Many years ago, I first became an entrepreneur in 2003 and I was recently out of culinary school and I started a business as a wedding cake designer

And then after that, I actually entered the craft industry when I invented a product for the cake decorating industry and I had it patented and I opened a manufacturing company, manufactured that product and sold it

Today in 2025, I think the number is closer to $35 billion a year and crafting is just huge

I just didn't work out the way that I thought it was going to

local local small businesses and all that stuff and it doesn't really work that way

So I remember in 2013 I was living in Austin, Texas and all of a sudden one day I had this dream at night and I'm a huge fan of following my intuition and when I have

Now if you're familiar with the concept of selling pickaxes to miners it's this concept that when the gold rush started there was one entrepreneur who decided that instead of going out into the mountains himself trying

Everybody wanted their chance at striking gold and he just kind of took a step back and said well I'm gonna support this for all these other people that are doing this thing and that was kind

for fun or they were making it with their kids is something to do or maybe they're making them for their their local school as you know to show off like school colors and school pride whatever

she got frustrated and and tired of it and she was selling off all of her supplies everything she had like just boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes full of beads and elastic string

hours and then the sales just kept coming and people wanted these components they wanted the supplies so this business ended up growing and I ended up having to find suppliers for the beads and the and

beads and then I would sit there and I would break them up into little small packs of like 50 or 100 beads and I would sell them on Etsy and this business just exploded because that's

customers contacted me if they emailed me and said I want to recreate this cake and they would send me a picture and then I knew how to tell them what they needed and how to talk

I answered the best I could but I wasn't an expert but with cake decorating I wasn't expert and I was able to guide my customers to what they what they needed and even if it was

sold supplies for working with resin what I what I wanted them the supplies to do it themselves or even just a simple how -to guide like you don't necessarily have to show up on video and

to knit a scarf and you tell I don't knit so sorry if I get this wrong but you can tell them like what type of yarn to buy and what size knitting needles you need and

work you've already done it so you can put that guide up on Etsy for seven dollars how to knit a scarf or a beginner's guide to knitting a scarf and sell it for seven dollars and

six hours to make and you're and you're selling it for forty dollars and it's not it's not worth your time and the thing is you may enjoy it and you'll always enjoy it at first that's

you've made three hundred and twenty dollars but you have the cost of supplies so you know it's not and by the way that's you every single day just knitting scarves non -stop and you're gonna reach

selling a physical product if you like shipping products to your customers I always love that I love packing it up I love putting in a handwritten thank you note and I love shipping it out the

not harder in your crafting business you still get to do the crafting that you love you're still gonna do it because you you're the you're the expert now you're the authority in this business if you're

the supplies yourself because it's your passion it's your it's your hobby it's your craft and so you're still doing it yourself and as you do it yourself you know if you're selling the supplies it's still

sell digital products there's systems that you can set up and put into place to make this work for you I've sold a lot of digital products over the course of my entrepreneurial history and what I've

free guide is a beginner's guide to knitting a scarf and people get this for free but in exchange for getting it for free they give you their email address and you put them on your building

email these people who got your free guide on how to knit a scarf and you're going to say if you're ready to take it to the next step and if you want to knit a sweater

way you can also join my community after you've bought the guide and then if you have any questions

you will give this an idea kind of take a step back from your business right now and look at it and think to yourself do I want to like what would make me happy do I

them and you know how to guide them and you can help them pick a color and you know maybe they send you a picture of something they're trying to match and you say I have the

take a step back from your business and look and think to yourself would I want to sell the supplies for this business that's selling the pick access to the miners very lucrative and then by the

create video classes and this doesn't have to be a big deal it doesn't have to be a big professional production you don't need a bunch of equipment in fact I will tell you honestly that the

makeshift tripod or you know have your one of your kids your your spouse or friend of yours hold it for you know 10 minutes while you demonstrate something but that's it that's all you have to

or or this is how you do this and you just do these little tutorials tutorials and it doesn't have to be a big deal and you don't have to go back and edit the video and

not teaching a how to knit course you can if you want to certainly but but it's much easier to get started with individual projects say today we're knitting a sweater here's the pattern we're going to

and you can sell this video you know for seven bucks or nine bucks and along with it comes a community that people can join where they can ask you questions

the price is going up but if you join a five dollars a month it's always going to be five dollars a month as for as long as you are a member and it's going to be

resources on how to set up your email list the software that I use I'll be there to help you if you hit any snacks or you need help getting something set up how to create your

in my past I've been a six -figure Amazon seller a six -figure Etsy seller I've sold six figures on my own websites that I've owned myself and I've bought from suppliers I've done all of it

up then you have them and you know it's it's something that's out there working for you once you have your email list set up it's working for you and sometimes it can be a little tricky

you need as you're building your business so if this is something that you are interested in you can go to businessofcrafts com

about what you can be doing to start creating sustainable income for yourself so that you're not just hustling and making handmade products that aren't selling or they're not selling for as much as you want because