Elke: I can see how a lot of people, especially over the last two years since COVID started, are feeling the same itch to start the entrepreneurial journey or are going through the same thing that happened to you. Let’s dive in and see how you took this situation, which was pretty scary, and used it to start the entrepreneurial journey and turn it around into a great situation for you.
Christy: I started Zazzle in 2016, but it was toward the end. It was closer to August when I started, and at that point in time, I was just throwing spaghetti up against a wall and seeing what stuck. Excitingly, I did start to sell. My first year, I made $256. That lit the fire, and I realized, “I should be able to do this.
I can do this, especially coming from a graphic design background.” That was what I did for a living, graphic design, accessory design. So I felt confident I could do it, and I worked hard on it in my spare time—which wasn’t too much, being a full-time worker and a mom.
I just wasn’t getting where I wanted to be. I mean, I did fairly well. My second year I made $2,000, but it definitely wasn’t yet where I wanted to be. So I ended up joining your course—it’s The Profit by Design Academy® now, but back then it was the Five Step Profit Plan.
Elke: It was called something different, but it was still discussing The 5 Strategies™ , which are the core principles that we teach. The rest is history, right?
Christy: Right. After I made that $2,000 my second year, I started looking online and trying to find other people who had started off on the entrepreneurial journey through Zazzle and had been successful in it. That was when I came across your website and I heard your story, and that kind of was like, “Wow, you can make that kind of money on here.
This is where I need to be.” And in 2018, I made about $6,000 after joining the course. In 2019, I had some medical issues around that time, so I did have to take a break where I wasn’t able to work. Mm-hmm And it was about, I would say a little, maybe a little over a year. I got through it, thankfully, and I made $9,000 in 2019, which was still more, but wasn’t the growth I was really looking for.
In 2020, I didn’t really grow like I really wanted to again. I made $11,000, still more, but not a big leap. Still, it was a very pivotal year for me. That was the year that I started to invest my time more. Then I got laid off in August of 2020, so that was when I basically went all-in. It was really good. In 2021, I made $29,000. This year, so far, I’ve already made $15,000. So the growth has been slow but steady, and I’m finally really seeing great results.
