Here we will list all the steps we took, taking out all the mistakes, so you can get a sense of what it actually takes. This page will be a summary of the accounts, the products, the finances, everything you need to know. If you read just one page, this is it. Hopefully, one day it will be every step needed to start an online business.
Every Step Needed to Start an Online Business (As of Week 4)
- Decide who is your customer, animal lover, teacher, grandma, etc. Decide what you are selling.
- Decide if you want an active or passive shop. Do you want a company to take care of everything but you don’t control reviews, customer relationships and get less profit? Or, do you want to handle more of it and get more profit, but it takes more of your time?
- Buy a domain, get hosting, Etsy or Shopify
- Find Print on Demand company, the two big ones are Printful and Printify
- Drive traffic to your products or get organic traffic if on Etsy.
- Work on how to save time while you make money.
- Profit?
What We Did (As of Week 4)
- Researched various ideas, decided to go with Print on Demand.
- Got ahead of ourselves and purchased too many domains.
- Signed up for various accounts, a phone line and got to work making designs.
- We never thought Instagram disabling our account every time we signed up for one would even be an issue but it was and is.
- Signed up for Canva, created some finished products, uploaded designs to Printify and ordered samples!
- This took us four weeks but really could have been done in a week with a nice checklist or website.
- But, we were starting from scratch, our next business will be much more efficient!
- Also, started this blog to document the process but really so we wouldn’t forget anything we did.
Helpful Sites/People
- https://www.youtube.com/@alekSheffy
- https://www.youtube.com/@GregGottfried
- https://www.youtube.com/@dylanjahraus – Also, her podcast: Secrets of a Million Dollar Etsy Seller
- https://www.instagram.com/alisonjprince/ – Also, her podcast: How to Sell Online
- Printing Profits – A podcast by Printify that is amazing!
- Print on Demand Playbook – A podcast that you can also see on YouTube
The Accounts
Here are the Accounts we still use. You can find all of them, including the one we don’t use, over at The Accounts page.
- Amazon, Canva, ChatGPT, Credit Card, Discord, Dreamhost, Email, Etsy, FlossCross, GoDaddy, Google Analytics, Google Drive, Instagram, MidJourney, Paypal, Phone, Photopea, Shopify, WordPress
The Money
The Affiliates
Here are all the affiliates we use. You should assume every link here is an affiliate and gives use a kickback. If it isn’t, it’s an oversight and will be fixed soon. 🙂 That way our side hustles can have side hustles!
- Amazon – Useful for purchasing all kinds of business supplies!
The Products
None so far!