08/14 Mindset Post · Merch Makers

08/14 Mindset Post

Happy Friday, everyone!

I know many of you are still getting adjusted to Skool, so if you have any questions or need help learning how to use it properly, feel free to reach out!

Today, I wanted to talk about the importance of not being afraid to fail or make mistakes - as long as you learn from them and continue improving.

When I first started Etsy POD, I had a store with around 500–600 sweatshirt listings, and I was only making 3–5 sales per week. I was spending a lot of money on Etsy Ads, subscriptions, and other expenses, but I wasn't seeing much of a return.

The product and niche weren't necessarily the problem. The biggest issue was how I was setting up my listings.

My mockups weren't good, my SEO wasn't targeting the customers most likely to purchase my products, and my pricing was way too high to compete with other sellers. On top of that, my designs weren't backed by much market research, so there wasn't enough proven demand for many of them in the first place.

Instead of giving up, I started binge-watching YouTube videos to understand why my listings weren't converting. I also analyzed 30+ successful stores selling similar products in the same niches and consistently generating significant sales.

That's when I realized just how much I was doing wrong. My designs didn't stand out, my mockups looked generic because I was using basic Printify mockups, and my SEO was terrible. Eventually, I decided to delete all of those listings and completely restart my store.

From there, I created a candle and mug store, but this time I made sure to do the research beforehand. I studied which mockups were converting, which niches had real demand, what SEO strategies were bringing in traffic, and how I could price my products competitively while still maintaining a healthy profit margin.

Instead of giving up after wasting hundreds of hours and a lot of money, I told myself I was going to figure it out.

If I had given up after that first store failed, I wouldn't be where I am today—teaching all of you the processes and specific details that can help you scale your stores faster while avoiding many of the mistakes I originally made.

You're going to make mistakes. Some ideas won't work. Some listings will flop. You might even spend time and money on something that goes nowhere.

What matters is what you do next.

Learn from it, figure out what went wrong, make the necessary changes, and keep moving forward.

If I can make it work, so can you.

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08/14 Mindset Post