36-year-old's Etsy side hustle brings in up to $54,000 a month, takes 10 hours a week — it paid off her student loan debt

Emily Odio-Sutton started her Etsy side hustle on her couch while watching a "Real Housewives" TV show in December 2022. She doesn't recall which one, but she does remember the months of research fed into that moment.

Her oldest daughter would start kindergarten the following year, and she knew she couldn't leave her 9-to-5 job in the middle of the day — even though it was a remote gig — for school pickups, or gymnastics or swimming practice drop-offs.

Amid her "doomscrolling," Odio-Sutton found a series of YouTube videos about print-on-demand — an e-commerce method where sellers create designs for products like T-shirts, tote bags and mugs, and list them on online marketplaces like Etsy or Amazon. When a customer places an order, a third-party manufacturer prints the design onto the product and ships it out.

Odio-Sutton decided to give it a try. Her shop, which specializes in gifts for people with hyper-specific jobs or hobbies, has brought in at least $236,000 in revenue so far in 2024 — more than $26,200 per month, on average — according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. She's already outpaced her sales for the entirety of last year.

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In her best month so far, the side hustle — which takes roughly 10 hours per week, she says — brought in $54,900. About a third of her shop's revenue is profit, she estimates.

Odio-Sutton prefers not to name her Etsy shop, to prevent copycats — but its success helped her scale down her job as an internal operations manager at a children's book publishing company to a part-time role this past summer. It padded her family's finances, paying for vacations and her $20,000 in student loans, she says.

Here's how Odio-Sutton experimented her way into a lucrative side hustle.

Finding a side hustle fit

Before launching her Etsy shop, Odio-Sutton tried her hand at another online side hustle, often referred to as "Amazon FBA."

She'd visit brick-and-mortar retail stores near her home in Melbourne, Florida, buy items that were trending on Amazon, package them up and ship them to a nearby Amazon warehouse. Then, she'd try to sell them at a slim profit margin through the e-commerce giant's Fulfillment by Amazon program, she says.

If the trends changed before she listed her items, she'd lose the margin. Three months in, her home was overrun with boxes of Hoka running shoes and Two-Faced makeup products, she says.

Print-on-demand seemed more appealing: She didn't need any business or design experience, and the time commitment seemed lighter. As a mom with a full-time job, "I didn't have the same privilege of time as maybe a different side hustler," says Odio-Sutton.

Her first attempts fell flat. She sold Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day T-shirts, but Etsy's website was already flooded with similar listings. Switching to more gift-friendly products like mugs, candles, tote bags and journals helped, she says — as did creating designs aimed at specific jobs or hobbies, from speech pathologists to podcasters.

Odio-Sutton uses Google or ChatGPT to brainstorm niche hobbies or professions, and turns them into simple, mostly text-based designs using a program called Canva. A podcast candle, for example, might have the following text printed on it: "The only podcast I listen to are the voices inside my head."

If a design starts selling, she'll duplicate it — swapping in a different hobby or job — to try replicating its success. Last October, she made around $5,000 in profit, matching her full-time job's monthly salary, she says.

She makes more money during popular shopping months: Her shop brought in more than $100,000 in sales between November and December last year.

Paying off 'fun and responsible' bills

Odio-Sutton's extra revenue covers both "fun and responsible" bills, she says. She and her husband also worked with a financial advisor to invest some of it into the stock market and college saving accounts for her daughters, she adds.

Working 20 hours per week at her publishing job and 10 hours per week on Etsy gives her time for other income streams too, Odio-Sutton says. She still has an Amazon seller account, and opened a second Etsy store last year to sell downloadable templates for events — schedules, invitations, and so on.

She also works as a coach for Gold City Ventures, which teaches aspiring Etsy sellers how to open their own shops, and does contract work for business owners who hire her to manage and market their Pinterest accounts, she says.

Sometimes, people leave their jobs to pursue their side hustles full-time. Odio-Sutton says she'd consider it — but only if she still gets to spend as much time with her daughters as possible.

"I live on my schedule in the afternoons. I pick up my daughter at the bus, then I go take her to gymnastics practice," she says. "My initial vision for [this routine] was always really strong."

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