Event Planner Writes Her Way Into Custom Calligraphy Shop

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

Can you start an online business with nothing more than a phone, not even a computer? I grew up in the world of desktop computers myself and then transitioned to working mostly on laptops, but I'm aware that a lot of people in younger generations are growing up in the world of mobile first, where phones are the primary devices. In fact, some people in some parts of the world may never actually work on a desktop or laptop computer, but they're able to do so much on their phone. I noticed that whenever I travel to Africa or much of Asia, not everybody has a computer, but just about everybody has a phone. So I thought this was pretty interesting.

In this story, an event planner writes her way into a custom calligraphy shop, starting with nothing more than her iPhone and one Instagram follower, which was herself from her personal account. But it grew. My friends encourage her to open an Etsy store and she ends up going even further, eventually quitting her job and publishing a book. This year, in fact, she earned around $200,000, but it all started with a love of doodling. Great story.

I really enjoyed working on this one. I will bring it to you after this message from our sponsor, Don't Go Anywhere. Megan Taylor has been a doodler and artist for as long as she can remember. When she was in middle school and would pass notes back and forth in class, she designed the slips of paper so they looked beautiful. The teacher would threaten to take the notes and read them to the class, but Megan would think, "Open it up and show it off.

I worked really hard on it." In high school, she painted the banner that the football players would run through every game day. Her lettering got better and better as time went on. Even her name had been chosen for aesthetic reasons, although the name is pronounced like Megan. It's spelled M-A-G-H-O-N because her mom thought it looked prettier like that. After graduating college, Megan got a job as an event planner.

One day, she decided to take a calligraphy class just for fun. After the class was over, she was on her way to a friend's house for a book club. So as a hospitality gift, she decided to write some typical Southern sayings on cards like "Hey y'all, bless your heart, love you lots, and thanks a bunch." Her friend loved them, and soon the other members of the book club were encouraging Megan to start an online store. The idea made good sense. Megan enjoyed doing calligraphy, and she could use a little extra cash.

At that point, she couldn't even afford Wi-Fi at her house. So she decided to go for it. That night, she started her new side hustle in bed on her iPhone 4. It began with an Instagram account that she called "All She Wrote Notes." A lot of other sellers named their shop after themselves, but Megan knew her name was difficult to spell and she wanted to make sure people could find a shop. That night, her Instagram account had only one follower, and it was herself from her personal account.

But soon after that, she opened up an Etsy store so she could officially start selling her cards. In the weeks that followed, Megan would post sets of cards for people to buy. She started with the Southern-style set that she gave to her friend and kept building from there. Just a couple of months after beginning, she decided to buy the domain name for All She Wrote Notes. She wanted to base her shop out of a website rather than just Etsy, at least ultimately.

She didn't want her customers to tell their friends they got their calligraphy off of Etsy. She wanted them to say they got it from her brand. And as time went on, Megan kept creating more products. While she was making a little extra money, she wondered about what other opportunities this new role could bring. One day, she was asked by a local membership club if she would teach a handwriting class.

And she instantly agreed. Megan says this was a dream she never knew she had. She was able to stand in front of a group of people who were stressed out from long days at work and help them to develop their creativity. Over the past few years, she's been able to grow her little Etsy shop into a full-fledged business. One day she was speaking and teaching at a women's conference and was approached by a publisher to ask about writing a book.

She had already self-published a 20-page workbook for her class and sold a thousand copies. That's what really motivated the publisher to invest in her. That book, Happy Hand Lettering, came out in 2017. And today, from this side hustle, which is now again a full-fledged business, Megan earns around $200,000 a year. About $110,000 comes from the All She Wrote Notes shop, which now includes t-shirts, mailbox decals, and mugs.

Another $65,000 comes from the hand lettering classes, which she travels around the country to teach, and the last $25,000 is an estimate of her book sales for the year. Megan is currently working on another book, but this time it's a children's story. Her long-term goal is to become this generation's Bob Ross with Happy Little Hand Lettering for Everyone. So here's a fun little side note story. I often ask people about their first sale, like what was the first time you made money with your side hustle.

I learned to do this just from traveling and doing events because people often have really great stories about what it felt like or just what happened the first time they noticed that they got a payment notification or signed a client or whatever. So in Megan's case, she's got a good one. She said, "I will never forget the day I got my first sale from someone that I didn't know. Over the first couple weeks of my business, I was mostly selling to Facebook friends, but then I opened my Etsy shop with one set of note cards like we talked about in the story. And that day, she was a spectator at a golf tournament.

She was actually watching golf on the 15th tee box where everybody is supposed to be really quiet. So your cell phone is definitely supposed to be on silent. Then all of a sudden she hears this loud cha-ching sound from her purse, which was, of course, the notification of a payment. So she pulls out her phone and still remembers to this day the name of the customer, where they were from, et cetera. And then she rushed home and wrote the cards, sent them out the next day and says, "That customer essentially changed my life because she gave me a taste of what would eventually become my future." And funny enough, this story made it back to the golf tournament organizers.

And so later, when she actually has a book out, they invite her back to come and do a book signing there at a future event. And she even gets to recreate her first sale right there on the course. So it's usually good to keep your cell phone on silent while you're watching golf or some other sport where everybody's supposed to be quiet, but in this case, it worked out just fine. All right. I hope you enjoyed that side note and the story itself.

Congratulations to Megan. She's doing really good work. We're going to link her up on the show notes page listeners. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. That notes page is at sidehustleschool.com/1047 episode 1047.

I'm so glad you're out there. I want you to have a success story like Megan's, like everyone else that we feature on the program. So always be thinking about your next step. All right. This is Chris Guillebeau.

This is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.