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What It's About
A passion for watercolors leads to a familial shift in priorities.
Business Model
Arts & Crafts
Skills Required
Painting & Resourcefulness
Complexity
Low
Profit Potential
Medium
Words of Wisdom
Jane’s number one lesson, in both life and side hustling, is that moving slowly is better than standing still. Probably because, as a mom, she doesn’t have time to stand still. But, it was the incremental gains that showed her that some weeks may be more productive than others, success isn’t possible without the little steps to take you there.
Fun Fact
The marble slab that eventually became Michelangelo’s statue of David was originally cut 43 years beforehand for an artist named Agostino di Duccio. Agostino gave up on his sculpture and, 10 years later, another artist named Antonio Rossellino took a crack at sculpting it. He eventually gave up as well, which paved the way for Michelangelo to start working on his chiseled masterpiece in 1501. Persistence pays off!
Notes from Chris
Episode 557
Jane Du, an attorney from Dallas, has always had a passion for art. When she wasn’t studying for her electrical engineering degree, she could often be found absent-mindedly doodling on textbook pages or random sheets of paper. But it wasn’t until she found a set of oil paints and a canvas during a summer holiday that she began to look at her art more seriously. Not seriously enough to pursue it instead of engineering, and eventually law school, but enough to take classes and build her skills. Watercolors, live models, and acrylic paints soon filled her weekends, and her work started to grow. Once in a while, a friend or family member would ask to purchase a painting, but Jane still didn’t take her art seriously. She just did it because she loved the creative balance it offered when she wasn’t working on case briefs or depositions. When she started to take an online watercolor painting class in 2016, Jane created a Facebook page dedicated to her art so she could show off her work, without spamming her friends. Not only did her artist page help Jane track her progress over time, it also inspired her to combine different styles to create new art forms, too. It was after a calligraphy class in 2017 that Jane came up with the idea to combine calligraphy with watercolor paintings. Following a holiday to Hawaii with her family, she made a few postcards to send to her friends with scenes from the island. She also posted them online, and queries started to fill her inbox. Her other friends, the ones who weren’t graced with a watercolor-slash-calligraphy postcard, wanted to buy one of their own! That’s when she thought that creating cards and prints to sell wasn’t such a bad idea. A picture started to form in her mind… it would be easy to grow without taking up too much personal time, and she wouldn't have to part with the original prints! Even though she had the foundation for a side hustle in her head, she didn’t think about it too seriously until she had a baby in mid-2017. Her maternity leave gave her the time she needed to invest in building it out. She spent a week watching Youtube tutorials to learn how to create her Finn and Remy website and watched her side hustle come to life with a pre-launch sale that saw 12 orders come in during her first week. Since then, her orders have exponentially increased—and so has her passion. Jane has also added two children’s books to her roster of creative endeavors, and she's brought in around $15,000 since September of 2017. While Jane says they don’t have the same profit margins as her prints, she knows this is just the next step in her family’s big adventure. Her side hustle has inspired them to shift their focus from work to family and take a long trip abroad, starting in Mexico. While Jane doesn’t know where her side hustle, or next destination, will take them, she knows that her family’s priorities wouldn’t have realigned without the freedom she gained from her art.MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Finn and Remy: Head on over to Jane's website to see her full collection
- Shopify: Jane used Shopify to set up her site for Finn and Remy, and they're offering a 21-day trial and exclusive discount for all Side Hustle School listeners!
- South Carolina Transplant Creates Watercolor Stationery Brand: A new resident of Charleston, South Carolina pursues a passion for watercolor print design. She ends up creating a stationery brand of prints, cards, mugs, and notebooks inspired by the coastal lifestyle
- Cat Lover Creates Cat-tivating Portrait Series: A 21-year-old college student combines her obsession with pets and love for painting to pay her way through school with customized animal portraits
- Artist Turns Daily Commute Into $5,000/Month Side Hustle: A painter uses her love for her hometown and her last $100 to start a side hustle creating art that pays real money
Quote of the Day
"Just do it. Stop thinking about it and do it. The "doing" is a process and you'll learn much more from actions and feedback than from internal rumination."
—Jane Du #SideHustleSchool
