This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Today's story is a joyous one. It is an Etsy story with a twist, my favorite kind. I love a good story with a good twist. A dissatisfied accountant longs to do something different. And so at first she begins selling handmade items on Etsy as one does.
That's what you do on Etsy, right? It's a handcrafted marketplace. We've had lots of stories of people doing that. Nothing wrong with it at all. But then here's what's cool, the twist.
She finds a way to do something even better, discovering a way to use her financial skills, but in a different manner than she does for work, which is often a good clue to your side hustle, and in a way that serves a unique market. And of course she does this while getting paid because it's a side hustle, not a charity or a hobby. Even though other people can benefit and it can be fun, side hustle can be all those things and also profitable. So what are we talking about? Well, basically she sells spreadsheets, not at the seashore, but on Etsy.
She sells spreadsheets on Etsy, perhaps not as a literature there, but much better business model. She was burned out being a CPA, so she turned to this Etsy business. Her spreadsheets help Etsy sellers and help her earn a six-figure income. That's right, it's not small money. As I said, it is a joyous story.
I think you're gonna like it. Accountant earns six figures selling spreadsheets. That story right after this. [Music]
The fluorescent lights, grueling schedule and endless calculations of being a CPA for international tax was sucking the life out of Janet LeBlanc's soul. She knew something had to change, but she didn't know what it was or how she would do it.
The first change occurred when she left her job to work for a corporate office where she'd have more free time to explore her interests and be with her husband. As a big fan of handmade jewelry from Etsy, Janet had always wanted to give the craft a try for herself and now she had more time. She first opened her own Etsy store for handmade jewelry, Lazy Owl Boutique. A few months and a couple hundred sales later, she was selling at craft fairs across Houston. It was a pretty good gig, but when Janet had her first child, the limitations became clear.
Every product required making, taking pictures, posting listings and eventually a trip to the post office. It was a lot of work for a small profit. And even though she left her corporate job to be a mom, she still needed something a little less hands-on. And that's when Janet had her next idea. You see, so many sellers lamented their struggles with taxes and keeping up with all the money stuff.
What if Janet leveraged her accounting knowledge to create spreadsheets that would empower makers and sellers to run their businesses more efficiently? No, she didn't want that. Wait, what? Accounting seemed boring and lifeless to her, even if it was a good idea. She simply wouldn't go back.
She said she wouldn't dirty her creative business with numbers, columns and equations. So she pivoted to another idea, dropshipping. The next door, paper and spark, didn't carry handmade jewelry. It dropshipped journals and office supplies. Janet taught herself Photoshop.
She designed several physical products and had orders automatically fulfilled by a print-on-demand supplier. It was less upfront work and she enjoyed the creative part, but something was still missing. She just couldn't let go of the spreadsheet idea. It really was perfect. She had the precise skills and knowledge that so many makers needed to organize their business finances.
And she knew she could monetize it by selling those spreadsheets, where else, on Etsy. Finally, Janet succumbed to her inner voice and began crafting tax, sales and inventory spreadsheets. She also created some video tutorials that she would send to customers to help them use their products right out of the digital box. Startup costs were minimal. She needed website hosting, a $50 theme for her WordPress site, another $100 on video editing software.
That was pretty much it. She released her new product line on the paper and spark store, and also on her new site, and then left them alone with no marketing whatsoever in the beginning. To Janet's surprise, she made a few sales over the next few weeks from organic search traffic on Etsy. Turned out people were willing to spend $35 on a spreadsheet, but it wasn't only a nice looking spreadsheet, it was a simple solution to a difficult problem. Fired up by those first few sales, Janet started investing time into marketing.
It began by answering questions in Facebook groups about taxes and bookkeeping, and eventually involved into writing blog posts about the most frequent questions. When she started sharing those blog posts on Pinterest, that's when the traffic started flowing consistently. By the end of the year, Janet had earned just over $10,000 from selling spreadsheets. It was working and it got better. By early the following year, she was selling multiple spreadsheets per day.
Etsy sellers were starting to think and stress about taxes, and her products were far more simple and affordable than the big accounting software. So she kept up with the marketing, made new products, and provided great customer service. That turned out to be a tremendous year. Her total sales almost surpassed her previous salary as a CPA, most orders coming from word of mouth referrals and organic traffic. Oh, and she also had a second child.
Fast forward two more years, paper and Spark surpassed the six-figure milestone, allowing Janet's husband to exit his full-time job as well. The family is savoring their newfound freedom by spending lots of time taking their kids on adventures across town, across the country. And meanwhile, Janet hasn't stopped looking forward. She's planning some new courses, new digital tools, perhaps live teaching events at conferences, maybe even a book. No matter which direction she goes, she's just grateful she found a way to mesh her passion with her skills in a way that empowers others.
It's pretty much a dream come true, perhaps the only good dream to ever come from an Excel spreadsheet. I loved working on this story when we first recorded it many years ago. It was fun to go back and do it again. And I also love this quote I found from our original research notes. Janet said, "I had to get honest with myself and knew that what really made me unique as a maker was actually my background as an accountant.
As someone with experience in both fields, I could bring something special and really something needed to the table." And so I think that is such a great clue for people trying to find their side hustle. Think about a world that you can bridge, or two worlds, right? So here you have the world of makers, people making and selling stuff on Etsy, and then the world of being an accountant and dealing with those logistical tax bookkeeping, accounting, et cetera, issues. Might there be something that you are an expert in where you understand the language and vocabulary and culture of one world and can bring a skill from another world to it? Sometimes it takes a while to find that answer, but it's worth it.
Like it is worth the time of exploration. So I'll leave you with that today. And of course, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Thanks so much for tuning in today. This was episode 3,259 of the podcast.
I'll be back again tomorrow. You can subscribe or follow wherever you get your shows. It's always completely free. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
