211. The April 30-Day Etsy Challenge

Summary

Crickets to Cha-Chings, Episode 211: The April 30-Day Etsy Challenge

Host: Gold City Ventures (Julie Berninger, Cody Berman)
Guest: Sasha Hutchinson (Head Coach, VIP Printables)
Date: March 23, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode introduces and details Gold City Ventures' "April 30-Day Printables Challenge" for Etsy sellers, particularly those new to selling digital products. Co-founder Julie Berninger and head coach Sasha Hutchinson guide listeners through what the challenge entails, the strategy behind it, the resources provided, and why April is a key month for printables. The episode is packed with practical advice, success stories, and insights on how to leverage the upcoming seasonal trends for Etsy growth.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. What is the 30-Day Etsy Printables Challenge?

• Purpose: To help new and existing Etsy sellers consistently create and list new digital products, building momentum and cultivating habits that lead to sales growth.
• Structure:
  • Four weeks of action, focusing on manageable steps each week ([02:07]).
  • Recommended pace: one new product per week, for a total of four by end of April.
  • Emphasis on quality over quantity: "You always want to create something with the intent of selling it." – Sasha ([02:16]).
• Challenge Tracker:
  • A visual accountability tool; participants color in progress as they check off tasks ([03:31]).
  • Encourages regular, visible progress and momentum-building ("It becomes addictive." – Sasha, [02:55]).

2. Step-by-Step Weekly Breakdown

• Weekly Workflow:
  • Day 1: Research on Etsy
  • Day 2: Find relevant keywords
  • Day 3: Create the product based on research
  • Day 4: Make listing images
  • Day 5: List the product
  • Rest days built in to avoid burnout ([02:24]).
• Cumulative Growth:
  • "If you list one product a week after, at the end of a year, you will have 52 new products in your shop." – Sasha ([02:51]).

3. Template & Product Highlights for April

• Curation Philosophy:

  • Mix of evergreen and seasonal products (evergreen = sells all year, seasonal = peaks during events/holidays) ([04:28]).
  • Focused on high-margin, beginner-friendly products and big seasonal opportunities (Mother's Day, Father's Day, Graduation).

• Featured April Templates: ([04:28–10:28])

  • Adult Coloring Swatch Test Charts: Hidden gem niche; simple to create, big demand ("These product bundles sell for like $5 a piece and get insane sales volume." – Sasha, [05:08]).
  • Father’s Day Questionnaires and Handprint Crafts: Custom art and examples provided; handprint crafts especially lucrative for "women buying gifts for men" ([07:51]).
  • Barbecue Season Party Games: Two trivia-style game formats for bachelor/bachelorette, Father’s Day, birthdays, pool/summer events.
  • Editable Canva Invitations: Dual aesthetics (colorful & minimalistic); highly adaptable for various occasions (baby showers, engagement parties).
  • Summer Camp-at-Home Activity Bundle: 20+ page resource, easily adapted for multiple holidays and themes.

4. Teaching, Coaching & Community

• Live Events:
  • Sasha hosts walkthroughs for each template, showing how to customize and expand them into multiple listing ideas ([09:47]).
  • Emphasis on turning one template into "20 ideas" to maximize value.
• Mockups:
  • Provided for every product, allowing members to market professionally and efficiently ("31 pages of mockups... sometimes I do like 60, depending on what I think." – Sasha, [11:46]).

5. Accountability, Prizes, and Support

• Pomodoro Timers:
  • Prizes awarded via live event participation ([13:03–14:47]).
  • Recommended as a productivity tool: "Sometimes all you need is a timer to set for five minutes to help you get started." – Sasha ([13:21]).
  • Timers help users focus without phone distractions.
• Community Aspect:
  • Support via a private Facebook group; RSVP to events to be eligible for prizes ([14:47]).
  • "The more you show up for yourself and your business, the more successful you'll be." – Sasha ([14:43]).

6. Upcoming Opportunities

• Live Workshop:
  • Cody Berman will host a workshop on March 24th, explaining how he scaled a brand new Etsy shop to $4,000/month through template and listing expansion ([15:36]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On building habits:
  • "Little action steps, they grow, they add up, and they create a lot of growth. It's like a snowball effect, and it becomes addictive." – Sasha ([02:53])
• On finding 'hidden gem' niches:
  • "Adult coloring is huge. People want it for anxiety relief, relaxation, stress relief. And this is a really good product for beginners to create because you could just swap out these shapes." – Sasha ([05:17])
• On the depth of community expertise:
  • "She's got over 30,000 sales. She's good at finding these." – Julie about Sasha ([06:31])
• On mockups and resources:
  • "If you are in our VIP group and you are not downloading these, what are you doing? This is so valuable." – Julie ([11:52])
• On coach support:
  • "Who would you call if you had an Etsy question? A lot of people would call you. So if you want access to Sasha, if you want access to the amazing events..." – Julie ([13:04])
• On accountability and showing up:
  • "The people who show up, even if you're a fly on the wall...those are the people who do the best and they win prizes." – Sasha ([14:36])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:45] Introduction to the April 30-Day Printables Etsy Challenge
• [01:10] What the challenge entails and resources included
• [02:07] Weekly breakdown and challenge tracker explanation
• [03:31] The power of visual tracking and habit building
• [04:28–10:28] April template highlights and product walkthrough
• [11:46] The role of mockups and added value for participants
• [13:03–14:47] Prizes, Pomodoro timers, and community events
• [15:36] Invitation to live workshop with Cody Berman

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Episode Takeaways

• The April 30-Day Challenge offers actionable, step-by-step guidance for growing an Etsy printables business in a supportive, resource-rich environment.
• Utilizing seasonally relevant products and effective workflow habits is key to driving sales, even for beginners.
• Community involvement, accountability tools, and live coaching significantly boost participants' chances of success.

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If you're looking to build your Etsy printables business, this episode is full of practical steps, hidden product gems, and inspiring advice—directly from experienced coaches and sellers.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, it's Cody here from Gold City Ventures with some super exciting news. First, I'm hosting a free workshop on Tuesday, March 24th at 8pm Eastern and it covers how I went from zero to over $4,000 per month in a brand new Etsy shop. To sign up and watch, you can go to goldcityventures.com 4k. That's goldcityventures.com 4 and the letter K. And second, announcement. Our eprintables course is open for enrollment from Monday, March 23 to Monday, March 30 at midnight Eastern. This is our course that covers the A to Z of selling digital products on Etsy and we only open it to the public a couple of times per year. If you want to check that out and join at the lowest price possible, you can go to goldtooth.com enroll. Now back to the episode.

[B]

Do you want to take your Etsy shop to the next level in the next 30 days? Well, we are just kicking off our 30 day April printables challenge and I have our head coach from our VIP Printables here, Sasha Hutchinson, to take you through exactly what that challenge will entail in a second. But first, hi, I'm Julie Berninger. I'm the co founder of Gold City Ventures. We've helped over 20,000 students start digital downloads on Etsy and we're going to start with our 30 day challenge with you today.

[C]

Hi. I'm so excited about the 30 day challenge. Well, is it 30? April has 30 days. Now we're going to be doing 30 days to get products listed into your shop. We give you everything you need to be successful. We give you templates, product templates, we give you the mock ups. We have live events and we're going to walk through exactly what all of those are so that we can help you be super successful and make money within 30 days. We have the most people ever making money within 30 days in the VIP printables group. So that's very validating that what we provide helps you make money as quickly as possible.

[B]

One thing that I think would be helpful is if you show the challenge tracker and we can explain what a 30 day challenge actually is. Because all of us, we are very busy and sometimes we have bigger goals than we actually have the time for. So we created this little challenge tracker for you and I'll let Sasha explain how you would use this at home.

[C]

So the, the tracker is set up. So it's four weeks of taking action. And the goal when you're a beginner is to create one product a week based on the information that you learn to. And quality is definitely what you want over quantity. You always want to create something with the intent of selling it. And so that's what this is set up for you to be successful to do. So what you're going to do on day one, on week one is research on Etsy. The next day is find keywords, and then you'll make your product, because you always want to do your research before you make anything to validate your idea. And then you'll make the listing images after you've made your product, and then you will list your product. And it's only five days of action because, you know, we, we like to take days off. And so also this helps set you up to thoughtfully do each task the best you can. And so by the end of the challenge, you'll have made four products or more, depending on how many you set yourself up to make. And if you list one product a week after, at the end of a year, you will have 52 new products in your shop. So if you just take action, it builds and little act, little action steps, they grow, they add up, and they grow, create a lot of growth. It's like a snowball effect, and it becomes addictive. And then, you know, doing these things, you may do two of these things in one day and stuff like that. But this is set up for a beginner to be successful and not be overwhelmed and be successful at the end of the challenge. Yep.

[B]

And we've seen people screenshot this on their phone, and then they'll color it in on their phone or they, they print it out and they hang it on their wall or have it on their desk. And sometimes you just visually need to see your progress. So when you look at the end of the month and it's all colored in and, and you've listed things, you've. You can control your inputs and what you put out into the Etsy world. If you do things like this, it will lead to a better chance of consistent outputs. And I know Sasha, she does a very thorough job in picking what the, the Canva templates are that we provide as part of our challenge so that the students have the best chance of making sales. So, Sasha, I'm gonna have you speed through so people could see what type of templates they will get this month as part of the challenge. And you can talk about why. I know the big reason is that we get some major, major Etsy holidays coming up. I think second to Q4, the Mother's Day Father's Day graduation stretch is a really big time, particularly in the digital download space. But I'll let you kind of quickly kind of go through and show people visually what they're going to get as part of the challenge.

[C]

Okay, so in the month of April, we give you a. I always give a mix of evergreen product ideas. Evergreen means ideas that can sell more than just one small time period out of the month, like two or three, like maybe one month out of the year, but for at least, you know, three to four to 12 months out of the year. And then I'll give you seasonal product ideas so you can catch those seasonal product sales where you can make hundreds of cells off one idea. And so the products that are provided to you for the challenge are adult coloring Swatch test charts. There's a listing or there's several listings on Etsy that are selling products like this for the adult coloring space. And they've made 700 cells in three months just on simple charts. And I love giving these simple niche ideas to people because all this is, is just thoughtfully created squares and circles and lines. That's it. That's all it is. Yes. Super easy. So what you do is you create these and then you package and sell them. The sell them to people who are doing adult coloring. Adult coloring is huge. People want it for anxiety relief, relaxation, stress relief. And this is a really good product for beginners to create because you could just swap out these shapes, do cute, fun shapes. You could do flowers, circles, just basic shapes. So it's a really great product for beginners to make a lot of money. And these, these product bundles sell for like $5 a piece. So you can sell essentially these simple charts for a high price point and get insane sales volume. And what people do is they will use a, like an alcohol marker, like a marker, a coloring pencil, whatever. And then they'll color this little square in, and then they'll write the name of what that pin is here. And then they'll keep these color swatches so that when they do their coloring projects, they aren't wasting the, you know, they color in all of it. And then they try, like, I don't know about this pen. I'm scared. Is it going to look good? And they don't waste their entire creation, you know, using a color they don't like. So they'll, they'll. They'll. They keep these. I mean, people, people in this niche are super serious.

[B]

So we would call this a unicorn or a hidden gem, because most people don't know what it is. And if you're on our YouTube channel, you just learned a hot tip from Sasha. She's got over 30, 000 sales. She's good at finding these. And we'll speed through. We won't give too much information on the other ones. We'll save it for the members of the group, but we will speed through what you would get as part of this challenge and just give you some hot tips on products that you could be thinking about this month.

[C]

Yeah, I can't. I can't stop myself giving away all the good information.

[B]

That's why you're here.

[C]

I can't stop myself. Okay, so then the next one are Father's Day, Father's Day questionnaires. All about my dad, all about me, all about all these things. You can use these templates to create that. And I will. If I don't find clip art that I think is perfect for the templates for the people in the group, I make it myself. So the clip art in this, the dads, I made all of this clip art. So I will hand create clip art. And then I give you an example of what it would look like colored in. And then I give you tips on, on why that's important. So that's. I give you examples so that you can be successful, that you're not flying, you're just flying around going, I don't know what to do. What do I do? I'm like, do this and you will make money. That's my goal. So then the next one are these. Barbecue season is coming up. Barbecue is a really popular theme for so many things like bachelorette, our bachelor parties, bachelorette parties, Father's day, birthdays, pool party, summer everything. So I give you games to sell, give you the templates for that. I give you. This is a trivia style game, and this is a trivia style game. So I give you something in two different formats because you may not have thought to do something like that. And then I give you the templates to create those games. And then also other simple things, stuff that's also for adults and kids. So, you know, kids are to barbecue, they're bored. So this something that you give to kids and this is the aesthetic of what sells for that audience. So then the next one are Father's Day handprint crafts. Hand. Father's Day for handprint crafts is one of the biggest money making times of the year that you can make money on handprint crafts because you have to think about the demographic of Etsy. It's women are buying for men. And this is it, this is right here. And you can swap these ideas out for Grandparents day for every kind of name of dad, bonus, dad, stepdad, all of that, I give you different themes, top selling themes in that niche. Then then the next product is actually a invitation, which is a Canva template. So if you're interested in selling editable Canva template type products, this would be the thing for that. And surprisingly, when I'm creating these things, I'm always like, how can I reuse this for many different. I want to turn one product into 20 ideas for a baby shower. Barbecue is probably one of the top themes for baby showers in the summer. So this is something I could sell really well for baby shower. So I give you two esthetics for that. I give you this colorful one and then I give you more of like the esthetic that's really popular with women on Etsy. Cute font, simple, minimalistic. So you have two different styles for the same thing that could be sold for like something like this could be. Join us for some grilling and chilling. And Julie and Doug are getting married next month. Something like that.

[B]

Julie and Doug. Doug's my husband. We did have a co ed barbecue baby shower for our first kid. So I think that's something interesting to note. Just they might be doing that because it's not like a super feminine girls only thing. It's a co ed event. That's what we did with just friends and family. And honestly, the doodle that doodle trend, you could apply that trend across anything. But again, we're not going to give away too much away because Sasha, every single month when she puts together these templates, she goes live in our group and she gets in the details with members of. Okay, you got these templates, how can you turn them into a million other things? And she's got a lot of keyword ideas that she shares and different stuff. So I know you're the last one, but I want to mention there's more. There's more to each one of these templates, if you can believe it, that you can turn them into other stuff.

[C]

Yeah. So the last one is summer camp at home. Summer camp at home is a really popular niche on Etsy. This is a 20, 21 page or 20 page template bundle with ideas. And then I give you more ideas of what to do. I give you all of the base templates you need to be successful with this. And you could turn this into so many different things for so many different holidays and occasions and things like that, So I do all that. I provide you with that data. And I will be walking through that in more detail again on the May 1st live event with Cody. And then April, right? I mean, April 1st. Oh my gosh, sorry. April 1st. And then I have another one May 1st. So. Yeah, so then these are the mockups. I always give mockups. I have to give mockups because I want people to be successful. And you know, I'm, I'm on the other end of this journey. I'm an expert and I like to lift up the beginners to be successful and get to my level. And so I use my design. I'm not a designer by trade. It's very formulaic for me. I know what works. I have an eye for what works. I like art. I appreciate art. So I've, I've leveled up my own skills, self taught and I create these templates for you and, and I just want to do what works. I want to do what sells. And that's what all of these mockups are.

[B]

Just a combination 31 pages of mockups. Sasha.

[C]

Yeah, sometimes I do like 60, depending on, on what I think.

[B]

Oh my God. See, if my. If you are not, if you are in our VIP group and you are not downloading these, what are you doing? This is so. This is so valuable. And then later when you make another mock up that is, or you need to make another mockup that has nothing to do with any of these templates. You can still reuse any of these things. So this is, this is super valuable. To get this, you would join the Gold City Ventures e printable course. You're going to get the 30 day April challenge if you join the course by Monday, March 30th. The course is open for enrollment right now at GoldCityVentures.com Sasha is the head coach in the group. One thing you need to know about Gold City Ventures is that we are actually a community of coaches. It started with my business partner, Cody Berman and myself, Julie Berninger. But since we've brought on coaches, including Sasha, she's been our main coach who's been with us pretty much the whole time. And she's so talented and amazing. She has her own separate business, your frugal friend, her own separate Etsy shop with over 30,000 sales. But we are very lucky to have her and people like her that come in and coach as part of our community. So you're going to get access to her genius if you join the group. And if you are in the group, you know that Sasha is very Amazing. I think someone made a joke yesterday that they want you on speed dial.

[C]

Oh, yeah, I remember that.

[B]

Yeah. I was thinking about who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Like, phone a friend. Who would you call if you had an Etsy question? A lot of people would call you. So if you want access to Sasha, if you want access to the amazing events we have in the community and we're giving out prizes this month, I don't know, Sasha, if you have your Pomodoro timer with you.

[C]

I got. Yeah, I gotta share my adorable timer. So Pomodoro timer. Me and Julie were brainstorming about what is a very effective prize that will help people and be successful. And I use this. When I was working full time and going through college, I worked full time, went to college full time, and I would have to set a timer. It's called a pomodomo timer. This one has a gravity feature on it, so you can just turn it and start moving the timer so it goes down 5 minutes, 25 minutes. Sometimes all you need is a timer to set for five minutes to help you get started. And it's better to use the timer. This is a great prize. We give it away with every live event than your phone. Because if you're on your phone, you're like, I'm going to set a timer. Oh, wait, someone pinged me on this. Oh, someone called me. And it just put you down a rabbit hole. That's not useful. So it's good to use a timer like this. They're very effective. They help a lot. They will really keep you focused. A lot of people have been saying that they've been using the timers that they've won and it's, it's helped them to stay focused and add more products than they thought they would ever add. So it's extremely useful tool. Highly recommend. You have to do all the light. You have to go to the live events in order to be eligible to win the timer. So make sure you show up. And the more you show up for yourself and your business, the more successful you'll be. The people who show up. And even if you're a fly on the wall and you're. You are consuming the information, you're being present, you're taking it seriously. It's a business to you. Those are the people who do the best and they win prizes. So.

[B]

Yes. And you win prizes and the people they like. You said you seem to like them the way that you have to win the prize, you have to hit RSVP in the Facebook group. So I don't know, Sasha, if you want to, if you saw that tab open, you can pull it up. But I just want to show people where actually you hit the going on Facebook because before the event we export everyone that rsvp. Yes. And we put them in a little prize wheel and it spins and you can see your name and it's really exciting and fun. Yeah.

[C]

So you'll go here and then you will click on going. Yeah. And then that's how you get it. That's it. That's all you have to do. And, and you get more information about the events within the events. You can look here, there's replays for the events, but again, if you want to win a prize, you have to show up live. But there are replays for all of the events. People, you know, they want to know that. And yeah, of course you are going to get replaced for everything.

[B]

Yep. And we do. If you're not ready to enroll in E Printables right now, we do have a live webinar that's tomorrow, Tuesday, March 24th at 8:00pm Eastern where the co founder, Cody Berman, my good friend, he is going live to talk about his new Etsy shop. He had one Etsy shop and he started a new one recently and he got it to $4,000 months with his process of creating a template and turning into a bunch of listings, which is our big thing that we do around here. And he's got a bunch of examples and I was actually working on the presentation last night and it's, it's really helpful and there's a lot of visual examples. So if you're into seeing what's actually working, you're going to see a lot of screenshots and things like that. So you can get the link to both enroll in E Printables and also the link to attend Cody's webinar tomorrow below. Thank you to Sasha for joining us today and for doing all of her hard work to put together this amazing 30 day challenge that you're going to get the tracker if you're on our email list and we're super excited to have you all get going. Good luck in your next 30 days. Thank you.

[C]

See you in the group.