I subscribe to fellow blogger Ramit Sethi’s blog and recently he shared an interview with Elizabeth Weil, a woman who in addition to running Corporate Development at Twitter, ALSO has her own letterpress company where she has made more money producing customized letterpress stationary and invitations then she did as a venture capitalist! I share this info here not because I think any of you want to become couture letterpress designers, but because Ramit does a great job in this interview asking all the key questions you wished people asked of folks in this position but are often too afraid to ask like:
- “How much money did you spend to get started?”
- “How did you get over the psychological barriers to starting your business?” and
- “How much money do you make from your side hustle?”
You can check out the audio interview here: http://bit.ly/7Ya98m
Key Takeaways:
- Elizabeth mentions that her biggest key to success was not having a psychological barrier before starting the business. She just went with the flow and did what interested her because she wasn’t looking to make a billion dollar business – she was just looking to make a little “money on the side” doing something creative that she loved.
-Elizabeth got her first client by telling her friends about her passion for letterpress. After she got her first client she went on to gain the confidence to move forward with her passion and to take on even more clients.
-She didn’t let the fact that she didn’t have a website, or business plan prevent her from taking a “leap” of faith in investing almost $2K in her business early on.
-She sees her company as a “right brain” outlet vs. her daytime job which engages her “left brain.”
You can find Elizabeth Weil’s Paper Wheel Press’ products at http://www.paperwheel.com/.
Lastly, if you aren’t already a subscriber I would encourage you to subscribe to Ramit’s blog as he often has great resources, like those mentioned above on his site. For example, check out this graphic on the 3 Easiests Ways to Make More Money: Clean + Simple. Gotta love that Ramit!
Do you have a side hustle you enjoy and that you make money from? If so, share it with us!
