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- [00:01]
Andreas Pistolelli
So the thing that I do is that I try to find common denominators within these listings. So what type of elements are selling well here? Like, are they using? Because usually, like the top selling listings are always super simple. So is it like, I talk a lot about these two fonts on my channel, but, like, is it the college fonts and the cursive fonts? Like, these are doing super well in several listings. Okay. We write this down in a, in a list so we can see that. Okay, these type of elements work super well.
- [00:27]
Cody McGuffey
Hey there and welcome back to the Built Online podcast where we talk about all things 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 because we believe the opportunity is so 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 force of will that they will succeed. Let's jump in to today's show. Andreas, how are you, man?
- [01:26]
Andreas Pistolelli
I'm good, man. I'm excited to be here.
- [01:28]
Cody McGuffey
I'm happy you're here too. Thanks for coming on and sharing your time with me. You have a very interesting story that I'm interested to learn more about, but also I'm very excited to share it with our audience. Thanks for coming on, man.
- [01:42]
Andreas Pistolelli
Thank you so much for having me, man. I've used every bee for a long time, so it feels very natural to be here.
- [01:49]
Cody McGuffey
That's so cool. For anyone that hasn't heard of, you know, who you are yet, maybe we can share with be a brief background history of where you got started and how'd you get here.
- [02:01]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, so mainly I'm a musician, so I've done many different things, but music has been like the focus of my life. And a couple years ago there was a guy who called me that really liked the music and when, like from that call, I kind of learned that you need a lot of. You need, like, you need to be able to swing like 5k for like a marketing strategy for music. And I was working at like, at like an optometry store at the time as kind of a clerk. And I just realized that I can't like be in the store and get that kind of capital to be able to do music just to take basically take my music to where I wanted to go. So I quit my job. A job. Say hi. I had some money saved out, so I quit that job. And then I tried many different things. So I tried. I had like a Facebook ad company, so a Facebook ad agency for artists at the side. But I kind of realized that I can't do anything that this time intensive to make this work. So I shut that down. I tried like fiverr and upwork that didn't really work. But then I kind of came across TikTok or I basically came. Came across a clip on TikTok where a guy talked about digital digital products on Etsy. So I tried that for. For a couple months and then I saw a video by the Laugh Life couple that almost everyone has seen basically. But yeah, I still tried my digital digital product endeavor for a couple months, but then I saw Cassie Johnson's video, like her video about her journey. So with that I contacted her and she really said to me, like, if you want to apply what they talk about, like, you should probably do pod. So I quit that digital product store and only focused on pud. And at this time, like, I. Money was kind of, kind of tight, so I really had to make things work. So I went just all in. Like, I listed 500 listings every single month from the start.
- [04:03]
Cody McGuffey
Wow.
- [04:04]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, I just put every hour that I had into the day into it. And I nagged Cassie to start a mentorship and she eventually did and she taught me like the foundations and basically everything. Like, she gave me like the groundwork. And the most important thing about Etsy, I learned that from her. And my first year was just super hard. I didn't earn that much, but I got the foundational, like, knowledge. And then there was an interview with. On Ryan Hogue's channel with Steven Chin where he talked about like something with. He talked about a launch strategy and like a pricing strategy that I haven't heard of. And that just blew my mind because his numbers wasn't like, to me, they were insane. So I revamped my whole shop after I heard that. Tried everything that he did. Some stuff didn't really work. Some stuff worked perfectly. The whole idea of it works perfectly. Just that the nuances. Since I do POD and He did stuff in house were a bit different, but apart from that, the whole thinking behind it was crucial to me. And that was the last puzzle piece that I needed to like make it click. Because from that point on I was making, instead of like making 10k, like 10k a month in revenue, I was then making 30 to 50k in revenue each month. And then this is apart from Q4 and then that, that same year, which, which now would be in 2023, I actually earned 100 more. Over 100k in revenue in both November and December.
- [05:38]
Cody McGuffey
Wow. In two months. In both. Both months, yeah.
- [05:41]
Andreas Pistolelli
So 100. So two, 200k basically in total, but 100k each separately. And then this year I've basically focused on the YouTube channel and some personal stuff. So I've tried to make my Etsy stuff as passive as possible. So. But even with that, I'm still like making 26. I've still made about 26k in revenue each and every month. And I've also raised my profit margins. So I've earned, I've earned about like 70 to 80k in profit. So I've earned more by doing less, which feels very neat.
- [06:11]
Cody McGuffey
Wow, man. First of all, congratulations.
- [06:13]
Andreas Pistolelli
Thank you so much.
- [06:15]
Cody McGuffey
Like, I, I mean that's insane. About how long ago did you start this journey?
- [06:20]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, just a couple years ago. And I mean, everything mainly started with Cassie when I, like when I was in her mentorship because that's when I got like the foundational like knowledge that I have today. So she gave me that.
- [06:33]
Cody McGuffey
That's powerful, man. And thanks for sharing that too. I think it's special when someone like gives credit to obviously like you did the work, you put in the effort, you took all the risk. Right, of course. But it's so cool to hear you kind of like give credit to like a few different people in that environment that kind of helped you, kind of helped you along to get to where you are today. And that's impressive. I mean, you're saying names that, that are good friends of mine. Right. We're talking Cassie, Steven and Ryan, like, I agree, like the top notch people. So the fact that you're sharing their name and kind of in your success story I think is powerful. It's really awesome.
- [07:06]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I mean like those three people have meant a lot to me. And I mean when you're in the grind and when you don't, like when you're just trying stuff out and you kind of notice that the stuff that they say actually work, I mean it just Just feels dishonest not to say that because those three people have helped me a lot and especially Kathy since she gave me the foundation.
- [07:26]
Cody McGuffey
Kathy's awesome. That's amazing, man. How much to give people a sense. So you did. You had these crushing months of November and December of one year. Can you share with us more like are you still doing. So you said 80k and profit you mentioned.
- [07:43]
Andreas Pistolelli
So I've done 300k in revenue and this is a part come from Q4 since we're filming this in the like beginning of October. So this is a part from Q4 and I've not done much on my Etsy store this year.
- [07:55]
Cody McGuffey
Wow. So you're saying this year I think you, you broke up a little bit. You said 300k in revenue this year.
- [08:00]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yes. Yeah. Sorry if I broke up. Yeah. But 300k in revenue this year and about 70 to 80k in profit. Of, of, of those 300k. 70 to 80k is profit.
- [08:11]
Cody McGuffey
Wow. And mostly passive, you said. And yeah.
- [08:13]
Andreas Pistolelli
And this is in this year, in 2024.
- [08:17]
Cody McGuffey
Got it. Print on demand only. Also I'm hearing. Wow, man. I think so many people. I'm blown away by the way, about your success in a very short period of time. And I know that you started with kind of using Everbee a couple years ago too, you were mentioning. And like it's just special for me to hear a customer, a go getter like you, somebody with that mind, that mindset that just crushes it from kind of from the get go almost. And I know it wasn't really like that. Can you share with us kind of the war stories too? Because I'm sure it wasn't always just day one. Right. And a lot of people are listening to this. I mean like, wow, I want to be like Andreas and. But I'm not right now, you know, because they're in the year one and they're just somehow have 10 sales or less. What was it like for you starting out?
- [09:04]
Andreas Pistolelli
So for me, like I'm a huge Tommy Robbins fan and he has a quote that he heard from probably somewhere else, but that's. There's a story of like this, of like these two, like different countries or tribes or something that came to this one specific island and they came by boat and one of these countries or like tribes or whatever, they, the captain there told his crew members to just burn their own boats and they thought he was crazy, but he said if you. But they still did it. So they still burned their own boats. And then the captain said if you want to get home to your families, you need to take the others. You need to take the. You need to take the others down to get their boat. So you need to take over the island. And that's the mentality that I had. So I quit everything that I had, as I mentioned earlier, and I just went all in. That's why I listed like 500 listings a month. I do want to say that that listings, like listing thousands of listings did not give me success. Doing good quality listings gave me success, but doing. Having that mentality just made me able to actually feel the need to make this work. And I also want to say that, like, I'm still, like, the main goal that I've had for my life is to be an artist, a music artist. So not. Not a designer in any way, but. But a music artist. And I failed for that on that for over 10 years. And this whole endeavor with online business was mainly as a way to gain capital for the. For the artist project. But that. But I mean, I started this artist party, my own one, in like 2013, 2014. So it's more than 10 years that I've been at this specific solar project that it's where I've just learned stuff. Fail stuff I learned about. Yeah, there's just so many things that's been a big failure for me for about 10 years. And it's only now that I'm seeing like this success because at different stages throughout my journey, I learned about, like, how to do accounting here in Sweden, what a business actually is, how to do how businesses actually make profits and stuff like that. Like, what is credit and debit if you do accounting and stuff like that? All from, like, knowing nothing and then just grabbing whatever I can while I'm working at like a 9 to 5 in a regular, like, shop. But it's been 10 years like this and that until I actually saw some success.
- [11:33]
Cody McGuffey
So some people would look at you and be like, wow, he's done over $300,000 this last year. Just started on Etsy a few years ago. He just got lucky or something. And here you are. You're like, no, I've been actually going out this thing in different variations of online business or business in general. Over 10 years.
- [11:50]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, basically, yeah. So music for this specific solar project for like 10 years. But I started business when I. In. What was that? When I was 24. I'm gonna be 31 this year. So I started like doing business and all of that stuff when I was 24. So it's been a long time. So basically maybe six to seven years until I saw something.
- [12:13]
Cody McGuffey
What's interesting to hear about your story too and I think relate to a lot of people listening is you. Online business isn't the end all be all for you. This was you're kind of treating, from what I'm hearing is you're treating your Etsy shop, your online business, your e commerce store as a bridge to get you to where you actually want to go, which is like the passion of music. Is that correct?
- [12:34]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, exactly.
- [12:36]
Cody McGuffey
Do you feel like you've achieved that yet?
- [12:38]
Andreas Pistolelli
No, because have you, have you read the Alchemist? That book?
- [12:42]
Cody McGuffey
I have not read that now.
- [12:43]
Andreas Pistolelli
Okay. But there's a story basically about a guy and spoiler alert. But he, he like he, he gets his goal, he gets his whole thing and then he realized it was right next to where he started. Like he goes through this whole journey where he like goes to different countries and this is another time. So like getting to from getting two different countries takes a long time. But at the end of the book he just realized this, okay, my treasure was right next to me and that's kind of where I'm at because I didn't really need capital in the beginning, but I did need like I couldn't see things clearly like a couple years ago when I said that I wanted to make this artist business work. But now that I've made a seven figure business, I kind of see what it takes to make a business work. So I didn't actually need the capital to begin with. So this is more. I think what's my gut feeling guided me to Etsy and that then in turn guided me to just learn about how to make a business work. So yeah, I'm just going on my best guess basically. And at the end of, at the end of the day I think I want to have like different. I just want to have a creative life where I do creative things and try to help as many people as I can in the process. In the process in different ways. At this time it's helping people by doing like POD products through an Etsy store.
- [14:06]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful. So are you still doing the music?
- [14:09]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, of course. Yeah. So I'm writing now and I'm planning to release some stuff next year.
- [14:13]
Cody McGuffey
Cool. Can you share what type of music? Like just while we're at it, like where can people find your music? I'm just curious, like is it out there where we can actually go?
- [14:21]
Andreas Pistolelli
So I have, I have a YouTube channel with all my music videos and then I also have. So I mean there are videos since like my first video was like in like 2015. So it's been, it's been, it's on there and then you can of course find me on any like streaming platform platform like Apple Music or Spotify. And that's just my whole name, which is Andreas Pistolelli.
- [14:40]
Cody McGuffey
So your online, your online. I guess real estate will be pod. It'll be teaching folks on, on how to do pod on YouTube. Because that's just a passion of yours because you're doing it and it spills out of you probably. And then the third thing is music and that's your like your passion project that ideally you'd love to earn income from that but probably doesn't earn a lot of income yet because I know it's a tough business to just start with quickly but the idea is that they're all going to work together somehow, right?
- [15:07]
Andreas Pistolelli
Exactly. Yeah. So I want to have the YouTube stuff, I want to do the pod stuff and I want to do the music stuff and then like that's my best guess at the moment. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sure what's gonna happen in 10 years but I just know that the like doing creative stuff here on, on, on the Internet is stuff that I like to do. Well.
- [15:26]
Cody McGuffey
Yeah, the cool thing about it is you get to be creative with the POD and you kind of get to kind of flex that muscle. Then you get to be creative on how you teach it and then you help the other people be creative. That's, that's exciting. That naturally just a good thing for human beings I think is to teach stuff like this.
- [15:40]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah.
- [15:40]
Cody McGuffey
And the third thing is just like it's a natural God given passion and God given talent probably to, to be in the music world and that probably just strokes a lot of that. A lot of that for you too. So I could see yourself doing it for 10 years. I mean if I were just assume that what you'll be doing 10 years I could totally see you working for. Sure.
- [15:57]
Andreas Pistolelli
Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, I mean it feels awesome. So it's my best guess at the moment and it feels really good. And the best thing about the YouTube stuff at the moment is that I get to help people with stuff because there aren't really many that European or like that, that many like foreign sellers except for the UK that sells within the US but lives abroad. So hopefully I can really add value to people's lives by just talking about specific stuff that applies only if you live in a different country except for the Us.
- [16:26]
Cody McGuffey
That's interesting. Yeah, let's maybe, let's transition a little bit into the Etsy shop and how to actually how you found so much success with your shop. So first of all, do you still have like thousands of listings or like what do you recommend somebody have? What kind of listing count? Let's just go through there first.
- [16:41]
Andreas Pistolelli
So it depends. Like I've seen like shops that have 200 listings and does like unimaginable like numbers that have like there's like 4 to 500k in a year with, with just these like same listings. I've also seen shops that has like 5,000 listings and that are doing very well. So I don't think there's a set amount. I just could because in my experience what I've known, what I've experienced basically is that like 20% of all of my efforts really sell like the 8020 rule. But it's really 20% of those 20% that carry the whole thing. So there's this small, small portion of listings that work really well. It's the same thing on Amazon because I do merge by Amazon too. And I mean like I have you put like one design of 14 or 15 products and I think it's like 4% of all of my products that I have online are actually selling well. But of those 4% there's just a couple that sells over and over and over again. So it's really not about, it's. It's. Everything is just about finding the, the right design and then just scaling that out to diff to, to this same, to like kind of the same niche but like expanding, doubling down on the specific niche that, that you're in and similar niches to it basically. But just doubling down on the thing that works. But finding this specific design is really hard.
- [18:06]
Cody McGuffey
Can we walk maybe can we go step by step there, like go a little deeper there. How first it sounds like you need to find the design first.
- [18:13]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah.
- [18:14]
Cody McGuffey
And how would somebody do that?
- [18:16]
Andreas Pistolelli
So before Etsy made these new changes they allowed for like custom text listings. That was my like go to way to do that. I think that was a great way because gives you a higher, usually like a higher conversion rate and you're not constrained by any niche. There are still gray areas within it, at least from my understanding of it. But basically like test how I would do it now is just test it like doing, making a master list. I go through that on one of my YouTube videos. But using Averb, you go to different shops and then you download their backend Data. And the most important thing when you do this is that you just find shops that you actually want to be like. Like, you want their type of sales, you want to be in their shopping niches and so forth. And then you take. Make. Take like 5 to 10 shops and then you add them into a Google Sheets file, and then you just sort them by C2A. And then you can just see the top selling listings. Because, I mean, the principle still stays the same. Every shop has basically, like a couple of things that carries their whole store. So if you have five to 10 shops and you sort them like from most sales to lower sales, you can see all those specific top selling listings at the top of the page and you can just go one by one and see what. Why is this specific listing working here? Why is this specific listing working here? And then you can just write down the different things that they do in common, and then you can take that and try to make things better. Basically.
- [19:45]
Cody McGuffey
It's a beautiful. It's a beautiful strategy. And I've heard variations of the strategy too, which is kind of fun to like, look at it from your angle too. I know Stephen's talked about this strategy. I think Jesse, who's been on the podcast before, he's talked about this strategy.
- [19:56]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, this is highly inspired by Stephen.
- [19:59]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful. And basically for anybody that hasn't watched that yet, first of all, you should. And also go to Andreas, his video, to break this down, but essentially, correct me if I'm wrong, but you basically go to the shop analyzer. You analyze a specific. Well, first you identify. First you pick, like maybe identify 10 shops that you want to be like.
- [20:18]
Andreas Pistolelli
Correct. Yeah.
- [20:19]
Cody McGuffey
And they're successful. They're in the same niche. They, they feel the same that you want to. You're aspiring. You're aspiring to be like them. Make a list of those shops, then go to those shops in the Shop Analyzer and analyze those shops by listings. Yeah.
- [20:33]
Andreas Pistolelli
If you download, press the button again. So analyze listing and then analyze all listings.
- [20:38]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful. So analyze all listings and then you download that, and then you put that into a sheet and then you do that 10 times. All the shops. Correct. Like every single shop. Then you make one. You put all those lists in a Google sheet and all put them in one list.
- [20:50]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yep.
- [20:51]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful. And then what you do is you click on Sort by total sales. Yeah.
- [20:56]
Andreas Pistolelli
You create a filter and then you just sort by total sales or monthly sales, depending on what. What you prefer. Both kind of works because they usually kind of correlate, at least with the top Listings, at least.
- [21:07]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful. And then what do you do from there?
- [21:09]
Andreas Pistolelli
Then I basically just like. I mean, as I said, this is highly inspired by Steven. I just make some type of, like some different stuff since I do POD and all stuff in house. So the thing that I do is that I try to find common denominators within these listings. So what type of elements are selling well here? Are they using? Because usually, like the top selling listings are always super simple. So is it like, I talk a lot about these two fonts on my channel, but, like, is it the college fonts and the cursive fonts? Like, these are doing super well in several listings. Okay, we write this down in a, in a list. So we can see that, okay, these type of elements work super well. And then apart from that, we can go even further. We can see that. Okay, are they using free shipping, paid shipping, and do they have a loss leader to how many variations do they have in their shop? What type of product do they do? For instance, do they do it like a Bella Canvas, a Gildan shirt? If we're thinking about T shirts, since that's the majority of the POD market in general, then are they doing the Bella Canvas 3001? Are they doing the Gillen 64,000? Are they doing the comfort colors? 17. 17. You can find all of these different specific things. So like, which product are they using? Paid shipping, free shipping, Are they using a loss leader? How many variations do they have in the store? How many colors do they offer? What type of lead times do they have? So like the shipping times, when will the customers see it? How, what kind of pricing do they use? And when you find common denominators within different types of like top selling listings, you can use that yourself. And when you can, you add value to the marketplace by making a great design. And if you can combine the elements that they use in a new way, like by taking like, let's say that there was one listing that's doing very well that has a college font, another one has like a cursive font. You can combine those to use both the college fonts and the cursive fonts. And that's how you can use add value to the marketplace.
- [23:16]
Cody McGuffey
So you're not, you're not like copying somebody's shop designs, that you are just learning from them is the main thing.
- [23:21]
Andreas Pistolelli
Never, never. Like, it doesn't really work. Because if you just think about, if you just. If we think about it one step, like one step further, if we take the exact design on their exact markup, with their exact listing and they have like a bestseller and like 500 reviews on it. Why would they purchase your. Like yours? Let's say that you have almost no shop reviews as well. Why would they purchase yours when they can purchase the exact same one for a couple more doll for a couple more dollars, but with way less risk since the shop has like 13,000 reviews and like 500 listing reviews on this specific listing.
- [23:56]
Cody McGuffey
I love that you said that because so many people, naturally, because they're just trying to figure things out, they will copy. And we always try to encourage people not to copy. Just learn from them and be different. Because again, exactly what you said. Why would somebody buy from. Why would they buy from you when they're already there? There's that listing there that has way more reviews, way more credibility. Probably looks better to be honest. And then second is why would Etsy push your listing when their listing is already converting? Well, there's a lot of data behind it. It's less risk for Etsy to show that listing in the first page. So just be different at the end of the day, like learn from them, but differentiate yourself. Add value to the marketplace. Just better for the ecosystem in general, for sure.
- [24:37]
Andreas Pistolelli
And I mean like you can survive like a couple copyright strikes as well. So if you do this too much and let's say you define success, you will probably eventually find copyright strikes with that and you can survive like a couple of them, maybe like three or four. But after a while it doesn't take many. If you get too many copyright strikes or like trademark strikes for instance, you will lose your shop because there's been so many like so many shops that I've followed since Dice even started that has so many like so, so many sales and they just one day they're gone. So doing it from the perspective of just taking and not adding value to the platform, it does not work, at least not in the long term. You might get some sales here and there, but it will really just cause you problems long term.
- [25:24]
Cody McGuffey
So I want to transition to. You mentioned Europe, you mentioned Sweden. So can you share with everybody where you're currently at and how that works for you when running an online e commerce business?
- [25:37]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, so I'm based in Sweden, so everything is basically made here. So I do everything from. From basically Sweden. But you can just. Since the great thing about being online, we can just target the US by like by just making sure that our shipping profile by. Sorry, by making sure that our shipping profile in Etsy is just targeting the US market. So only delivering to the US and the main things that like really doesn't apply is like the tax stuff that took a long time to figure out with an accountant and a lot of headaches. But yeah, I mean the main other thing, like when it comes to practicing practical stuff that applies to everyone except for the tax stuff is you can just mainly target the US market by making designs that just fit the US market.
- [26:25]
Cody McGuffey
Would you recommend that somebody, let's say they're in Sweden also or somewhere in Europe that they target the US and nothing else or start the local market? Why would you recommend that?
- [26:34]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, so there's different, like I got this from my accountant, like the accountant that helped me with this a couple years ago. There's so many different EU laws that applies. Like for instance, here in Sweden we have a 14 day right of withdrawal. So you have to have like, you have to accept returns and exchanges within 14 days in order to like sell to Sweden. For instance, if you want to sell to Germany and they have for instance something called a lucid packing register or something like that, if you aren't registered with that and you sell to like a German customer, then you can incur fines of up, up to €100,000. And they just feel that. I just feel that there are so many pitfalls. Like you can find one here and then one here and you can just fall down entire if you sell to the eu. So for the time being, I would not at least sell in the EU since it's so complex and so heavily regulated. The US is so much simpler to just sell to.
- [27:35]
Cody McGuffey
That's so interesting about the EU thing, man. That's because there's a lot of people who listen to this are in the EU and they're probably trying to sell to both markets. And what you're recommending is like, hey, just choose one. It's simple. And just choose the U.S. it's simpler that way. Obviously the market in the U.S. is huge. It's growing constantly in the e commerce space. I think this is the perfect time to kind of transition into the rapid fire questions.
- [27:59]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah.
- [27:59]
Cody McGuffey
You ready? Cool. By the way, Andreas is not prepared for any of these questions. So you're gonna get some raw stuff here. What's your favorite business book?
- [28:09]
Andreas Pistolelli
Ooh. Or do you mean like deep business book or overall, overall $100 million offers by Alex Ramosi.
- [28:20]
Cody McGuffey
I'd say I have not read that yet, but I, I do watch Alex Ramos content. He provides a lot of value to the ecosystem, which I love. And it's on my list I just.
- [28:30]
Andreas Pistolelli
I just haven't actually, I read that book back to back four. Four times. It's insanely good to make offers.
- [28:38]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful. What's the one thing that you wish that you knew before starting your business?
- [28:43]
Andreas Pistolelli
This might sound a bit abstract, but I usually think quite abstract. But all good things come in due time.
- [28:50]
Cody McGuffey
What do you mean?
- [28:51]
Andreas Pistolelli
I basically mean that I thought that I knew what I needed to get my Archer's project going when I started. I did not know that because, I mean, I had the treasure just like Santiago in the Alchemist. I had that right next to me. So you can't really see clearly and what needs to be done and what needs to be fixed when you're not good at the thing and when you don't have the experience. So I just wish I knew that. I was ignorant. I needed more knowledge to fix that, basically.
- [29:22]
Cody McGuffey
Interesting. It's almost like you have to take the long path back to where you are today to make sure that you achieve what you actually wanted all along. Yeah.
- [29:29]
Andreas Pistolelli
Because I've been so stubborn, like with my. With what I thought and if I just knew that, okay, like I don't regret anything, but if I just knew that, okay, I don't see things super clearly at the moment, but things will still work out anyhow. That would be.
- [29:44]
Cody McGuffey
I love that. How many hours do you work on your business per week? And I know that you have a couple different things going on so you could break it up however you'd like.
- [29:55]
Andreas Pistolelli
So when it comes to Etsy, I do have like one at maximum like three hours every day. And that's just fulfilling orders. Basically. You're syncing them to printify to Etsy. I spend about like, like one to five minutes on my Amazon business every day, like fixing the ads, but it takes maximum 5 minutes. Some days it's nothing. And then I spend a couple hours a week recording videos and scripting YouTube videos. So maybe in total, maybe it is maybe like 10 hours, maybe 10 to 20 hours, something like that. A week.
- [30:31]
Cody McGuffey
Wow. What do you do with the other time?
- [30:32]
Andreas Pistolelli
I play a lot of games. So this year I've taken quite, quite off just to figure out some personal stuff like with stress and stuff that quite dormant, but still, still apparent, but just dormant. If you read when the body says no by gab or mate. Have you read that?
- [30:49]
Cody McGuffey
I'm not. No.
- [30:50]
Andreas Pistolelli
He talks a lot about that and that heavily applies to me. So yeah, in the other time that I basically haven't done any business stuff. I've played a lot of games and tried to just sit with myself and not try to flee my emotions by like doing stuff. So that's been the focus this year, apart from being with my cat that I have here that I love very much because she's quite old now and I mean, she's gonna be 20 next year and that's almost like a hundred in human years. So I want to make sure that I'm always here for her too.
- [31:24]
Cody McGuffey
I love that. What's the worst business advice that you've ever received?
- [31:29]
Andreas Pistolelli
Oh, that's a good one. I've heard many, but I just, I just blocked those out now. I honestly don't know. I don't remember those, but I've heard a couple for sure. Like, I think one, one that I've heard that heavily applies to this, to this call is that you need a lot of capital to make. To make your business work. You need, you need a lot of knowledge. You like you. I don't want to sound like Tai Lopez, but I mean you really need to, you need, really need to be good at the thing you're doing because that will enable you to be successful, not capital in and of itself.
- [32:04]
Cody McGuffey
So to be clear, there is. You don't believe that capital should be the restraint.
- [32:09]
Andreas Pistolelli
Not with these type of businesses. Like, if you do something like everybody, like you've done, then you probably need a lot of capital because you have another type of business to make. Capital can just alleviate some time if you make it correctly. But capital does definitely not like, ensure success in any way. It's just a tool to leave at some time, I'd say.
- [32:29]
Cody McGuffey
I love that. I think that probably would help a lot of people right now too, because they're probably, they're tight on capital. Right. That's just like any other human being in the world today. Capital is a restraint in a lot of ways, but it shouldn't hold you back from starting most businesses. Like, there's certain businesses, I agree. Like, it just, they're very capital intensive. Like, you need a lot of capital for them. But print on demand and Etsy, shop building an online business, it doesn't take a lot of capital. Actually, it's, that's not really the, the issue there. It's. It's usually a knowledge gap and then a lot of action, probably.
- [33:03]
Andreas Pistolelli
Exactly, exactly.
- [33:05]
Cody McGuffey
Interesting.
- [33:05]
Andreas Pistolelli
I agree. 100 there.
- [33:08]
Cody McGuffey
Last question. If your family and your friends and your customers had to get together and write an honest article about you, like an honest article or maybe a book, because I know that you're a reader and they had to characterize that kind of your traits of, like, he's this, he's this, he does this, he does this. What do you think that they would say, good or bad?
- [33:28]
Andreas Pistolelli
Uh, so one thing that really applies to some childhood friends that I don't have that much contact with anymore would be that I prioritize work over friends and stuff like that. I don't do that, but I've a lot of times flee my own emotions by doing. By working. So that. That's been my. A lot of the stuff that I've dealt with this year, because that stuff kind of just suppresses emotions when you escape from them. So that's one thing that's bad, I'd say another thing would be like, that I'm a very philosophical and very analytical, and also that I'm very. I have a very much like a hustler mentality to always just go for it and work hard at it. My girlfriend says this a lot, but that I'm like, I can be cold, but I'm still very, very loving and very, like, compassionate to the ones close to me. Like, I'm very, like, I really care about the. Like, for instance, my cat and my girlfriend. I care about those extremely much. I value that over anything else, I'd say.
- [34:35]
Cody McGuffey
I love that. You mentioned a couple things that were interesting, but specifically you mentioned a couple times of, like, emotions suppressing emotions. And you are an entrepreneur, you're a business owner, you are successful in a lot of ways. Many, many ways. How does that fit with. You mentioned, like, I'm getting a sense of, like, emotions. You mentioned a lot of times mental health. Is it kind of like a category that I'm thinking of? Of course. Like, how does that all play with you in operating your businesses?
- [35:06]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, so. So this year, like. Like previously, like, I've just fleed my own emotions. At least I've realized that. And I've suppressed emotions by just going ham with any type of work stuff. So either, like, making music, either.
- [35:21]
Cody McGuffey
Can you give an example of, like, suppressing or fleeing emotions? Because that's. I'm personally curious, but I wonder if other people are too.
- [35:28]
Andreas Pistolelli
So one thing, for instance, would be, like, I had a rough childhood, and a lot of like, like, like it really came into play yesterday. So, like, for instance, we were at the vet and she told us some bad stuff, and the first thing that I did was like, okay, how do I fix this? How do. How do I do that? And she was a really hard vet. We didn't really like her. That Much me and my girlfriend, because we know that our cat is old but she has a really good like her well being overall is really good. She's really, even though she's old, she's super happy and she, she's been an inside cat or what. In Sweden we say who's cat? But it's she, she's lived inside of our home basically alive. She doesn't go out that much but we now she loves to go out as long as long as we're there with her. But I mean her overall well being is super good. And when we were at the vet we had some really bad, we heard some really bad news because we know that she has older cats. They, they get, they get like their kidneys get worse. And when we talked to the nurse that were really good, we. I could really relax and then I almost like got, I got basically teary eyed. But in the first instance with the vet I just suppress it and that's how I basically done my whole life because of how my childhood was. That was like a survival tactic when I was a kid and I've expressed that through any work stuff. So if I feel something I remember like when my grandfather died many years ago, like I just went ham and two into just making songs because things were just weird. Um, so I've, I've dealt with, with a lot of emotions by just working whereas this year I've tried to just get those up and deal with them because I don't think I can be a stand up human being if I don't deal with them because they will come out in different types of ways that, that, that's unpredictable and I need to deal with them in order to like be a good person. So.
- [37:29]
Cody McGuffey
Yeah, no, I appreciate you sharing that Andreas, because the reason why I appreciate it so much is because all of us are human listening to this. We're all online business owners in different aspects and we're all ambitious. Typically if you're listening, if somebody's listening to this, they're very similar to me and you. They're very ambitious. They know that somehow God or the universe or somebody has, has called upon them to do more with their life and something has drawn them to this and it is a harder life in a lot of ways. But it's also a beautiful thing when it works and, but naturally that doesn't mean that we're all the successful people are the ones that have their, all their mental stuff figured out. They've got all their emotions figured out. Like we're all flawed Human beings. And I appreciate you sharing that because a lot of times somebody would look at you and look at your success and be like, andreas just kind of figured it out, you know, and they think the same thing about Cody. And for sure, guaranteed I do not, you know, like I am. My mind goes wild sometimes in a way that I don't like at all. And yours does, too. And probably every single other person listening to this does, too. And it's comforting to hear, you know, the truth.
- [38:39]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah. And the crazy thing, like, the stress this year that that's given me, it's kind of gone to another level since I wanted to feel the things that I have felt and just go all in on my. Just feel what I have suppressed. But it's also expressed itself in another way. So I've gotten like. This is like the first time in my life that I've experienced this, but, like, I got. I got like, alopecia, you can kind of see here. So I've lost hair, for instance, and I'm just 30 years old, and I've never really had any, like, type of issues with physical symptoms or something like that before. I even got, like, rashes because of stress. And that's this year when I make every. When I made everything passive, when I haven't really worked that much, and I've only, like, focused on the YouTube stuff. So what I mean is that it's. I think it's. Mental health is super important, and in the book, when the body says no, they really go into this heavily. But I mean, you just. What I've done is basically just suppress emotions. And if I. I took away my own coping mechanism, which is work, which makes me having to feel everything, and that puts a lot of stress on me. And this at least is my interpretation of it. But that has then expressed itself because it needs to go out in some way. And if I don't deal with it with my usual coping mechanism, it. It's. It's like it taking its toll on my own body. But it's still been like a very. I've learned a lot by doing it this way and just not going directly into my coping mechanism.
- [40:16]
Cody McGuffey
Sure. Deal with it head on rather than trying to run away from it or flee it into the thing that, you know, that kind of would work temporarily. Understand that.
- [40:22]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, exactly. Because, I mean, I lost all of my childhood friends because I worked so much, and they had a really big problem with that. We probably would have grown apart at any time anyways, but they meant a whole lot to me. So I, like, I don't want, I don't, I don't want to, like, I don't want to be a bad person because I mean, like, if I, if I get kids later on, I want to be available. I don't, don't just want to flee anything that's bad by just doing something else. I want to be present with them. So I just feel it's really important like, like this year has been really important to just deal with all of that stuff and just take the, yeah, just take it head on and instead of just coping, just going for the, for the issue.
- [41:05]
Cody McGuffey
I love that. It's. The beautiful thing about online business is that you can kind of sprint, you can get something to kind of stand up your business eventually. You know, you, you have some, some level of stability in your online business to give you the freedom to pursue like other journeys. And that journey can be music or it could also be your, your own mental health that you want to just focus on or your physical health in the case. But you wouldn't be able to necessarily do that if you didn't have your online business because you might, you would still have to work your 9 to 5 job. You still have bills to pay. And so that's the beautiful thing about having an online business. It is hard and all this stuff, but it's always worth it. I, I truly believe it is always worth it and I think that's probably a good time for us to transition out and ask where can people find you? Andreas, let's talk music, YouTube. Anywhere else that you'd like to direct them to?
- [41:56]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, so mainly my YouTube channel, which is wtf am I even doing? And yeah, you can find me there. I'm hoping to just give as much value and help as many people as I can. So yeah, you can find me on YouTube.
- [42:10]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful. And how about music? I'll drop that link below too, but what's the channel called?
- [42:15]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, it's just my full name, it's Andreas Pistolelli. But I can link it for you so you don't have to spell it out yourself because it can be quite hard to spell out the last name there.
- [42:25]
Cody McGuffey
Beautiful. So guys, check the show notes for that or the YouTube description, depending on where you're consuming this. But Andres, thank you so much for coming on, man. It's really a pleasure.
- [42:33]
Andreas Pistolelli
Thank you so much for having me, man.
- [42:35]
Cody McGuffey
Awesome, man. See you soon.
- [42:36]
Andreas Pistolelli
Yeah, you too, Ann.