There has never been a better time to start an online business.  If you are interested in launching a Print on Demand store, this live stream contains a ton of valuable information for aspiring online entrepreneurs.  This episode of the live stream will provide you with all you need to know when it comes to starting a Print on Demand business in 2021. 

Hosted by POD experts Aidan Kessell and Thomas Gentleman, the live stream covers all of the fundamentals that you need to know when getting into Print on Demand.  Some of the topics discussed include: 

• 01:13​ – Why should you start a Print on Demand business? 
• 02:55​ – Take our free Facebook ads course 
• 03:05​ – What’s the advantage of Print on Demand?
• 04:32​ – What you need to get started – no upfront investment 
• 08:49​ – The steps to getting started 
• 09:54​ – Get a custom domain 
• 11:58​ – What we wish we knew before we started 
• 13:07​ – Never pay for a Facebook Ads course 
• 14:25​ – Motivation and dedication 
• 17:49​ – Expert advice on both starting and scaling up 
• 22:12​ – Don’t fall victim to Confirmation Bias

Starting a business in POD in 2021: the key takeaways

Don’t have 30 minutes to spare?  Here’s a summary of the main points:

What is Print on Demand?

Print on Demand (POD) is a way of producing a product on a per-order basis. The product is not mass-produced. The product is only created after a purchase has been made.

What do you need to get started?

Just an idea.  There are zero barriers when starting a POD business on Moteefe.  There is no upfront investment.  Once you have an idea, get that design created and upload it to our platform.

Where can I find design ideas?

Anywhere and everywhere.  The Internet is a great source of inspiration that includes a ton of niche ideas.  Need a couple of examples? Check out our Niche of the week blogs where we dissect skiing and veganism. 

What is something I wish I knew before I got started in POD?

Understanding Facebooks ads.  Marketing your POD design is one of the most important steps in selling your POD products.  Fortunately, Moteefe has a free Facebook ads course that can help you avoid the same mistake as our resident POD expert Thomas Gentleman.

What’s the difference between someone who succeeds in POD versus someone who fails?

Motivation and dedication.  Many people are too scared to take the time and effort into their own businesses and projects.   And for those that do, some quit early into their careers.   Everybody starts somewhere, and if you want to be financially successful and independent, launching and dedicating time to a POD business can help you towards those goals.   If you are concerned with the opinions of others, don’t tell them.   Don’t let people hold you back. 

How to start a Print on Demand business in 2021: full transcript

A: Good afternoon, good morning and welcome to this week’s election, everyone. We’re going to be talking about starting a Print on Demand business in 2021. As always, I am joined by none other than Thomas, our resident seller. Thomas, how are you? 

T: I’m good, Aidan.  I hope everything’s going well for everyone out there in the Internet Lands. How are you doing?

A: That’s that’s all of them saying they’re doing great. No, I’m doing very well Thomas. Another exciting week at Moteefe and…

T: Yeah, it’s never a dull moment, of course.

A:  I’m looking forward to seeing if there are any new people in the chat and seeing if we can help them out, help them on their way through the first few steps of their journey and explaining what is this. This whole Print on Demand thing and why you’d want to do it and why now?

T: So this week, what’s the title of our weekly show? 

A: So this week, this episode, this is starting a Print on Demand T-shirt business in 2021.

T: 2021. OK, so why should you start a Print on Demand business in 2021.  Aidan, why, why should we start? Why should somebody out there start a Print on Demand business now? Why is this the right time?

A: So I’m going to give you … they say the right time is everyone’s sat at home.  Everyone’s doing one of two things. Buying more online or looking for other ways to make money. Right, and that’s why a lot of people, probably, probably watching right now.  Right. And send out now it’s you can do… you’ve got more people to sell to because you got more people to buy it. And you can make more money than ever from doing it. I think that’s probably a more waffled answer.

But yeah, now is the perfect time to do it. Because if you are looking for extra income on the sidelines, it’s an easy way to do it.

T: Well, if you want to do something, the best time to do it is immediately. Certainly setting up now is a great time where the beginning of the year still it’s only March. So we’ve got all of the rest of the year. So you can get good by Q4. You know, there’s some dates before Q4, some big sales events coming up very soon. And we got Mother’s Day in the United States in May. But, you know, if you’re starting now, if you’re setting up right now, you’ve got all of that time into Q4 to really get really, really good.

And a lot of online businesses see 80 per cent of their sales in Q4, 60 per cent is also another number. At least around 50 percent is a solid number of sales percentage to expect in Q4. So you’re not too late for this year and it’s a great time to start, hone your skills, get ready, get learning, understand how to run traffic, what a good product is and all of those things. 

There is a link to my Facebook page course in the description, completely free, brought to you by myself and Moteefe.

So Print on Demand. What’s the advantage of Print on Demand? I hear you ask, you were about to ask me about that Aidan, weren’t you?

A: what I was, but you beat me to it.

T: So sorry. So ask me, let’s, let’s do it properly. 

What is Print on Demand? And what are the advantages?

00:03:22

A: So, Thomas, what is Print on Demand?

T: Who gives you these questions? That’s a terrible question… Hahah no, no… so Print on Demand. People use the industry term Print on Demand. Print on Demand means that the product is only produced after the order is taken, after we’ve received the order. So, we haven’t got a warehouse full of stuff. It’s produced on demand or printed on demand. And then it’s also sent out to the customer directly from the production facility so that it’s not it doesn’t have to be warehoused.

It’s made and it’s sent out and that’s also localised. So Moteefe has a worldwide network of distribution centres, production facilities if you will, and from those networks, from within that network, if you say you ordered from the United Kingdom, we’re in the United Kingdom for our sins, then you… somebody orders from some orders from the United Kingdom, then it would be the item that I ordered would be produced from as close to me as possible and then shipped to me directly without all of those extra steps.

So that’s where the print is. And then the demand is the order. So that’s Print on Demand.

What you need to get started

00:04:43

A: So if I’ve got this right, Thomas, if the orders are printed on demand, that means you don’t have to pay any money to get the stock in the first place or anything for production. So it’s all done right? So in terms of getting started, there’s no cost to entry.

T: That’s that’s exactly right. So the business model is a fantastic one for people that want to get started in income and even experienced e-commerce people, because you don’t have any upfront investment, all you need to start a business with a Moteefe is an idea and then a design. So a simple file, a PNG file, transparent backgrounds, anyway, that’s the best way to do it.

So you need a file and that’s it. That’s all you need to start a business. So you want to start a business, you come up with an idea, a concept, you take that concept, you get a design made or you make a design yourself. It could be a simple text-based design, whatever you wish it to be, or a complicated illustration, if you’ve got the resources to produce it, open an account at Moteefe, upload the design and bang, you’re in business ready to rock and roll.

A: That’s pretty straightforward then. So I’m surprised that everyone isn’t doing this. I mean, it’s a massive missed opportunity for hundreds of people, I’m guessing.

T: Well, millions and millions of people. There are millions of people. In fact, there are billions of people now. So there are billions of people in the world. Now, most people don’t want to do anything.  Most people are inherently lazy or they put things off or get to that later or, you know,  “I’m comfortable.” People are overly comfortable, they don’t want to take the next step. They haven’t got the entrepreneurial spirit. 

You know, there are always ups and downs in things. There will be good times. There would be less good times. And some people just want to be very comfortable. They want to sit in their little bubble and take, you know, take their easy job. And maybe they’re not even that passionate about their job and they just kind of ticking along.  And there’s a lot of people in the world that…

A: Would you say that they procrastinate?

T:  Procrastinators. People do procrastinate. And, you know, but then there are other people that see something, they see an opportunity, and then straight away they’re trying it out. And that’s that’s the kind of person that is going to be successful. You want to and if you’re not that kind of person, if you’re procrastinating, as you so rightly say in the past, then this is the time to stop procrastinating and actually jump onto an opportunity and start.

As I say, a lot of opportunities in life will come along that take a ridiculous level of investment, years of education, expensive setup costs. You know, if you want to open a restaurant, I used to have a restaurant. Once you want to open a restaurant, you have to be a chef. No, you don’t have to be a chef. You have to employ a chef. You have to… rent a building kitchen and you have to have staff.

You have to buy food. You have to then, you got to order the food. The food’s going to go off. You have to sell it. Oh, you’ve got all of these things! Print on Demand. Nothing like that at all. You have your idea, your concept. Open an account on Moteefe, upload the design, open a store, all completely free. And now away you go selling. This is the, I think, the lowest barrier to entry of any business other than maybe selling lemonade in the street, that you could possibly imagine.

Of course, the difference between this business and selling lemonade in the street is the Print on Demand is infinitely scalable. So the more people that you can reach with Moteefe, anyone around the world, they are potential buyers, the entire world. You can target them with advertising or you can build a following, or you may already have a following where you can target these people and bring them into the, onto what we call the campaign page, the product landing page to see the product.

Then they make a purchase and then you get paid. Super low barriers to entry.  Super, super low 

A: Just on that as well. I think that’s one of the things that really got me interested in Print on Demand in the first place is if you’ve got ads, or you’ve got designs online and people look at them while you’re asleep in bed, you’re literally making money while you’re asleep, right?  It’s perfect.

The steps to get started

00:08:49

T: Indeed. So the steps are pretty simple. You want to go to moteefe.com, open an account, have a look around for a design idea, a niche idea. We cover that in some other videos, how to find a niche, which the best selling countries are.  Then, you open a store with that on Moteefe, all completely free. No recurring payments, not like some other sites that you’ll see out there where they want you to pay a monthly fee every month.

There’s none of that. It’s all straight through. And so now is the time to do that.

A: So what would be … so you would go on Moteefe.  You figure it all out. We’d have a look around, check out the YouTube channel. That’s where you can check out all the different niche ideas. We’ve done at least two videos on that so far and you get your niche.  Get your idea.  Get a designer and then what would be your next step? 

T: The next step would be… so you got your niche. You got your designer. You got your account on moteefe.com.  You can open a store on moteefe.com.  Yes, you can buy a custom domain.  They’re only a few dollars. So maybe that’s the barrier to entry. I was going to say the barrier to dollars. A few dollars, six dollars or something like that, nine dollars for a custom domain that you could link to a store Moteefe for white label experience. 

We’ve got customer support agents that speak all of the languages—well not all the languages—but a lot of languages so that your buyers will get support in their own language. Fully white labelled.

So if somebody buys through your white label store, our agents reply as if it’s through your store with the domain name in the communications. All of that good stuff. 

You’re going to have to drive traffic. So you want to maybe you want to run Facebook ads. We have Facebook pixel integration. So you want to get a Facebook business manager account. You want to open an ads account on there, you want to get pixel. You want to install it on Moteefe. You want to drive some traffic, maybe some small ads, again Facebook ads course in the description, shows you how to… It will show you how to test the product for as little as five dollars on Facebook, which is super cheap. 

So again, these are all low barriers to entry things. If you want to go on a purely organic traffic pathway, then you can open Facebook groups, which are a great way of having passionate people within the group that can build up over time. And that’s a good way to do target niches. Or you can build up an organic Instagram account or an organic fan page on Facebook 

Target a niche, something that people are passionate about. Don’t oversell to them again. We’ve got another video on how to do that and then you just double down. Something starts working for you, do more of it, you do more of it. Over time, you’ll understand what kind of things your audience likes to buy and you’ll be able to present them with more stuff to buy because you’ll be more in tune with their needs. And that’s what it’s all about.

What I wish I knew before I got started in Print on Demand

00:11:58

A: And that’s the journey. Right. I’m going to throw a bit of a curveball question to you Thomas. Is there anything, you know now that you wish you knew when you got started? In Print on Demand, that is.

T: Well, that’s a great question. Certainly, I’ve definitely got better with ads and things like that. It would have been great to have a free custom domain white label experience such as we’ve got on Moteefe. Back then, that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t easy to do. It was a monthly recurring payments and all that kind of thing to do that. And lots of set up, lots of interrogations I didn’t want to do. 

I like to be quick to market. Nimble.. That’s why Moteefe is so great. So, yeah, there are probably some things that have changed, but really the idea, the way it’s done, how to do it is very much the same as it always has been.

You have to do a little bit of research, come up with a good idea, find some buyers that will be interested in that idea and then drive them to the product. And then the best bit, of course, is taking the money.

Never pay for a Facebook Ads course

00:13:08

A: Yeah, I got a couple of comments. I’m just going to read one out there. And I think you need to hear Thomas, as you did, make the Facebook ads course. So Marcus says…where was it? He says, “This course is making me rich.” So someone at least one person out there definitely likes that course. And just so, you guys are where I can say this.  Everyone that I’ve spoken to has done that cause they feel like they should have paid money for it.

So if you, because there’s a lot of Facebook ad courses out there that you can do. I would definitely, definitely recommend doing ours instead of paying for one.

T: Aaaw! I thought, you know, you’d recommend sending me some money. But yes, ours is ours… my course does have a good value attached to it. And we could have easily charged a significant sum for it, shall we say, more than a few dollars more than a Print on Demand T-shirt, but it’s completely free. Tt’s completely open. All it requires is your email address. So do check that out. And yes, as Aidan says, I’m glad to say that people are finding it useful.

And thank you, Marcus, for that comment.

Motivation and dedication

00:14:26

A: And if you guys have any other quick and started questions, feel free to fire them away. So fire them away and we’ll get to them. But I think, I think it’s all about getting it done. So I think we’ve touched upon it. But I think you’re right when we were discussing motivation right? I’ll be honest with you, from me, helping sellers that have just started on Moteefe and the ones who were more experienced, more advanced, obviously the thing that separates people from other journeys is motivation and their total dedication so they don’t give up.

They’ll find something that isn’t selling and then they won’t get attached to it, they’ll immediately move to the next. I think that’s definitely something people have to bear in mind. It’s keeping on it.

T: Absolutely. If you want to open a business first, you have to open your mind. So you’ve got to be, you’ve got to change your mindset. You’ve got to be you’ve got to start thinking in a different way. You’ve got to be more determined, more rugged and more able to, to just get it done. And, and, you know, imagine that there was somebody you were working for and they were telling you to get it done or you were doing it as part of your normal job.

Well, then you do it. You just have it done. But for some reason, when it comes to people doing things for themselves, they don’t want to or they can’t be bothered or anything else. But they’ll go and stack shelves in a supermarket for eight hours a day and think nothing of it or dig a hole in the street, think, oh, this is just, this is just normal. But when they’ve got their own free time, then they don’t want to do anything for themselves, which is always struck me as a little bit strange.

A: Would you put that down as sort of their fear of success? Or fear of putting something out there in it and not being successful?

T: Oh, the education system doesn’t really set people up to be independent. They want you to be stacking those shelves and dig into those holes. And, you know, if you are stacking those shelves and digging those holes, then someone’s got to stack shelves and dig holes. So there’s nothing wrong with those professions. I’ve dug a few holes myself and I might have even stacked something along the way while I was doing it. So that’s not the thing it’s about.

It’s not what you’re doing now. It’s about why aren’t you doing something for yourself on the side? People talk about side hustles. Well, POD can be a great Print on Demand with Moteefe can be a great little side hustle. It can be a lot more than that. We have some sellers that you would not believe how much money they’re making and how many units they’re selling every week. It’s crazy. Far more than I ever sold.

And it’s really great to see people being so incredibly successful on the platform. But everybody started somewhere at some time. Those top sellers hadn’t ever even sold a unit. So what’s the difference between those people and somebody that have never sold? Well, it’s selling that first unit and then being prepared to take those learnings from, they may well have had ups and downs along the way. That will happen. There’s always difficult times in any business, but it’s that determination that that self-reliance that will set them apart from other people and make them successful.

A: I think I’m just going to throw out a shameless self-plug now, but one of the most satisfying things for me for working at Moteefe is seeing these new sellers who have come from selling a couple units, five, 10 a week and slowly over time building up to where they’re selling hundreds of units per week. And that’s definitely one of the most satisfying things on my side of the fence work working at Moteefe.

But yeah, that’s literally it.  It’s the motivation that sets those two people up, the people who try it and drop off and the people try it and keep at it, right? And I can’t see any questions. So I’m going to keep talking about how I would like to help you guys get good. If you have just started if you have design ideas but you’re not too sure about and you want someone to bounce ideas off, feel free. And there will be a link to the Facebook group to go on the Facebook group, find me right.  I’ll send you my profile. I’ve made posts every week. Message and say, “Aidan, what do you think of this design? Is it a good idea? Is it a bad idea?”

Expert advice on both starting and scaling up

 00:17:49

A: If you find something that works and it’s selling and it’s sold 10 in the space of three days, I want to know. So then I could get that translate for you and then you cannot just say that in the UK so that in Spain, but you can also sell it in Italy, an Italian. Sell in Germany, German and go from there. Right. So we’re not just scaling up with one design.

We scan across and end up OK.

T: Indeed, and indeed.  Aidan’s there for your success.  Aidan’s  going to help you to achieve your goals and… message him, call him, throw things at him, whatever one.

A: The one thing I would say if I was to give someone some advice now who’s just starting saying that you can’t come up with any good design ideas is a massive excuse. It’s the biggest excuse. There is the whole world out there on the Internet. If you literally go and Google images and type any niche, there’s loads of little ideas that you can come up with. They are the only reason people don’t come up about any niche ideas is because they block themselves. So just open a new tab.

And that’s the first step to finding your next winning design.

T: There you go. New tab, new life. 

A: New tab, new winner!

T:  Yes, indeed, people one, people need to know what I don’t need to, but if you want to be successful in life, then you’ve got to take it upon yourself to get there. You have access to the Internet. Otherwise you’re not watching this unless I’ve been downloaded or this is being watched in 1000 years time on the Internet no longer exists in case. Good luck to you.

But you anyone watching this at the moment or will have access to all of the information, almost all of the information that humans have ever had access to through the Internet. You can research anything, you can find anything out. You can take a course about how to design something. You can learn about words. You can come up with ideas. You can see thousands, millions of other people’s designs online without having to, you know, just on open platforms on Amazon, you’ll see tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of designs where you can take inspiration from.

So the idea that you can’t come up with a design idea really, or you don’t know how to do something where you’ve got it all there is just on you to search for it, research it, get good. And then by Q4, which is a little while away, you’ve got enough time, probably by May. And again, people are coming on. Some people are successful straight away. Others are not so successful straight away. And they just have to keep on going and going and going.

I know someone that’s been in the industry for a while and their first 70 designs weren’t successful, but they knew that other people were making money. So they kept going and their 71st design, could have been the seventy sixth, but you get the point, was successful and that’s why they kept going and that’s the difference. They saw somebody else doing it and they say, “Oh, this person is doing it, I’m a person so I’m going to do it.”

A: So yeah. And that’s exactly it. And yeah, I mean to this day I’m still seeing more and more new sellers making more, more and more money. Right. And some of these people are earning more money doing this on the side as they are their main jobs, which is great to see. And it really is.  Thomas, we do not have any further questions in the chat.  Let me just have a quick stroll, scroll, stroll.

T: Have a stroll around, Aidan. We will be all right. 

Oh, well, I think I think that we’ve covered it. Now’s a great time to start. If you don’t if you didn’t start yesterday, then now is better than tomorrow.  Get the mindset saying, get, get, get yourself going. Remember, there’ll be ups and downs, people are doing this.  You’re a person and therefore you can do it. 

So it’s just about believing in yourself, understanding that it’s possible going for the gold and not letting anybody put you off. That’s another thing. People who try and put you off because other people actually don’t want you to be successful, including those closest to you.  They’ll try and say, “Oh, no, don’t do this, don’t take a risk, don’t do that.”

Don’t fall victim to confirmation bias

00:22:12

T: Well, that’s because they can’t be bothered to do it themselves. And I’ve got something called confirmation bias where if they’re not putting themselves out there to do more and then you do, it’s kind of making them look bad. So they want to kind of hold you back. So don’t let other people hold you back. Do this for yourself. You don’t have to tell anybody what you’re doing. You can just go ahead and do it and get it done and tell them after you’re successful.

A: Yeah.  And I mean, I know we’re wrapping up, but there is one thing Thomas said to me a while ago. If you just if you literally just figure out how much profit you would make from selling just something really small, like five units a day, and you times that by a month, say 30 days. And then you look at that big number, that’s a really good incentive and motivator.  

Because if you think about it, if you sell one design, then you can then sell five. And if you can sell five every day, you can end up with thousands in profit and you’re only selling five.  It’s not reams and reams, you’re not taking over the Internet with your designs. It’s only five t-shirts. 

T: Yeah, exactly.

A:  Big bucks. So, Facebook ads course…

T: Wrap it up, Aidan! Aidan’s the host.  I’m only here for the…I don’t know.

A: The suits and for the snappy dressing.  So if you need help with the Facebook ads.  Ad course in the description.  If you need an invite to the group, click the link. I will approve you immediately after this video. Livestream even. And any questions about designs, translations for that, please feel free to message myself or Ana Sousa who is also in the group and is also an extremely talented Account Manager. And other than that I look forward to seeing you all next Thursday. We will come up with another episode and take care and have of a great weekend.

Thomas, any final thoughts?

T: Now’s the time to get going. Start your Print on Demand business in 2021 right now with Moteefe. And don’t let anyone hold you back, especially yourself.

A: Cool. Thanks, guys. Take care. Bye.

P.S. Don’t forget to tune in every Thursday for weekly live streams with Thomas and Aidan where they discuss all things Print on Demand!