Key Takeaways

By getting all your ideas out in the Brain Dump stage, you’ll be able to clearly Define Your Niche and Ideal Customer in the next stage.
Building Your Audience is one of the most important steps of this process. Begin growing this as soon as possible!
Branding Your Craft Business goes beyond a cute name and logo. Your branding and Product Suite will let your customers know what you’re all about.
Production and Pricing should be considered carefully in order to guarantee you will profit later. Do your research, and check back in on your numbers regularly.
Deciding how and where to sell can make or break your income…are you selling where your customers hang out?

how to start a craft business in 9 simple steps

I know you've been thinking about it...maybe for years. Every time you have a bad day at your 9-5, anytime you wake up full of anxiety dreading your commute, your coworkers, that presentation.

If you've been wondering how to start a craft business, know that you're not the only one.

I know that all you want is to wake up without an alarm, have a slow, relaxing morning, spend the day making crafts that you (and your customers!) love, and not have to answer to some annoying boss.

It seems impossible. How could you possibly transition from the stable, consistent paycheck you're used to getting every 2 weeks, to an online business that you don't even know how to start? You might have kids or a partner to support, how would that work?

Where do you even begin? Set up an Etsy store? Just start making things? What the heck can you make that people will actually buy?...There are just too many question marks for it to be safe.

However, keep ignoring it and you'll continue going to bed every night dreaming of your handmade business that could have been.

You'll be going about your day in a few years, doing your daily doomscrolling, and you'll come across some craft artist who just got picked up by your dream company. Your dream collaboration. She's making a living from crafting because she followed through.

What's that feeling sneaking in?...JEALOUSY. That could have been you.

BUT WHY CAN'T THAT BE YOU? Why the F not you?

I've been in the online craft business world for over 15 years now and I speak with handmade artists regularly about why they want to to start a craft business.

The number one reason they want to start selling online? Freedom. The second reason? They want to feel like they are living a creative life with purpose...not wasting their days away in an office doing gruntwork...let's make sure that doesn't end up being your story.

Thank you for listening to my TedTalk. Now let's get down to (craft) business.

If you're reading this, know that I'm here to help you avoid that regretful and jealous feeling you're going to get in 5, 10, 20 years if you don't at least try. In this post, I'm going to break down the 10 steps you'll need to take your homemade business ideas and turn them into a part time or full time income. It's 100% possible if only you want it bad enough. Let's jump in.

1. Brain Dump

Before you even think about starting new business ventures - it's time to clear your mind. As creatives, I've found we are all pretty similar. We have A LOT of ideas when it comes to selling items online. Ideas for products, ideas for businesses, ideas of how we can make money. This is both a gift, as well as a big problem.

Creativity is great because some of those ideas will be the reason we grab people's attention and stand out, however, giving space to EVERY idea we have is where the problem lies. If you're acting on every single thing that gets you excited, your craft business will become overwhelming to your customer. You'll end up with products that don't mesh well together, creating a confusing brand that lacks focus.

And if you haven't heard this before, I'll repeat it again since it's that important. "A confused mind doesn't buy".

So...how do we reign in your super magical creative artist mind so you can create a healthy balance of awesome ideas that are actually focused and align with the business you want to build? My solution to you: The Brain Dump and Niche 1-2 punch.

We'll talk about niche-ing down in #2, so let's start with the Brain Dump first.

In order to see all your options clearly, you need to first get out every idea you can possibly think of. This is the first step of my signature 'Niche in 3' process and it will give you a clear picture of which ideas are good ones, which don't quite fit in, and which ones you should save for later.

I recommend you spend a good amount of time on this. Get most of your ideas out, then throughout the next week, continue adding other ideas you might remember onto the list. Include ideas for products you'd love to make and any custom products you might offer.

Write down any ideas for a niche that you're considering too. This should also include any creative services or craft related digital products like an online art course, or digital patterns you want to sell.

Once you give it a week, you can move onto step 2, finding your craft business niche!

2. Narrow Down Your Niche + Market Research

Now that you have everything on paper, take a deep breath. We're going to start cutting ideas.

Yes, I know this part is difficult! But it's an essential part of the process if you want to make the massive jump from craft hobby artist to creative entrepreneur.

If you've been sitting around, wondering how to start a craft business...know that this is a key step. It requires focus, clarity, discipline, and a pair of big girl pants. I promise you can handle this! I'll make it as painless as possible.

First, bookmark this page, then go read my 'how to find your craft business niche' post which will give you crazy detailed examples of exactly how to do this. I also made you a workbook you can download to help you get organized here.

Side note - if you're finding this step incredibly difficult and want personalized, detailed guidance, join me inside Handmade & Paid where you and I will meet on a 1:1 call and walk through each of your ideas together!

Once you've got your niche, you're already going to have a pretty clear idea of your ideal customer as well. But before we lock in and finalize your niche, it's time to do some research.

Why research? Because we are not going to fly blind in our business. We are not going to guess our way to success! This is where artists get lazy and pay for it later in the form of wasted time and money.

We need to get out there and ask questions. Get the opinons of people who will be our future buyers. Because you can make stuff all day and try to sell things online, but if no one is interested, you're not going to make any sales.

So start by researching your niche idea. Look for small businesses selling similar products to what you want to sell. Get familiar with your competition, does it look like they are making sales? Can you spot their best sellers?

Search your product ideas in depth on Etsy and Amazon Handmade. Look for Facebook groups around your niche, and offer a small incentive to people who fall into your ideal customer demographic and are willing to fill out a short survey for you.

Visit brick and mortar shops selling your products. Look to see how they are packaged and priced. Also look for subscription boxes, digital products, and creative services related to your niche that artists are selling.

If at all possible, find your ideal customers and actually speak with them...either on the phone, a zoom call, or a coffee meetup. This type of feedback is marketing gold, and the more of it you can get, the more confident you will feel when making decisions in your handmade business.

What do you do once you have all this data? Start sifting through it. Look for patterns. Think about how can you tweak your product ideas to conform to the wants and needs of your ideal customers.

For example, if you were planning on selling ceramic pet food and water bowls, and multiple people mentioned that their large dogs tend to knock them over and break them, how can you design a set that will prevent that issue? When a pet owner sees that type of product that solves their immediate problem, it will be flying off the shelves in no time!

This is how you create a product that people want to buy. Dreaming up a great craft idea and jumping straight into the process of making it with no prior research is risky and means you are just hoping for the best. Creating a product with data to back you up can pretty much guarantee you success if you just keep listening to your customer.

3. Build Your Audience of Die-Hard Fans

If you've successfully completed your research and verified that your niche idea is valid, in demand, and has the potential for profit, it's time to make this dream a reality!

When thinking about how to start a crafting business, what do you think is the most important thing you need to succeed?

It's your audience!

You need to immediately start letting people know that you've got an online business in the works. The reason I suggest getting the word out asap before even branding your business or designing your products is because the more time you have to grow your audience before you launch, the more likely you'll be to make sales right away.

And don't worry, you don't need to have hundreds of people following you before you actually make any online sales. (In fact, my newest art client from Handmade & Paid made 7 sales to a list of just 40 people with her very first email! This system works!)

The best way to start collecting your biggest fans is by creating an email list and sending a regular email newsletter. Here are the top 5 reasons why your craft business needs an email list.

If you're fighting the idea of sending emails, let me explain why this is the easiest and best way to do things (make sure you read that post too! ^).

Imagine that your ideal customers are little fishies swimming in the ocean (the ocean = the internet in this metaphor). If you were to go fishing and pick a random spot, you might catch a handful of fish at a time. But if you had the same amount of fish in a much smaller pond...the likelihood of catching fish increases drastically!

This is exactly what an email list does. You invite your ideal customers to join your list, which creates an audience full of people that are already interested in you and/or your craft products.

So whenever you want to make a sale or share a new item, you just send an email about it...almost guaranteeing that someone will buy. What does this mean? You can make instant sales with the click of a button. MAGIC.

Seem to good to be true? It's not. I've been using this system for years and have made thousands from my list. My artists in Handmade & Paid have been making sales this way too.

In fact, I'd go so far to call this the number one secret to starting a successful online craft business.

So don't hesitate! Start growing your list asap so you can have an audience to launch your online store to as soon as it's ready!

4. Brand Your Craft Business

I know this is what you've been waiting for. Here comes the fun stuff, let's make your brand cute!

When it comes to branding for creative entrepreneurs, there's a lot to consider!

Starting with your logo, this will be the most recognizable representation of your handmade business. Make sure to design a few different versions of it based off what you'll be using it for.

Next, of course you'll have to come up with a name for your business. This may simply be your name, or more likely, a DBA (Doing business as/Fictitious business name.

Your brand identity also should include a unique color scheme, imagery, and typography (the fonts you'll consistently use within your website, social media, marketing materials, etc).

While branding your craft business is very visual, most people don't realize that your branding also involves your entire business 'vibe'. More specifically, your brand voice and brand story.

This is a really important part of any small online business, but especially for a handmade business. The reason being that a craft business is usually run by one person. So your brand story is about you, the maker. Your brand voice should sound like you too.

To make this a little easier to grasp, think about your favorite product brands that you follow and buy from. What tone are they using on their website and marketing? Is it cute and playful? Dry humor? Direct? Educational?

To start designing your own brand identity, start looking at product brands you like.

Look at their pricing, their color scheme, their tagline, their products, the wording or 'copy' they use on their website and product descriptions.

Look for patterns. Decide what's missing and how your brand can stand out. Make a list of the things that you like. The most important thing? Make sure you're designing a brand that you know your customer would gravitate towards and love.

As your brand grows, you'll find that your interests and style will also shift. You may even realize one day that you're no longer excited about your products. Or its possible that your customers needs have changed over time. If this is the case, you may want to consider rebranding your craft business. However, usually this happens years after your initial launch.

5. Design your product suite

Before you even pull out that glitter (I see you.)...you should think long and hard about what products you want to sell. We already touched a little on this in the brain dump step, so go back to that list and look at all the ideas you came up with.

Remove any of the brain dump product ideas that were based on a different niche that you ended up choosing. Continue building out that list until you have no more ideas. Once you have a full list, it's time to organize.

When it comes to selling your very first handmade products, your MVPs, aka your Minimum Viable Products, you want to do a great job building just a few products.

You do NOT need to launch an entire shop full of things to sell when creating an online store. Start small, and expand from there. Just because you have more products does not mean you'll appeal to more people or make more sales.

Pick up to 3 things to make that you want to start out with in your shop. No more than 3. Focus on those main products for your shop launch. You can still keep things interesting by offering different variants like size, colors, or additional accessories so your customers have more options.

Once you launch these few products and see how they sell, you can decide if you want to add or remove them as time goes on.

6. Purchase supplies and start production

Ideally at this point you've already set up all your basic business requirements, ie, your business license, any necessary permits, and also gotten your resale license.

This license, also known as a seller's permit, allows you to buy your supplies in bulk from wholesalers that will offer you lower prices than in a retail store. This gives you more wiggle room with your pricing and makes more space for you to make a bigger profit.

Do your due diligence in researching the best possible sources for your supplies, then stock up on everything you need. You can begin production at this point.

When you start making your products, it's also very important to keep track of the labor time it takes to create each product. Many artists skip this part because they are concerned about their prices getting too high. This is a huge mistake!

I want to encourage you to ALWAYS pay yourself for your time, even at the beginning. If you start your craft business with bad habits like this, you'll be in big trouble later if you get a bulk order from a company. You'll be losing money fast. Set yourself up for success and always cover your labor time within your pricing.

7. Set your pricing

I know you've been dreading this step. Numbers are usually not an artist's best friend, but they are also a very important factor in making sure you are profitable. So being thorough here is worth it.

You can start by reading my pricing handmade items post here for a detailed look at exactly how to do this!

When it comes to developing your pricing, you're not only covering the supplies going into your crafts, you're also adding in the time (labor) it took to make them, your overhead costs, packaging, and don't forget your profit margin.

Where artists go wrong is skipping over 1 or 2 of these important elements...which might not seem like that big of a deal now, but wait til you decide to sell wholesale. You'll suddenly realize - you literally can't. Like I mentioned earlier, you want to set yourself up for success from the beginning.

If you are running the numbers and it seems like your pricing is getting wildly high (maybe your method of creating takes a LONG time, or maybe your supplies are very expensive), you have a few options.

You can either adjust your positioning and customer, for example, do a slight rebrand targeting a higher end customer who is willing to pay a higher price, OR, you can get creative and figure out how to decrease your expenses (this one is less work!).

Either way, you need to make sure that you're paying yourself for your time, and every little thing that goes into your product or you'll never end up making money with your craft business.

8. Decide where and how to sell

This is a big and important decision! However, you can always change your mind later if needed, so don’t get too caught up. To start out, you should ask yourself this question:

"During my perfect work day, how am I making sales? What does my day look like?"

This will help you understand your bigger picture as you design your business foundation and sales system. Let me give you an example so you get the idea.

If your perfect craft business work day involves selling in person, talking to customers, interacting with shop owners, and in general being very social, you'll probably thrive selling at craft fairs, private events, and weekly markets, because it's just in your nature. You could still be selling online, but the bulk of your sales would be made in person.

Another example - many craft artists are introverts or don't really care to do in person events. That's totally fine! If your dream craft business work day is just you making and fulfilling orders in your at home office that's great too. You might even throw in a quarterly craft show that helps you clear out old inventory, test new products, and keeps you in the loop.

If your ideal work lifestyle involves you making stuff, being creative, while also traveling the world...you can do that too! There are many many ways you can set up your sales system so that it supports the lifestyle you want to live!

Once you've decided how you'd like to sell, you need to figure out where exactly to set up shop. I have a number of posts that cover a variety of options so you can find the best fit for you.

You can start here with my post about the best place to sell your art online.

I am a firm believer that every artist should be selling from their own website, and there are many reasons behind that. I'll let the post explain :)

If that didn't convince you, read my Etsy alternatives post next ;). Marketplace sites can be helpful to an extent, but at the end of the day, if you create an Etsy shop, they can shut you down tomorrow. For full control over your handmade business, you'll still want your own website.

And if you are a social media lover, you'll definitely want to look over my post about how to sell your art on Instagram.

Instagram is a great way for new people to find out your brand, and it can also help with sales. However, it should not be your only way of selling.

No matter where you choose to sell online, any and all of these methods can work. It's about finding the right combination for you that allows you to sell in a way you enjoy, while also supporting your lifestyle.

9. Build out your online shop

I'm going to start with a warning here, especially for those of you taking my advice and building your own website from scratch. This is a bit of longer project you're taking on, but at the same time I want you to get in, and get out...meaning, don't spend any longer than necessary creating your online store.

The reason for this? I've seen artists waste SO much time on this step. Yes, your website is important, but as creatives, we have a tendency to try to make everything perfect. But remember that the goal here is to make sales, and just because your website is perfect and beautiful doesn't mean you're making any sales.

What matters is if your website is pulling its weight. Is it collecting subscribers? Is it showcasing your products well? Is it doing most of the selling for you? This is what's important. I've seen ugly websites that convert like crazy and beautiful sites that no one can find. Function is the goal here.

Something else you should realize is that your website is never 'finished'. Think of it as a first draft. Get it working, add in all your product photos, descriptions, a way to contact you easily and you're on your way, you can start sharing it.

Once you get some momentum, you can revisit your site and give it some upgrades. You'll always be adjusting and improving, so if you're just getting started, only worry about stage one.

How to Start a Craft Business

So there you have it. If you have been wondering how to start a craft business, you should have a great starting point now. If you have a lot of ideas as you're getting started, know that that is totally normal, just start by get everything out onto paper so you can get organized.

Now that you 100% know how to start a handmade business, perfectly on the first try, you should be a full time creative entrepreneur within 6 months, right? (jokes.)

As you can see, there is QUITE a lot of information you'll need to take in, process, and sift through to figure out what's best for you and your path. Every artist will have a different experience since handmade businesses are so unique.

If you are feeling overwhelmed with where to start, you're not alone. Starting a business is scary, and there’s a lot of bad information out there. That's why I created Handmade & Paid. It's exactly what I wish existed when I was getting started selling online.

Come build your crafty empire with a group of motivated creatives while getting your EVERY question answered along the way!

This group coaching program for crafters gives you 3 pillars of support:

video trainings for every step of the process (absolute beginner to advanced) + interviews with experts in various crafty fields
group meetings 2x per month to catch up and talk about any issues you need help with + accountability
expert advice from somone who’s been in the craft business world for over 15 years, helped artists launch their businesses, and even helped them gone full time!

Join us today for as little as $200 per month! Click the button below to book a no pressure call with me to talk about your creative goals, and see if Handmade & Paid is the next step for your craft business <3

Click to Book Your Free Creative Clarity Call!

Frequently Asked Questions

Crafting can 100% become a profitable business. It takes time and discipline, but if you can focus on creating handmade crafts that people want to buy, while making a profit on every item, you'll be on your way to becoming a craft entrepreneur.
You can start by getting all of your ideas out onto paper, then narrowing them down to create a craft niche. Decide what products you'd like to sell first, then pick a place to sell, whether online, in person, or both. Next, invite people to follow you, create your products, and set your pricing. Finally, design your online shop and start selling.
There is not a specific craft that is the most profitable to sell, however, you can follow yearly design trends to stay up to date on what the market is buying. For more information on what type of craft to make and sell, read this post next.
The best craft business to start is the one that allows you to live the lifestyle you want to live. Pick a niche or product that you love to make and could talk about all day. You don't want to build a business around a product someone else told you you 'should' sell. You'll never stick with it.

How to start a craft business in 9 simple steps