Trying To Make a Living At Etsy? Think Again. | Hacker News Reader

Trying To Make a Living At Etsy? Think Again.

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31 pointspeter12336 comments

The thing is they're considering Etsy as their only sales channel in this article. Anyone that does handmade goods knows that you sell a lot at fairs, conventions and events. And if you want to stick it out online, there's also Craigslist and Ebay. But it's not like Etsy is the only way to sell your goods.

If I sold cars, I'm not going to do it exclusively through autotrader.com (or one of my friends, easyautosales.com ;) ). It's as simple as not putting all your eggs in one basket.

This, I suspect, explains the absence of men. They are immune to the allure of this fantasy. They have evaluated the site on purely economic terms and found it wanting.

Yeah...men are so great at economic evaluation. Like my 2 startups that have netted be about $0.10 / hr for the hundreds of hours of my free time that I spent on them. I'd be waaaay richer if I had just been selling handmade beer coozies on Etsy.

You can't sell your beer cozy "company" like you can a successful startup.

You can't sell your startup like you can a successful startup.

(The odds of you having a successful startup are about that of you having a profitable beer cozy "company.")

No because the odds for selling a beer cozy for a million $ is 0, but it is > 0 for the startup.

Ok, so this may come as a surprise to you, but technology startups are not the only way that people make money. Weird, I know. But true.

These folks -- http://www.sportscanholder.com/ -- could sell their business for more than a million dollars.

True. This sentence discredits the entire article. Men never buy lottery tickets.

Well the startup gave you a chance at becoming a millionaire and have lots of women. I don't see that chance on etsy.

There was an interesting bit (though a bit speculative) in "Why is sex fun" by Jared Diamond: it said that gathering was actually more effective than hunting. But men would hunt because if they came home with prey they were able to have a big party, share meat with neighbors and other women, and have a better chance at having more sex...

As I said it was a bit speculative (I think - they even said so in the book), but it seems to fit startup life quite well.

I think there are likely more women on Etsy for the reason that 9 of the most common 10 first names among customers of Bingo Card Creator are female and the last one is ambiguous: women and men like different things.

This does not strike me as demonstrating men's superior skill in finding renumerative activities. It is highly likely that 95%+ of the startups here are started by men. Most, like I suspect most Etsy sellers, will never have a single customer.

Incidentally, by any quantitative measure selling software works better than selling handicrafts, but of people who start a sideline in either field the overwhelming majority will not see amazing things. I also think it is quite unlikely that most people are in it with a serious plan to replace their day job -- mostly true here and, e.g., the Business of Software boards as well.

"9 of the most common 10 first names among customers of Bingo Card Creator are female"

That would be because they are teachers, and most teachers are women?

Yes, and why do you think that is? Because men are better at doing math?

Actually to be honest, I think it might actually validate the point of the article: women are doing it as a hobby. My gf is a teacher and my impression is that it is very poorly paid compared to the effort that goes into it (in Germany, mind you). Men simply can not afford to strive for such a poorly paid career.

That is my opinion - I won't be surprised if it won't be very popular, but here it goes.

There might be some gender bias, too (women+children), but I wouldn't be surprised if the economic factors are the main aspect.

I can't find my source (I only save stuff that directly impacts Dawdle), but I've repeatedly seen that 95% of registered Etsy users are female and 67% of visitors are female.

This article is based far to much on supposition and has very little to substantiate it. One can hardly assume that the primary reason for selling on the site is to make money. I tend to be very artistic and I know a lot of artistic people and money is usually simply icing on the cake. Then again, I'm male and I own a sewing machine so obviously I'm a little bit odd.

I find it difficult to imagine making a living with handmade things is possible in any way? Unless you can sell each item for $1000 upwards, how can it ever pay off enough?

Also I was surprised by this line: "It’s become satisfying again to sew, cook, and garden." So far honestly I had a strong dislike of handmade things because they symbolize something like slavery to me. Maybe if women truly enjoy those tasks, I can change my mind.

I don't know what I find more disturbing about your response - that you think having a hobby that involves sewing/cooking/gardening is akin to slavery, or your assumption that only women are doing these things (not helped by the article, I guess).

The article is not talking about a hobby, but about making a living. Cooking and gardening are bad examples (not really "etsy" crafts like what the article was talking about), what I have in mind are those carpets from India. It just seems silly to me to work on a carpet for days, if a machine can produce the same thing in minutes. It just seemed to me that the only way such carpets can be produced is through slavery. To buy such carpets would encourage people to waste their time.

There are such painters who try to copy photographs, which I would find equally depressing - just a waste of time. Unless their artistic message is exactly that, to make people think about what is a waste of time... (like the other artist who was only drawing small numbers on walls for years and years on end).

The article said "Women, too, hunger for concrete, manual labor that has an element of individual agency and pleasure beyond the abstract, purely cerebral work found in the cubicle or corner office. It’s become satisfying again to sew, cook, and garden."

So in that case I assumed the second sentence was referring to women. Also I do think the number of men who sew is very small (unless they are professional tailors).

As for making a living, OK, I know many people doing pottery, but I am still not sure how it works. How long does it take them to produce one cup? Can they do it in 5 minutes?

I know a lot of etsy sellers (some are men), and their passion for selling their produce is their hobby - what they make, what they craft, that is what they enjoy doing. They certainly don't see it as slavery.

> It just seems silly to me to work on a carpet for days, if a machine can produce the same thing in minutes.

For the same reason that a HNer might work on a startup for days/months/years even though something similar might already exist. I don't see it as my place to judge whether or not they're wasting their time (nor do I see it as slavery).

"what they make, what they craft, that is what they enjoy doing."

OK, but they don't do it for a living? Also I think there is a misundertanding. I can understand art and creativity, and from the article I take it that etsy encourages individual items. What I don't like about the "handmade" label is the production of repetitive things that should better be left to machines.

Maybe some people enjoy creating 100 baskets that look the same, or 100 cups (do you know such people/men?). But how high can their pay realistically be? If it is not slavery, maybe it is extremely low paid work.

"For the same reason that a HNer might work on a startup for days/months/years even though something similar might already exist."

I would think a startup is by definition to try to create something new.

"I don't see it as my place to judge whether or not they're wasting their time (nor do I see it as slavery)."

But you do have a problem with me considering certain things to be a waste of time?

> OK, but they don't do it for a living?

At least one off the top of my head uses it as her sole income.

> Maybe some people enjoy creating 100 baskets that look the same, or 100 cups

I'm sorry, I didn't see in the article where it was saying that? Perhaps I misread somewhere. My experience with etsy, even with sellers who make and sell a lot of goods, is that each piece is different in some way.

> I would think a startup is by definition to try to create something new.

Really? I see plenty of "please review my startup" posts here that seem to offer a regurgitated version of someone else's idea.

> But you do have a problem with me considering certain things to be a waste of time?

It's your prerogative to view whatever you like as a waste of time (I know that having this pointless debate is wasting my time, and yet I go on...) I just don't see the need to compare it to slavery.

"My experience with etsy, even with sellers who make and sell a lot of goods, is that each piece is different in some way."

Yeah as I said, it is a misunderstanding. I am not talking about the arty crafts such as the etsy stuff. So much for pointless discussion.

To each his/her own. The popularity of the site contradicts your view. I pay more for handmade item as they are usually one off and I can see value in owning a unique item.

I clarified it later on: I was not talking about the artsy/individual stuff you'd find on etsy, but about repetitive production like weaving baskets or carpets.

This article seems to be written from the standpoint of a certain kind of feminism. Particularly it is the assumption that women need to make money and be financially successful to be valuable. The women I know who are interested in Etsy are very interested in what some would call being "traditionally" feminine. They want to be mothers and wives first, and they find joy in that, but they also want to make things. The men in these relationships are happy to be financial providers while the women fulfill other needs.

Why the downmods? It seems to me valid that some people prefer traditional roles. As long as they are happy with it.

I think we'll see that the "traditional roles" label will fade away with time. To the people that are labelled that way it's not so much "traditional" as it is "natural" (to them). Women who grow up wanting nothing more than to raise a family (without being indoctrinated) do exist, and it's quite a value judgement to say that they are somehow less of a woman or wrong for following their desires.

The gender differences on Etsy are far too large to explain in terms of some kind of innate psychological difference, such as a difference in expertise at evaluating economic options; the only such large gender differences that have been found are in masturbation and physical strength. You have to go to network effects or explicit messaging about gender.

My hypothesis: women are on Etsy because women go where there are already women. Men mostly aren't because men go where there are already men.

the only such large gender differences that have been found are in masturbation

Citation Needed. !!! What I know empirically leads me not to believe you, not even a little.

If you do a search for "masturbation frequency gender", it quickly becomes apparent that your empirical data are based on a non-representative sample.

Entirely possible, and I don't know if it's been replicated since the 1996 study; it was noteworthy because it was one of the very few studies that found a large gender effect. If that study is flawed, it further reinforces my main point, which is that there are very few general innate or cultural gender differences are large enough to explain the 10:1 or whatever ratio among Etsy users.

First google link is: http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/1568.html

The studies mentioned there give figures close to 2:1 when comparing men vs. women; quite believable, when considering my personal experience and accounting for what is undoubtedly a skewed sample.

The gender difference on Etsy being discussed is well in excess of 10:1. That's a 5x difference in the best case. I stand by my original statement.

Oh. I thought you were saying that you didn't believe that those gender differences existed in masturbation frequency.

Yes, that's what I thought too. The differences in strength aren't anywhere close to 10:1 either.

Sorry, I should have posted this in my comment: http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp606581.pdf

It's not a single study; it's a meta-review of dozens of well-controlled studies on gender differences from 1984 to 2005.

"[Men] are immune to the allure of this fantasy. They have evaluated the site on purely economic terms and found it wanting."

Interesting that HN just had an article by Philip Greenspun saying women are too practical to enter the science field: http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science

This is gender trolling.

This article would be no different if it said "Trying to make a living on a startup? Think again."

The quotes are all just as applicable. Can you do it? "Technically ... yes" and "I would be on welfare! LOL … I wish!" and "very few people ... make a full time income from [startups]."

Tell me how that's different?

In Etsy, as in any life beyond regular old boring ass employment, only some people have the combination of vision, understanding of their market, rage to master, ability to learn and improve, and dedication to the hard work to make it happen.

Most people just don't cut it. Here on HN, and on Etsy. And everywhere else in the world.

If anyone thinks that reading startup blogs, or selling crafts on Etsy, is going to be their winning lottery ticket, they are mistaken.

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