← Built Online
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- [00:01]
Alina
It's just social search engine optimization. You create good titles, good tags, and you put a beautiful design up on a really specific mockup because mock up should is your first selling point. Like, that's what people see with their eyes. And as you said, like, little tweaks go a long way. So zooming in to like an exact like sweet spot, choosing a great color combo with the T shirt and the print itself. Because a lot of times people love like a single print, a single color prints. And if you choose a really sweet combination, like red print on a pink shirt that's been trending, it's a beautiful combination. Or white on a dark green T shirt. And there are a lot of beautiful combinations, purple and green, yellow and orange. Like there are. There are a lot of them if you decide to go monochrome.
- [01:08]
Cody McGuffey
Welcome back to the Built Online podcast where we talk about all things online business, from e commerce to digital marketing to building your dream life and your dream business. I'm your host, Cody McGuffey and if you've been with us for a while, you might remember us as the Etsy seller podcast. Well, we're expanding, expanding our horizons and transitioning from just talking about Etsy businesses to covering all types of online businesses.
- [01:34]
Because we believe the opportunity is so.
- [01:36]
Massive that we should be covering so many unique businesses online and at ever be. We believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to pursue their passions, live life on their own terms. And we believe in making e commerce accessible to everyone in the world, no matter where they are, and be using it to make a positive impact in our families and in our communities. We believe that anyone who truly commits to something truly pursues it with undeniable.
- [02:01]
Force of will that they will succeed.
- [02:04]
Let's jump in to today's show.
- [02:05]
Alina, what's up? How are you?
- [02:09]
Alina
Very good. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here among ever be listeners. It's a big honor.
- [02:21]
Cody McGuffey
Thank you. I'm seriously so happy that you're here and we've already chatted a little bit, but I want to confirm, do you go by Alina? Do you go by bb? What do you prefer to go by?
- [02:31]
Alina
I go by Alina. That sounds good. And you have a great pronunciation of my name.
- [02:36]
Cody McGuffey
Nice. Okay, cool. Where are you? Where are you located?
- [02:41]
Alina
I'm in Brooklyn, New York.
- [02:44]
Cody McGuffey
Nice. Okay. Are you from there originally?
- [02:49]
Alina
No, I live here for about eight years. I came originally from Russia back in 2016.
- [02:58]
Cody McGuffey
Awesome.
- [02:58]
Alina
So on my way on becoming true New Yorker in two years.
- [03:03]
Cody McGuffey
Wow. Well, I'm excited to have you on again. Thank you for coming on Alina. You have, you have a very. I want to hear more about your personal story leads into the business story because I think it's all connected. But to start with some high level facts, I just wanted to make sure that I have these properly so have these correct. So correct me if I'm wrong, but you started your Etsy shop about at least this Etsy shop about a month, a year and a half ago. Does that sound correct?
- [03:31]
Alina
Uh, almost one year ago, like in August 2023, I started this main shop that we're going to talk about today called Watermelon Mox. Yes. And I think 1st of August.
- [03:44]
Cody McGuffey
Okay. So I have the correct data in front of me. It sounds like. Talk to me about revenue, just. And then we'll dive into, we'll kind of work backwards. But tell me about revenue. How's the success been in a one year?
- [03:56]
Alina
Uh, it's been crazy because I originally started it just as a secondary shop to all my pod endeavors and I thought, okay, I'm gonna make maybe $500 on a back burner. It's gonna be nice to support some of my, I don't know, small expenses, like pocket money. And then it scaled so quickly from $500 to now we're making like five figures a month. And it's, it tells me that we strike the nerve with the audience. And what was working for me because I originally started taking mock ups just for my own shop. It actually resonated with the rest of the community and from there I just started to scale what was working. So it's been crazy. So, so first month it's like tripled, then quadrupled and now we're making over $20,000 a month. It's a pretty, pretty cool journey with the smock up shop. Never thought something like that would happen with my just like a secondary business.
- [05:11]
Cody McGuffey
Wow. 20,000 plus per month. And revenue. We're talking revenue here. But it's also, you mentioned mockup shop. So that means that are they all digital? Completely digital products, all digital.
- [05:24]
Alina
So the profit margin is around 85%.
- [05:30]
Cody McGuffey
Wow. And you also know your numbers. That's crazy. How much total revenue in that one.
- [05:36]
Alina
Year in this entire.
- [05:40]
Cody McGuffey
All the shop.
- [05:41]
Alina
I need to, I need to look at it, but I think around 200 or 250,000.
- [05:46]
Cody McGuffey
Wow. You know, I want to kind of dig into this a little bit because so many people are listening to this and they're like, they want that they. And they also don't believe that it's totally possible. Can you maybe give us a glimpse into your mindset with this meaning, like how are you feeling about this? Is this something that you always knew you're capable of? Is this something that you had doubts and all of a sudden it kind of like evolved into. Now you're confident about making this 20,000, 30,000 doll a month. What does that feel like?
- [06:22]
Alina
It feels great. But I haven't really processed and accepted the fact this is how much this shop is making every month. I feel like it's going to go away somehow. And with Etsy it's possible. We all know that it's a tricky platform with really like a one side conversation, like a one way street conversation. You can only talk to them. They don't really talk to to you back. I was really excited because I thought that my pod shops and this one would be more like 80, 20 in terms of revenue. Like my pod business will make me 80% and this is 20. And I think by now they're already making the same amount because they still haven't abandoned my pod shop that still generates some revenue. Obviously I don't want to reveal what shop it is because it's kind of like became a theme of pod sellers not to share it because it really hurts you when you do. But I think the success secret for the watermelon mocks was in the fact that I am the seller myself and I always knew what I was lacking in other mockups that were out there. And I wanted to bring this like extra easiness into creating mockups because I was always a numbers person. I wanted to put as many designs out as possible, which really requires a lot of time creating mockups. So for me it was really important to make it as easy to use as possible with the least shadows, with the least folds, only natural lighting, variety of colors, only true colors, never Photoshop. And I saw originally how my shop was succeeding from changing the mock up mockups from the flat lace that used to be a thing a couple of years ago into a real model mockups with particular lighting and simplicity fit like all these things.
- [08:40]
Cody McGuffey
Yeah, it's interesting because you bring very, a very unique perspective to this niche. And so you already mentioned water watermelon mocks. Do you want, can we talk about more about that shop? And I think it's actually very, it could be very helpful for everyone listening to this because a lot of sellers that listen to this right now are pod sellers. So we can talk about mockup. You know, the do's the don'ts the some of the tips and tricks. Because my understanding is that with mockups, it's very subtle. Tweaks can make a big impact to your conversion rate. And so maybe we can dive into that. But before we do that, can we talk about your background as a professional that kind of led you into being so good at this craft? Because I think it's very relevant here.
- [09:27]
Alina
I come from a background of architecture specifically. I was an urban designer and I moved to New York for work. I was designing public spaces all over the US and the world. And my job allowed me to travel a ton. And it was a dream job for somebody, but not me. I was always looking for other outlets on how I can, I don't know, apply my creative skills that were there. And even though the job itself was really, really fulfilling, it was a non profit organization, but I still wanted some freedom and also financial freedom because as you can imagine nonprofits, they pay as they sound. There's no profit there. So when I was looking for something to start, like a small business or maybe some craftsman related stuff on Etsy, I originally thought of creating stickers and buying this like sticker machine, like doing everything with my own hands. Until I stumbled upon some educational videos on YouTube that there's this new thing called pod that Etsy expands to.
- [10:46]
Cody McGuffey
How many years ago was this?
- [10:48]
Alina
2020. Beginning of 2021. I think it was like in the midst of the pandemic. Yeah. And originally my design background really was hurting me because as I always tell the sellers now that they should strip their design ego from it. And actually if you're a designer, it's harder for you to create T shirt designs because you think you know better. While some people that don't come from design background, they just take the market prompts as is. So that's what all designers should do. They just should forget about what they think is good and try to search what the market thinks is good, what people are searching for. Because creating demand yourself is impossible unless you're Kanye west or something. You cannot create demand. You can only find demand that is unsatisfied, preferably, and create beautiful design.
- [11:52]
Cody McGuffey
How do you, how do you do that? How do you find demand?
- [11:58]
Alina
Originally, when I just started, I only knew of Erank. I was using that. Then a beautiful app of yours was created called Everbee. And it became even easier to research for that. Basically spending every day, starting every day on Etsy, search and finding what's trending, finding if it's something small that you can make big Creating your mental archive following all these other aesthetic related companies like what's their name, Urban Outfitters or Zara or hm. Seeing what's, what's up, what people are, what people are buying. Even though with big retailers it's tricky, they're usually are too late for the game. Etsy is way more on the wave of like there's a pulse on hand, on the pulse for all these new trends.
- [12:58]
Cody McGuffey
So if it's because people, because there's like individual people, right. It's because like individual sellers are like jumping on trends quickly and whereas the big box retailers, they are, they can't do that, they shouldn't do that because it's too much risk.
- [13:11]
Alina
But for you it takes them usually around six months as I know to from an idea to implementation. So we can see it in the shop. So and for us it takes about 15 minutes at best to just see something on TV, hear something at a debate, put a quote on a T shirt and put it up, pay 20 cents for it. And that's how you test your ideas. So originally yeah I was just testing and testing and first designs really sucked and then once I came across this niche combinations which I think is still the biggest money making tool on Etsy, just you take one big category of things, second category and third, maybe combine them all together and then you're going to be appealing.
- [14:08]
Cody McGuffey
I want to know more about this. What is the niche combination? And I think everybody is wondering, okay, what does Elina mean here with this? How do you do this using ever be and then using this big category like can you walk us through that step by step if possible?
- [14:22]
Alina
Yeah. For example, there is a big holiday coming up, Halloween and if you try to create Halloween designs you probably are not going to be able to rank unless somehow you like really I don't know. Algorithm would pick you but most likely you won't. So a great tool to use in order to be able to rank is to cross niche big holiday with some smaller niches. For example pickleball was really big this and last year and someone who drinks coffee or someone who's a teacher. And then you put a couple of these together like teacher who loves pickleball, who likes to drink coffee, who celebrates Halloween. You put it all together in a nice way and then you can be seen by first four more audiences and chances are there's going to be a person who is all those things. Obviously you shouldn't be cross niching like 5, 10 things and it's extreme me mentioning 4 niches but even showing like a pickleball, lava and Halloween inspired designs together. That could already be.
- [15:43]
Cody McGuffey
I could totally see that. That's very logical to me. I could totally, 1000% see that if someone plays pickleball, if they're in the U.S. they're going to celebrate Halloween. Very likely. If they're in the U.S. their chances are like pickleball, they understand what pickleball is or they know someone that plays pickleball. Everyone knows somebody that plays pickleball now in the US and so yeah, it totally makes sense. And you said the ideal is 3 or the ideal is 2.
- [16:09]
Alina
I would usually start with the 2. And then once something is working and something got picked up by the algorithm and you had a couple of sales, first rule, spread it to every possible piece of garment you can think of. And something else may also spark the spark interest. But also you can add a third element on top of it later on. And if it's, if it's not really holiday related, if it's a teacher and the pickleball and the coffee lover, let's say these can live throughout the year. And no matter what evergreen niche you add, and by evergreen niche, I mean the ones that are not really tied to a season or holiday, you can keep adding it or removing something and see what element really works or not. And another niche in there can be a design, an aesthetic itself. Last year and actually this year as well, like retro designs are really, really booming than like cocktail club designs or only college letters. Like all these aesthetics, they're kind of a niche themselves. Like people buy anything that is written with a college fund, no matter what it says. If it's your hometown, if it says pickleball, if it says new mom or I don't know, Etsy seller, I have.
- [17:44]
Cody McGuffey
A question for that. How does somebody stay. So let's say someone is a brand new seller, they don't understand the trends. Like Alina, you have a lot of experience now at this point where you understand what's on trend. Like you, you mentioned the retro letters, you mentioned the college font. What if someone doesn't know that those are trending right now? For example, me, right. I don't tend to stay really on top of trends. My first question would be for you is how do you know those are trending? Like, how do you like what tells you that other than you just see it online and you just make that assumption that it's trending? Or what would you say to somebody like me who doesn't follow trends that well and I want to though.
- [18:22]
Alina
Yeah, I think the best thing you can do is to start following it and Etsy will give you all the answers first. So spending a lot of time on search, searching women's shirts, sweatshirts for women, gifts, stickers, like all these different elements on Etsy will give you a lot of answers as well as Pinterest is really good for that. Twitter trending, Google trends, like as deep as you want to go. But honestly, just Etsy search is enough just to build this mental archive of seeing something over and over and over again. You're going to start noticing it even more. It's like with numbers, I don't know, if you see 11:11, you're gonna start seeing 11:11 all the time. So I think also there is something about human psychology that is familiar, means safe. So people love seeing the same design over and over again, kind of strengthening the trend. The same with a song. You know when you heard a song and you didn't even like it, it was like to pop, pop for you. And then you keep hearing it over and over again and next thing you know you start to sing along. So I think with designs and with trends, it's the same. Okay, I'm not a big fan of this, like cartoonish retro designs for myself, but the more I looked at them and the more I designed them, I kind of became a big fan of it because it's just so interesting. Common.
- [20:04]
Cody McGuffey
Do you use ever be? I know you do use ever be to like validate with revenue or how do you typically validate these trends? I'm sure you obviously pay attention to them. So step one, pay attention to them on Etsy Search on Pinterest and just you're, you know, using your, your intuition. But then do you actually go and like validate with revenue? You mentioned your numbers person, so I'm assuming that you do some sort of. You're looking at the data somehow, right?
- [20:29]
Alina
Yeah, I, I definitely look at the data on ever be, but I don't know how to look at the entire trend. I don't think it exists right with the specific listings. I love to see a listing that's sold 20, 30 times that only exists for a month. That's the best listing. If you see a listing that exists for half a year and sold 800 times, maybe you could be too late for the game. Especially if you are new and you don't know how to we stop.
- [21:01]
Cody McGuffey
That's a, that's actually very cool. Golden nugget. So you would say one month or less and total sales of you said.
- [21:11]
Alina
30, 20 plus, you see that in one month if someone made traction like that and if it's not something that is going to die out soon, like a presidential debate quote, something that is longer lasting or something that is very neutral I think to me yes, a great indicator on ever be is that you can see that they're really new a month or two month old algorithm already like them, people like them, people purchase and if you go on the shop itself and you see that they made a total of 200 sales or 500 sales means that they're very small and they figured it out, they understood what is trending. It's not only the big shops who can do it. Like there is a myth that only big shops are recognized by the algorithm and then they push all the products that you come up with. That's not true. So finding some small shops that have a small designs that all of a sudden boomed and trying to create not even your version of it, but trying to learn from it, see what was working for them, what design they use, what esthetics. Don't just take the same concept and copy it. Just bring the same concept to an extremely opposite niche. Something that has nothing to do with them but change the text, change the font, change as much as you can. Just only like extract the most important things that were working. And it could be different from every listing.
- [22:59]
Cody McGuffey
Alina, how many for your print on demand shop? How many sales do you have in there? And then revenue, I think you already mentioned it's over five figures for that shop as well. And revenue. Can you talk about that shop a little bit? Just like high level numbers.
- [23:15]
Alina
I have over 20,000 sales and it's a very holiday driven shop. Like my biggest month is a fourth quarter. Although sometimes I manage to hit the ever be or ever be evergreen niches as well. Which is really nice.
- [23:38]
Cody McGuffey
And that's about a year. That's about a year old as well.
- [23:42]
Alina
No, that one is a couple of years old. But it took me some time to figure it out.
- [23:47]
Cody McGuffey
It took a couple of years profit margins on that because I know that you're a numbers person. Typical problem.
- [23:53]
Alina
Yeah, or between 30 and 40%. I try to keep it high because I don't use Etsy ads on that shop. I know it's crazy but every time I tried I succeeded way more with no ads. With just relying on the design and SEO.
- [24:13]
Cody McGuffey
Couple rapid fire questions on this specific topic. How many listings do you have in that shop?
- [24:18]
Alina
Approximately I think over 2000, 2000 listings.
- [24:22]
Cody McGuffey
And then do you list every. Every week or every day? Or is it like you don't really list as much anymore?
- [24:28]
Alina
I try to list about 100amonth.
- [24:32]
Cody McGuffey
100 months.
- [24:34]
Alina
I now have a designer that I collaborate with because I cannot do all the designs myself. And so I create these niches that I'd like to go after. And then we roll out designs. Not really on schedule, but I would say around 100amonth.
- [24:52]
Cody McGuffey
Perfect. And then do you do a niche or a general store? Or is it like a very specific type of audience for the entire shop?
- [24:58]
Alina
No, it's a general store. I have a couple of niches that, that I that like me, but generally it's a no niche store and I would recommend everyone do that.
- [25:12]
Cody McGuffey
Interesting. Okay, and then you said you already answered. This was you don't do Etsy ads for the shop. So the question is, how do you tend to be so successful? 20,000 sales. $20,000 a month in revenue. Plus how do you get ranked and.
- [25:26]
Alina
How do you get sales for the watermelon box?
- [25:30]
Cody McGuffey
No, the other one. The print on demand shop.
- [25:32]
Alina
For the pod for the print on demand. It's just social search engine optimization. You create good titles, good tags, and you put a beautiful design up on a really specific block up because mock up should is your first selling point. Like, that's what people see with their eyes. And as you said, like, little tweaks go a long way. So zooming in to like an exact, like, sweet spot, choosing a great color combo with the T shirt and the print itself. Because a lot of times people love like a single print, single color prints. And if you choose a really sweet combination, like red print on a pink shirt that's been trending, it's a beautiful combination. Or white on a dark green T shirt. And there are a lot of beautiful combinations, purple and green, yellow and orange. Like there are. There are a lot of them if you decide to go monochrome.
- [26:42]
Cody McGuffey
Interesting. Okay. For you, you mentioned. Okay, I want to talk about mockups in just a minute too, because that's actually very interesting. I think that would take a longer. You mentioned SEO optimization. Titles, tags. Do you use ever be for this as well? Or how do you typically play with the titles and the tags?
- [27:03]
Alina
100 I use ever be. I find competitors that sell something in the. One of the niches that I'm trying to target. Because as I said, I do niche combinations. And I go in there and there is a beautiful way to sort by demand by the amount of times each tag was clicked on. And I usually Build SEO from tags. Because on the tags and you can actually see the data and on the title. I don't think you do correct me if I'm wrong.
- [27:42]
Cody McGuffey
You're talking about in the Etsy dashboard, right.
- [27:47]
Alina
On Ever be. Yes.
- [27:49]
Cody McGuffey
Okay, walk me through that again. I think I missed that piece.
- [27:51]
Alina
Yeah. If I go inside of the listing that I really like from another seller, I can see their tags in a. In a sheet or in a table and I can sort by the most popular. My most popular tags on least popular. But I don't do that to the. To the title. Right?
- [28:12]
Cody McGuffey
That's correct. Yes.
- [28:13]
Alina
Right. So that's, that's how I tend to build titles from tags information on Ever be.
- [28:21]
Cody McGuffey
So how do you view that? So you. Okay, I'm sorry, you're gonna literally walk me through it.
- [28:27]
Alina
I disregard anything that is over I think 100,000 and I tend to go something that is below like 5 between 1000 and 5000. I don't know how is that column called monthly searches?
- [28:46]
Cody McGuffey
Maybe is it month like search monthly searches?
- [28:49]
Alina
Yes. Right. Search volume. So I try to find something that is not too high but not non existent like 65 searches. And I think these lower volume tags are key to my success.
- [29:06]
Cody McGuffey
Interesting. Do you actually use the competition. The competition column as a factor in there as well or the keyword score or do you not really pay attention to those?
- [29:18]
Alina
When I built SEO, I mostly care about that. Obviously also intuition because there's not always enough data, especially if you're going after something new. And if there are multiple niches, you should be able to fit everything in just 13 tags and whatever 146 characters in the title. That's not a lot of space.
- [29:43]
Cody McGuffey
That's super golden. I hope that anybody watching this like took notes and like re watches this because that's right there. That framework is obviously working for you. I mean 20,000 sales on one shop, 20,000 sales on another shop. Like you haven't just done this once and you're repeating to do this. Let's talk about mockups for a minute. Because there's a lot of print on demand sellers watching this. And even if you're not a print on demand seller, your handmade seller, whatever it is, you should understand mockups and walk me through like the perfect in your eyes, in your experience, the perfect main image first. Like so your Etsy search and you type in Halloween pickleball shirts. What's the ideal thing that somebody should see?
- [30:30]
Alina
I think before I answer this, I want to give a a little bit of data on why I started doing what I do because I was search searching for mock ups and I couldn't find something that was neutral enough for me to use. Like a lot of times it was very exciting and fun. People are smiling, there's a lot of color in the background. While sometimes I was going after niches that are more sad or about tragic events or about a disease that people like, a cause people would like to support. So I needed something more neutral and yet very classy. So in my shop I started to create these less smiley designs as well. Maybe because I'm Russian but like less smiles and sometimes neutral, no background something, nothing to distract you. And that was started, that's what was started to work in my pod shop that the conversion increased because I started to use these types of mock ups. And on Halloween, answering your Halloween search question I think data from my pod shop people 90% of people buy the color that you advertise on a thumbnail. Doesn't matter if you give 10 color options. People love buying what they see first. Very rarely I see people buying a secondary color even if you put the craziest color if it's green and it's not the most popular color. I also work with Printify with Printify's data to analyze what colors are trending each quarter I ask my success manager to give me data on colors and you can definitely trick this color's stats. I have bestseller designs that sell not the top 10 colors just because they put a mock up with that color first.
- [32:49]
Cody McGuffey
Wow, that's very interesting. I never have actually thought about that.
- [32:55]
Alina
Yeah. Even though everyone loves white, black and sport gray colors and navy sometimes people will buy beige, green, pink, light blue designs just because that's your first image and it works. It has to work obviously.
- [33:15]
Cody McGuffey
Interesting. What's next for before we go into like the rapid fire questions that I like to ask every single guest. What's next for you for your shop, for your shops, multiple shops for your business. What's next for you?
- [33:32]
Alina
Yeah, it's big. I have started to expand to everything and I already started on Walmart now allows Pogba Amazon merged by Amazon how do they are they called now they rebranded their name I forgot what to then I opened the Shopify store and on mockup site I'd like to expand into a little bit of an educational videos to my subscribers and to my current customers because we offer a whole shop bundle on our in our shop and I'd like to give like added value to those customers and create videos Explaining exactly what I showed you on how to best use it to show great examples of what I see in the community. Because when I search, when I do a search for my pod business, I see a lot of my mock ups with bestseller badges on it and used in such creative ways that you don't even recognize that it's your mockup. Because design and certain colors can definitely look like. Create like an illusion that the T shirt color is something else. I don't know how to explain it better, but it's a really big year for me, I think because I love that. Trying to too much. I. I just. I was pregnant the whole year, almost all of this year, and I recently gave birth and I call it digital nesting. When you have so much energy when you're pregnant, you want to do everything. So I was nesting but digitally. I started all these things at the same time. So now I need to.
- [35:23]
Cody McGuffey
Congrats on your baby. Boy or girl?
- [35:26]
Alina
Thank you. It's a girl.
- [35:28]
Cody McGuffey
Little girl.
- [35:28]
Alina
And that's why I have some.
- [35:31]
Cody McGuffey
Go ahead.
- [35:32]
Alina
Sorry. That's why I have some pregnancy mockups in my shop this year. But not too many because pregnancy is over. I only have one. That's my first.
- [35:44]
Cody McGuffey
Congrats. That's so awesome. I have two and then one on the way. Coming in December a couple months.
- [35:49]
Alina
Oh, beautiful. Another dragon baby. That was also a good niche to follow. There was a year of dragon. A lot of people are into horoscopes, so you're a dragon. Go for the next. The year. I don't remember what it is. I think maybe it's a mouse. But whatever it is, go after it. It's a beautiful niche.
- [36:14]
Cody McGuffey
I love it. Rapid fire questions. Feel free to answer these as quick as possible or you can take some time too. What's your favorite business book? Do you have one?
- [36:27]
Alina
I don't have one.
- [36:29]
Cody McGuffey
Anything that's.
- [36:35]
Alina
Working on it every single day.
- [36:38]
Cody McGuffey
Okay, that's not a book. Just to be clear. Just working on your business every single day, that's something that's helped you move forward.
- [36:44]
Alina
That sounds like a book I can read. Right?
- [36:46]
Cody McGuffey
Write the book. What's one thing that you wish you knew before starting your own business and creating your own business?
- [37:02]
Alina
Buying as much as possible of educational products early on. That would save you. That would have saved me so much time. Basically buying wisdom from other people. That is such a shortcut.
- [37:20]
Cody McGuffey
So like courses yourself. Like courses.
- [37:24]
Alina
Group watching free content. Watching free content. Utilizing research tools. Making all these data driven decisions instead of just relying on your intuition or Your gut.
- [37:40]
Cody McGuffey
What's the worst advice that you've ever received about business?
- [37:46]
Alina
Are you're too late for Etsy or Amazon?
- [37:50]
Cody McGuffey
That's such a good one. I haven't heard that one yet. Love this. How many hours do you think you work on your business per week?
- [38:01]
Alina
35.
- [38:04]
Cody McGuffey
And if your family and your friends and your customers all had to get together, okay, they'll get together. And they had to without you and they had to write like some sort of article about you or some sort of book about you, what are some things that they would say characterizing your traits? Like what? What do you think they would say about you? You had no approval on this by the way. Could be good, bad.
- [38:30]
Alina
They would definitely say I'm stubborn and loyal but really difficult. But funny. Definitely they would say that they have had a good laugh with me.
- [38:51]
Cody McGuffey
Would they say that you're creative too? I imagine it has to be a creative thing in there.
- [38:56]
Alina
Yeah. That I'm a doer. Like anything that I decide to put out creatively I just do. Like if I, if I want a painting on my wall, like I would be on the way to Michael's to buy a canva to just start doing something with it. Like I have a really and I think it's a good advice for all the sellers out there to have as short as possible time between deciding and doing it. Otherwise it's just gonna disappear. And among errands and life.
- [39:30]
Cody McGuffey
I really, really love that. Take action. That's basically what you do. You're an action taker. You just make a move as soon as you decide.
- [39:36]
Alina
Yeah.
- [39:37]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful. To wrap up. Where can people find you? What would you like to share with people? You can share your shop, you can share your socials, anything that you'd like to share. Where can people find more about you and learn more from you?
- [39:51]
Alina
I am gonna leave my email where people can write me anything. I would also love to extend some big promotion to your followers and leave a promo codes for my shop.
- [40:06]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful.
- [40:07]
Alina
For the mock up shop so everyone can benefit from it and just subscribe to our newsletters And I hope I'm going to put out way more educational free content just for you to be able to scale your business faster with our mockups.
- [40:28]
Cody McGuffey
I love that. Elena, thank you so much for this. It's been a pleasure to have you on. It's like already went 45 minutes. Already went, came and went like that. But I really appreciate you spending the time and sharing all this value with me personally selfishly and also for all of our listeners.
- [40:43]
Alina
Thank you so much for having me. I am very excited to listen back to it and. And be shocked why I didn't say this and why I. I was so.
- [40:55]
Cody McGuffey
Confused about it the way that is. That's. We don't like the sound of our own voice. Or at least I don't, personally, when I listen to my own. I almost don't even listen to our past episodes because I'm just, like. I cringe when I listen to it. But what are you gonna do?
- [41:08]
Alina
Yeah. True.
- [41:10]
Cody McGuffey
Awesome. Well, I'll see you really soon.
- [41:12]
Alina
See you.