side hustle

Hello Knitty Scores First T-Shirt Sales: Day 8

March 18, 2015 By Jeffrey Strain 5 Comments

After failing to sell a single T-shirt with my fist two designs (gluten free and paddleboarders) as part of my quest to earn $10,000 in my spare time challenge, I decided to change things up a bit. I have access to a facebook page with about 22,000 likes, and I had an idea I thought might resonate with the target audience. More than anything else, I wanted to know if my ideas were the issue for no sales with the previous T-shirts, or if it was my lack of Facebook marketing skills. I figured making a T-shirt design targeted at this group would give me an answer to that question.

The Facebook page was mainly frequented by Hello Kitty fans, and my idea was a parody. The parody was a Hello Kitty and Knitting combination mashup to create “Hello Knitty.” I felt this would appeal to Hello Kitty fans who loved to knit, and while not a huge group, they would likely be passionate about both. I sent this idea to Michael (@MindLightMedia) who I think did a wonderful job with the design:

I placed the design on Teechip, and it hit the right chord with a few of the fans. There were 8 T-shirts sold in the first two days, and I thought I was onto something. Knowing there were people out there who liked the design enough to purchase it, I set my sites on spending money on Facebook ads to get more sales. Since I never reached my $10 ad buy limit with the first two T-shirts, I decided no matter what I would spend at least $10 on this one. I ended up spending just over $13.00 on ads, but unfortunately, my marketing through Facebook didn’t yield any additional sales.

The lesson from this has been it’s my marketing which is the current problem in obtaining sales, not the ideas. It’s quite disappointing, and I know it’s time for me to go back to do more research on marketing so I can see if I can find where I’m going wrong. In the end, the campaign closed with 8 sales for a profit of $74.31 (77.31 – $3 = $74.31 — The $3 is $1 per shirt after 5 shirts that went to Michael, the designer)

That means after my first three T-shirt campaigns, I’m barely out of the red. While that’s better than being in the red, I will still have to make some major improvements if I am going to end up meeting the $10,000 goal.

Amount spent: $36.08 ($13.06 ad buy, $10 T-shirt design, $3 sales bonus)
Amount made: $77.31

Current total: $14.53

Second Attempt to Make Money with T-shirts: Day 7

March 17, 2015 By Jeffrey Strain Leave a Comment

At the same time I came out with the Gluten Free T-shirt idea as part of my attempt to earn $10,000 in my spare time using the T-shirt platforms Teechip and Teespring, I also came up with a T-shirt for stand up paddleboarders. I’m not sure exactly how I got to paddleboarding (I was searching all kinds of ideas and made my way to surfing, which eventually led me to paddleboarding), but I ended up seeing the quote, “Paddleboarders are stand up people.”

I decided to make it gender specific with the idea if it work with men, I could easily create another one specifically for women. I had Joseph M (another graphic design artists I hired off of Craigslist – his site and Facebook page) create the following “I’m a stand up type of a guy” T-shirt:

After uploading the design to Teechip, I again had high hopes the T-shirt would do well. I placed an ad up on Facebook with a $10.00 budget with the hope I could get my first sale(s). Once again, I was disappointed. These are the stats I saw in the morning:

The click through rate was far too low (under 1%) and the cost per click far too high ($0.48) for me to feel this would be a success. I stopped the campaign after only spending $1.90. I probably should have let it go a bit longer, but those stats were so much lower than the gluten free T-shirt stats, which I also stopped, that I couldn’t justify continuing it.

One main failure with this campaign was choosing a topic which I wasn’t extremely knowledgeable about. I’ve been paddleboarding before, but only a few times. I think taking chances on new areas like this makes sense, but it makes sense when I have a better marketing foundation with which to promote it. What I really should have done is spent some time talking to some friends who paddleboard a lot more than I do to get their opinion of what would have made a good T-shirt. Again, this isn’t to say this wouldn’t have worked, I think I simply jumped the gun in picking a topic I wasn’t as familiar with as I should have been.

What I did learn from the first two campaigns is I’m paying too much for each click with Facebook ads at the moment. I need to figure out a way to decrease this amount. I would ideally like to get clicks to a maximum of $0.10 a click, and preferably much lower. I think this will be the sweet spot to get 2 or more T-shirt sales for $10.

The failure to make any sales on my second attempt puts me further into the negative.

Amount spent: $11.90 ($1.90 ad buy and $10 T-shirt design)
Amount made: $0.00

Current total: -$26.70

Teechip Is a Better Option than Teespring for Beginners: Day 3

March 11, 2015 By Jeffrey Strain 28 Comments

In trying to get my first campaign together for the $10,000 in my spare time challenge, I ran across a mention of a newer T-shirt website which is similar to Teespring, but has some advantages for those just beginning to try to make money in this market. I spent some time checking it out, and as a beginner with a limited budget, I think I will be starting my first campaigns on Teechip rather than on Teespring (but you’ll still need to create a Teespring account which I’ll explain in an upcoming article).

There are some inherent financial risks for beginners who try to make money with Teespring. One of the biggest is in order for a campaign to go through (Teespring calls it “tipping a campaign”) so the T-shirts are actually sold, you have to meet the T-shirt quantity goal you set. For example, if I set my goal at 50 T-shirts, but only 25 are purchased, the campaign fails to “tip,” and the T-shirts are never made. While I don’t lose any money on the actual cost of the T-shirts, any money I spent on advertising and artwork is lost. The logical reaction to this is to set up quantity goals which require only a few T-shirts to be sold so the campaign “tips” and the T-shirts are produced.

While this sounds good, it comes at an earnings price. The fewer T-shirts I initially set as a goal, the less amount I’ll profit on each T-shirt sold. For example, if I were to set a goal of selling 10 T-shirts (3 color design) at $20 each, and I tipped that campaign, I would receive $6 for each shirt sold. If, however, I set a goal of 50 T-shirts, I would receive a profit of $10.85 for each sold if the campaign succeeded. A small initial goal means less profit for me. If I set a 10 T-shirt goal, but actually sold 50 T-shirts, I would earn $300 ($6 profit x 50 T-shirts). If I had set my initial goal at 50 T-shirts, and I sold 50, I would earn $542.50 ($10.85 profit x 50 T-shirts). That’s a $242.50 difference in earnings determined solely on making a good estimate of how many T-shirts will be sold.

The problem, of course, is if I set the initial goal at 50 T-shirts, but only sold 25 (or even 49), I would get $0 because the campaign wouldn’t tip, and the T-shirts wouldn’t get produced. In this case, I would lose money due to the artwork I paid for and the advertising I did to try and reach the goal.

As you can see above, it’s a sort of strategy game of picking the highest number of T-shirts you think you can sell without going over that number. For those who have a lot of experience, and who have done lot of campaigns, making this estimates is a bit easier. For someone completely new to this as I am, I have no idea, and my ignorance could end up costing me a lot of money as I try to learn better. The solution to this major Teespring issue for beginners has been solved with Teechip.

(Note: Basically for both websites, the goal number you set has little meaning when it comes to your shirts being printed, and it’s simply a tool for you to see how much you will earn if you meet it.)

While there are a number of small differences between the two sites, one is Teechip doesn’t require you to meet a goal in order to print the T-shirts. Teespring also doesn’t require you to meet your stated goal, but will only print shirts if enough are sold to be profitable. This is usually three, but can be as many as five depending on the product. With Teechip, even if only a single person buys a T-shirt, it will be printed, sent and you will earn some money.

Both websites also will credit volume discounts if you go beyond the goal number you set. Teespring initally only offered 75% of the volume discount if you underestimated the number of T-shirts you’d sell, but changed that to 100% at the end of last year. The company says this 100% bonus is “likely permanent.” This means with both sites, the more T-shirts you sell, the bigger profit you get from each one sold.

What this basically means for a beginner like me is I can reduce my financial risk a bit as I test whether or not I can make money from this. I don’t eliminate the risk completely, but there is less financial risk with Teechip than Teespring for beginners, since it begins paying as soon as the first T-shirt is sold.

Another difference is that Teechip pays higher margins per T-shirt than Teespring. This means when selling a T-shirt for the same amount, I will keep more money from Teechip than I will from Teespring. When beginning with a limited budget, getting paid from the first sale and the higher margins can mean I can launch more test T-shirt designs, therefore giving me a better chance to succeed since I have more opportunities to test with the same amount of money.

Below is a comparison of what I will earn from a 3 color design from both Teechip and Teespring:

# of T-shirts Sold	Teespring Profit	Teechip Profit
1	$0.00	$7.10
2	$0.00	$14.19
3	$0.00 – $5.25	$27.02
5	$26.25	$45.02
10	$60.00	$99.81
25	$240.00	$299.05
50	$542.50	$667.39

As you can see from the above table, for someone just starting out who may have a large number of campaigns which only sell a few T-shirts, Teechip makes a whole lot more sense from a financial perspective. With them, even if a campaign “fails” and I only get a few T-shirt sales, I will still end up breaking even (or even making a small amount) rather than getting nothing to a little as I would from Teespring. For example, if I have twenty of my planned fifty campaigns sell 3 T-shirts, and I pay $10 for artwork and $15 for advertising, the difference becomes clear. For those twenty campaigns I would have made a modest $40.40 with Teechip on those campaigns. With Teespring, those same twenty campaigns would leave me at -$395.00, and that’s assuming all the campaigns paid $5.25.

Also, if I do launch a campaign which does far better than I could anticipate and sells a lot of T-shirts, I get volume margins with Teechip whereas I would be making a much smaller set amount per T-shirt with Teespring. From a financial perspective with a limited budget and while I’m still learning, it makes financial sense to begin with Teechip where I will likely have a large number of campaigns where only 1 to 3 shirts are sold.

The major risk with Teechip is it’s a much newer and less established company than Teespring. While Teespring has established itself as company which will be around, there’s a larger risk of Teechip not being able to survive the competition in the long run. Still, this added risk seems to be worth it for the benefit of extending my budget so I can test more campaigns in these early stages so that I can hopefully reach my $10,000 goal in 100 days. Once I feel more comfortable in my understanding of how these campaigns work, I’ll reevaluate which of the two is a better choice.

Update: This article has been significantly changed with updated information emailed to me by Teespring which I misunderstood. Like I have said from the beginning, I’m going into this challenge with no head start on how this entire process works, and I’m learning along the way. While this will mean that I stumble through the learning process and make these types of mistakes, I hope it also shows what you would expect to have to go through if you, too, decide to attempt to make money as in this challenge. When I do make mistakes like I originally did in this article, I’ll do my best to correct the information as soon as I realize it’s wrong.

Make Money with Teespring: The $10,000 Extra Income in Spare Time Challenge

March 6, 2015 By Jeffrey Strain 5 Comments

Every now and again my sister and I get together, and the result is almost always her telling me that it’s impossible for me to do something. This, of course, brings about the automatic reaction that I can do whatever particular thing she says I can’t, and it leads to various challenges I’ve attempted over the years. It was through her prodding that I attempted to eat well on $1 a day for 100 days, as well as try to cook an entire Thanksgiving meal for six people for $1. Over the years, she’s learned when it comes to saving money, I can do a pretty decent job. With this in mind, she decided to switch it around and push my buttons on making money.

I recently wrote an article about whether or not Teespring is a legit company, and another one about a college student who made $80,000 in less than a year with their platform. I mentioned this to my sister because she’s the one with artistic talent in our family, and I thought it might be a good way for her to make some extra money in her spare time.

Sister: “Do you really think people can make money at this?”

Me: “Yes.”

Sister: “How much?”

Me: “I don’t know. I guess it would depend on how much time the person put into it.”

Sister: “How about someone just doing it in their spare time? Maybe a couple of hours a day, a little longer on weekends?”

Me: “I don’t know. Maybe $1000 to $2000 once they got going.”

Sister: “So you think you could make that much in your spare time?”

Me: “No, I didn’t say that…”

Sister: “Just as I figured. You suggest these things to others while you can’t do it yourself. That’s so typical of you.”

Me: “Wait a minute. I’m sure I can make some money doing this if I gave it a try.”

Sister: Laughs to herself as she rolls her eyes. “There is no possible way you can make money creating t shirts.”

Me: “And why is that?”

Sister: “Well, you have no artistic capabilities and you think Comic Sans is an acceptable font.”

Me: “Oh, come on, I’m not that bad…”

Sister: laughing to herself. “You’re the poster boy for the the inartistic in the world.”

Me: “I think I could do it…”

Sister: “Okay, then prove it to me. Make $10,000 in 100 days in your spare time.”

Me: “Wait a minute. I said I could make some money. I didn’t say I could make thousands a month.”

Sister: “Figures. Chickening out even before you try…”

Me: “I’m not chicken, I’m just being realistic. I’ve never done anything like this before and I readily admit I’m not the most artistic person in the world. I’m sure I could make a few hundred dollars.”

Sister: “There is a college sophomore who made $80,000. You’re saying you can’t even make a fraction of that? Just go ahead and admit it. I’m right. You can’t do it.”

Me: “Stop being ridiculous.”

Sister: “Either do it and prove me wrong or admit that I’m right and you can’t do it…”

And this is how I find myself attempting the Teespring $10,000 extra income in my spare time challenge. The rules are pretty simple:

1. I have to make $10,000 profit in 100 days.
2. I can only work on it during my spare time. That means I have to put in at least 8 hours a day on my writing and can’t work an entire day on the challenge. The exception is weekends when I’m free to work on it as much as I want.

I’m really not sure if I will succeed or not, but it should be a worthwhile way for others to learn from if they are interested in trying to make some extra cash with Teespring. I believe it will be an interesting experiment, and it should give a good indication of what will be required to be successful from the perspective of someone who is literally beginning from scratch in their attempt.

If nothing else, you’ll get to see my thought process as I tackle the challenge so you can possibly get ideas if you decide to try to create some Teespring campaigns yourself, and learn mistakes to avoid. I look forward to your comments, criticisms, helpful hints and opinions on this journey as I take on the challenge of once again proving my sister wrong.

Day 1: Upfront Costs
Day 2: Artwork When You’re Not Artistic
Day 3: Teechip vs Teepsring
Day 4 & 5: Free Audience Targeting Tool
Day 6: Gluten Free T-shirt
Day 7: Paddleboard T-shirt
Day 8: Hello Knitty T-shirt

How College Sophomore Marc Boulos Made $80000 with Teespring

February 18, 2015 By Jeffrey Strain 7 Comments

How a college sophomore made $80000 on Teespring

For those who are looking for ways to earn extra money in their spare time with little upfront costs, one opportunity out there which may be of interest is Teespring. This is a company which allows you to design T-shirts and try to sell them. The appealing part of the company is that you don’t have to pay for the T-shirts upfront, meaning if you don’t sell as many as you anticipate, you aren’t out any money. The question is, how difficult is it to make money with Teespring?

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.

Is Teespring Legit or Is Teespring a Scam?

February 14, 2015 By Jeffrey Strain 29 Comments

There are a lot of people who are looking to make money online, but there are so many money making scams out there that most look at any opportunity which appears it may be legit with some amount of skepticism. This isn’t a bad thing. Being skeptical can save you from wasting time and money. This skepticism is especially strong when there is a claim of what initially appears to be too good to be true, such as no upfront costs needed to begin the business. Teespring is one of these companies that almost seems too good to be true.

Is Teespring Legit?

The first question is whether or not Teespring is legit. The company has been around for a few years now, and has even produced a number of millionaires and hundreds of people making six figures according to Forbes. In order to ascertain if Teespring is legit, it’s important to understand how they make money.

How Teespring Works

Teespring is rather ingenious by making it a win-win situation for all. Instead of creating a design, paying a T Shirt company to create the T Shirts and then hoping you can sell all of them to make a profit, Teespring has you create a T Shirt and set a goal of how many T Shirts you will sell. The more you think you will sell, the more money you’ll make if you reach the goal. If you don’t reach the stated goal, then the T Shirts are never produced and no money ever changes hands.

This is how Teespring is able to not charge an upfront fee. If you don’t hit the stated sales goal, they don’t have to produce the shirts so they don’t lose money. If you do reach the stated sales goal, a profit for you and the company have already been factored in so they produce the shirts and are guaranteed a profit.

Is Teespring Safe?

There is no real financial risk to using Teespring, therefore making the company safe. Since you don’t need to give any upfront money when using Teespring, you aren’t risking losing your hard-earned money. The real investment is your time. If you create campaigns that don’t reach their sales goals, you don’t earn anything.

What are Teespring Risks?

The biggest risk is costs you may incur when creating and trying to sell the T shirts. If you pay someone to design a logo or other image (you don’t have to, you can do this on your own), you may lose these costs if you don’t ultimately sell the T shirts you have set as a goal. The same can be true if you spend money to try and promote the T shirts. This money is gone and you don’t get anything for your investment in the advertising if you don’t reach the T shirt sales goal.

You also have a slight risk with the number of T shirts you think you can sell. The more you place as your goal, the more you will make for each shirt sold. The problem is that if you don’t reach the goal, then you get nothing. For example, if you set a goal of 50 shirts and sell only 49, the shirts are never produced and you get nothing. If, however, your set the goal at 10 T shirts and sell 49, you would get paid a commision for all the sales since you met the goal, but that commision would be less than if you had said you could sell 40 T shirts. Attempting to accurately estimate how many T shirts you can sell without overestimating is important to get the most money for your efforts.

Is Teespring a Scam?

Teespring is definitely not a scam. It’s a legit business. There are some risks, so it’s important to understand how the company works so you know what you’re getting into, but it’s a legit opportunity to make money without having to pay any upfront costs. If you think you are creative enough to come up with some T shirt designs which you could sell to others, you may want to check out Teespring as a possible way to make some extra money in your spare time.

For how to make a success of selling this business as well as other side businesses check out these articles.

Building Facebook Pages for T-Shirts Sales
How to Mix Investing and Small-Business Ownership
Side Jobs to Grow Your Bank Account

(Image courtesy of Teespring)

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