This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
How I knew it was time to quit my side hustle. This is a really interesting segment we've got for you today. Interesting episode, I should say, in the segment known as Throwback Thursday. For this segment, we take a look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. In this case, the transition is quite dramatic.
We're gonna hear how a side hustler ran a profitable online stationary business for several years, but then made the difficult but deliberate and intentional and ultimately correct choice to shut it down. You know, your side hustle, the one you started with doesn't always need to be the one that you end with, right? So let's hear the story from Morgan. She's gonna tell us a little bit about how this business came to be. We first featured her, I think, more than a thousand episodes ago, several years, and she's made a big change.
So I think somebody out there needs to hear it because, as I said, it's okay to change, grow, evolve, transform, adapt, and so on. Let's hear how she did it. I'll have a few words to wrap up at the end, but let's pass the microphone to Morgan. [Music]
Hi, this is Morgan. When I opened my online stationary shop, I wasn't thinking long-term.
I just wanted a creative outlet. I loved designing notepads, planner inserts, and printable stickers, and selling them on Etsy seemed like a fun experiment. The experiment worked. Within a year, I was selling across multiple platforms, Etsy, Shopify, and eventually a few small wholesale accounts. My products landed in local boutiques, and I had regular customers who bought every new design I'd launched.
Financially, it was solid. I was making three to 5,000 per month in revenue with about 40% margins after materials, packaging, and platform fees. It wasn't a full-time salary, but it was a nice supplement to my day job. But here's what people don't always see. Behind the cute product photos and Instagram posts was a lot of invisible labor.
I was spending nights and weekends managing customer inquiries, updating listings, fulfilling wholesale orders, and prepping inventory. When a printer jammed or a supplier delayed a shipment, it was all on me. After five years, I hit a wall. I wasn't burned out in the dramatic crashing sense. I was just tired.
I realized I hadn't taken a real vacation in years because I was afraid of falling behind on orders. I also noticed I'd stopped enjoying the creative side. Designing new products felt like an obligation, not a joy. The final push came when I sat down one day and asked myself, "What's the goal here?" Was I trying to scale into a full-time business? Did I want to hire staff or invest in a studio space?
The honest answer was no. I didn't want to scale. I just didn't want to run it anymore. Shutting down was hard. I phased out products gradually, announced my decision to customers, and wrapped up open orders.
Financially, it wasn't a crisis. I had always kept the business debt-free, and I was still working my regular job. Emotionally, it was bittersweet. I felt relief, but I also grieved the version of myself but had been so excited about it in the beginning. [Music]
Morgan, thank you so much for sharing this.
I think people need to hear this story or hear more stories like it, understanding that sometimes embracing the bittersweet is the best answer for lots of things in life. But certainly when it comes to moving on from a side hustle that's no longer serving you, just because the business is working in some ways doesn't mean it is the right thing for you to keep doing, year after year. And Morgan said it best here. Quitting doesn't always mean failure. Sometimes it's recognizing when something new is on the way.
So I'm gonna leave you with that today, listeners. I think it's something for all of us to consider. Are we spending our time well? What do we want more of in our lives? What do we want less of?
That's a lot of what my book "Time Anxiety" is all about. I spent the past couple of years researching it because I wanted to make sure I was spending my time in whatever the right way was for me. I could say more about that, but I wanna respect your time today. We keep the episodes short, action-packed because they come out every single day, seven days a week, 3,100 episodes and counting. Thanks for being out there.
I appreciate you. More is on the way. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
