Hi! My name is Mike, and I’m a serial entrepreneur living in Montreal, Canada. I run Vagabond Heart, a company that makes modern vintage-inspired travel patches and stickers to help your luggage stand out on a the carousel.

I started the company just under two years ago, and we’ve been growing at a 100+% growth rate ever since. Currently we sell just over $5,000 per month worth of patches and stickers.

Hi, I’m Theresa the owner of the blog DIY Lifestyle. On my blog, I share dozens of gluten-free, vegan, paleo, raw vegan and healthy recipes, fun crafts & DIYs, helpful life hacks, and travel tips. I started my blog because I was looking for a place to write down useful information to share with people all around the world but it quickly turned into something more.

Hi there! My name is Markus Hartel and I started Raghaus Studios, a boutique letterpress print shop and graphic design studio five years ago after moving to a new domicile with nothing but a dream, no customers, and little cash in my pocket.

The Raghaus product line includes irreverent beverage coasters, fun comment cards, rad stash boxes and the latest addition to my portfolio are motivational candles.

Hey, y’all I’m Cinquanta Cox-Smith I hate putting myself in a box, but If I had to explain what I do: I’m a Multipreneur. (Author, Podcaster, and Entrepreneur) I’ve been helping entrepreneurs start an EASY Print On Demand side hustle from anywhere for about 3 years now. I’m originally from a small town in South Carolina called Georgetown. It’s historic in many ways, especially for the Geechee Gullah culture. I’m an Army Veteran and my Husband (Shawn) is an active-duty soldier. We have 2 kids Kyree (15) and Sharye (12). Let’s not forget about our dog ChuChu. He's most definitely the star of this show.

I’ve always felt like this was just a hobby, or I was just making shirts but Print On Demand is so much more than that. It’s helped me create $7,000 in one month selling POD journals on Amazon KDP, it’s helped me land a Magazine Cover with my T-Shirts for Stars & Stripes (American Military Newspaper). It’s helped me teach over 10,000 people how to create passive & residual income from home with just a computer and some wi-fi. Most importantly it’s allowed me the gift of TIME. Time to spend and travel with my family. Once we get further along into this interview. I’ll tell you about how I accidentally started in the Print On Demand industry 12 years ago.

Hi guys! My name is Paul Kaster and I’m the owner of Crooked Branch Studio. I started the business in 2016 making handcrafted wooden bow ties, but I’ve since expanded to carbon fiber bow ties under the sub-brand Carbon Cravat.

After outsourcing most of my day-to-day work to contractors around the United States, my business now consistently pulls in around $1000/mo in profit with minimal upkeep. If you’re interested in learning how to turn a labor-intensive business into a self-running income stream, I’ll be diving more into specifics later.

My name is Ryan Popoff and I am the owner and maker at Popov Leather. We are a Canadian company that makes and sells small leather goods online. The majority of our sales are focused on direct-to-consumer and almost entirely in the USA.

Our top selling products are (you probably guessed) wallets. People love a great quality wallet backed by our amazing customer service.

My name is Sasha Weekes and I’m the 25 years old owner of Timber Grove Studios. Our home-based woodshop is nestled in the hills of PEI’s countryside, and we specialize in decorative shelving and home decor with a focus on minimalist design and simplicity. Each piece is made to order with 20+ color options, meaning it will be the perfect fit for each customer's space. We ship Canada and U.S. wide.

Moving twice in two years has definitely caused organizational, financial and opportunity hiccups, but the business has grown steadily regardless so we’re very excited about where 2020 will take us. We’ve learned what to focus on during which months, as revenue can range anywhere from $2000 during slow months to $10,000 during high months. Net profit has run anywhere between 20-50% throughout the life of the business and varies month to month. It’s closer to 20% right now as we’ve been spending all we can on new tools and materials for our new larger products and our Christmas stock.

Oh My Balm was founded two years ago and we make kitchen-crafted all-natural body products. Our tagline is “Two Mom’s Making it Real.”

We promote them through our marketing, as they work on several different projects that create a life of prosperity for African women and their families. You can find more about them here. The other charity that is close to our hearts is Behind The Scenes, which provides financial support to entertainment technology industry professionals if they, or their immediate dependent family, are seriously ill or injured. We make a body butter, “Crew,” and we give a portion of the proceeds of every tin sold to BTS. This got us mention in several entertainment industry magazines.

Hi, my name is Jeff and I started Stoic Muse last year as a creative side project. I am currently selling about 100-150 t-shirts per month ($3K revenue) with around a 40% margin. I am hoping to sell 500 in December!

My name is James Wolfer, and I am the founder, owner, and operator of Valhalla Wood Forge. We are a veteran and first responder run woodworking company that started in 2017.

As an update, October 2019 was our biggest month yet, grossing $8500, with about a 70% profit. We paid ourselves $5000, and reinvested about $1000 into future product lines and another $600 in running Facebook and Google Ads. As of today, November 14, we're already at over $4,000 gross and have had a pretty good ROAS.

Hello there! We are Lindsay Ann Gottschall and Courtney Joy Bleier, two sisters from Miami who started Ann + Joy. We make handmade real flower and resin jewelry and sell online and in stores around the world. We take pride in being one of the first companies to make real flower jewelry. During our first year of business, we blossomed almost immediately into a very successful Etsy shop. Etsy was constantly featuring our products on its website and in promotional emails. We are proud to say that since starting in early 2017 we have had over 5,000 sales online.

For all the readers, we are providing a 20% off coupon to our Etsy shop. Use code: STARTERSTORY at checkout!

I’m Ralu Petrea, the founder (and UX Designer) at Outline Planner, the paperless planner that took me one week to launch and two years to refine. I started this project as a test, with a €499 initial investment, and it paid off since my first week. It is my full-time job two years later, and I am now open to growing my team.

I launched the first planner in November 2018 on Etsy, as a test, with a €499 investment (for my iPad and the Apple Pencil) with no followers, no business plan, and a brand name borrowed from my previous business that failed. From November 2018 until October 2020, I sold my planners exclusively through my Etsy shop and reached €80K+ in sales, with profit margins around 70% (mostly depending on ad-spend). In 2 years, I got 4K+ orders (15-20% are returning customers) with an avg. customer value of €58.36, and all that while working on my UX design service business.

We are Mari and Matt McNamara and we’re the founders of No Cold Feet, a gifting company currently focused on groomsmen gifts. We’re in our third full year of business and planning on growing our business more than ever with new products, increased marketing, and focusing on growing our various platforms.

Last year we passed $200k in revenue and have cumulatively sold over 10k orders in the last three years.

I am Betsy and I run Betsy DeVille at betsydeville.com, an e-commerce business capturing the positive viewpoints of the atheist, humanist, freethinker, lifestyle and expressing them in fashion, accessories, home decor, and gifts.

My income has doubled each year and I estimate I had about $1000 in sales last year. I am also a full time professional in fintech, with a family. I aim to bring two new ornaments to market each year and to expand the brand into another space. This year, it was Instagram and neckties.

Over the last 12 months, we’ve expanded our products to include two tattoo designs in six colors, swimsuits, and clothing, all with the unifying “mermaid scale” theme. These last six months we’ve averaged about $1,000/month in mostly passive income.

Hi, my name is Melanie. I’m an outdoor soul from Germany (grew upright in the middle of the German Alps) and business owner of alpengraphics - a zero plastic startup for minimalistic & durable campfire mugs. The company was founded in April 2019 and makes approximately 500 - 3.000€ a month, depending on the season.

I’ve also worked with various Instagram influencers. It was (still is!) really touching that all of them were willing to support my business without getting paid. They believed in the product, in the vision, in the sustainable approach, and were willing to go out of their way to create beautiful content with nothing but a mug in return and a lot of them still do. I’m still super grateful to all of these incredible people.

Hi, I’m Ruth and I run Seniman Calligraphy a custom stationery design studio where I do calligraphy, watercolor, illustration, and graphic design for bespoke wedding invitations and other paper goods. Basically, printing and manufacturing.

Hi, I’m Jess. I’m 34 years old from Tasmania, Australia. I started Chasing Planner Peace back in 2015 when I was pregnant with my third child. Originally we were based on Etsy and only sold planner inserts, however, we’ve now turned into a one-stop planner shop that caters to seasoned “planner addicts” who want to add to their planners, and also planner newbies who love the fact our shop is the only store in Australia you can custom build your own ring planner style planner.

Over the past few years, we’ve really expanded our range to not only offer planners and inserts, but also planner dashboards (beautiful cover pages), dividers, notepads, stationery items and more. We also recently started our subscription box service where every two months customers can receive a “Planner Peace Box” which is full of planner and self-care goodies. We have so many more plans for new products in 2020.

At the moment, this business is still a side hustle. Between my online store and the in person events I do, revenue averages to about 1.9k per month. Not bad for something that was started on a whim!

My name is Steve Smith. I am a high school marketing teacher. I started 2Puggles in December 2014 as a 3-year experiment that I could share with my students to see how big one person could build a part-time craft-based business.

In past years, January through March are typically 0 revenue months; However this year I have already grossed $500 in mid- January. With the home remodeling done and my brand awareness growing steadily I think this will be a significant growth year!

My name is Nick Fortosis and I am the founder of GEO 101 Design, a company that specializes in creating one of a kind cork maps with modern minimalist aesthetics. Our goal is to turn your love of travel into your own personalized home décor.

Founded in late 2017, I run the business by myself and manufacture everything in my garage workshop in West Michigan. We have been steadily growing and are currently doing roughly $2000 a month in sales through our website and our Etsy shop.

Hello! I'm Erin E. Hooley, proud Texas mom of 6 as well as founder and CEO of the e-commerce children's clothing line Bailey's Blossoms and it's sister brand, Peyton Bre.

Bailey's Blossoms started as a hair accessories company at my kitchen table in Arizona back in 2008 and has since grown into a multi-million dollar adventure. Both brands provide fashion-forward styles at a price that won't break the bank!

Mosspiration Biotech engineer mosses to produce fragrances, either for home decorative products or for chemical used in the perfume industry. I, Henrik Toft Simonsen, is one of the two founders of the company.

Fragrant Moss as Natural Air Freshener was launched in January 2019 and now sells via Etsy and our own homepage. We currently do about $1,000 USD per month from our Fragrant Moss products and have income from grants and other sources as well.

Hi! I’m Rebecca Ringquist. I’m an artist and entrepreneur living in Portland, Oregon.

Ten years later, that Original Sampler is by far the best seller and comprises at least 25% of yearly sales annually. Dropcloth Samplers started on a whim, but is now my full-time job, grossing over 15K a month.

We are Matt Snow and Meredith Erin, and we’re the co-founders of Boredwalk, a lifestyle brand that sells original art and graphic design on functional goods.

We’ve been growing fairly rapidly, especially in the last 2-3 years as we’ve become more adept at digital marketing to find and retain our ideal customers, averaging MoM growth of 10-12% and YoY growth of 50-100%.

I’m Nick Griffiths. For 25 years I was a freelance journalist in London; now I run Any Old Lights, selling vintage nautical and industrial lighting, online and from a shop by the sea in Cornwall, UK. You never quite know where life will take you!

Any Old Lights has won awards along the way and keeps growing in popularity, selling worldwide to anyone from high-street giants and celebrity bars to Middle Eastern hotel groups, turning over last year £250,000.

Hi, I’m Andrew Moore, the founder, and designer at Felony Case, a Toronto based company designing unique iPhone cases. I founded Felony Case in 2012, and since then we’ve created several flagship iPhone case designs.

Hi! My name is Ellen Hamilton and I’m a Founder and CEO of Chemo Cozy; a company that makes fashionable and functional apparel designed to provide warmth and comfort to patients during infusion treatments.

We now have customers in all 50 states and internationally and have three online stores- our website chemocozy.com, an Etsy shop, and now a store on Amazon.

Hello everyone! My name is Daisy Kimbro, the founder of Aromaology all-natural bath, body and home fragrance products. Aromaology was started with a vision to create natural products that are designed to add value, offer performance, and are ecologically sustainable. This has now become a vision come true.

Some of our upcoming releases are our monthly subscription boxes. We launched our Mindfulness Box this past November and it has become one of our top sellers. It comes with a lavender vanilla candle, eucalyptus room spray, rose quartz heart crystal, body butters, lava stone bracelet, mindfulness cards, stress-less cards, green tea, and a cute green tea strainer.

Hello Starter Story! My name is Scott Wood and I'm the co-founder of Mapply - an Edinburgh-based map print company specializing in colorful map art prints of the world’s best places. We sell primarily city map prints, but also have since expanded to customized prints of anywhere in the world in a variety of striking colors.

We are also sold in numerous brick and mortar stores across Edinburgh and plan to expand to the rest of the UK and beyond over the next few years.

My name is Alex Moore. I’m originally from St. Louis, MO, USA but have lived overseas the last 11 years and am currently living near Queenstown, New Zealand, where I have been for the last 5 ½ years. I have a wife, Paula, and three children, Sophia & Grace (twins, age 5) and Beau (age 3). My main profession (no longer full time) is that I’m a primary school (elementary) PE teacher going on my 15th year.

Currently, between all of my sales at the markets, online, etc, my revenue is on average between $2500-3000 per month. One thing that people find unique about my product is that I personally make every piece of jewelry I sell.

The backstory to the creation of Choast came from a long time of smoking weed with friends and being around people you can be yourself with. This is a very important aspect to us because being able to be yourself and not have the stress of being judged by your peers or friends really allows that person to be who they truly are.

Choast has become one of the most well known upcoming brands within the Toronto community and also within the cannabis niche suiting stoners all around. Having products ranging from hoodies to stickers, Choast has made an impact on the stereotype surrounding cannabis with the younger generation, creating a new way of thinking around cannabis. Choast is making $5,000 per month.

My name is Ursula Barton and I am an artist who has built two small businesses. My first business started with paper goods featuring my artwork of the Portland bridges: postcards, greeting cards, and archival prints.

This gratitude has been met with great support not only with the wonderful turnouts we get at our events but in the sales we have had in just our first few months of being open, word of mouth has been our biggest asset.

My name is Jamie Skinner and I am one of the co-founders of Jungle Culture. We are an e-commerce brand that sources eco-friendly products directly from farms, small craft workshops, and ethical factories and sells them online worldwide.

Propelled by our success and the desire to create more change, we switched our focus to eco-friendly products as a whole and created Jungle Culture, which this year turned over just over $1,000,000.

Hello! My name is Vivian and I’m one of the co-founders of East Meets Dress. We’re the first modern fashion company to bring Asian-American representation and inclusion to the traditional wedding industry by combining contemporary cultural designs, quality craftsmanship, and a dedicated customer experience.

East Meets Dress has been entirely bootstrapped from Day 1 (we got started with less than $100 over a weekend). Neither my co-founder nor I had any prior experience in fashion or entrepreneurship, but through a lot of hard work, hustle, and trial and error, we've been able to grow our team and company to a 6-figure annual recurring revenue ($25k/month) in one year and help hundreds of brides across the world celebrate their heritage in style.

Merhaba! (that’s hello in Turkish). My name is Zeynep and along with my brother Yusuf, we run Galen Leather from our workshop in Istanbul. Combining our love for stationery items and skills in leather-making, we design and handcraft our own line of handmade leather travel journals, notebook covers, personal accessories and now, so much more!

In the last year, we’ve broken sales records, experiencing a 138% increase in revenue to hit an average of around $40,000 in sales each month. Most of our products are made to order, and as a small team of four, we believe what we’ve been able to achieve so far is no small feat!

Hi there! My name is Aziza and I am the founder of Aziza Jewelry. Some of my most well-known pieces include my colorful gemstone hoop earrings and Mother-Daughter Earring Sets. My Mother-Daughter Earring Sets have become quite popular lately as a gift that men have been purchasing for the women in their lives as “Push Presents” (gifts for a new mom just after giving birth).

In 1983, inspired by the artisan community around, this small endeavor started out of a small village of West Bengal, India.

We strive to create a recognition for the beautiful handwoven textiles to bestow value onto the ordinary lives of these artisans with extraordinary skills. We believe, once the value is recognized globally, it should translate into higher wages for weavers.

Hello! My name is Lauren Costanza, and I recently started a candle business called Bluminary. I was born and raised in Texas but spent a year in the Netherlands, earning my Master’s degree. While there, I spent my weekends traveling throughout Europe, crossing different locations off my bucket list. I photographed every moment, and it will forever be a favorite time in my life.

Bluminary started in early September, and while there have been challenges and hurdles to overcome, I am proud to say we are slowly starting to earn back our initial investment of $3,000. Over the Christmas holidays in December, we generated $1,292.86 in sales. From September 2019 - today, we’ve made $2878.99 in sales.

Hi there, My name is Susie Q Aranda and I’m the owner of Garage Gym Barbell Apparel. I design pretty things for strong women right in my garage. Providing tees, leggings and more for women of all sizes including our stronger plus size lifters. In addition, I also offer free garage gym workouts to follow at home and if you’re local; in person only women strength classes.

I believe that anyone, anywhere, at any level is capable of starting or continuing their fitness journey…even in their home garage! That's where Garage Gym Barbell began and has continued to grow.

Hi guys. I’m Mike Scully, founder of Lever Gear. We design “everyday carry” tools and accessories that are easy to carry and help people get things done.

Since then, we’ve sold over 25,000 toolcards in over 80 countries. We just launched our next products, the BitVault and BitLight, which are currently on Indiegogo. We hope to begin selling the BitVault in November and the BitLight soon after.

Hello, my name is Danna Norek and I am the founder of Aura Sensory. I am a company of one, supported enthusiastically by my husband who lends the occasional genius business idea. My company offers a growing line of safer, high-quality, effective skin, and hair care products that are universally affordable.

Aura Sensory has a solid customer base of roughly 350 returning customers and is growing this list every day. Based on upcoming product and enhancement ideas, projections are to add at least another 200 returning customers by this time next year as new avenues of customer acquisition and new product ideas are explored.

My name is Jackie Burke and I am the founder of Tini Lux. Tini Lux is the first line of fashion earrings made specifically for people with metal allergies and sensitive ears.

This month, Susan Kelechi Watson, a star of the NBC show This Is Us is was on the COVER of Good Housekeeping magazine wearing a pair of Tini Lux earrings. Seeing that cover photo was a serious pinch-me moment.

• Lauren ran her Etsy shop for four years but was making less than minimum wage from her efforts. So, she closed down, rested, and re-evaluated.
• When she opened back up in 2016, she employed a new strategy: get rid of every marketing tactic or time-sucking activity that wasn’t producing results and focus only on what was growing her business.
• The result? She now works less than 10 hours a week and makes $14,000/month on Etsy.
  

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