CPA Earns Six-Figures Selling Spreadsheets to Etsy Sellers

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

Hello and welcome to a brand new week, and also, happier Labor Day. People have been celebrating Labor Day for years, since 1894 to be precise, but what exactly are we celebrating, especially in this day and age? Now, Labor Day was originally dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. Well, work has changed a bit in the past 124 years, at least for a lot of us. And this is Citusle School, my name is Chris Guillebeau, and here on this program, every single day, we are all about finding joy and doing something that matters to you, and the right kind of work, not just being something that you have to do, but something you get to do.

It's not your whole life, but it's an important part of your life. So this week on the Onward Project, of which Citusle School is an inaugural member, we are reclaiming or reimagining Labor Day as a happier Labor Day. Now this is the creation of my good friend and someone I respect and learn from often, Gretchen Rubin. I want to make sure you check out her podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, she's talking about this a lot. And if you like the idea of reclaiming or reimagining Labor Day, would you share your ideas about that?

Maybe some tips, maybe this episode, and if you do that, use the hashtag #HappierLaborDay, all one word. I'll be looking at everything that people post on all the socials. Now, today's story is also a joyous one, of course. It's an Etsy story, an Etsy selling story with a twist, my favorite kind of story. Now, in this story, a dissatisfied accountant, a CPA, longs to do something different.

So at first she begins selling handmade items on Etsy. Nothing wrong with that, and she has a little bit of success, but then 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, and in a way that serves a unique market. Oh, and of course, she does this while getting paid, because this isn't a charity or a hobby, even though other people can benefit and it can be fun. A side hustle, as we cover it every day on the show, is always a way to get paid. So lots of stuff in the mix there.

This is a great story. Stay tuned for those details. 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. Being an accountant had appeared to be the right path for her, but it checked all the right boxes, but Janet was still deeply unsatisfied with daily life.

The first big change occurred when she left her job to work for a corporate office where she'd have more free time to explore her interests. As a fan of handmade jewelry from Etsy, Janet had always wanted to give the craft a try for herself, and now she had time to. So towards the end of 2011, she opened her own Etsy store for handmade jewelry. It was called Lazy Al Boutique. A few months and a couple hundred sales later, she was selling at craft fairs across Houston, Texas.

It was a good gig, but when Janet had her first child in 2013, its limitations became clear. Every product required making, taking pictures, posting a listing, and eventually a trip to the post office. It was a lot of work for not a lot of profit, and even though she left her corporate job to be a mother, she still needed something a little less hands-on. That's when Janet had her next idea. So many Etsy sellers lamented their struggles with taxes and keeping up with the money stuff.

What if she leveraged her accounting knowledge to create spreadsheets that could empower makers and sellers to run their businesses efficiently? But wait, no, she didn't want that. Accounting was boring and lifeless, even if this was a good idea. She wouldn't go back. She was not going to muddy her creative business with numbers, columns, and equations, so she pivoted to another idea, dropshipping.

Janet's next store, this is side hustle number two, Paper and Spark didn't carry handmade jewelry, but it dropshipped journals and office supplies. Janet taught herself Photoshop, 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 that 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 on Etsy. Finally, in 2015, 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 box, the digital box, that is, because all they did was purchase and download. Between website hosting a $50 theme for her WordPress site and another $100 on video editing software, her startup costs were minimal. She released her new product line on the Paper and Spark store and her own site, and then left them alone with no marketing whatsoever in the beginning.

And to her surprise, over the next few weeks, she made a few sales from organic search traffic on Etsy. It turned out that people were willing to spend $35 on a spreadsheet, and that's because 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 began to invest time in marketing. It began by answering questions in Facebook groups about taxes and bookkeeping, and evolved into writing blog posts about the most frequent questions. And then when she started sharing those blog posts on Pinterest, that's when the traffic really started flowing in consistently.

But Janet wasn't done experimenting. She scheduled a webinar for Etsy bookkeeping, shared the date and time in those same Facebook groups, and got to work writing a script. That first webinar was a flop. As an introvert, she hated selling live over video, but fortunately that's not the end of that story, because she kept out the webinars, doing more, and slowly getting more confident with the idea, eventually uploading the finished product to YouTube. This brought in more traffic to her site, and eventually more sales.

By the end of 2015, Janet had earned just over $10,000 from selling spreadsheets. It was working, and it got better. In early 2016, Janet began selling multiple spreadsheets per day. Etsy sellers were beginning to think and stress about taxes, and her products were far more simple and affordable than the big accounting software. So she kept up the marketing, kept creating new products, and providing great customer service.

That was a tremendous year. Her total sales almost surpassed her previous salary as a CPA, with most orders just coming in from word of mouth. Oh, and she also had a second child. Fast forward a bit to 2018. That's the year I'm recording this.

Shout out to everybody in the future. The downloadable spreadsheet sales have surpassed the six-figure milestone, allowing Janet's husband to also exit his full-time job. The family is savoring their newfound freedom by spending lots of time taking their kids on adventures, some across town and some across the country. Meanwhile, Janet, just as eager as ever, hasn't stopped looking forward. She's planning some new courses, more digital tools, some live teaching events at conferences, and maybe even a book.

She's grateful she found a way to mesh her passion with her skills in a way that empowers others. In fact, it's pretty much a dream come true, perhaps the only good dream to ever come from a spreadsheet. Awesome, and once again, Happy Your Labor Day. I think this story well illustrates what I'm talking about in terms of the joy of work, of doing something that you find meaningful and fulfilling, but, you know, also getting paid through it. That's what I try to talk about every day in different ways.

And this kind of synergy, like what you find here in Janet's story, it really is the dream. And I think it's an obtainable dream. I think it's something that a lot of people can work toward. If you focus on what your skills are and how you could potentially transform or adapt those skills to serve people in a different way, as opposed to just serving them through a corporate environment or an organizational environment, what else could you do to help people and, again, get paid? Now, here's this great quote from Janet, which I think kind of delves into this a bit further.

She said, "For me, I had to get honest with myself, and I 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, more importantly, something much needed to the table. I could bridge the gap and help teach creatives how to do their books and feel good about it." So, you see, that's what I mean about the perfect synergy. She understands the world of makers, but she also realizes out of that whole world of makers, very few of them have any real skills in accounting or bookkeeping. And this is a tremendous need.

They're all stressing out about their taxes. They're all stressing out about all sorts of things related to that, especially as they get more and more successful. So, because she understands both worlds, she's able to serve them. And yes, of course, people will pay $35 for a spreadsheet, and they're not really paying for just a spreadsheet. They're paying for a solution to a big problem, something that is painful and difficult.

So, congratulations, Janet. Thank you for letting us share your story with our listeners. Perhaps we've got some Etsy sellers out there that could use one of those spreadsheets. We will link them up in the show notes page, of course. And listeners, if you'd like to share this episode or a tip or an idea, perhaps, about Happy Labor Day, just remember to use that hashtag, #happierlaboreday, all one word.

And don't forget, of course, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Those show notes are online at sidehustleschool.com/611. That is 6/11, episode 6/11. Guess what's coming up tomorrow? It's going to be episode 6/12, and it's going to be good, just like all the other ones to come.

So much more is on the way. Thank you for listening. I hope you're having a good week, wherever you are, whatever you're up to. Be sure you do something for yourself. Get a little bit closer to that freedom that is important to you.

And don't stop believing. All right, that's all from me. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.