Conservation Scientist Designs & Sells Nonbinary Stickers

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

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Hey there, I've got a story for you today about a scientist who combines a love of art with a preference for non-binary narratives. Now this scientist actually founded this business on a whim, but it's really taken off. And the business is called Non-Binary Designs, kind of like non-binary. It offers amusing and affirming stickers that recognize the non-binary world. And so accordingly, today's featured case study uses the non-binary pronouns, they and them.

I'm gonna refer mostly to Sam, the founder and creator. Story is called Conservation Scientist Designs and Cells Non-Binary Stickers. I should say non-binary and awesome stickers because the designs are just so fun. But I'll tell you a bit about that and the business model, of course, in this short action-packed episode. Less than 10 minutes a day, story's coming right up.

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Today's featured side hustler has made their non-binary identity into part of their business. In 2019, conservation scientist, Sam Davis, started making machine-generated art with a now defunct program. Now here's a fun fact, when you make machine-generated art, or I guess when you tell the machine to make it, it tends to be pretty cool, but not perfect. In other words, that art usually needs some improvements by a real person. So Sam veered off into learning how to make their own cartoon characters.

From there, the process evolved into designing and selling stickers of their nerdy, queer, and wild art, as they call it. That's how they describe it, nerdy, queer, and wild. For instance, there's a magnet of a praying mantis that says strong female role models, and a sticker of a raccoon in front of a rainbow that says no gender, only trash. Like a trash panda, I assume. Sam figured it's a small enough niche that they could get some sales even without much marketing.

So to get started, Sam spent about $200 on paper, ink, and a machine for cutting out stickers. Then they headed out for their first foray into sales, a local pride event. The tent was in an awful location, Sam felt unprepared, and admits to being terrible at face-to-face customer service. Fortunately, Sam's husband was there, and he helped make the first few sales, and Sam also learned a lesson, always bring a friend. That first event was not a moneymaker, but it inspired Sam to keep going and start selling online.

Non-benary designs, a play on the word non-binary, launched as an Etsy shop in December 2019. The shop sells stickers, pins, and magnets. During 2020, Sam made about $4,000. Business was on hold a bit as they moved twice during that time. However, the extra money from the side hustle made it possible to move two adults and all their animals.

Sam, in fact, has 10 cats and three dogs, and they did those moves during the pandemic. For 2021, the income doubled, with a quarter of it coming from Etsy. They look forward to growing the business more in 2022. Now, as we've seen in other stories, one way Sam is doing that, growing the business, is by building up their own direct customer base to go around Etsy's fees. So if you want to be a customer, you get a free sticker offer with every Etsy order when signing up for emails on the website, and the email is appropriately called The Bee's Knees.

Now, stickers, magnets, and pins are low ticket items, but Sam sometimes gets large orders, which is always exciting. In fact, even after thousands of sales, Sam reports to us that every sale feels validating and special. Sam also says creating new designs is the single most important thing you can do in this business. Actually uploading them is second, but great SEO on Etsy has also helped, and they use a tool called eRank to guide their keyword choices. We'll link that up in the notes page.

Other marketing strategies haven't worked so well. For instance, chasing Instagram followers. Sam doesn't think Instagram has resulted in a single sale. A lot of their social media followers are friends who aren't actually customers, and Etsy ads haven't proven effective either. Sam is deep into the journey, and plans to stick with both their day job and the side hustle.

Stick with, like stickers, right? And the more they can automate, the more time they can focus on doing what they really love, which is creating new art. [Music]

Awesome, I really appreciate Sam sharing that story with us, and it was good practice for me to be able to work with different pronouns. If I got anything wrong there, the mistake is mine. We asked Sam, why do you do this, at least why this project, right?

Of all the things you could do. And Sam said, I mostly just draw these things because they make me happy or because they make me laugh. Possums are weirdly challenging to draw, and I love some of the art that has popped up around so-called trash creatures. I'm a millennial, so it's just squarely in my interests. Well, listeners, I encourage you to check out Sam's website.

Once again, it is non-beanery designs. We're gonna link it up in the notes page, of course. That page, what is it, sidehustleschool.com/1851. Last but not least, don't forget, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Hope that you hear these stories, they get you thinking about what you could do.

And I also hope you'll take that next step, even if it feels small. Thank you for tuning in today. I've got another episode coming out tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School.

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From the Onward Project.