I failed
every single time so hey but you're
better off for it right because now
you're doing your thing on Etsy but I
was just gonna say like when I'm doing
FBA and I've made like big successes I
mean I guess on a relative basis not as
big as your successes but on FBA by just
like looking at what's out there and
then just finding I know people you know
it's kind of common to say you just
improve upon it but like for me
sometimes it was as simple as just
ordering samples from different
factories and being like this one has a
much better product than all the rest
I'm just gonna launch these at a higher
price point and over time the reviews
are going to speak for themselves and
it's like it's worked so are you doing
stuff like that or is it just that like
you have the customization an aspect and
I mean I've seen your Etsy Shop you were
nice enough to share with me like you
have like a beautiful way of like
creating listings that it's just
compelling so is it that is it
everything yeah so like so success
leaves Clues it's like you're saying
like you find it a product you went to
all the manufacturers you just launched
a you know the better of the three so
like success leaves Clues so like I
don't really like innovate like I don't
reinvent the wheel like I'm not trying
to like you know launch something
Innovative I found I find something that
I like that'll be okay with selling that
is selling well and then I just find
people that are already doing it and
then I just like I call it mirroring
where it's like I I take their products
I make my versions of it so that's the
way how I add value to the market is I
make it either better or different but I
only sell something something that's
that's already selling currently
got you and how
how like I guess what percentage of um
your products like are you offering
personalization on is that like a huge
thing for you the personalization aspect
or even with like face masks like you
said personalized face masks in my mind
I just pictured like
you coming up with you know how a lot of
people just went to Google images and
just like ripped off like stupid ass
memes or something like and I just
assumed kind of like you're probably
just doing that and making easy sales
but like where a lot of your face mask
personalized and is your stuff still
like heavy personalization yeah so when
I launched the face mask I said
personalize because like we only sell
personalized now but they were custom so
they were just like patterns like bees
or you know pumpkins for Halloween or
bats for Halloween or like Santa Clauses
for Christmas so we just did you know
just patterns so they were custom
um but nowadays like that's probably
like when I launched a new product I
only launched products that we can
personalize because it's a higher
barrier to entry so it takes more work
on us and 99 out of 100 people are not
willing to do it so like when
competition goes up in that product
category we're a little bit different
because we do it plus personalization so
every product that we sell now is is
personalized so we offer that as an
option so you said you sold over 2.5
million dollars on Etsy which is a
staggering number congrats on that I'm I
gotta ask all right because I'm guilty
of publishing a lot of products to
support my my big Revenue numbers like
how many listings do you have up there
on on your Etsy shop if you don't mind
sharing yeah so I'm currently selling
into like four different product
categories and I actually have like less
than 500 products so I only launched
about a hundred product listings per
category and I know a lot of people who
you know sell print products on Etsy
it's more of a numbers game like who
like put them into parallel and have
like a thousand listings or two thousand
listings so people on my boat they would
typically have like four thousand five
thousand listings which is pretty
standard and I'm able to still hit the
numbers that I'm hitting with like 10 of
the listings and the way that I'm able
to do that is I'm super intentional with
the listings I I launch and I only
launched things that I know are gonna
sell like again like success leaves
Clues so going back into like that
process like I have a process that like
creates me like a to-do list of like 100
listings I launched them and I'm pretty
confident that they're gonna sell and I
don't launch listings that I know it's
not going to sell so I'm very
intentional that's yeah that sounds
amazing and um you have shown me a
little bit of this process like off
camera is this something that you
wouldn't mind uh that you would mind
sharing with our audience yeah I'm an
open book so anything other than my shop
name I'm willing to share Ah that's
awesome so how about this then I think
this interview has been great so far
like and guys if you are with me if you
are enjoying this interview please
number one leave a like let the YouTube
algorithm know and number two how about
this drop a comment and say you want to
bring Steven back for part two we'll
leave a cliffhanger and in part two
since Steven's willing to uh share this
process with us how about we resume this
at a future date and you can let us know
what that process is let's do it yeah
that sounds perfect
awesome well hey I really appreciate it
like I know you're a busy guy your
time's valuable um thank you for being
here today and this has been great guys
let us know in the comments that should
we bring Steven back do you guys want to
see that process for how he's making 2.5
million dollars with four categories by
the way we say categories is that like
product type or is that like me Product
type like shirt mug blanket Tumblr like
different product types okay there it is
well hey guys let let us know hit us up
in the comments I'm really looking
forward to bringing him back so make
sure we get to at least like 50 comments
that should be that should be doable I
think uh Stephen thanks again for being
here I really appreciate it thanks for
having me guys leave those comments I'll
come back
foreign
[Music]