This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello and welcome. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School once again. Really exciting story today. Now we have talked before, briefly, about a program called Fulfilled by Amazon. And back on episode 19, I told you the story of a government analyst who built a six figure hustle that he operates while continuing to work his job.
And this project has also allowed him to fly around the world first class with his wife because of all the miles and points he earns from the items he purchases to resell. So he's got a great thing going. Well, there's another Amazon.com platform that you can begin on with no experience, no inventory, no investment, and no risk. It's called Merch by Amazon, M-E-R-C-H, and it allows you to sell T-shirt designs to Amazon's entire customer base. So today you'll hear about a former corporate employee from Ireland who used this platform to make more than $50,000 last year, including a big month in December that contributed $17,000 in net profit to that number.
Now this is a really interesting case study that you may want to pay attention to because it features a new business model we haven't looked at before, a new platform, and a number of helpful lessons. [Music]
Four years ago, Elaine Henney had a corporate office job in Dublin, but she was dissatisfied with it. She wanted to strike out on her own, and she did in several different ways. First, she started and later sold an app development company. As part of this endeavor, she also wrote a book called App Escape Plan and became a speaker and consultant.
Then she started another business using Fulfilled by Amazon, but it's her latest project using a new platform from Amazon.com that I want to tell you about today. Elaine has been quite successful with multiple projects, but she calls this one the easiest and most fun business she's ever run. She says that you can start this business for free, there are no inventory costs, and there's no customer service. It's a no risk, no cost side hustle that can generate a significant income. Now, those are a lot of attractive sounding benefits, but you might also be skeptical, so let's slow down a bit.
This new platform is Amazon.com's print-on-demand service called Merch by Amazon. It allows you to upload your own T-shirt designs for sale throughout Amazon's entire ecosystem of hundreds of millions of customers. And whenever your shirts are sold, Amazon screen prints them and ships them. So just like the live crickets you heard about last week, you never have to touch them. Elaine began this project with an experiment a bit over a year ago in February 2016.
She created 25 simple designs on her computer and uploaded them for free to the Merch by Amazon website. Her profit for the first week was $49.84. Now, she was pretty happy about that $49. And if you've ever had any kind of side hustle, you probably know why. It wasn't just about making 50 bucks, it was the fact that she had zero costs and took no risk and presumably could go on to replicate the success many times over.
That experience proved to her, or at least suggested, that if she could make $50 with 25 quick designs and no advertising, then it was just a question of scale and publishing more designs. Throughout the year, she continued uploading designs, refining her process, and getting better and better at understanding what sold well on the platform. By midsummer, she was regularly making several thousand dollars a month from it. December 2016 was her biggest month of all. In that month, she sold $39,508 worth of t-shirts and her net profit was $17,629.
Interestingly, for much of that month, she was traveling and not working a lot, at least not actively uploading designs. She was in Spain, then back in Ireland, then in New York for a film festival, and then in Austin, Texas for a business conference. She also took a week off over Christmas and still saw this biggest revenue month ever. Now, to be fair, it's a huge retail month. That's when a ton of shopping takes place, but still, she was obviously set up well for a huge success.
Her total Merch by Amazon t-shirt sales over the 10 months starting the end of February up to the end of December 2016 was $128,295. And her total profit in those 10 months on Merch by Amazon is over $53,000. Now, obviously this is fantastic, but it's not been without its challenges. When selling t-shirts on Amazon, because it's been so successful for people like Elaine, there is a huge problem with copycats. If you put all your T's up under one brand name, the copycats can find them on the page, download them with some kind of automated bot software, and then upload exact copies with the same software.
I'm not sure why Amazon hasn't fixed that or done something to stop it, but at least for the year that Elaine has been active, it's definitely been a big issue. So now what she does and other successful Merch sellers, she doesn't just sell under one brand name, she has a bunch of different names. And so if one of those copycats finds her shirts, they might see three or four designs, but they won't see all of the others, and presumably the market won't be flooded by these copycats who essentially just take what she's designed. So Elaine is very naturally gonna continue experimenting, growing this hustle to see how far she can take it before things even out, and it becomes difficult to achieve successes like $17,000 in a month by uploading T-shirt designs when you're not even a fashion designer. But for now, nice work if you can get it.
Congratulations, Elaine. [Music]
So I wanna make sure you understand what's different about this platform and why Elaine has been able to be so successful with it. It's actually been totally possible to design your own T-shirts and sell them using print-on-demand for a while. I actually have another totally separate unrelated story coming up of someone who does this with Facebook ads and has also been successful. Different process, similar product.
But what's different here is that people who use print-on-demand services like Cafe Press or Teespring, which you may have seen, are rarely successful because there is no organic traffic going to those listings. People who are successful on those platforms are able to drive traffic to those listings. So it's not just a matter of designing something and putting it up, if you build it, they will come. They usually won't come, at least on the other print-on-demand services. But again, the difference, imagine if you could do the same thing only instead of you being responsible for bringing potential buyers, you're automatically exposed to Amazon.com's marketplace of approximately 200 plus million active customers.
That's what's happened with Merch by Amazon and that's why it's been so good for people like Elaine. Now, usually what happens with these kinds of things is it doesn't stay this good forever because obviously more people start doing it, competition becomes a much more real factor, eventually the market becomes saturated and more efficient. But still, so far she's made $50,000. So it's not just a small thing, it's actually a huge success. Now, when a new program starts like this, there are often a lot of inefficiencies, things tend to change pretty quickly, the requirements change.
So at the time of this recording, if you look at the Merch by Amazon page, which I'll link up in the show notes, of course, it says it's by invitation only, but it also doesn't appear to be too difficult to get an invitation. I just linked my personal Amazon.com account and the next day it was approved and I was immediately able to download Photoshop and Illustrator files. So obviously your experience may be different. I don't wanna suggest that you can go and make $17,000 in a month doing the same thing that Elaine did. But as you know, I love to highlight interesting stories like this on the show so that you understand what's possible.
And as you use the power of observation, which I mentioned yesterday, maybe you'll find something like this too. Now, status of school listeners, as always, remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. If you wanna see the show notes for today's episode, we'll include more info on Elaine, links to other print-on-demand sites, anything else we couldn't fit in the episode, just go to sidehustleschool.com/55. I am greatly enjoying making this show for you. I hope you like it.
I hope it's helpful. I hope it kicks-tarts some thinking for you. And I hope to see you tomorrow. I'm Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
