I want a side hustle that’s not digital marketing … is this a good idea?

[Hollyhollyhollyholly]

I have a good job that requires a lot of my energy , but I love it and my evenings and weekends are generally free.

I am in a lot of debt and I want to start clearing it. The only way to do that is to earn something on the side.

I have dabbled in the past with framed prints , a cricut making t shirts etc , but was all time consuming . Never made enough to need to declare .

I do think I have undiagnosed ADHD and I do get pretty obsessive once I have an idea and I have wasted money on hobbies and ‘ business ideas ‘ in the past .

I am a fan of a certain author and I saw a mug I wanted but no one seems to sell them in this country so it would cost me about £30. I also had this same issue with a character my son likes and had to order from abroad for Christmas . It then got me thinking about making mugs. I have a printer I could use for it , it would involve me buying a mug press for £139 ( my birthday is coming up so it can be sorted that way ! ) .

Do you think this could be viable? I’m not thinking millions but I am thinking I could buy the svg files from Etsy - about £3 each - and then sell mugs for the types of merch it’s hard to get in this country.

Or am I just being too ADHD right now ??

( side note the reason mugs have peaked my interest is because I did actually make about £700 one Christmas years ago just from selling mugs that I hand drew a very basic Christmas design and name on and filled with chocolates and this was all local pick up too - I think they’re small , cheap gifts and people are more willing to buy If it’s only £5! )

For a £139 initial outlay if you’re just hoping to make a little extra cash on the side every so often, it’s not the worst idea. I think that custom printed mugs is a reasonably saturated market - many places (including big names like Snappy Snaps, Vista Print etc) as well as Etsy sellers offer them so there’s a lot of competition and once you factor in buying the files, plus decent quality mugs, plus Etsy (or wherever) hosting and selling fees, plus postage and packing, the margins are tight.

You also need to be very careful about “merchandise” items, as most will be trademarked and can only legally be used by official retailers. The image / slogan files may be for sale, but unless those sellers have official authorisation to sell them (and most won’t) and you have authorisation to print with them (and you won’t) your store can be shut down at best and you can face legal action at worst.

Do you own a licence to print images or phrases that are probably covered by Intellectual Property laws?

You need to consider trademarks for anything that already exists as an idea.
If you made money on mugs before what about specializing in specific occasions and your own designs? Eg valentines, Easter, birthdays, anniversaries, etc ? Pets are also v popular eg dogs. So maybe someone pet portrait on a mug could be popular.

Rare breed dogs could be a good shout. My dog is fairly rare these days and I can’t find that many things with an image of her breed ( and especially colouring) on.

Yeah or cats. One of my cats has quite unusual markings on his face and I've never ever seen any products that have one that looks just like him. I guess loads of companies do ones where you send a photo.

Yeah I’ve got a few things with my actual dog on but they can be expensive, depending on what they are. My friend spent about £80 getting her dog’s face embroidered on a jumper! So if OP could offer cheaper generic options that look like rare breeds, it might be a winner.

This is your ADHD! You sound like my lovely friend (diagnosed ADHD). She’s forever coming up with business ideas, she puts her heart and soul into them, buys a whole load of equipment, then doesn’t make a profit within the first month and never touches it again. Her house is like a graveyard to her ADHD projects 🤣 (She knows this herself and finds it funny too, otherwise I wouldn’t joke about it).

Trademark and copyright will make this really risky.

I hear you and admire your entrepreneurial spirit (and definitely your desire to get debt free) but maybe go for something similar, without the legal high stakes.

I really do get it. I’ve had similar obsessions and also have similar financial pressures. It’s not easy.

Trademarks and copyright is not to be messed with. I've seen longstanding sellers on Etsy get stung. People report their competition for copyright infringement. Lots of sellers who aren't even your competition will report you. It doesn't mean an account ban, but it does cause issues. And certain businesses, authors, popstars (Taylor, Disney, I'm looking at you) have entire teams that go through Etsy and get listings pulled. Do not underestimate how far big companies, and rich people, will go to protect their trademark and IP.

I have a business which sells on Etsy, Ebay and has it's own website. I also sell in local shops. Etsy and Ebay are flooded - and not cheap to sell on. On my cheapest product (£8), Etsy takes about £1.50. So that's automatically, £1.50 of any profit gone. Once I factor in costs of that product, my profit on £8 is about £3. Hardly 'get rich quick.' You have to figure out where your pricing sits compared to what others are offering - and those who are bigger (i.e. me) can make these items for far less and can undercut your prices.

Etsy buyers are brutal and one bad review when you are starting out - which is entirely possible - will cripple your business before you even start. Etsy don't remove bad reviews. I had one recently that said 'didn't arrive on time'...yeah, because the nitwit ordered on 20th December as a Christmas present. Despite me reaching out and offering to refund, or to cancel so they could upgrade the postage (for £1 to ensure arrival!!!!) they said no...and still left a 1 star review which Etsy won't remove...even though it is 100% the buyers fault for being too stingy to upgrade their postage. That's fine for me. I have thousands of good reviews. A 1* review isn't a blip on my rating tbh, but it would be for you and it is for new sellers. So are you resiliant enough to bounce back when that happens?

You also need to be really mindful of doing it legally. Anything over £1K should be declared and I know people who have tried to hide their earnings and have ended up in a rather sticky situation.

More importantly, and I am hoping I am wrong here...but it slightly sounds like you plan on buying other peoples files to transplant them onto your own products to sell (assuming these are not copyright) that's just low. Don't do that.

This isn't a quick rich scheme. Having a business or 'side-hustle' that actually turns a profit is blood hard. It took a year for me to turn a profit and I spent well over £2K 'starting up' and learning my craft. If you're willing to commit, then go for it. But you need to be very clear about your niche, how much time you can commit, and where and how you want to sell.

Oh wow . Am I your friend ?? 🤣

That is me. I’ve actually made some beautiful things and then when I’ve got everything , done it , posted it and not made thousands in a month I give up.

Had a cricut , spent loads on vinyls and blanks and sold it after a few months .

Started a stationary business - got a book binder , spent hours and hours and made some lovely things , sold a few , got bored and gave all the stuff away.

Had a great idea to make communication aids for SEN learners , spent ages mocking them up … hours and hours , got a laminator and all the software then found out I would have to tell the company exactly what I would be making and selling to get a copyright license and couldn’t be bothered so gave up.

One year I spent loads on chocolate to make hampers and got bored so we just had loads of chocolate in the house.

Before I recently came across a mug press on tik tok I had loads of things in my Temu basket for my plan to make “ blind date with a book “ gifts , after making some for family.

But , honestly when I get an idea it’s overwhelming.

I have realised I need to also buy a sublimation printer so about £250 outlay and I absolutely can’t afford it but I am hovering over the “pay by PayPal installments “ button and can’t think of anything else 🤣

I will try to hold off until I’m back at work and hope I get distracted by something shiny and forget about it !

No , I would only do it with ones with permission to sell . I also have some design ideas myself . I’m not going to be stealing other peoples work.

I do have a full time job so I don’t know if I really can commit . I do think this is an undiagnosed ADHD issue here lol

@Hollyhollyhollyholly I think people have said whatever I would've said about trademarks and copyright

I'm really interested that you set up a stationery business though. What exactly did you do on a practical level? This is something I'd be interested in in theory, in practice I imagine it involves a huge amount of… Well, everything! Seems pretty overwhelming. So if you're okay to share, I'd be interested to hear what you did.

Honestly if you’ve had several ventures but not turned a profit - sit yourself down and work out how much you have actually banked after tax and expenses.

For a long-term buisness, you can expect to make a short- term loss and then recoup.

If all you are seeing is multiple short term expenditures showing no meaningful returns, then that is not a business. It’s a dopamine- seeking vehicle which is likely to sap your resources.

Also dont be fooled by the “succesful neurodiverse entrepreneur” trope. Those people are the absolute minority: most ND folk just want to get by like NT people. A rare few make money through their doggedness and niche interests.

Of course - it could likely be very successful for someone who could actually see it through !

I only used word . I created order books , appointment cards , diaries etc . I just had a bit of an idea in my head and made it from scratch- so like an intro page , then just a load of the same pages . The people I did it for sent me a logo for their business and I put that on each page . I took advantage of word and the things you can do - like for eg putting the logo a full page size under the text and making it quite transparent so you could just see it. I made some where I filled boxes with different gradients , looked up codes for colour palettes and used them and I will say I did make some really lovely things . I will try and add some photos.

To put them together , I used cardstock for the cover and the back along with clear plastic sheets then binded it all together with a spiral binding machine I got from Amazon for about £40.

I also made stickers with logos using sheets of sticker paper and business cards using templates .

I just set up a facebook page and went from there. That was one I do think could have really gone somewhere , but it was quite time consuming and it wasn’t really practical around a full time job and doing it from my dining table !

Tbh I wouldn’t be laughing. If you’re desperate for money, throwing it down the drain on another hare brained scheme is just stupid.

@Hollyhollyhollyholly thank you for sharing

And you did all that from home, I was thinking a big part of the hassle would be outsourcing the practicalities to others. May not be needed! Thanks, that's really interesting.

You need to consider demand for this item.

Low quality drinking mugs with a graphic on are a generic gift item that will be in demand at Christmas, and possibly with a small uplift for Valentine’s, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day etc.

You might do better to try and recreate what you did successfully for the Christmas mugs previously, but with other seasonal messaging?

Do you have time in the evening and don’t have to worry about childcare? If so consider evening care visits for disabled children. My dh had 2 hours of care for his dd when she was a child each evening to help with bedtime, it it was really hard to find carers, they eventually had 2 people who did every other day plus some weekends too. They paid £15 an hour back then so may be more allowed now from personal budget. No upfront costs, all training provided, dbs paid for too