This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello and greetings. Citusill School listeners, you are awesome. Welcome back, I'm Chris Guillebeau. Today I wanna show you an application of something that I've told you about in principle before. Several times on the show we've talked about starter platforms, websites you can use to get started immediately, maybe experiment a little, play a bit entrepreneurially.
Now one of those websites was Society Six, which allows artists, or presumably anyone, to upload designs where they can then be printed on demand on a variety of items, including mugs and iPhone cases. So today's story is about a Canadian artist who did exactly that and was able to add $1,000 a month to his income, almost entirely passively, since he doesn't handle any orders or do any shipping. Now I'll tell you about that right after this. [Music]
From Victoria, Canada on beautiful Vancouver Island, the artist Mark Johns creates and sells artwork all over the world. You may have seen his whimsical designs online or in shops.
A few years ago, Mark noticed he was getting lots of emails asking the same question. Where can I get an iPhone case with your artwork on it? At first his answer was a what? Because he didn't even own a smartphone. So this was a need he wasn't aware of himself.
He replied to say, I'm sorry, I don't sell anything like that. But as the request continued to arrive, he began to look into doing something about it. That search led him to a site called Society Six, a print on demand service focused on the arts community. Now the first thing that Mark noticed about this site was it looked really nice. And the quality of the finished products they produced and shipped out was very high, especially compared to some other print on demand sites which seemed very cluttered with questionable quality and allowed users to customize potentially hundreds of different items.
Now that might sound good, but Mark loved the simplicity and the focus of Society Six. He wasn't trying to put his design on beach balls and coolers and hand towels. He was just looking to meet that need that his fans were asking for. Now it's important to note that Mark already had his own shop using Shopify. He'd already been selling his own prints himself.
So why would he create a profile on this other platform? Well, in short, he didn't want to be in the business of making iPhone cases. It's just that his fans wanted to buy them. So if somebody else was able to easily make them, even if they kept most of the profit, why not? So Mark signed up with Society Six.
He added some artwork and he began to let people know that those long desired iPhone cases were now available for purchase. One thing he liked about the platform is that it pays you every month via PayPal, no matter how little money you make. Most other sites like this pay you after you've reached a minimum threshold, like $100, maybe $250. But with Society Six, if you only sell one thing and you make $2 in commissions, you'll get a $2 payment the following month. And Mark said for him, even as a successful artist, that was encouraging.
It felt good to sell something. It felt good to get that payment notification in his email. Now I see this experience many times in the world of side hustles. Making money, even two bucks, is not only encouraging, it's also empowering and motivating. The greatest thing about it is not the $2 payment.
It's the fact that you made this happen. And you know if you work at it a bit more, you can probably make more than $2. And that's how it was for Mark. After some experimentation, he now makes more than $1,000 a month from this additional channel of income. This happens almost entirely passively.
He's already uploaded his designs. There's very little maintenance. He doesn't do any shipping. He doesn't hold any inventory. And he continues to focus full time on his real career as an artist.
[Music]
So what can we learn from Mark's story? Well he says first of all, it's important to treat something like this like a side hustle. And don't try to make a full time income from it. Maybe it's best to actually see it as bonus money. And bonus money is different than your salary or something else that you're depending on.
'Cause if you rely on it, it gets stressful. But if it just shows up and you don't need it, that's pretty cool. This is also the kind of project where I don't think everyone should go out and start uploading designs for iPhone cases. Mark was responding to a need that people expressed to him. So he didn't manufacture this need.
He's providing something that people want. But the interesting thing is, he had no idea that people wanted it. And if you would ask him, he would say that's crazy, that's silly. Nobody wants my art on the back of their phone. In fact, he said before he started selling on Society6, he thought people would only be interested in art prints.
And he couldn't imagine his work on products at all. But the lesson he learned was to listen to your audience. Because you are not your audience. And with art in particular, I think, people want to experience it in different ways. Sure, they want to have that print on their wall.
But in some ways, having your iPhone case customized with someone's art is almost more valuable, more intimate, because it goes with you everywhere you go. And now lastly, to me, this story also illustrates another timeless principle of microentrepreneurship, which is that when you have one thing that's working, it's often possible to tweak it somehow to create additional income. Now that's exactly what Mark did here in this story, all for an extra thousand dollars a month that arrives passively. And it may not happen that way for you. But if you listen to these stories and you apply them to your hustle, you will see results.
As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. If you want to see the show notes for today's episode, including a link to Mark's site, as well as his Society Six page, where you can check out those iPhone case designs, just head to sidehustleschool.com/76. Thank you for listening. Remember, you are awesome. I'm Chris Guillebeau.
This is Site-of-School School. And I hope to see you tomorrow. [Music]
