Tall, Grande, Venti, or Mega-Jumbo?
The list of amazing advantages to an online business is a long one, but the following fact is one of my very favorites:
You can make it whatever size you want.
Tall
We’ll gracefully ignore the language choice or word meanings for Starbucks sizes. Let’s just run with the analogy and consider this equal to “small”.
A small handmade business can be a total blast, a creative outlet, and a “spare-time” entrepreneurial endeavor that puts a little bit of money in your pocket.
Chances are, if you love what you’re doing and put any marketing effort forth at all, you’ll be able to buy yourself quite a few Caramel Macchiatos each month.
Ingredients:
- Approx. 1 Dozen nice products that you love to make
- A selection of good quality photographs of your products
- An Etsy Shop to sell them from
- Social Media outlets to share them in (Facebook & Etsy work great)
- One hour daily working on promotions and sharing
- One hour daily making your products
- Takes about three months to get momentum
Grande
Not unlike the sales at Starbucks, Grande is a popular choice.
You want something you can really think of as a job, not a hobby with benefits. You need to do more than just buy yourself some beverage treats. Real bills need to be paid and you need to find a way to pay them!
Full-time isn’t an option due to another job or a house full of kids, or both! But you’ve got a great idea and you love to make something people will buy.
At this level you’ve got to step-up the marketing and you’re not going to get by with a dozen products. However, the benefits at this level can cover a car payment and even put some gas in the tank too.
Ingredients:
- Approx. 4 Dozen nice products that you love to make
- A selection of good quality photographs of your products
- An Etsy Shop to sell them from
- A topic-focused blog from where you can build a loyal following
- Social Media outlets to share them in (Facebook & Etsy work great)
- Two hours daily working on promotions and sharing
- 1-2 hours daily making your products
- Takes about six months of consistent effort to get to this level
Venti
Now we’re talking full-time job. This is taking your love of handmade, vintage, Etsy, online marketing, blogs, social media, and entrepreneurship to the next level.
This is FBO. (Facebook Official – Time to change your status!)
At this level, you’re a pro. Chances are you’ve found out some ways to diversify. You don’t have to earn every dollar just from sales on Etsy. There are lots of ways to diversify:
- Make money from your blog by selling advertising
- Create downloadable products such as eBooks, printables, audio and video
- Add a few dollars to your flow through affiliate marketing products you use
- Maybe offer services to others using the skills you’ve learned
And – sell – a ton – on Etsy!
At this level the rewards are pretty nice. You work from home at hours of your choosing. You can stop what you’re doing at 10 in the morning if the weather seems nice and you want to go for a walk. If the house is quiet at 10pm and you feel like putting a few hours in, go for it.
You are your own boss.
You can make a good living, depending on your standards. If you’re currently a cardiologist, you might want to think twice before going this route. But for most of us, the money is decent.
The catch? This doesn’t come easy. You have to want it bad.
Ingredients:
- Minimum of 100 nice products that you love to make (or vintage)
- A wide selection of professional quality photographs of your products
- An Etsy Shop to sell them from
- An advertising budget to bring in traffic
- Attention to detail in Product Descriptions, tags, and SEO
- An established topic-focused blog from where you have a loyal following
- Five or more Social Media outlets to share in. All established.
- Four hours daily working on promotions and sharing
- Four hours daily making/finding/inventing/packing/shipping your products
- Can take up to two years to get to this level, depending on time invested.
Mega-Jumbo
This is where I break from the Starbucks analogy. Because this is your own dream. Name it what you want. Invent it however you want to see it.
If you make it to the level of truly being full-time selling online, then the reality is this:
Nothing can stop you from going further. It’s your choice.
That’s the beauty of the Etsy centered business. You can make it whatever size you want it to be and there really is no upper limit.
Once you reach a certain level of skill and professionalism, and your brand is widely known, the options available to you open up beyond comprehension. You won’t even know how to choose which opportunity to pursue first.
So if Mega-Jumbo is your dream. All you need to do is look at the above ingredients and replace the last line with this one:
- Cooking time varies. You’ll know when you get there. Don’t give up. Don’t quit.
You can do this. At whatever level fits your life and your dream.
Isn’t that exciting!
Such an interesting perspective. Glad to see a resurrection of the etsypreneur blog. Any info from Tim and Kim – I’m there!
Tricia, you are so sweet! Thanks for checking out the new and improved site.
~Kim
As always, lot’s to think about all these great ideas.
I’m kind of stuck between Tall and Grande, but I’m enjoying the proccess and getting better at all of this,
I started out without much knowledge about the internet etc. so I had a lot to learn and still learning
with your help.
Signed up for etsypreneur blog, looking forward to your wisdom.
Hi Elly!
It sounds like you started with the about same amount of Internet knowledge as Kim and I – ZERO! When you say it’s a lot to learn, you aren’t kidding.
But isn’t it fun! It’s not easy, but it’s really very exciting. We’re so glad we can be helpful and I’m thankful to you for signing up for the daily emails.
You’ll hear from me in your in-box on Monday! Have a great weekend.
Tim
Awesome perspective on Etsy selling. I’m a Tall right now. But working a full time job and just wanting some extra spending money that’s fine with me. One day though it would be nice to grow into a Venti!
When you’re working a full-time job you really can’t beat finding a fun way to make extra spending money can you? Thanks for being here and I hope we can play a part in helping you grow when you want to!
I am definitely a TALL heading for a GRANDE. But some days i run on EMPTY. My problem, i spend hours creating custom orders then do not get to the computer to do the ‘important stuff’. Sip by sip i am getting there. …….great analogy and always needed information.
Hi Karen,
Your comment reminds me of how much time Kim spends making some orders. When she first started, I wasn’t the true believer I am now and I used to bust out my mental calculator to let her know just how much money she was making per hour! It’s a wonder she didn’t throw something at me!
What we realized over time was that online work was different. The work you do now for $3.00 an hour has a lasting value and each day builds upon the day before.
We also eventually figured out what items were profitable and what items were just too hard for the $$ we could get. We focused on the better ones and dropped the bad ones. We have a post on Everything Etsy about that: Improving Your Product Offering by Dropping the Stragglers
Thanks for your comment!
Tim
Make me a combo of Tall, Grande & Venti–half caf, decaf, room for cream!
Now there is a lady who knows what she wants!
That’s the beauty of it… made to order!
Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! LOL!
Loved the analogy! I’m still at the Tall level. So far I’m very happy with where I am. Some day I’d like to really amp it up though. Thanks for all your wisdom you share. I love reading your tips.
What an excellent article. I just opened my Etsy shop in November so I am defnitely small but I eventually want to be Grande. I get a lot of visitors but have only had four buyers. I have retaken my photos 3 or 4 times thinking that it might be the photos but that hasn’t helped. I am now concentrating on reaching out to buyers in my niche, hopefully that will work. Wish me luck! Thanks again for such an interesting article.
I’m almost grande and working toward venti. I spent some time on another site and learned a lot but that doesn’t help if no one knows you’re there. So here I am at etsy and hoping to carve out my corner of that world. I totally love this analogy. Everyone can identify.
Thank you! GREAT post! I’ve learned so much in my first year on Etsy, and your blog has been one of my
Go To resources.
I’m still a Tall, but hoping to make it to Grande this year. I’m currently juggling two jobs (until the end of tax season), so my biggest challenge right now is keeping new inventory in my Etsy shop to fill my cyber shelves.
LeAnn
I keep coming back and reading this post again and again, the ingredient lists are so helpful. I wonder if you could take a stab at how many weekly sales would be “usual” at each level. Thanks again!
Thank you Tim! This is such a great analogy and great to see from an expert what I should be doing at each level. I am a tall right now, but plan on getting taller every month
Enjoying all of your and Kim’s emails!
Wonderful article and so clear cut! I am a Tall working on a Grande. I would like to be a Venti, but I don’t want to screw up our tax returns. Sigh
Now that’s the spirit! I’m sure you can cross that bridge when you come to it. Although it really is kind of an odd truth that sometimes a few dollars extra from an entrepreneurial effort can cost a few thousand in taxes if you’re at the tipping point between two tax brackets. Thanks for your comment. – Tim
hmmm… very good information! I was surprised how much time you have to spend on promotion/sharing. It’s good to define what you want & know ‘what it looks like’ to get there!