How to start a business using print-on-demand services

Everybody’s working a side hustle these days. It’s getting harder to get by, and doing extra work to make ends meet has become the new normal.

But thanks to the internet, you’re not stuck doing food delivery and taxi service. There are so many options available, and one great option is a business delivering print-on-demand services.

It’s a solid choice if you have the talent and are willing and able to put in the time and energy to make it successful. You’ll need talent to create unique designs, and you’ll need to be patient and persistent while your business ramps up.

But once it takes off, you’re going to be doing much better than the professional drivers out there. They only earn while they’re driving. You’ll be earning every hour of every day, no matter what you’re doing.

And this is how to do it.

Planning your business

Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”

Now, that quote may not be 100% accurate, as there are a few versions of it floating around the internet, but the message is still the same. Abraham Lincoln was either a great procrastinator, or he knew the importance of planning. Chances are, though, he was a planner.

There’s only so much you can do to plan your business. No matter how much you plan, once you’ve started the business, you’ll run into a bunch of things you couldn’t possibly predict. So don’t drive yourself crazy. But since you probably already have a lot of ideas and plans percolating in your head, it’s important to get them out and somewhere safe while they’re fresh.

A lot of people have trouble organizing and planning their thoughts. The trick is to break it up into two tasks. First, just dump out all of your ideas without worrying too much about organizing them. Once you’ve done that, then you can structure them.

Brainstorming

There are lots of ways to get those thoughts out of your head, and that’s good because everybody will have a way that works best for them. Some people have a favorite software tool, and others still prefer the good old pencil and paper.

But whether you prefer a whiteboard or a laptop, one of the most popular techniques to help you get those ideas out of your head is mind mapping.

With mind mapping, you write down the core idea, then you write down an idea based on that core idea. Then you draw a line between the two ideas. You just keep writing down ideas and drawing lines like branches to indicate child-parent relationships between every idea.

If you prefer the hands-on approach, a whiteboard is great for mind mapping, but you can also do 3×5 cards connected by a thread on a cork board or something similar.

If you prefer the software approach, Whimsical is a great tool. It includes a handful of planning tools and does a good job of reducing the friction between thinking and planning.

Structuring your ideas

Once your mind map is finished, you’ll need to structure your ideas. One of the better techniques for that is Kanban. It works like several stacks of 3×5 cards. Each stack represents a category or a sub-project.

If you use 3×5 cards to create your mind map, then setting up a Kanban board will be easy, as you can do Kanban planning with 3×5 cards too. There are also some great software tools, like Trello, that make it really easy.

Once you’re done planning, you can treat your plan as a living document to make sure that you’re on track during every step of your business’s growth.

Developing a professional business plan

Once you have a personal plan laid out, you can create a professional one if you want. A business plan is a tried and true technique for structuring your business in a way that business professionals like bankers and investors will understand.

The thing is, print-on-demand businesses usually require little or no upfront investment. So you’ll probably never need to go asking for money with your hat in your hand.

But a major part of a business plan involves financial projections, and you might find it helpful to do the research necessary for your own personal education. Plus, having a timeline of when you expect to be earning money can be helpful for motivational purposes.

There are a ton of different resources out there that can help you write a business plan. The Small Business Administration has a great guide that walks you through the process step by step.

Seeking out advice and mentorship

Starting a print-on-demand business is just about as turnkey as you can get. There’s not a lot that can go wrong. And since you’ll probably need no upfront investment, there’s very little risk involved. Still, most business owners can really use the help of a mentor to avoid common pitfalls and expensive mistakes, and any business creator can benefit from an advisor to help ease the learning curve.

If you have a buddy who’s already created a successful startup, maybe you could ask them for help. But if you don’t know an entrepreneur, you’re in luck because, once again, the SBA has your back. They offer a program that helps connect you to retired executives who’ve successfully run their own businesses. And now they offer their spare time to help mentor the next generation of business hopefuls.

Creating a web and social media presence

Every new business needs a web and social media presence. It’s just a matter of fact. Building that presence is going to take a lot of time and self-education. But now is as good a time as any to set the foundation.

That means coming up with your business name, finding a domain name, and creating the appropriate accounts.

Domain names

The hardest part of picking a name is finding a domain name. People snatched up every single one- or two-word .com domain about 20 years ago, and if that didn’t make it hard enough, you have to follow a few rules in order to get a domain that will help your business be successful.

Here are three pointers:

1. Keep it short and sweet. People don’t always access websites by following a link. Sometimes they have to type the address in. If it’s too long or hard to spell, they might even give up trying to visit your website. Confusing site names like twoforate.com are also problematic. Your domain name should be easy to say, spell, and share.
   
2. Get a .com domain if you can, but know there are alternatives. Like we’ve already mentioned, all of the common-word and obvious domain names are already taken. It’s been a problem for decades. That’s why they introduced a whole bunch of new domain name extensions a few years ago. So instead of suesshop.com, you could possibly snag sues.shop or .biz or .gifts.
   
3. Get creative. You probably won’t be able to get a domain name like printedmugs.com. Lots of businesses run into this problem, and that’s why sites like Airbnb got creative. You may have to make up a word or find a clever combination of short words like OkCupid in order to get a decent domain name. Just don’t forget to follow the first tip we went over.
   

The best place to get a domain name is from Google Domains. They have the best prices available, a simple interface, and no ads or upsells.

Social media

After you’ve done the hard job of securing a solid domain name, social media names will be much easier. You can add an extra short word or even a couple of numbers to your social media name, and nobody will think less of you. Just don’t go overboard, or people might think you’re a scammer.

Business name

Last but not least is your business name. Your business name is the name that you’ll be doing business under. It’s a smart idea to keep your personal affairs and business affairs separate, so even if you decide to name your business after yourself, it should still be a separate entity.

Taking care of legal matters

Working from home and selling your artwork on mugs, shirts, and prints may feel like it’s not really a business. You’re not clocking in or working with anybody else; you’re just making money off of the internet. But as soon as you start earning money, the IRS will expect you to pay taxes on it.

Please note that the author of this article isn’t a lawyer, an accountant, or anybody with a whole bunch of extra letters in their name. The information here is meant to help you figure out what to do, but you shouldn’t think of it as professional legal or financial advice.

That being said, here are a few of the legal and financial things a business owner needs to look into:

1. Incorporation: As we covered in the previous section, you should really keep your business and personal affairs separate. Incorporating your business will help you do just that. A corporation lets businesses become their own entities. When you incorporate, you receive some protection from the liabilities of your business.
2. Federal ID: Your EIN (Employee Identification Number) is like a Social Security number for your business. Let’s stick to the theme of separating your business and personal affairs for a bit longer; part of doing that involves opening a business checking account. You’ll need an EIN in order to do that as well as to perform some other business interactions, like paying business taxes.
3. Local licenses and permits: Under normal circumstances, you’d need a vendor’s permit pretty much anywhere you live, but you won’t actually be selling from a physical location, so that makes things a little more confusing. Check your local government websites for more information.
4. Intellectual property: Every design you create and distribute via print-on-demand services is considered your intellectual property and should have a copyright. You should also trademark your business name, logo, and other branding assets. And while it’s unlikely that you’ll be inventing something new, if you do come up with the next best thing, you should patent it. The bottom line is you should always protect your intellectual property.
5. Taxes: You won’t be able to dodge taxes. And if you try, you won’t get away with it for very long. Create a mindset that one-third of your money is gone as soon as you earn it.
6. Insurance: Print-on-demand services usually handle shipping all of your products for you. You’ll probably never even have to touch your own inventory, but if you ever do have a physical space that the public or your employees visit, make sure that you’re insured. They may not happen very often, but accidents do happen.
7. Contracts: Chances are anybody you work with as part of your print-on-demand business will have a contract that you need to agree to if you want to work with them. But if you wind up working with somebody independent, they may not have contracts in place. In that case, you should have contracts of your own.
8. Employment law: If you’ll be working with employees, they’ll most likely be contractors who are working remotely. If you have them fill out a 1099 for tax purposes, though, they’ll become employees, and you’ll have a new set of legal obligations. Fortunately, there are many individuals and businesses that can help manage your HR needs.

Marketing your business

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 20 years, you know that marketing is far different today than it’s ever been. Marketing has always been a thing, but ads were king before.

It would be nice if that were still the case — because ads are easy. But people get information from all over the internet now, not just from TV, radio, and newspapers.

On the other hand, putting up a billboard would definitely get you some attention, but you’d never know how much. The great thing about modern advertising and marketing techniques is they let you gauge and measure exactly how effective your campaigns are.

And while advertising does still work, if you really want to be successful, you have to build a community — and that takes some serious marketing.

Thinking like a marketer

Marketing requires a complex and deep set of skills. There are a lot of analytical skills involved, but ultimately, it’s a social skill.

One of the core aspects of marketing is putting yourself in the minds of the people who are most likely to be interested in your brand. Thinking like other people is a big part of thinking like a marketer. Here are three other big parts:

1. Understanding strategy vs tactics: Tactics are like tools. Tweeting about your latest product is a tactic. Giving away free samples at trade shows is a tactic. A strategy is like a toolbox. It’s a collection of tactics that you’ll need to make good use of in order to master your craft.
2. Finding your people and leading them: You have to put yourself inside of the heads of your customers and understand their worldview. If you build your brand around your own personal interests and identity, then you’re already halfway there because you’re already a part of their crowd. If you recognize their identity, their motivations, and the stories they tell themselves, then you can place yourself in a position that’s central to them.
3. Getting out on the long tail: The long tail is a marketing concept that you can learn more about if you google it. But in essence, it means being a big fish in a small tank. Big-name brands have big niches. If you have a very general niche, you’ll be competing with companies that you can’t possibly afford to compete with. If you drill down and create a very small niche, you won’t have as large of an audience, but you can more easily be the biggest brand in that niche. If you ever outgrow that niche, you can expand your brand later.

You can learn all three of those concepts and many more from Seth Godin. So far, he’s written 20 bestsellers, and he publishes great advice on his excellent daily blog. The best book to get you started is This Is Marketing. Even if you’ll be hiring marketers, it’s a good book that will help you understand this critical aspect of your business.

Doing the actual marketing work

As went over in the last section, marketing is a big field. Don’t worry about it too much in the beginning. Stick with the platforms you know and use daily anyway. and show up daily for your audience.

Then slowly build up your marketing knowledge as best you can, piece by piece.

Watch out for gimmicky ads and promotions for how to master marketing. They often start with a free giveaway like a book, then you have to pay a few bucks for a subscription, and then quite a few more for a class, and then a few thousand for a seminar, and so on.

You should be able to find all the information you need from legitimate sources like Udemy. Udemy is a fantastic resource for educational materials of all sorts. Most courses cost around $200, but Udemy offers frequent sales that can bring the price down to about a tenth of that.

Creating a fully automated print-on-demand business

And now comes the information you probably most wanted to see in this article. How do you actually create a print-on-demand business?

There are three overall things you need to do to create your business:

1. Have or create a collection of captivating designs. There are so many people who are trying to get by with a minimum amount of effort. You’ve probably seen a lot of ads on Instagram for shirt companies displaying something that’s nothing more than words on a shirt. They may make you laugh or smile once. But after that, it’s just words on a shirt. Wouldn’t you rather wear something that expresses who you are and tells the world around you a story about your identity through a compelling image?
2. Find a company to work with for printing and shipping your designs. Printful is one of the best print-on-demand solutions available. They offer a wide collection of products, including t-shirts, tumblers, phone cases, and much more. They also have an excellent system for managing your designs and products. And they connect with more services than any other print-on-demand option.
3. Create a storefront and connect it to your print-on-demand company. Creating your own shop is easy with tools like Jotform’s Online Store Builder. You can literally set it up in a matter of minutes. From there, you can connect it to your print-on-demand provider so all transactions are automatically processed and shipped. You’ll make the most money from your own shop, but it’s going to be a while before you get any kind of serious traffic. The big players like Amazon and Walmart have far too much market share. So instead of fighting an uphill battle, you should consider selling your merchandise through Amazon as well. You can refer any customer you get from Amazon sales to your personal e-commerce shop for future transactions, saving both you and them money.

Once you figure out how to wire everything up, actually setting up your products is kind of tedious. But that’s a good thing because it doesn’t take a lot of time or brain cells. It’s something you can do in your spare time while working your regular job.

And because it doesn’t take too much time, that’ll give you more time to create designs and do what you love.

Choosing the right software

In the beginning, you’ll probably be doing everything yourself. Have you ever heard about someone who “wears many hats”? It means they play a lot of different roles as part of their job. Well, you won’t only be wearing many hats — you’ll be wearing all of them.

Here are three tools that are extremely flexible and general-purpose to help you keep all of those hats on straight:

1. Google Docs, Gmail, and Meet: Google’s cloud-based suite of tools will let you and your team communicate and work together in real time. And when your business grows, they offer Workspace, which is designed for companies of every size — from tiny mom and pops to massive enterprises.
2. Jotform: Jotform is the premier communication automation tool. Its versatility means you’ll constantly find places in your business processes where it’s the perfect match.
3. Notion: Notion is a knowledge management tool. It provides a collaborative editing environment that gives you smart tables and lets you embed other software into your pages. You can even embed Google’s and Jotform’s tools into your Notion pages, making it a great center for all your business processes.

Mapping out your business processes

Even though you’re probably going to be working alone, it’s a good idea to keep your business organized and managed as if it were a much larger business.

Structure things in such a way that your business will have good bones as it grows. And set up systems so you can perform common processes in exactly the same way without having to think about them every time.

The E-Myth by Michael Gerber is an excellent book that will teach you how to work on your business, not just in your business. The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris is another outstanding book that will teach you how to automate and outsource much of your business.

Here are some common processes and some tricks and tools for managing them:

1. Accounting: This involves bookkeeping, payroll, and taxes. QuickBooks is the most popular choice for small businesses and the self-employed.
2. Human resources: This department handles hiring, firing, managing benefits, and more. You can handle most of your HR with Jotform. You can use it to receive resumes, fill out legal documents, manage employee lists and information, and much more.
3. Customer service: Keeping your customers happy is probably the most important part of your business. This is another area where Jotform is your friend. You can create forms to collect service requests, return requests, product feedback, and more.
4. Research and development: You’ll constantly need to innovate to keep your customers excited about your brand. You can track all of your research using Google Docs. It’s also great for collaborative work.
5. Marketing: We’ve already covered this in detail. Google Docs can help you manage your campaigns. Jotform has many marketing templates that you can use to collect email addresses, do market research, and much more. Buffer can help streamline your social media marketing by automating posts. And Mailchimp will help you launch professional email campaigns without getting flagged as spam.
6. Quality assurance: It’s vitally important to make sure your end product meets the highest standards possible. Jotform can help you streamline the inspection process.
7. Shipping and receiving: Your print-on-demand provider should handle all of this for you
8. Storefront: Jotform can make setting up an online store one of the easiest parts of building your business, thanks to its Online Store Builder tool.

Wrapping it all up

So, there’s a lot involved in starting a business, but the most important thing is to start! Don’t overthink it. Don’t over plan it. Don’t spend too much on it. Don’t psych yourself out. Just roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Now, we did mention that you’ll have to do a lot of upfront planning, and that’s true. But it’s mostly to get the ideas out of your head and somewhere safe. Once you’ve done that, just get back to work.

We’ve covered a lot of territory in this article. You can safely bookmark it and forget most of what you’ve read. But keep it in the back of your mind. When you need more information, come back here to figure out your next steps.

Whatever success looks like for you, here’s hoping you’ll see it. And here’s to you for taking the first steps!

Photo by Kai Pilger