← How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy
Ep 226 | How Cody Scaled a $1K Printable Shop to $4K in 30 Days -with Gold City Ventures
00:59:00
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- [00:01]
Lizzie Smiley
Hey, my name is Lizzie Smiley and
- [00:03]
Lizzie Smiley (Podcast Host Outro)
I absolutely love helping people connect with
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Lizzie Smiley
their calling and all the tools they
- [00:07]
Lizzie Smiley (Podcast Host Outro)
need to kick roadblocks and excuses right out the door so they can cultivate the life they dream about. If you want to launch, grow, pivot or scale your Etsy shop, or you've always wanted to develop the mindset and skills to run your own business, then I'm your girl. I've had that entrepreneurial spirit going strong since my very first lemonade stand. And now I'm a work at home mama with multiple online companies and a full time Etsy shop. All while being present with my kids for the everyday chaos and most important milestones. On this podcast we'll talk about all things business, mindset, Etsy, creativity, dazzling our customers, and so much more. There's plenty of room at this table for you, so scooch on in and let's go. I'm holding nothing back. Welcome to how to sell your stuff on Etsy. I'm so glad you're here.
- [00:58]
Lizzie Smiley
Hi friend. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you are ready for a high energy, super detailed answer every question you ever had about printable's conversation. Because you know when Cody and I get together, it is fire. If you're new here, I'm so excited for you because principals are such a phenomenal way to get started in the digital space on Etsy. They just don't require as much design experience. You can, you can really start getting into it, create really simple products, sell on repeat. I'm gonna let Cody tell you his story because it is extremely, extremely motivational but also extremely practical. And today I'm going to just ask him all of the questions. You guys ask me all the time about how many listings does it take and what niche do you go after and how do you pick what niche and how do you price it? And we're going to do it in a really fun conversational way. But all of the things that you guys always want to know literally like what do I design for next? How do I do this faster? We're talking about all of it. Cody and Julie of Gold City Ventures have been friends of mine since early days in the podcast. They were one of my first guests back in 2022. I launched in 20 end of 2021 and so I have history with these guys and these are some of my most trusted friends and colleagues in the space. They do something very different than me because I'm more in kind of like the design creative and they're more in the template Printable. There's less, there's, it's more data, it's more, it's all should be data driven. But theirs is like they are creating products that don't require as much design in terms you're dealing with more with like text. I didn't explain that well, but you kind of get the gist. Whereas I'm doing a lot of graphics, I'm doing PNGs, right. I'm doing, or I'm doing handmade. It's very different. And so I'm really, really grateful for this friendship. So let me tell you a bit about Cody and then we're going to go into rapid fire. I'm going to ask him a ton of questions and hear what's going on over in their neck of the woods. Cody Berman is a digital nomad who quit his corporate job to pursue entrepreneurship full time. He started selling digital products in 2018 and became hooked after earning over $700 in one week. He also hosts the financial independence show in his spare time. Find him traveling, working out or building another business. Relatable. I probably say that every time I read this bio. Cody loves selling seasonal products. He earns over six figures in passive income. And he quit corporate America in 2019, reaching financial independence by age 25. So this is the other thing about Cody and Julie. They approach Etsy from the fire movement, which is financially independent. Retire early. They are approaching it as, here's how we add additional income so we can build up our investments so, so that we can live off of our residuals and our other businesses so we don't have to work but like retire early. And so they approach everything. Very data driven, which I love data. They are way better at it, way more detailed than I am. So this is super fun. Also, Cody, like me, is a bit of a workaholic and so he challenged himself last year to actually start a new Etsy shop and see how long it would take to get it to $1,000. It's a digital product, so lower ticket, $1,000 a month. And so we're going to find out what happened with that story and then what's happened since then. You guys, I'm so glad you hit play on this. We are really going to get into it today. It's a great conversation. So let's help. Let's welcome Cody to the podcast. Hey, Cody, welcome back to the podcast.
- [04:09]
Cody Berman
Hey, what's going on, Lizzie?
- [04:11]
Lizzie Smiley
Well, you're stunning me as always with your insane accomplishments. I honestly don't know when you sleep, we're doing great over here though. How are you and how is Julie?
- [04:21]
Cody Berman
I'm doing well. It is balmy 20 degrees in Massachusetts. I was actually snowboarding earlier this morning and my business partner Julie, she just had baby number three. So she is very, very busy working on a chaotic schedule. But you know, as we always do, Lizzie, we're making it work.
- [04:38]
Lizzie Smiley
You guys are incredible and you have an amazing team. I also need you to know that in Texas when it's 20 degrees there, whatever it was, it's like 90 degrees here. And I'm a little jealous of you.
- [04:48]
Cody Berman
Well, in Texas, I'm Pretty sure was 20 degrees. Schools shut down for the.
- [04:54]
Lizzie Smiley
We kind of can't hang. I'm a Chicago girl, so to me this is, I'm just like, March is not supposed to be this warm, but here we are. So I clearly need to come north. Cody, the last time you were here, you and I love that you did. I don't know how you found the time. You, you had a, you took a brand new digital product shop. You were like, I'm gonna show that it's not about the OGs. It's not about. You have to have been on Etsy forever. It's like everything still works for new sellers. You took a brand new shop from zero to $1,000. If I have this right, in what timeframe?
- [05:26]
Cody Berman
Zero to $1,000 per month. So like my goal was to get the, you know, the last 30 days on Etsy to get that screenshot with $1,000 in it. So like in the past 30 days I did it in 116 days. So from day zero to day 116, I got to a thousand dollars per month milestone.
- [05:43]
Lizzie Smiley
Do you think that that first getting to that first thousand dollar a day or that thousand dollar mark, not day is the hardest part.
- [05:51]
Cody Berman
I think for most people it's getting a first listing up, to be honest. I mean once you, once the ball's rolling, like I don't think there's a certain number that makes it harder or easier. Although I do see when people start to post more volume. I'll talk about some of my strategies for doing that. Today you do start to see the results multiply. Like if you can pump out more product, if you're not just spending, you know, 20 hours on one product and then the next week 20 hours on another product. Like if you can find a way to pump out a larger volume of product to see what people might be interested in, then you're probably going to start seeing success a lot faster. Like in our community, we usually see when people get to like the. You don't have to get 100 listings. I even hesitate saying this, but when people get to the 100 listing mark, that seems to be when like momentum really, really picks up. But I don't want people to think like, oh, you know, nothing's going to happen until I reach 100 listings. Like, you will gradually get momentum along the way.
- [06:39]
Lizzie Smiley
Well, I agree with you, my community also there's something that clicks around 100 listings and I don't know if it's part algorithm, like Etsy is like, ah, this is serious. And we've got some consistency, we've got some regular activity, or if it's like we hit a stride of I know what I'm doing now. It's easy. I know how to write a listing. I know how to do the SEO, I know I know what to create. There's a confidence that comes with it. It's probably a sweet spot in the middle, but I agree with you on that number. I have those seen people need to go higher than that to get traction, like depending on what they're coming with. And I've seen people get traction after five to 10 listings. So it just depends on like the experience they're coming with. But Cody, your email this morning kind of blew my mind because you did another experiment with the same shop that I think that I want to dig into. Tell us what happened in round two, because you kind of left it to chill out for a bit, right?
- [07:25]
Cody Berman
Yeah, basically I was like, okay, zero to a thousand dollars per month in 116 days. But I run multiple businesses. Like, I'm pretty busy. I was kind of stretching myself thin running this new shop. So once I hit that milestone, I'm like, you know, wipe my forehead with the towel. I'm like, I'm done. I'm not going to work in the shop anymore. But with the cool thing about digital products, you build it once, you sell it forever. The shop was still making me money. It was making between like 800 and $1,000 every single month, even though I wasn't working on it. So that was awesome. But then a year later, I was like, well, I have some time and, you know, things that slowed down a little bit with all the other stuff I had going on. So I was like, let's take like 30 days and just see how crazy I can pump this shop's revenue numbers up. So I started posting listings like crazy. I started really getting into the Pinterest stuff. I started experimenting with ads a little bit. And so I was just kind of doing everything that I possibly could. I was going back and refreshing old listings, and I was able to get that shop, which the month before had done like $800 in revenue, up to over $4,000 in revenue, past 30 days in one month. So basically 5x sales from 800 to 4,000. So that was a fun little experiment again this year to see if I still had the chops to, you know, scale this thing to the moon.
- [08:34]
Lizzie Smiley
Do you appreciate how insane those numbers are?
- [08:38]
Cody Berman
I tried my best, Lizzie. You know what the funny thing is, though? Like, those numbers do sound insane. And sometimes I'll see other people and I still get that shiny object syndrome. Maybe a little bit of jealousy. I'll see people who have way bigger revenue numbers. And I'm like, dang. Like, you know, I'm not at 10k per month. I'm not at 50k per month. Like, and it never, ever ends. But. But yes, I do try to, you know, zen it out for a second, meditate, be like, okay, I just went from 800 to $4,000 in one month with a basically new shop. Like, it was a year old at that point. I can. Yeah, I felt a little. I felt good about myself.
- [09:11]
Lizzie Smiley
I know. Like, the thing is, is that those people with those numbers are probably working on that full time. And you and I both have 10 other things that we're focusing on full time. I have so many questions. So first of all, I want to highlight the fact that you kind of didn't touch that shop for a while. How much? Because people freak out about this and they're like, can I, you know, revive? I know it wasn't a dead shop. It was still making you money, but you hadn't posted in a while. So talk to us about how much time elapsed between when you last listed and then you started again for the 30 day challenge.
- [09:39]
Cody Berman
I had stopped listing probably early January of 2025, and then I picked up that shop again in November 2025. So, like 10 months, 11 months.
- [09:51]
Lizzie Smiley
Oh, my gosh. Okay, so you took. So the shop was not dead. It was still paying you, but you hadn't created a new listing in many, many, many months. Did you notice a bit of a lag getting the new listings to rank?
- [10:02]
Cody Berman
No, honestly, I really started with the seasonal method, which we can talk about today. But I'm like, such a huge fan of seasonality. So I remember I started just straight out of the gate with a bunch of, like, Thanksgiving and fall type printables and then moved on to the Christmas type printables. And that stuff just started to rank really, really fast, especially now because I kind of knew what I was doing, I knew what worked. I was able to like tem old products and create new variations from them. So no, it, honestly it worked pretty quickly. Once I started putting my foot on
- [10:30]
Lizzie Smiley
the gas again, I'm going to be obnoxious. Do you think if you had done the same thing in May, it would have picked up as quickly or did you have the advantage of Q4?
- [10:38]
Cody Berman
I definitely had the advantage of Q4. Like the numbers might not have been as shocking, but I think I definitely would have at least been able to do a couple multiples over the revenue that I was doing, just given the fact that I was putting any effort in at all. I mean this shop was just like chugging along, doing like again between 800 and $1,000 a month every single month without really me having to do anything at all. And I actually thought that's where you're going with your last question. They're going to ask like, oh, you know, some people might think, oh, I have this dead shop. Like, how long did it take you to manage it once? You know, let's say I have like a really, I have a ton of time right now and then I know I'm going into a busy season of life. Maybe I'm having a child, maybe I'm going back to work in some capacity. But this shop, like when it was making between 800 and $1,000 a month would probably take, dare I say, an hour total per month of just of messages. So it'd be like, you know, five minutes on Thursday, seven minutes the Tuesday after. Or not even like I would get, I get about 5% of the people who buy something from me send me a message or a question and oftentimes they're, the question is answered by my auto reply. So it's really, it's very, very minimal on the, the amount of time that it takes to manage a digital product shop once it's up and running, which is the beauty of it. Like that's, that's why I'm such a huge fan of digital products because you, there is a lot of passivity, if that's a word.
- [11:55]
Lizzie Smiley
So this is such an interesting, like teachable moment for people listening. Because I think one of the things I've learned about Etsy over the years is that kind of like social media, there's, there's an algorithm, right? And so you have to feed the Algorithm. And there's a couple different ways that you can do it. Yeah, I. Or you call it priming the pump, right? Back in the day, if you were going to go get water from your pump, you actually had to sacrifice and pour some water down it to then start pumping to get it to work. You had to prime the pump. So what we mean when we say that E commerce is you would be creating listings, Right. You have to get. You have to drive traffic by creating listings or running ads, which I don't recommend until you are already getting sales. So for you, Cody, what kept that shop alive? This is what I want people to understand is having sales happen is keeping you active in the algorithm at the same level almost as adding new listings keeps you active in the algorithm. And so that's the difference. If you're. If someone's shop has been dead for 10 months, meaning there's no sales, or there's never been sales, it is not the same advantage as if you, like, you did, like, having sales the whole time, because it basically mimics the creating of a listing to a degree. I think that's an important nuance. It doesn't mean you can't do it. I actually have a shop that I revived after a couple of years of sitting dead. They had a ton. Had over 3,000 sales before, didn't touch it, started it again. It took consistent listing for a few weeks before I started getting sales. Have you seen that kind of thing too? I'm sure with your students and everything, we.
- [13:20]
Cody Berman
I'm gonna say. I was gonna say we don't have any students who have large gaps. That's probably untrue. We don't have many. Like, we really want people to keep the momentum going. I mean, that's.
- [13:29]
Lizzie Smiley
Yes.
- [13:29]
Cody Berman
That's why we have such a vibrant community. That's why we constantly have like all these events and we give templates out every month. Like, we want people to continue to keep posting and like keep creating and keep doing. We don't want people to have their shop sit for three years and then come back to it. So, I mean, I don't really have a great answer to that question, but I can see the, the rationale and the reasoning. Like, I think the Etsy algorithm does reward activity in a shop, which is probably why I was able to make sales right away when I started reposting stuff that was timely for that season. And maybe your shop that was three years old, that had completely gone dry. It had a. It took a little bit more of a lead time before it started making consistency sales.
- [14:03]
Lizzie Smiley
Do you think people should start a new shop if that's the case or people ask this all the time, so I'm asking you, or do you think they should just revive? Especially if they've already got reviews, should they just revive the dead shop?
- [14:13]
Cody Berman
I think revive the dead shop 100%. Like it's, you already have the reviews, you already have the listings. I mean you already have the age of the shop. You just have like in the SEO juice. Like we don't know. Etsy's algorithm is kind of a mystery. But like they definitely give weight to. I'm sure they give some kind of weight to like a more experienced seller versus like someone who just started in say 2026. Not to deter you from starting in 2026, but like I think they do reward kind of shops, the tried and true shops that have been there, that have been selling consistently and you know, Etsy makes a cut of our sales, they do take a small cut. So like they like to reward people who come back to the platform who have been selling on the platform for a while. So like if you are someone who has an old shop that you can revive, like I would say absolutely go that route. You can always kind of build back the momentum. You don't have to, you know, start fresh. And the only reason I started fresh just to kind of bring this thing full circle. I know we talked about like my new shop and people in our community have been like, well, why do you, why did you start a new shop? You tell us to have one shop. The only reason I started a new shop was because I wanted to do this experiment in a silo. Like I knew if I did it in my main shop people would be like, well, you know that shops from 2018, you already have the visibility. You already have this huge brand. Like you can just command a bunch of sales and blah, blah, blah. So I was like, okay, like I'm going to do this in a silo. I'm not going to advertise the shop. I'm not going to tell anyone the shop name is. I'm not going to be like advertising, you know, running ads to the shop on social media. I just want to like do this the straight old fashioned way with like keyword research and SEO and see if I can get to that like $1,000 per month mark. So that is like the only reason why I started a new shop was just to kind of see if I had the chops, if I was starting as like a quote unquote. Brand new person.
- [15:46]
Lizzie Smiley
I think you did us all a favor by doing that because we can all point to your story as look, you know, if you follow the strategies and you at you post consistently, you understand how to research and do demand and follow demand, you can absolutely start now. So I'm really glad that you did that. It all makes perfect sense. Can we drill into your strategy a little bit there, Cody? So like, you start again beginning of November, you're focused on holiday content, holiday themed, I'm assuming printables since that is your wheelhouse. How many listings were you creating a day?
- [16:15]
Cody Berman
I was working probably depending on the day, one to two hours a day. And in those one to two hours I was able to create like for the one hour days, like four or five listings for the two hour days, like eight to ten listings. And the reason why that might sound really fast, like I was creating a listing every 10 or 15 minutes. I was using what I like to call the template method. So basically I'd create a base template of something. And so let's use a, use like a holiday card, for example, because this can span across the entirety of the year. So whenever you're watching this or listening to this but podcast. So like let's say you have like a holiday card. You can take like a base template holiday card and spin that into so many different variations. You can create a version for Christmas, Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa. I mean, and then you can just get into like all the crazy obscure holidays. And there's just so many opportunities once you have like a good base template to then do the keyword research on whatever keyword research platform you like. There's Erank. Ever be Insight Factory, Marmalead? There's, there's tons of them out there. Figure out what people are searching for. So let's say I wanted to create a holiday card. I could just type in holiday card or I can type in card and then just see what those search results are telling me. Like the search results. Search results might say, hey, like Easter cards are really, are going to be really big this year or they were really big last year. And that's like an indicator. Like, hey, I should maybe go and create a bunch of different Easter card variants. I don't even know if Easter cards are a thing. I'm just trying to give a silly example here. But like, I am such a data driven person. I know before we hit record here, Lizzie, you were talking about how like I'm, yeah, myself and my business partner Julie were both very data Driven. So like I am only creating something if I see that there is actual customer search demand for that product. So before I go and do anything like, you know, I'll create the base template and then I will use like hard data, keyword research to determine what variants of that base product I'm going to create. And then when I determine what those are like I'll have this master sheet in Google Sheets. And once I have all my different variants, it's just a matter of changing the titles, changing the tags a bit, changing the colors, changing the actual digital product itself. But like those can be done in 10 to 15 minutes once you already have the master list of what you're doing. So those is a very long winded way of answering your question. But yeah, I was able to pump out like I'd say on average four to five printables per hour. So that's, you know, working for a two hour day, that's like 10. And then multiply that for the week. I'm creating like 40 to 50 printables a week.
- [18:36]
Lizzie Smiley
This is the, this is the nitty gritty. This is the meat and potatoes that people need to hear. So I recently had a friend text me and she says, hey, I'm gonna sell this digital. It was a, it was a gardening guide and she had purchased some other digital product not related to Etsy at all. And I don't know, she was asking me a bunch of questions and I was like, well, how are you going to even drive traffic to this? There were so many lessons and I was just reminded what it was like to be new and not. And I think one of the biggest takeaways that I've really been drilling down, this is what I want to bring out of what you said. Keep it simple. Like if you've never done E Commerce before, you don't know what's going to sell. You don't know what you're doing yet. You don't, like, don't start with five. I had someone else email me this week with five to 10, 50 page guides that you don't even know are gonna sell yet because you're already exhausted and ready to give up. They're like, I've already put up these five incredible listings and they're not selling. I'm like, well this one, no one's searching for this one. You've got 50,000 competing other listings that are prettier, older, have more proof, concept, have, have. And it's not that you can never compete with those people, but I'm just Saying start, keep it simple. And I think sometimes this is another question I had. I. We're spider webbing, as I always make you do. But like laughing because it's true. But like how people overthink. Oh well, someone could just DIY that. How is Cody selling one to two page templates over and over again that someone could just go make on their own. And so I'd love, I love that you talked about the template system. We need to keep it simple. Help us talk through that psychology though, Cody, like, obviously you and I both know, but why, why is it worth it to make something simple? And then also if we could like then fledge into price points, point about it. Like, what price point works?
- [20:25]
Cody Berman
All right, I'll try to answer all three of these questions.
- [20:27]
Lizzie Smiley (Podcast Host Outro)
I know.
- [20:28]
Cody Berman
Spider web all day. Call me Charlotte.
- [20:30]
Lizzie Smiley
I know. And you're the, you're the digital, you're the data guy and I'm so out here, like type B. Keep, go. Take it. Do the best you can with it.
- [20:37]
Cody Berman
Okay. The reason why you want to keep things simple is because with the template method, if you're creating, let's say you have like a planner and you have a 30 page planner and you're going to take that planner and then you're going to create a budget planner and then a meal planner and then a fitness planner and then whatever other planner variations you could think of. ADHD planner. That was good. That was good. It's going to take you so long to make that into different variations. Like if you're, if you're taking all 30 pages and customizing it and changing the words out and changing the fonts and the colors and all that stuff, it's going to take you forever. If instead you have like a one page or two page planner or tracker or pick your poison, it's very easy to then change that into something else because you don't know what's going to sell at the beginning, even with the best keyword research tools and even like making sure you have the data like really good and tight. Like all those products that I created, I have, you know, hundreds listed just in that new shop. And it's like it's always the Pareto principle. It's that 80, 20, like 20% of my listings do the heavy lifting in terms of making the sales, even though all of them looked good on paper. So like I just say throw as much spaghetti at the wall as you possibly can. And it's much better to be pumping out like a lot of products versus one mega product. That's 50 pages. Like I'd much rather someone pump out 51 page products than one 50 page product. You just have more shots on goal. Like one of those might just do incredibly well for who knows what reason. We actually had someone. I didn't even know it was the year of the Fire Horse or something.
- [22:04]
Lizzie Smiley
Yeah, look at you. That's right.
- [22:07]
Cody Berman
So you knew that. But she just went out and like created this. I think it was like a card on a whim. Again, I don't know anything about Chinese New Year or whatever the Fire Horse is, but she went and created this thing and made a sale. I think it was either that night or the next morning. And so like you just, you seriously. And she just did it on a whim. Like she hasn't really got too far in the keyword research section of the course, I don't think. And so she's like, yeah, like I just want to create something like this. I just had this like feeling and she created it and it sold. So like, the reason I'm telling you this is. That's my girl is exactly is take shots on goal. Like, even if you aren't into the keyword research, SEO, the numbers, data driven stuff I'm talking about today, like just create stuff. Like literally take as many shots as you can. Because even if you're not good at basketball or hockey, like if you shoot enough hoops or you, you know, slap enough pucks, like one of them is going to go in. Same thing with printables. Like, even if you're the worst, you think you're the worst graphic designer ever and whatever, I'm never going to be able to do this. Like, just keep creating stuff and posting stuff and the more reps you get, the faster you're going to be. So like, please lean into this like template method and try to make things faster and easier for you versus making like spending 10 to 20 hours creating your first printable and then it doesn't sell and then you're bummed and discouraged. Versus maybe you could have made 20 or 30 different printables in that same amount of time and one of them could have sold. So that's the first part of your question. The second part of your question. Why do people pay for these things when you could just diy? This is the same question someone might ask someone who's ordering something on doordash. It's like, right, why don't you just make food? Why don't you just make food at home? It's like, well, it's convenient and it's fast. I buy printables, I buy digital products. I bought an invitation within the last year. I'm literally someone who has multiple digital product shops. I've made six figures selling digital products. I have this whole community of digital product sellers and I'm buying them myself. Could I make them? Of course. Yes, I could. But why did I buy them? Because I was lazy. Because it was fast, Because I clicked a button and it showed up in my inbox. So it's like, it's the same reason why people doordash, like, you know, you don't feel like cooking that night, someone else is just going to bring the food to you. It's the same thing with printables or digital products. Like someone else, they spent their time making the thing. I'm just going to click this button, I'm going to spend a couple bucks and it's mine now.
- [24:14]
Lizzie Smiley
So it's the same thing every time. Convenience, convenience.
- [24:18]
Cody Berman
All right, and the last part of your question, you asked about pricing.
- [24:22]
Lizzie Smiley
You need to know that I would have forgotten the second two questions before I finished answering the first one. So I'm really proud of you. Yes.
- [24:27]
Cody Berman
I'm going to make sure I get you that ADHD planner once we get out. Okay, so pricing. So this sounds so silly, but a lot of people don't even look up what the competition is doing before they create or list a product. So what I like to do is when I'm creating a product, I'll look at what are the other people doing? Like, how are they positioning their listing images? Like, what are they titling these things? Like, how can I maybe have a slight edge? How can I make my thing stand out a little bit more? Maybe other people aren't doing an editable version of this and I can come in with one of the few editable versions and that might take off. So I always do the same thing for pricing. So I'll say like, okay, there's some people pricing at 1999. There's some people pricing at 199. I kind of want to be somewhere in the middle of the pack. If like most people around like four or five, six bucks for this specific one to two page product, I'll probably price my thing like maybe the middle, maybe slightly lower than the middle. So like, let's say the average is like five, I might price my thing at like 399. And once that thing starts getting traction, I'm not afraid to like start tweaking the price dial up a little bit. More and seeing if sales slow down. Because if you can not slow your sales pace, like let's say you're one of the few sellers who sells a very unique, very niched down version of a product and you're like only charging 3.99, but people would be more than happy to pay 5.99 or 8.99 for it. Like, keep turning the price dial up. If sales start to stagnate, then turn it back down like that. Maybe you're overpriced, but. So I usually come in, right. Like a little bit lower than like the median price point. And then I will slowly mess with the price dial as these sales start to come in.
- [25:59]
Lizzie Smiley
So then given that price point, about 399. How many listings did you need to have in your shop to hit the thousand dollar a month mark? And then how many did you need to hit the 4,000amonth mark?
- [26:10]
Cody Berman
I think with the thousand dollars per month mark, it was somewhere. I think it was just over 350 listings.
- [26:17]
Lizzie Smiley
Mm.
- [26:18]
Cody Berman
But as I mentioned before, like 50 of those were the ones selling regularly. There was 300 of them sitting on the sideline. It's like, I just want, I want to give people a realistic picture. I am someone who has six years in digital product space or seven years at that. At that point. And like, I, you know, I know how to do keyword research, I know how to do SEO. I know like how to design stuff. I know what sells. And still the. You just can't get away from this Pareto principle. Like, you've got 20% of my.
- [26:44]
Lizzie Smiley
You can assume higher. Yeah, I tell people, assume 10%.
- [26:47]
Cody Berman
Yeah, exactly. And so it's just so true. You just have to take shots. That's, that's what I'm trying to tell people here. Like, there's no way of getting around the work. You're not just going to make one magic printable, one magic digital product that is going to make you tons of sales. Like, you have to put the reps in.
- [27:01]
Lizzie Smiley
And eventually you don't want to. You don't want to because that's just going to phase out eventually. You want to have. I want to have 100 listings making me $100 a month.
- [27:09]
Cody Berman
Yeah, exactly. Diversification.
- [27:12]
Lizzie Smiley
So, okay, if I need a thousand listings to get to that, fine, if I need 2,000. But like, I am not mad about a hundred listings making me $100 a month, guys. We're not mad.
- [27:22]
Cody Berman
Yeah, no, I'm, I'm totally with you.
- [27:23]
Lizzie Smiley
Cody, how many listings you have now? In that, that shop that's I was
- [27:27]
Cody Berman
actually just looking up, so just over 350. And I think now we're 5 27. So, yeah, like I said, it was doing like 50 a week. It's about 200 higher. It does sound like an advanced seller. But to think that I was able to get like 200 more products in that shop in like one month. Yeah, with, with. This isn't me working 10 hours a day on it. This is working like two hours a day. So I don't want to also set, like, unrealistic work expectations for people. Like, and again, I have the experience. I've been doing this for years. So, like, I'm probably faster at creating, faster at relisting, faster using the template method than someone who's just starting. But. But, like, if you build these systems for yourself, you're going to be light years faster than someone who has no Systems, who's spending 20 hours just creating some mega products that they haven't done any keyword research on and they're going to give up.
- [28:14]
Lizzie Smiley
They're not even going to be your competition. I think most people I talk to would be ecstatic to get to one to $2,000 a month and they're in six months. Like, I, I though, I really try to attract people with reasonable expectations, people who are willing to work, you know, people who aren't looking for, they want to do, they want to put in the work, they want to learn the skill. And so I think what you did just shows. Shows what's possible. I think that's. You're Honestly, though, that 1,000 to 4,000 in 30 days scaling was pretty crazy. If someone asked you, Cody, what is your niche?
- [28:44]
Cody Berman
If I had to answer that question. So it's going to be an unconventional answer. My niche is seasonal products, so I know that's kind of a cheating answer. It's not like my niche is, you know, finance or my niche is health and wellness. But, like, I just, I am such a huge fan of seasonal. And I know we've covered this on probably one of our first podcasts together, which was. Do you know what it was, Lizzie? When was our first podcast together? Like, 2020. 20, 2020.
- [29:11]
Lizzie Smiley
No, no, I launched it in 2021, but I think 2022. Yeah, I drove poor Julie crazy, but she was so delightful. I was just trying to do it right. She was so delightful, but she. You guys were one of my first guests, for sure. 2020, 2022.
- [29:29]
Cody Berman
So basically, we've been doing this for a long time. We've been friends for a long time, and I remember the story I told on that first podcast was kind of my origin story. And I probably have a. I probably have a bias toward seasonal products for this reason. But. So when I first started selling, it was like, October, November, and I did all the things that I'm recommending you not do. When I started my shop, I didn't do any keyword research. I would spend 10 hours on a product. I would. I'll have some other tips for you as well, but I didn't spend nearly enough time on, like, the listing image, which. That's a whole nother can of worms we can open. But basically, I just. I just. I spent like 50 to 100 hours and I was making no sales. Like, it was so demoralizing. If you looked at my dollars per hour, I think I had made like 50 bucks and spent like 100 hours of work. It was pitiful. It was really bad. But then I started to, like, lean into seasonal products. You know, I was watching some YouTube videos, I was reading some blogs. This is back before, like, social media was, like, really, really taken off. And so I was learning some stuff here and there, and I was like, oh, seasonal products. Like, there's a lot of search demand around holidays on Etsy, like, when those holidays are happening. So for December and January, I'd spent a lot of my time creating, like, Valentine's Day printables. I was like, okay, this. This is going to be my big break. You know, November, December, those didn't go well for me at all. January was still kind of slow, but I'm going to create all these Valentine's Day printables. And long story short, I ended up making over $720 in one week. Here's the kicker. While I was on vacation, snowboarding. So I'm a Valentine baby. And so I was out in Lake Tahoe for my birthday, and during that week, like, I wasn't working, didn't have my laptop, and, you know, the sales just kept coming in. It was like my first true taste of passive income thanks to the power of seasonal products. So, like, ever since then, I know it's a very long backstory to why I'm so obsessed with seasonal products. But ever since then, I'm like, okay, I'm not going to be sleeping on any of these holidays, any of these trends, any of these occasions. And for that first kind of year after that, that Valentine's Day blitz, I just made as many seasonal product variations as I could for, like, every holiday throughout the year. So I was creating stuff for St Patrick's Day and then Easter and then like mothers and Father's Day and graduation and you know, out of school, back to school, you know, literally every single one. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, like all the big ones and all the obscure ones in between. I would just have like this monster list of like, what, you know, what holidays are coming up. And so after one full year, this is the cool thing. Like I still have products that sell from 2018 and 2019 in my shop today. In 2026, while we're recording this, recording this beginning of March, I had stuff for this past Valentine's Day sell that I created in 2019. Isn't that just crazy? Like it's six years later and this
- [31:58]
Lizzie Smiley
stuff that was actually one of my questions I was going to ask you is if you. Because people are like, oh, seasonal. Well, we should. I mean, because I like to tell. I like to focus a lot on Evergreen, but I use seasonal to help buffer. Like to get me that extra buffer. I think people don't appreciate that it'll sell again next year if it did well this year, it'll sell again next year. But I didn't realize you could get like you've gotten.
- [32:17]
Cody Berman
Oh, those things are six, seven years out of them. That's the beauty. I think a lot of people will be like, well, it's seasonal so it's fleeting. It's like for the year. But like that thing can sell five years in a row during Valentine's Day or five years in a row during Christmas. So like there's, I'm just such a huge fan of seasonal. So that's, that's my long winded answer to your question. My niche is seasonal products. And I now in both my shops have like basically created seasonal products for the entire year. So I do have a lot of ebbs and flows. Like I have huge bursts during Valentine's Day and huge during Christmas and huge during Mother's Day, Father's Day, graduation, and like pretty much every like events through the entire year. But I also have kind of softened the, the ups and downs with, with Evergreen products. Okay, to your point.
- [33:01]
Lizzie Smiley
Yeah. Because yeah, summer is going to be slower for most of us. You guys know I am constantly testing strategies and frameworks on Etsy, so I can tell you what's actually, actually working and what's just noise. And one thing I have noticed over the years is this. Most Etsy sellers aren't stuck because they're lazy or they're not doing anything. They're stuck because they're second guessing everything, what to work on, what matters right now, whether they're even on the right path. I hear this all the time and that feels exhausting. So after years of teaching Etsy Sellers through courses and workshops, the trendspudding, membership coaching and this podcast, I built something that brings everything together in one place. It's called Scaling Society. Scaling Society is my all inclusive Etsy membership for sellers who want clarity and a clear plan without hopping between programs or wondering what to focus on next inside. You get my Etsy Seller roadmap so you know exactly what to work on and when with direction on what resources will help you master it. You also get every single one of my courses and my workshops. You get access to trendspotting and the weekly Trend reports my template drop, which means a weekly template that you can resell in your own shop. SEO training a bunch of done for you resources like prompts, SEO and branding templates. You get a coaching group with real support and that's where the magic happens. You also get access to two live coaching calls with me every single month. You'll also get automatic access to all of the new trainings and resources I have planned for this year, including special guests. It's designed to meet you right where you're at, whether you're brand new or you're ready to scale and help you build intentionally instead of guessing your way forward. And honestly, the biggest feedback I hear from members isn't just about sales, it's relief. They finally know what to focus on. So if Etsy feels harder than it should, if you're putting in effort but you want more clarity and direction, or if you're ready to treat your shop like a real business and have actual support behind you from people who know what they're doing. You can learn more about Scaling Society at the link in the show notes. There's a monthly and annual options and you can cancel anytime. So just pick what's right for you. I'd love to support you inside. Oh see, the the ADHD just flew out of my head. I was gonna ask about. I think people get because everyone says niche down. Niche down. No, no, your I would have even said I like that you even took it to the season. I'm a seasonal product seller because I would have just said your niche is templates and that's fine. Oh, I know what I was gonna ask you. You've already answered this, but I want to draw it out. I want to say it differently for people because it didn't necessarily click when you sit down, you, you've. Let's say you go back to the invitation example. It's. It was November. You created probably a Thanksgiving invitation. And then you went and you created it for Christmas as well, because you had the basic template. You just switch out some of the wording, some of the elements, make it Christmas. And it's so easy done. And you listed both of them then. But my question is, did you also right then create the Valentine's Day version, the Halloween version, the St. Patrick's Day version, the Fourth of July version? Did you create them all? The Easter right then at the same time?
- [36:11]
Cody Berman
I prioritized what was coming up, but I would go back and like start to add those later on. So, like, I knew that I had a pretty short window because I think I started like middle November. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get some of these. No, these. I was like, you know, November, I'm gonna get some of these Thanksgiving sales quote unquote, out of the way. Like, I'm just gonna go crazy for like one week, just all Thanksgiving related stuff. And then I kind of shifted my focus toward more of the Christmas and winter stuff. But like, when there was something that I could create a quick, fast variation of for Valentine's Day or whatever, I would go and do that.
- [36:45]
Lizzie Smiley
And did you publish it right then? Like, you published it right away as well?
- [36:48]
Cody Berman
Yeah, I used to. No, I publish them right away. I was trying to think of a good answer that question. But no, I don't really like camp on printables that I create. I just like kind of publish them when they're ready to go.
- [36:59]
Lizzie Smiley
So it's March. If you were working through templates and you made one, you created it for Easter, but then it was going to work perfectly for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Would you publish those in March?
- [37:09]
Cody Berman
I don't see any reason or data suggesting why not. Now the one, the one thing I would say is don't be spending all your time creating all these different variations that are going to be popular later on if you're someone who has limited time. Like, people don't have all the time in the world. So if you create one variation for Easter, don't spend the rest of your week creating all the different variations for all the other holidays throughout the year, because then you might miss opportunities to create all these other products for Easter. And then you can have this kind of full focus on Mother's Day, Father's Day after that. So, like, the one caveat to what I'M saying I think it's fine if you list stuff that, like, way ahead of the holiday now. Is it, like, the optimal time to work on that stuff? Maybe not. Because you. Anytime you're trading to work on something now, you're foregoing the. The ability to work on something else. Like, we only have 24 hours in a day. So I think there is a lot of value in like, spending the time that you do have to work on your shop, on things that are going to be popular or selling soon while you have the time, and then moving on to the next thing. And moving on to the next thing. But let's say you have like one month to work on your shop for the entire year. I think there wouldn't be any issue with just like, making every holiday, every trend, every season variation. Like, let's just say, okay, all I have is March in 2026 to work my shop. I would say absolutely, yes. Like, make every variation, make every every season, every holiday, every trend you possibly can, and just get that out the door.
- [38:29]
Lizzie Smiley
Okay, so here's what I'm hearing because this is, this is really special to get your. This kind. Like, thank you, Cody. You guys, this is. He's such an open book. You probably think these are crazy questions, but I'm. But maybe not, because you probably get them. You probably. People want to get this. They want to drill down. Here's a summary of what I'm hearing, and tell me if I got this right. You're creating a template, and you are then designing from it multiple iterations for different use cases. But you're focusing on the ones that are coming up that are like, in the next three to four, two to four months, and you're getting those out and publishing them then maybe later in the year, like, as you approach fall, you're going to pull that template back up and you're going to. Then you're going to use it again for what's coming up. Then your, your Halloween, your Thanksgiving, your Christmas, your New Year's, your Kwanzaa, whatever. So you're. You're going to go revisit that template as you get to that part of the year to be ideally on, like, the publishing schedule. Is that what I'm hearing?
- [39:24]
Cody Berman
Yes, that's what you're hearing. I think this will clear things up to people. So, like, I feel like we're talking about all the standard holidays, which are pretty, like, spread out. Right? So, like, let's use a more, I guess, timely example. Let's say you're creating back to school stuff because it's something that I did. So let's say you have like a gift card holder. And so basically what a gift card holder like template is, is it's, you know, there's a graphic on the top and then there's like a square in the middle of the graphic where you like actually affix a real gift card to it. So like it's a printable, but then you stick on like your Amazon or your Starbucks or whatever, or your, your Dunkin, whatever you want to give to the person. And let's say it's a back to school. So like you're creating variations for every, like think of every school character there is. You might be creating one for the teacher, a first grade teacher, a second grade teacher, all the way up through whatever grade. Then you could create one for every variation of a coach. There is lacrosse coach, basketball coach, soccer coach, and like these are all variations, but they're all variations within the same season. So like that's what I mean about using the template method. And I think this, this example is kind of better to drive this point home. It's not like we're creating, yes, you can create stuff like this. You could create a gift card holder for Christmas and one for Valentine's Day, one for Easter. Or you could just like pick kind of one time frame and figure out a bunch of niched down variations for that time frame. So like, I mean, we could probably brainstorm right now, Lizzy, and think of like 50 different variations just for a back to school gift card holder template. Like all we'd have to create is one base template. And all of a sudden we have, you know, grades K through 12, we have every coach you could possibly think of, every type of teacher, math teacher, science teacher, history teacher. Like there's so many different variations as you start to niche down. And something you had mentioned earlier that this, this brought, this just brought this back to the top of my head was people will be like, what should I niche down to? And I think that's the wrong question. People think their shop has to be niche. Your shop doesn't have to be niche, but the products that you're creating in your shop have to be niche.
- [41:13]
Lizzie Smiley
Yeah.
- [41:13]
Cody Berman
So like if you are creating a generic just thank you card or a generic just happy birthday card or just a generic invitation, you are competing with everybody and their mother on Etsy. But if you niche down like one layer and you create the first grade teacher thank you card and you create the, you know, soccer coach, birthday invitation, like as once you start to, like, add those little, literally adjectives, that's what niching down is, is just adding adjectives, adding descriptions onto whatever that, like, base product is. So instead of just like a generic invitation, it's like a first, you know, a boy first grade birthday party invitation. Like, that just makes it so much more niche. It's like your shop doesn't have to only be birthday cards. Your shop doesn't only have to be planners, but the products within your shop do have to be niched down if you want to kind of shine above the competition and start making sales right away.
- [42:03]
Lizzie Smiley
This is exactly what I teach. I'm so excited, Cody, because I always feel like you're smarter than me. So I'm excited that we teach the same thing. I call this niche blasting. So, yeah, it's a fun term, right? I did a little. A little free video of this earlier in the year. So instead of. And I actually had it wrong in my head, the way you were describing it, I thought you were taking the invitation and you were just using it for all the different holidays. Instead, you're niche blasting the invitation you're taking the same invitation for. So, like, think of it this way, guys. His holiday is like one of our trends. If you. Okay, my example, I created a PNG for basketball moms. Basically, it was a distressed watercolor PNG and it blew. Blew up. It did. Well, so what did I do? I went and I took that exact same style and I redid it for lacrosse, for soccer, for football, for hockey, for wrestling, for every. Every single sport. Tennis, volleyball. Every single sport I could think of. I niche blasted it. So I took the same concept at work and I spread it out. You're doing that, but you're actually doing it preemptively with the template, same concept.
- [43:03]
Cody Berman
I mean, I do both. To be clear. Like, I do. I do the holiday variations. I also do the. The niche blasting. I like this term. I do the niche blasting as well. It's just like, this is why, to answer your question from before, where you're like, would you, you know, would you create all the variations and list them in one month? It's like, well, probably not, because I'm spending all my time creating all these teacher variations. Like, you know, it's August right now. I'm not going to spend my time in August creating Christmas printables. I'm going to spend my time in August creating stuff for, like, back to school. So. And like, again, we only have so much time in the day, so I'd Much rather do like a niche blast in August of like back to school stuff. And then the next month I'm like, okay, it's September, let me. Niche blast, like Halloween stuff. How many variations of Halloween can I get in here? So like that's kind of how I think about things, do things.
- [43:43]
Lizzie Smiley
No, I'm so glad we got to hash that out. I love the, I love all the detail. It's so good. So, Kody, I think we should wrap up with some beginner mistakes that you see with printables. We've talked about a lot of them already, but a good summary and I know you've got some others in your back pocket. Tell me, what do you see over and over again? The same mistakes happening that we can help people prevent.
- [44:02]
Cody Berman
Okay, we talked about this first one in depth, but this is just not doing the keyword research before you create a product. I've seen this so many times where people will just create something on a gut and they'll be like, yeah, I feel like I should create this. And that's how I felt with my first one. My very first product was this like 21st birthday party drinking game. And it was horrible. And nobody wanted it because nobody's buying a printable to drink on their 21st birthday. It was stupid. But I didn't do any of the keyword research. I didn't know. I spent so much time on this stupid game and it didn't make me a single dollar. So that's the first thing is like people will just create things like, because they have this gut feeling and that's not the way to do it. Like, please, even if you're not a numbers person, like you don't even have to look at numbers actually, like with keyword research, you can just kind of use one of these tools and see what variations of a product are getting searched. Yes, there are some numbers involved. Like you'll see the search volume and you'll see the competition. But like they even have the nice green and reds for us non numbers folk to let you know. Like this, you know, this thing has a lot of search volume. This thing has a lot of competition and we can create things based on that data. So like that's the biggest mistake I see is people be like, Etsy's way too saturated. It's like, well, you just created a generic happy birthday card. Of course it's saturated. But like if you niche down a little bit and you use one of these keyword research tools, or if you, if you're someone who's like just starting out and you, you want to diy, you don't want to use any keyword research tools. And some of these do have free versions. But the Etsy search bar is your best free keyword research tool. Like start typing in. Okay, let's go back to the example before. Let's say you're creating a thank you card for like, you know, teachers. If you just type in like teacher thank you card to the Etsy search bar, all the different variations of like teacher thank you card will pop up like it's like Google where it tries to auto complete what you're typing in. So you might type in teacher thank you card and it might, you know, gym teacher thank you card might autocomplete. It might be like first grade teacher thank you card. So like Etsy will give you the answers. This is what people are typing into the search bar. So I like to say the Etsy search bar is the best free keyword research tool out there. If you want to get a little more crazy and get more into the data. Like I do like the more powerful keyword research tools, but the Etsy search bar does the job. The second thing, and you're going to appreciate this one. Lizzie as a YouTuber, so I like to kind of compare YouTube like listing or YouTube thumbnails to your listing images on Etsy. Like any YouTuber knows the the thumbnail is one of the most important pieces. If you don't have a good thumbnail, people aren't clicking into that video and seeing all the goodness inside. It's the same exact thing with an Etsy listing. If you don't have a good main like listing image, you're just going to get scrolled past on that results page. Like you could have the best, the most perfect listing in the world for the person who's searching for it. And if you don't have a good main listing image showcasing exactly what you're selling and making it look appealing in a way that the buyer is going to want to transact and purchase that product. I'm sorry, but they're going to be, they're going to buy someone else's product. So like, you should be spending 90% of your time on that first listing image. And yeah, you can create 19 other ones and just load up your Etsy listing with as many listing images as you possibly can if you want. But like, please spend an inordinate, inordinate amount of time on that first main listing image. Like it is literally the gatekeeper to sales. A lot of People will be like, who? Like, I just spent, you know, eight hours creating that printable. I'm going to chuck up a listing image in 3 minutes and call it a day. And then I'm going to list this thing. It's going to make sales. It's like, that's not how it works. Like, you need to spend as much time like marketing the thing as you do creating the thing. You really need to think about, like, what goes into that main listing image and make sure, again, do the competitive research. See what the competition is doing. If they're doing. If all the best sellers are doing one thing and you do something like completely crazy, crazily different in a bad way. Like, they're definitely just going to continue to make those sales and you're not. So, like, again, just pay attention to white space. Pay attention to what fonts people are using, pay attention to the color schemes. And just like I know you had mentioned your basketball coach thing was like a certain style, like something water. Watercolor. Right. So like, if that's what's selling, like, see, see what the competition is doing and you can deviate a little bit and make it your. Kind of make it your own, but don't just go so crazily different. Like, don't have a. Don't go into the wedding space and try to do these like blacks and gothic colors and expect to outperform like these, these nice frilly white with. With floral designs. Like, it's just not going to work. So I think that's another one is like, people just don't spend nearly enough time making sure that that main listing image is. Is really good.
- [48:20]
Lizzie Smiley
Unless there's demand for gothic wedding. And in that case, only do one and try it. Test it before you go. Create a bunch of them. Do you know, I just did a trend report and Pinterest is projecting a goth. It's all back. It's all back. But your other. Yes, completely agree with everything.
- [48:36]
Cody Berman
I'm not talking the style. Gothic wedding. To be clear, I was trying to. I was trying to make a. An absolutely ridiculous one. Like a wedding. Like a wedding place card with like a skull and crossbones on it. That's just jet black. That's not. That's probably not selling.
- [48:48]
Lizzie Smiley
Probably not. Probably not. That's ultra niche. Those are really good. Did I cut you off of their others? Those are.
- [48:54]
Cody Berman
Okay.
- [48:55]
Lizzie Smiley
We have follow the demand. Pay attention. I know. As usual. So follow the demand. Pay close attention to your first thumbnail. Especially like, go do the research to see what the Best sellers are doing so that you can have a similar aesthetic and you're not like repelling shoppers.
- [49:11]
Cody Berman
Yeah. Okay. Here's another mistake I see a lot of people make. I think a lot of people think they have to do too much. And that was a part of the reason why I did this like new shop experiment. People will think, oh, now that I have an Etsy shop, I have to create, I have to create pins, I have to create Instagram content, I have to be posting on Facebook. I have to be doing all these different things. If you just at the beginning, focus on just straight up good keywords and SEO, like making sure that your title is readable and making sure your title is exactly what you're selling. Making sure that you're using up all 13 tags and that those 13 tags are descriptive of the product you're selling. Even like going back to listing image, making sure that listing image is good and just again doing the basics. Like that's all I did with this new shop. I wasn't like creating social media accounts for it and you know, I wasn't like going crazy on Pinterest. It was, it was really the keyword research and SEO that drove a lion's share of the sales. So I think people will come into this side hustle thinking that they have to do the most. And it is overwhelming. Like, I remember when I started doing this, I was like, oh man, like I'm gonna have to create a bunch of Instagram posts and I'd have to be re recording videos for all this stuff and it's going to be like super crazy. But like, if you just stick with the core things that work, doing the research, creating what people are searching in the Etsy search bar and making sure that it looks decent and making sure your listing image looks good and you have the right titles and tags, like, that's really all you need to do to start making sales. You don't, you don't have to do any of this extra stuff. You can and it will help yourselves later on, but it's just like shelve that for now and just stay focused on like on the main thing. Don't get, don't be like procrastinating, which is like procrastinating by doing other tasks. You like that one?
- [50:47]
Lizzie Smiley
I do. That was good. I don't know if I could say it, but it's good. I agree. I don't think anyone should touch social media until they have 500 sales. You can do more than enough with organic search. You need to Be paying attention to demand anyway, and you're just going to burn out. Every single time they burn out.
- [50:59]
Cody Berman
I just realized I don't have a water. I'm like, my voice, I was just talking for, like, five minutes straight, but I think those are the main three things. I don't want to overwhelm people either. Like, I would much rather give. I would much rather people just take imperfect action than, like, listen to 100 podcasts and, like, wait for the perfect prescriptive advice on exactly what to do and what to sell. Like, just get out there and take some shots. Like, I've been mentioning this whole episode, and something is going to. Eventually, you're going to score eventually.
- [51:26]
Lizzie Smiley
I love this episode. And so actually, we picked the timing very strategically because Gold City Ventures is about to open doors to E Printables, which. Or no, it's actually open at the time of this, at the time this is airing. I have had, I mean, hundreds, hundreds of my students go through it because they want to learn specifically your methods for printables. It's not something I specialize in at all. And it's so great for beginners. It's so great for people not interested in design. It's so great for people who, especially if you don't want to play with AI at all, people should be checking out Gold City Ventures E Printable. So talk to us, Cody. What's happening? How do people get involved? What do you want them to know about it?
- [52:02]
Cody Berman
All right, well, yeah, Gold City Ventures, we got the E Printables course. This is the course that we started back in 2019, and it has come a long way even since we've been friends. Leslie, back in, I GUESS it was 2022, our first podcast episode together. It has come a long way and we continue to iterate. We continue to change with the times and figure out what's working. And. Well, funny enough, we were talking about this before we hit go here. The same core principles have applied throughout my entire digital products journey. Like, back from 2018 to today. Like, a lot of people be like, well, what's changed? It's like just. Just the tools. The tools are better. Like, we have fewer excuses than ever now. Like, Canva is better than ever. When I first started creating with Canva, it was crap. It was so bad. Like, you couldn't do half the things you could do on it today. You had to, like, lean on tools like Adobe Illustrator if you wanted to do anything fancy or like shadows or all these different things. Now Canva can do, like, Everything. And now the keyword research tools are a million times better. Like they were so bad you just had to basically guess and shoot in the dark five years ago. And now the keyword research tools are so good. Now we have AI to use as a thought partner. And so like I'll, I don't use AI so much in creation like I will a little bit, but I still find that like my template method creates much better looking products that kind of fit the exact needs of the buyer better. But I love leaning on AI as a thought partner. So like I'll, you know, I'll have AI help me drum up a huge list of like a master list of ideas and then I'll plug that master list of ideas into a keyword research tool and like half of them will be garbage. So like, you know, chat and Claude and all these, all these guys aren't quite there yet, but they are really good at generating a lot of ideas fast. So like, again, long story short, we just have so many more tools at our disposal today. The same things work like it's, it's always going to be figure out what people are searching for and create said thing. That is the way to make sales on Etsy. That is the way to make sales in any business. It's just that we have better tools now and the tools are slightly different. So I know there's a very long winded way of saying like we're just constantly updating our tools with the times and making sure that our students are, are very equipped to, you know, go through the keyword research and SEO process and create listings listing images and, and listings that sell. So basically E Printables is our course. It's like the A to Z of, of creating and selling digital products on. And you'll literally like, I'll be in the corner of your screen and you're like, you're creating a printable alongside me. So like we have over the shoulder tutorials. We also have like, I think where we shine is our like keyword research and SEO modules because we are so data driven. Like we consider this a side hustle. A lot of people just create printables for like a hobby. And like you, maybe you, maybe you are crafting, you just like creating which is just an added bonus. But like I come from kind of the side hustle, the like personal finance world. Like I am in this to make money. Like I create printables to make money. Yes. Do I feel good when someone messages me and I like created an awesome printable that they Were able to, you know, give to someone else or they were able to celebrate some win with. Yes, it's awesome. But, like, at the end of the day, it's a side hustle. So, like, we try to give you the tools to actually make money on se versus just having fun creating printables. And then, yeah, we have, like, templates every month. We have a bunch of live events. We have expert coaches who can help answer your questions 24. 7. It has become a whole beast in and of itself. But honestly, the best part is the community. We have now had over 20,000 people join us from all different backgrounds, all different countries, all different niches. And, like, even just in this past week, I was actually going to pull my phone up because we've had some awesome wins this past week. And it's just. It's like, it's just so amazing to see, like, that in 2026, in March 2026, like, people are still listing stuff and making sales. Like, immediately we had one.
- [55:32]
Lizzie Smiley
Having a community is the differentiator in 2026.
- [55:35]
Cody Berman
Yes.
- [55:36]
Lizzie Smiley
Because there are so many tools that can help you, but bringing the human element is everything. Did you find it? You have some. Some wins for us?
- [55:42]
Cody Berman
I was just pulling up. I found it. I mean, Julie and I have this shared album because this is like, where I go to, and I'm like, you know, feeling a little down. I'm like, I just go in here and it's all of our student wins. We just screenshot them from our Facebook group. And. Yeah, so this one is from Noah. This is from yesterday. Got my first sale in my first week. Thank you for all your support and answering my constant questions. Like, we're constantly seeing this stuff. Gita finally hit 100 sales. Let's see what other ones we got here. Kimberly said she found what we call a keyword unicorn. That's something we talk about in the. In the course. And basically a keyword unicorn is like, it has really high search volume and low competition. And, like, they are difficult to find on these keyword research tools. But this student found one, and she said it started making sales the first day she listed it. So, like, yeah, there's there's just. There's students. The community is the best part because it's just like, showing us that what we're teaching still works today. And it's just. And it's awesome. Just actually having a real impact on someone's lives. Like, you know, people are making. People are making grocery money. People are paying their mortgage. Like, some of our star Students have quit their job and it's just. I know, it's really cool and really rewarding.
- [56:43]
Lizzie Smiley
I'm obsessed with Gold City ventures and E printables. You guys are one of my top, top, top, top favorites. So, guys, if this appeals to you at all, you're so welcome. While the doors are open, get in there. They open it twice a year. We always have Cody on or Julie of Cody's jet setting somewhere, which is common. Julie and I at home with our kids like, this is our life. But highly, highly recommend. This is one of the best quality Etsy courses on the market. These are some of the most trustworthy leaders out there. Full glowing stamp of approval from Lizzie.
- [57:17]
Cody Berman
Thanks, Lizzie.
- [57:18]
Lizzie Smiley
I feel like I put you through the ringer today, Cody. So thanks for coming on the roller coaster with me. I was like extra adhd and you just hung with me as you always do, so. But thank you so much.
- [57:31]
Cody Berman
Thank you. No, it's always a blast. I mean, sometimes we go into these conversations not knowing exactly what we're going to talk about, and then we end up rabbit holing in a certain direction for 20 minutes. But I wouldn't have it any other way. It's always a great episode.
- [57:45]
Lizzie Smiley
Count on me to take you on a rabbit hole. No, but this is so good and I really appreciate you being so open to sharing the details. Like, these are the questions that we get every single day. This is the stuff that people say. No one's talking about it. I have this kind of obscure question, but it's the same obscure ones all the time. So thank you so much. And guys, I just really appreciate you spending all this time with us. This is a big investment of your time, whatever you're doing in your daily life. So just know how much we value and appreciate you. Hope you took away. So, I mean, like, I'm over here. I took away a lot today. I am energized. So until next week, my friend, go make something awesome. We love you guys.
- [58:19]
Lizzie Smiley (Podcast Host Outro)
And that's a wrap on this episode of how to sell your stuff on Etsy. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. If you're looking for more resources, head on over to howtosellyourstuff.com where you'll find podcast show notes, all the links from today's episode, the blog, courses, coaching, and more. If this episode was helpful to you, awesome. The greatest compliment I can receive from you is a rate, review and subscribe on this podcast. Not only will it allow us to connect again on a future episode, it lets me know I'm providing you with value and helps other people find this content more easily. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your support. Have a great day and see you next time.