Hi guys,
My plan with this thread is to document my progress as well as to hold myself accountable to make meaningful progress. And hopefully it will be valuable for some of you as well!
A little backstory:
2019
I founded my company back in 2019 as a complete side hustle/passion project. At that time, I didn't know how I wanted my professional life to look like (I was on parental leave back then). I just knew that I didn't want to go back to my corporate job as a chemist since it was so draining and completely exhausted me.
The first business idea that I had was to dye yarns myself using natural dyes and selling them on Etsy. At the same time, I also started to design knitting patterns and sell them as pdfs.
I soon realized that
1. the knitting pattern designer market is very crowded and the amount of work it takes to publish a knitting pattern is very intense and doesn't seem to be worth it (unless you are one of the top 10 designers in the knitting world). After publishing 6 patterns, I decided to stop designing.
2. while I do enjoy dyeing yarn and the process is scalable to a certain extent, there is only so much yarn I can dye in a week. It also requires a good amount of physical work. And if I bump up the production, I need a place to store the inventory.
I am also still not sure if Etsy is the best platform to sell my yarns. While they make the payment and listing of products very convenient, the fees are rather high. As is the competition.
2020
Then the pandemic happened and I pivoted for a couple of months to sew face masks and sell them on Etsy. This worked really well and I got a ton of sales before fabric face masks weren't allowed to be used anymore.
2021 & 2022
In 2021, I decided to start a blog and teach others about natural yarn dyeing. My initial plan was to scale the website up to a point where I could earn passive income in the form of affiliates. For a long time, I was opposed to putting ads on my blog because my content is geared towards a simple, non-consumer lifestlye. However, I think that this year is going to be the year where I do start putting ads on my webiste in order to make the business profitable.
I also started growing an email list immediately and it slowly gained subscribers. The turning point for my newsletter came in October 2023 when I created two valuable lead magnets. This resulted in a more rapid growth and my newsletter now has 1.500 subscriber (see screenshot below).
I consistently published blog posts and grew the blog to 10-15k visitors per month (mainly through SEO optimization and Pinterest).
2023
In September of 2023 I finally took the plunge and published my first ebook. Although I have had the idea for this ebook for a long time, it took me quite some time to muster the courage to publish ist. I am not sure why, but I am always hestitant to ask someone to pay for my work - maybe because I was providing free information through the blog posts for such a long time. In general, this seems to be my biggest internal struggle when it comes to my business.
The feedback for the ebook has been absolutely amazing. The launch was very successful and I consistently sell about 5 ebooks every month.
2024
This brings me to this year where I decided to start selling more digital products, namely online courses and ebooks.
To teach myself how to create high quality videos I started a YouTube channel in February and commited to publishing at least one video a week for at least six months.
The channel currently sits at around 1k subscribers and 2.400 watch hours. I am not yet monitized because you need 4.000 watch hours in order to become a YouTube partner.
Similar to the ebook creation last year, I think that the idea for my first online course idea is valuable and will work well for my audience. But for some reason I struggle to consistently work on the course creation and focus on the videos for YouTube instead.
However, I am committed to finish the video creation for the online course in Q3 of this year!
Oh, I almost forgot: I also launched a paid newsletter at the beginning of this year. So far it only has a handful of subscribers but it is bringing in consistent income each month.
So, that's where I am at. I would love to hear your thoughts and get some feedback if you think that I am on the right track.
Thanks for reading!
My plan with this thread is to document my progress as well as to hold myself accountable to make meaningful progress. And hopefully it will be valuable for some of you as well!
A little backstory:
2019
I founded my company back in 2019 as a complete side hustle/passion project. At that time, I didn't know how I wanted my professional life to look like (I was on parental leave back then). I just knew that I didn't want to go back to my corporate job as a chemist since it was so draining and completely exhausted me.
The first business idea that I had was to dye yarns myself using natural dyes and selling them on Etsy. At the same time, I also started to design knitting patterns and sell them as pdfs.
I soon realized that
1. the knitting pattern designer market is very crowded and the amount of work it takes to publish a knitting pattern is very intense and doesn't seem to be worth it (unless you are one of the top 10 designers in the knitting world). After publishing 6 patterns, I decided to stop designing.
2. while I do enjoy dyeing yarn and the process is scalable to a certain extent, there is only so much yarn I can dye in a week. It also requires a good amount of physical work. And if I bump up the production, I need a place to store the inventory.
I am also still not sure if Etsy is the best platform to sell my yarns. While they make the payment and listing of products very convenient, the fees are rather high. As is the competition.
2020
Then the pandemic happened and I pivoted for a couple of months to sew face masks and sell them on Etsy. This worked really well and I got a ton of sales before fabric face masks weren't allowed to be used anymore.
2021 & 2022
In 2021, I decided to start a blog and teach others about natural yarn dyeing. My initial plan was to scale the website up to a point where I could earn passive income in the form of affiliates. For a long time, I was opposed to putting ads on my blog because my content is geared towards a simple, non-consumer lifestlye. However, I think that this year is going to be the year where I do start putting ads on my webiste in order to make the business profitable.
I also started growing an email list immediately and it slowly gained subscribers. The turning point for my newsletter came in October 2023 when I created two valuable lead magnets. This resulted in a more rapid growth and my newsletter now has 1.500 subscriber (see screenshot below).
I consistently published blog posts and grew the blog to 10-15k visitors per month (mainly through SEO optimization and Pinterest).
2023
In September of 2023 I finally took the plunge and published my first ebook. Although I have had the idea for this ebook for a long time, it took me quite some time to muster the courage to publish ist. I am not sure why, but I am always hestitant to ask someone to pay for my work - maybe because I was providing free information through the blog posts for such a long time. In general, this seems to be my biggest internal struggle when it comes to my business.
The feedback for the ebook has been absolutely amazing. The launch was very successful and I consistently sell about 5 ebooks every month.
2024
This brings me to this year where I decided to start selling more digital products, namely online courses and ebooks.
To teach myself how to create high quality videos I started a YouTube channel in February and commited to publishing at least one video a week for at least six months.
The channel currently sits at around 1k subscribers and 2.400 watch hours. I am not yet monitized because you need 4.000 watch hours in order to become a YouTube partner.
Similar to the ebook creation last year, I think that the idea for my first online course idea is valuable and will work well for my audience. But for some reason I struggle to consistently work on the course creation and focus on the videos for YouTube instead.
However, I am committed to finish the video creation for the online course in Q3 of this year!
Oh, I almost forgot: I also launched a paid newsletter at the beginning of this year. So far it only has a handful of subscribers but it is bringing in consistent income each month.
So, that's where I am at. I would love to hear your thoughts and get some feedback if you think that I am on the right track.
Thanks for reading!
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