Francisco Rivera's “original plan” after college was to work in the music and travel fields.
However, after earning a degree in music production from Full Sail University in 2017, he was unable to find a job in the industry. So Rivera earned as much money as he could. She worked at an Apple Store and then found a part-time job at Outschool, an online tutoring company.
Those jobs weren't satisfying or lucrative — at least compared to his current job, he says. In February 2023, Rivera began selling print-on-demand candles on his Etsy. At first he worked 4-5 hours a day and earned only a few hundred dollars a month.
Two months later, Rivera was on a date when his side hustle took off. Instead of the usual 10 orders that day, he estimates there were more than 70. “My cell phone wouldn't stop ringing and it was very distracting.”
Now that Rivera's shop is up and running and has more than 5,000 reviews on Etsy, he says he only has to work 20 minutes a day to manage customer relationships. says. He brought in $462,000 in sales last year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. That averages out to about $38,500 per month.
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Rivera estimates that 30 to 50 percent of each sale is profitable. The remaining cash will go toward paying Etsy fees, which totaled nearly $55,000 last year, as well as marketing and Printify. The services he uses to connect with manufacturers. (Mr. Rivera asked that his store's name be kept private to prevent other sellers from copying his products.)
The success of her Etsy shop allowed Rivera to quit her job as a tutor in December. This year, he said he spent his extra time traveling the world and just returned from Bali. He is also working on a personal music project.
“Some people love structure… but I realize that's not for me,” Rivera, 26, told CNBC Make It. She said, “Being my own boss is very fulfilling.”
Here's how Rivera honed the skills from her past jobs to open a successful shop and how she stands out in a saturated print-on-demand market.
Leverage existing skills
After college, Rivera worked for three years at an Apple Store in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. There, he says, he learned how to multitask, build relationships and solve customer problems, even if people yelled at him.
He moved to his hometown of Orlando in 2020. There he took on his Outschool job, where from the age of 7 he taught children as young as 12 how to develop social and critical thinking skills in the popular online game Minecraft. The pay was good, up to $100 an hour, and he says that was his introduction to online business.
Rivera said she started looking for new ways to make money when demand for online tutoring waned after the pandemic.
That's when he came across a YouTube video about printing on demand. The concept of the popular side hustle is simple. Sellers create designs for products such as shirts, tote bags, mugs, etc. and then list the designs on their online marketplace. After placing your order, the manufacturer will print the design on the product and ship it directly to the customer.
As Rivera did more research, he realized how many people were already selling apparel. He told me that the increased competition from another of his YouTube videos would make it harder for his store to go viral.
He scoured Printify's catalog for more ideas and, despite his allergies, came across a relatively new and less popular product: candles.
“I wanted to create beautiful, neutral candles that would fit in any space. I also love humor.” [so] “I liked the idea of brainstorming phrases for specific niches,” he says.
His customer service skills also likely helped his shop quickly garner positive reviews and boost its reputation on the platform, he says. (Etsy doesn't say how its algorithms rank search results, but its seller handbook states that shops need “great feedback” to be successful.) )
Trial and error leads to a winning formula
To make his Etsy store stand out, Rivera uses strategies he learned through trial and error and YouTube tutorials, he says.
He says he's changing product descriptions, updating product photos and investing in internal Etsy marketing to get his candles in front of as many people as possible.
This is not an expensive model. It costs $0.20 to list each item on Etsy, after which the platform receives his 6.5% of each sale. He rents someone else's Canva account, but the Pro version costs $120 per year.
Rivera's side hustle model is also simple. He starts with a photo of a candle with a blank label and adds phrases like “promotional scent” that are popular with other sellers on Canva. He then uploads the design to Etsy, and his linked Printify account sends the design to the manufacturer, who ships the final product directly to the customer.
Even when he travels, Rivera works less than an hour a day. When he's at home in Orlando, he says he spends at least one day a week and two hours researching trends on the platform.
The research phase takes time but is critical to success, Rivera says. He spends that time figuring out how to appeal to very specific groups: hockey moms, new parents who hate dirty diapers, bridal parties, divorcees, and people in long-distance relationships.
“Strictly speaking you don't have to work every day… you can [make this] “If you want, you can be passive all year round. You won't make as much money,” Rivera says.
Rivera said he is looking to expand his business and might use his tutoring expertise to create his own print-on-demand YouTube videos, but that would be expensive. He has to give up his free time and therefore some of his music and travel pursuits as well.
“There is value in time, value, and flexibility,” Rivera says. “If I could keep my current job, I would take a pay cut.” [with my free time]. ”
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