A few weeks ago, my brother (who just graduated from college) came to me and asked me how he can make money from the Internet.
Well, as I have been obsessed with the print on demand business lately, I told him about what I’m working on. I told him how I built my print on demand business and how much I have made so far.
I actually thought to tell him to follow the 1-Hour System because it’s how I sell print on demand products without “putting myself in the business”.
Anyway, I didn’t tell him much about the 1HS because he just got started and he doesn’t have cash flow yet allowing him to hire people.
My brother doesn’t have good design skills as well. I think he could use Photoshop, but I’m not sure he could produce professional designs.
Last week, I went back to my hometown to visit my grandma. My uncle, who is the artist in the family, also came and asked me for some advice on how to make money from the Internet too.
My uncle is a great artist with great design skills, but he mainly sells his physical art. Anyway, he isn’t the same as my brother, because he can produce good art all by himself.
I’m pretty sure if he moves his design work to the Internet he could compete with others and make a lot of money.
Many people who come to me have also experienced the same problems. Some of them have no design skills but want to build a print on demand business. Some people are good designers but not sure where to start.
Because they have different backgrounds, I divided them into three groups of people and these are some of the suggestions I give to the different groups.
Group #1: No design skill, have time, no money.
The first group is the group of people who have no design skill, no money, but have time to spare.
My brother fits into this group. He doesn’t have design skills or money to invest, but he has plenty of time to work hard.
This group consists of the people who just get started and are willing to work. They just need some guidance.
So, if they want to build the print on demand business, I usually recommend they do everything by themselves from the start.
Do the market research, create designs, and upload products by themselves.
(But wait, don’t you remember that these people don’t have design skills!?)
Well, I don’t have design skills as well when I did everything by myself.
These kinds of designs will be text-based.
Like this:
These simple coffee mugs have sold over 1,000 units on Amazon.
If you check the top selling mugs on Amazon, most of them have text-based designs.
This kind of design doesn’t require a high level of design skill. Anyone who can open Photoshop (or even Paint) can do it.
I also recommend them to check out the Action Script in Photoshop to help them automate some tasks as well.
It isn’t difficult to create the action script. There are many YouTubers who teach this on the Internet.
Now, keep uploading the products and earn money. After you have made enough money to cover basic living needs, invest some of it in setting up the team to do the work for you.
Group #2: Have design skills, have time, no money.
The second group is a group of people who have medium to high design skills, they have time, but not much money.
What I’d recommend to the people in this group is to do the market research and create designs that stand out from others.
I have been doing some research about the print on demand business and I found that there is a group of artists who are dominating the market with awesome designs as well.
Here are some of them:
These guys have many followers on Instagram. Every one of their posts has thousands of likes and they add the link to their shop in the bio section.
Every time they finish creating the new design, they can post it to their Instagram and could earn some money from their fans.
This group of people typically sells their designs to print on demand websites, such as Redbubble, Etsy (with Printful or Gearbubble), Threadless, Society6, etc.
I just tried uploading some designs to Redbubble recently and I really like it a lot. When I uploaded a design, I can use one design to create over 60 print on demand products, such as a coffee mug, t-shirt, tote bag, etc.
I only need to insert the title, tag, and the general description. The product keywords such as coffee mug or t-shirt will be added to the end of the title automatically.
It takes less than two minutes to create 60+ products with one design.
These sites are also the top print on demand companies where the demographics of buyers are very unique.
The customers on these websites like the creative designs and they are willing to pay a higher price if they find the design they really like.
If you check on Redbubble or Threadless, you will see that most of the top-selling designs are the drawing arts, not the text-based.
Anyway, if you want to go this path, the number of products is still needed. I recommend people in this group create at least 7-10 designs a week. Otherwise, it’s quite difficult to make consistent sales.
Group #3: No design skill, no time, has money.
For the final group, the people here are similar to a group of investors who are looking for ways to grow their money.
I consider myself and students in the 1-Hour System to be in this group.
I don’t have design skills and my time is used for other projects (the paid traffic stuff) which I need to monitor carefully.
So I decided to allocate some of my budgets to build a team to handle the print on demand business for me.
Anyway, this path doesn’t require much money when hiring people. There are only two people on my team: the product uploader and the graphic designer.
I just select the market to create the products and let my team do the rest.
It takes only one or two hours a month to prepare the work for my team.
The design cost is not too expensive either, because I hire my graphic designer to create text-based designs that he can easily do in just a few minutes.
So, if you want to build a print on demand business, but you don’t have design skills or time, the 1-Hour System is perfect for you.
Wrap it up
These are the three ways you can build a print on demand business for different kinds of people.
The print on demand business is actually very easy to build, but it requires time and effort to upload products consistently.
You don’t have to worry about production and shipment, because print on demand companies will handle this stuff for you.
What you have to focus on is simply creating the designs and uploading them to several print on demand websites.
When you have some products listed on many sites, you will be able to create a passive and consistent income.
Time to get to work!
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