What began as a casual side hustle while watching reality TV in December 2022 has turned into a booming business for Emily Odio-Sutton, generating over $236,000 (nearly Rs 2 crore) in revenue in 2024 alone. With a remote job and two young children, she sought a flexible way to balance her career and family life. The secret? A combination of research, timing, and an innovative print-on-demand model that allows the 36-year-old to create personalised gifts for specific jobs and hobbies.
Odio-Sutton’s journey began with a desire for more control over her time. As a full-time operations manager for a children’s book publishing company, she was struggling to juggle the demands of her job and family life.
"I couldn't leave my 9-to-5 in the middle of the day for school pickups or gymnastics practices," she explained to CNBC Make It. "I needed something that worked around my schedule." This frustration led her to discover print-on-demand — a method where designs are created for products like mugs, T-shirts, and tote bags, and then manufactured and shipped by a third-party once a customer places an order.
By leveraging platforms like Etsy, Odio-Sutton began experimenting with designs targeted at niche markets, from podcasters to speech pathologists. “It was about finding those hyper-specific jobs or hobbies that people could relate to,” she says. Initially, her designs didn’t stand out, but once she shifted focus to more personalised products like candles and journals, her sales skyrocketed. By October, she had earned $5,000 (Rs 4.22 lakh) in profit, equalling her full-time monthly salary.
What made Odio-Sutton's shop stand out was her ability to identify and capitalise on niche trends. She used tools like Google and ChatGPT to brainstorm ideas for unique designs, then used Canva to bring them to life. As her store grew, so did her income. In the peak months, she made as much as $54,900 (Rs 46.32 lakh) in a single month, with a third of that being profit.
In addition to the steady Etsy revenue, Odio-Sutton also dipped her toes into other ventures, opening a second Etsy store selling downloadable event templates and managing Pinterest accounts for other businesses. "I wanted to make sure I wasn’t putting all my eggs in one basket," she explains. Her diverse income streams, she says, allowed her to pay down her student loans, take family vacations, and even save for her daughters’ futures.
Despite the success, Odio-Sutton remains grounded, using her earnings for both "fun and responsible" bills. “It’s about balancing the fun things, like vacations, with the important things, like student loans,” she says. Even with her increasing revenue, she remains focused on her family's needs, always prioritising time with her daughters.
"My goal has always been to live on my schedule," she notes, adding that her side hustle allows her the flexibility to pick up her daughter from the bus stop and take her to practice.
While Odio-Sutton has scaled down her publishing job to part-time, she’s not ready to leave it all behind. "I’d consider going full-time with my business, but only if I could still be there for my daughters as much as possible,” she adds.
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