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A 20-something American man makes headlines for earning over $462,000 a year with just 20 minutes of side work daily.
Recently, CNBC introduced the story of Francisco Rivera (26, living in Orlando, Florida), who made $462,000 a year by creating and selling custom-made candles.
In February last year, Rivera, who had been tutoring online, saw his tutoring income decrease as after-school activities resumed post-COVID. While looking for a way to increase his income, he stumbled upon a YouTube video about Print on Demand (POD) side jobs. POD is when the seller is responsible for the design of items like t-shirts or mugs, and as soon as an order comes in, the item is made and sold. Rather than mugs or t-shirts, which already had many sellers, Rivera decided to sell candles, which are also suitable as gifts.
For his POD side job, he utilized various online platforms and tools. He used a design template feature from Canva to design witty candle labels and Printify to deliver design drafts to candle manufacturers and produce the products. The finished products were posted on the e-commerce platform Etsy.
Rivera cited the low risk as an advantage of the POD side job, which costs $0.20 to post a product on Etsy. Although he shared someone else’s account for Canva, which provides design templates, the pro-version fee is also very affordable at $120.
Rivera pointed out the ease of being copied as a downside. This is because it’s easy to produce similar designs with similar phrases. Although there are ways to register copyrights, he said it’s very cumbersome, so he focuses on continually creating new products.
Last year, he made $462,000 in sales selling candles on Etsy. He quit his tutoring job in December.
Rivera spends only 20 minutes a day on this job. Considering that he occasionally works extra, but never more than 2 hours. He mainly researches trends and designs new candle labels. He spends the rest of his time building his music career.
Rivera said, “I’m making more money than ever before even though I’m working far less.” He added, “I don’t think I’m special. I just work hard. There’s value in time and flexibility. But if I could do what I’m doing outside my Etsy shop, I’d be willing to take a pay cut.”
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