Anyone who has common sense knows that earning money is never as easy as those trying to sell you on their system make it out to believe. What’s difficult to decipher is what type of dedication it will take to earn the money that those promoting the system claim you can make. They only highlight the successes they’ve had, and never the failures. Anyone who has tried to start a new business knows there will be a learning curve and there’s no such thing as instantaneous success. The question of how steep the learning curve will be is one that can be difficult to ascertain.
That’s why those who think the Teespring model may be a good way for them to earn some side-business income should watch the interview with a college sophomore Marc Boulos (see below). He managed to earn $80,000 through Teespring over the last year only doing it part-time (he was a full time student), but some of the things he says in the interview might surprise you.
In his very first Teespring campaign, he had a small success, earning about $100 after expenses. That’s what encouraged him, but it wasn’t smooth sailing. He admits that after his first success, he launched 40 new campaigns, all of which failed to meet the number needed to get printed. Yes, you read that correctly. After one small success, he failed 40 times in a row where he didn’t earn any money. While he didn’t lose money for the T-shirts, he did spend about $10 for advertising on each campaign, so he was $300 ($400 in advertising costs minus the $100 in profit from the first campaign) in the hole after 41 campaigns.
That doesn’t sound like much of a success story. It sounds like someone who was learning a system, and trying to make adjustments with everything he learned from each campaign that failed. It was his 42nd campaign that finally did well and when he began to start making some good money.
Now, you might think that once he had a successful campaign, all was easy money from that point on. It wasn’t. Marc says that of the 500 T-shirt campaigns he’s launched with Teespring, only 80 of them have actually sold the minimum required and made money. He had 420 failed campaigns to only 80 successful ones, but the 16 percent which were successful earned him $80,000 for the year.
Understanding that those earning money with Teespring have had a learning curve to overcome and aren’t successful with every campaign (in fact, they are only successful in about one out of every 6 campaigns) gives a much more realistic view of what it will take to make money with Teespring. That said, there is an opportunity for people to earn money in their spare time if they put the time and effort into it.
The video is a bit long (35 minutes), but it is worthwhile watching if you think you may be interested in T-shirt design.
So how much of this is just plain luck? If he could only make 80 of the 500 campaigns he did be successful, what are the chances of someone new doing well? I guess not having to pay any upfront fees is a bonus, but there is always a risk with the advertising being wasted. This seems far from a sure thing.
Hey there Darren, it’s Marc (the one this article is about). Just like anything new in life you need to try and fail several times before you can attain any success. My first campaign was successful which is extremely unusual without any prior knowledge of internet marketing and without a fan base to start with. As of today I am actually a few thousand Dollars short of making 6 figures in less than 8 months and I am telling you that this isn’t something far fetched at all. Data gathered by the Teespring shows that the more you try the higher your chances of being successful are, and success on this platform is as simple as you wanting it bad enough. Was I discouraged when I failed 40 times after the first success? A little bit. But I didn’t give up nor did I doubt myself. However, if you really do wish to believe that this is far from a sure thing then I don’t encourage you to try it. You will not succeed with that outlook. But hey, I challenge you to prove me wrong 🙂
Regards,
Marc Boulos
With such a high failure to success rate, how much do you think someone would need to set aside for advertising before they would start making money? Is $100 enough? $500?
Also, is $10 enough in advertising on Facebook to know whether a campaign is going to be successful or not?
Also, 0% of it was “Plain luck”
Plain Luck ??? hahahaha thats crazy… 0% of intent is equal 0% of success or plain luck like you say Darren. so i believe that your very successful or your just complaining because your jealous that you dont have that “plain Luck”…. and you will never have it because you want something “SURE” hahaha good luck with that !!!
Teespring is not famous anymore as it used to be 1 or 2 years ago, although… you can still make some money selling t-shirts online, the only thing you need is to remember or do the basics like choosing the right niche and design.