• 6. Growth Machine - SEO Case Studies, Results & Tips w/ Amanda Natividad
    Oct 18 2020
    Growth Machine Growth Machine is an SEO agency that helps create content and direct SEO for businesses that want to increase their organic search ranings and presence. The Head of Marketing for Growth Machine an SEO-focused content marketing agency, is Amanda Natividad. Most recently, Amanda headed up marketing for ticketing company Liftopia, and helped build out B2B marketing for Fitbit. In past lives, Amanda was a tech news journalist and a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef. You can follow her on Twitter at amandanat. Amanda Natividad talks about Growth Machine as an SEO agency including going into some SEO case study details and other best practice SEO tips you can learn to help your website gain organic traffic. [embed]https://youtu.be/-mbNGoelmdE[/embed] NOTE: The Cup & Leaf case study we reference in this episode is no longer live, and not only is it no longer live, the old www.cupandleaf.com URL actually redirects to a different tea website! At some point I'll talk to Amanda and the Growth Machine team again to get more information on why specifically. It sounded like it had a few good years and then a few factors we get into in the episode caused it to go downhill. The redirection to another tea blog page is a common expired backlink redirecting SEO technique that is semi-gray hat depending how you look at it. I'm curious to know if they sold the domain to that tea blog, or simply let it expire and then the new tea blog jumped to purchase it after expiry for the link juice. Very surprised they wouldn't have kept the site and kept working on it and running ads on it at the very least if selling tea was no longer working well. Either way, it's an interesting case study and I'm happy we were able to touch on it during the episode. Amanda Natividad 0:00 When you're marketing, I just think it's important to focus on the value you can bring to people. And I think once you focus on that kind of value, customers or users will see that over time. Stacy Caprio 0:13 Hi, and welcome to the Hurst SEO podcast with Stacy Caprio. The best advice comes not from your critics, but from those who are already where you want to be listed along with Stacey tweak to learn from those who have already built their dreams so you can learn how to build your own. In this episode, we're talking to Amanda Natividad, who is the head of marketing at growth machine. She has a great understanding of SEO, and she's great at implementing processes to help avoid growth and to help. Amanda and the growth machine team actually do the opposite of avoiding growth. They have great processes and methods in place to help their roster of client sites experience large organic traffic growth. In this episode, we get to dive into some of their techniques, as well as the tools and spreadsheets they use to facilitate organic traffic growth. Amanda also goes into a client case study, and we get to peek inside the growth machines own t blog case study. This is a great episode for anyone interested in starting to learn about SEO, as well as more about what you can do to get more organic traffic to your own site. Thank you so much for coming on today. I was hoping we could start with going over your background and what you do at growth machine. Amanda Natividad Amanda Natividad 2:52 Yeah, I thank you for having me, Stacy, my background and what I do at growth machine growth machine. Now I head of marketing for the company. Prior to this, I headed up marketing for a ticketing business called liftopia. And then prior to that, you know, I spent much of my marketing career in content marketing and communications, where I built up the content marketing program over at Fitbit on their b2b side. And then I also built up Content Marketing and Communications at the direct to consumer snack company. naturebox. Awesome. Yeah, that's really cool. Background with marketing and SEO. I also wanted to go into what plans does growth machine currently offered to clients? And what do those include each month, or plans for growth machine clients are really we're an SEO and content creation agency. So we work with our clients on their overall content strategy and new keyword strategy, helping to optimize their SEO efforts and also working on their link building. So you know, once once they have a blog set up, or once we help set up their blog, or they already have a blog. We work on their link building so that other sites are linking back to them. Awesome. Stacy Caprio 3:01 So do you guys focus on content and link building or mostly link building? Amanda Natividad 3:08 Oh, we do both. I would say that we know we really do focus on content creation. We have an in house editorial team, who I mean, they're a great team. They've been writers and editors for years. And so every every piece of content that we publish for our clients has been, you know, written by an SEO trained writer, and then reviewed by at least two editors before it gets published. Our link building services ...
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    45 mins
  • Flippa: Blake Hutchison, CEO - Realize The Cash Value of Your Business - Equalizing the Exit
    Sep 23 2022

    Blake Hutchison, Flippa CEO talks about Flippa equalizing business sale opportunities for all - extending the opportunity to sell a business to everyone, not just the stereotypical flashy Venture-backed companies. 

    Many people are not aware they have the opportunity to sell their business, even a small or service-based one - and Flippa gives everyone the option to realize the cash value of the business they own by listing it for sale on the Flippa.com platform. Flippa is working to give the opportunity to all people to be aware they can buy and sell businesses, which many have in a life-changing way. Flippa is hosting the upcoming Her.Future event October 18th at 11am - you can tune in to hear inspiring stories from women who have been there building and selling their own companies and walk away with tips you can use to grow and sell your own business.

    Video Notes:

    1. Female Owned Businesses Listed 

    a) The Right Fit is a marketplace connecting leading brands with influencers, models and other creatives. Strong growth. Venture backed. Now for sale here. 

    2. Female Owned Businesses That Have Sold

    a) CrochetKim is a crochet blog with thousands of free patterns. The site sold for $90,000 within a week of being listed on the platform.    b) Karen Boyer was the police officer I referenced. You can hear her story here. 

    Check out Flippa's upcoming Her.Future event October 18th at 11am here: Flippa Her Future Event

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    24 mins
  • 5. Banish Skincare Founder Daisy Jing: From YouTube to Successful Female Entrepreneur
    Oct 18 2020
    Daisy Jing, Founder Banish Skincare Daisy Jing is the Founder of Banish. She launched her skincare company from her own kitchen and used her platform as an influencer to start making sales, which was not even her goal at first. Once she realized how interested her YouTube followers were in her new products and skincare routine, she got more serious about manufacturing and selling, and created her company Banish. Her YouTube channel now has over 70 million views, and she has a thriving company Banish that has been around for over 6 years. Daisy Jing founded Banish to solve her own skin problems, and ended up sharing her solution with many others in the company she created. In this episode Daisy shares valuable business and manufacturing tips, as well as her own business, marketing and life mindset tips that can inspire you to take action on your own ideas. Watch Daisy and Stacy talk about Daisy's business story and tips: (this is a full video episode, intro video, Zoom conversation video, so let me know in the comments or via email if I should keep doing full video formats or if audio-only is OK as well) [embed] https://youtu.be/TtHSAD8c_hA [/embed] Daisy Jing 0:00 I think the reason why actually most businesses don't remain in business is because they solve something that nobody needs solving. Stacy Caprio 0:08 Hi, and welcome to the Hurst SEO podcast with Stacy Caprio. The best advice comes not from your critics, but from those who are already where you want to be. Daisy Jing Stacy Caprio 0:21 Listen along with Stacy each week to learn from those who have already built their dreams so you can learn how to build your own. In this episode, we talk to Daisy founder of banish. Daisy was actually the number one person I wanted to have on my podcast when I was conceptualizing starting it. So I was so happy when she jumped at the chance to come on. I had seen her products online and heard her on several business podcasts. And her story is so inspiring to me. Daisy is one of those people who just gets how to start and run a business, she's able to break down complex steps into simple ones. And listening to her talk about her own business is so inspiring. Because it makes you feel like you could also easily break down the steps and start your own. She's also one of the nicest people I've ever met. So I wasn't surprised to learn that she's also from Minnesota, which is where I grew up, and where the nicest people I've ever met live. like to hand in the previous episode, Daisy started her multimillion dollar company to solve her own problem. And then once realizing how her solution could help others, she turned it into an incredibly successful business that has been thriving in its own unique niche for years. If you're looking to start or grow any type of business, you'll love this episode. Daisy has also developed her own products in house and has gone through many testing iteration. And she talks about that, including her product development tips, her sales tips, and how she views business and life and mindset in general. So it's a great episode for anyone interested in starting a business or improving their life mindset. So let's dive right in and hear what Daisy has to say. Hi, Daisy, thank you so much for coming on. I'm so excited to talk to you. And I was hoping we could start with you just going kind of through your background and why you started banished in the first place. Daisy Jing 2:27 Yeah, thank you so much, Stacy for having me on. So my background, I have had acne for forever started at a really young age when I was nine years old. And it just got progressively worse. And it got so bad that, you know, my skin would just start to bleed because the pimples would pop everywhere. And I just go to school and my face was all bloody. And it really affected my self esteem, self confidence, I joke that like people knew me more by the name, pizza face. And by my actual name being the determined person I've always been I wanted to find a solution for my skin. And I tried everything out there, a lot of acne sufferers did and nothing would seem to work in fact, it would actually dry out my skin and make it even worse. And then there was always the promise that it would get better but it just never got better. And I was just trying so many different things. And we went to so many different doctors and everything. And yeah, I just fell in this despair because i've you know had acne for 10 plus years and nothing seemed to work and I kept spending money and I kept like bleaching my skin I kept doing everything to get rid of it. So I documented my struggle on my YouTube channel, which is still there today. It's tasers 89 if you look at some of the older videos, so you can see they asked me through my YouTube channel, I was able to kind of get out of my depression because it gave me a safe space to talk about my journey of hacking and I developed a small but loyal following of people who like to see you know, the ...
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    58 mins
  • 4. Momtrepreneur & Founder: Female Owned Company Beaugen & Tu-Hien Le
    Oct 18 2020
    Beaugen Tu-Hien Le is the Founder & CEO of BeauGen, a mommy lifestyle brand whose mission is to make mommying feel good. Inspired after having her first child, Tu-Hien and her husband started BeauGen to address the pain and struggle of breastfeeding. Since launching into the market in 2016, BeauGen has helped tens of thousands of women find success with their breastfeeding journey. Tu-Hien has a passion for connecting with motivated entrepreneurs and is now coaching business owners how to build, scale, and make money in their own product-based ecommerce business. Tu-Hien lives in Orlando, FL with her husband and daughter. Connect with Tu-Hien via Instagram @tuhien.le and @beaugenmom Watch this conversation on YouTube: [embed] https://youtu.be/jaEFBJOixHY [/embed] Tu-Hien Le 0:00 I've never run a company before. So it was a lot of self doubt of Who am I to think that I can do this? Or I've never done this before. Am I good enough to be able to do this? And once I realized I was thinking that way and like limiting myself before I even tried. I was like, why am I limiting myself? And that's why I really seek out the different coaches and mentors to help me kind of break that mindset and say, you know, why can't you who's to tell you that you cannot reach these big goals that you have? And like, yeah, that's right. Stacy Caprio 0:37 Hi, and welcome to the Hurst SEO podcast with Stacy Caprio. The best advice comes not from your critics, but from those who are already where you want to be. Listen along with Stacy each week to learn from those who have already built their dreams. So you can learn how to build your two hand is an incredible businesswoman and we get to talk to her in this episode of the podcast. She started her company Beaugen and has grown it to incredible heights. You'll love this episode, if you've ever been interested in starting your own original idea product based business, especially if you have no idea how you would ever get started to hand shares how she came up with the idea of Beaugen to solve her own problem. And you'll learn how she was able to go from product idea to physical production, how she tested and iterated to get to her final sellable product. Even though she was solving their own problem and was her own target market. She talks about how thorough she has been about market research and making sure she's putting out a product that exactly what her target market wants. In this episode, I was trying to get her to share the one thing she has done to have a successful business. And I'm so grateful, she was quick to call me out and explain. There are so many things that go into having a successful business. It is not just one or two golden nuggets, you'll enjoy this conversation if you want to get into the mind of someone who has built a successful business based on her own idea, not one that was built using one tip or trick, but one that has been built over consistent effort and hard work overtime. Like all successful businesses really are. Let's hear what she has to say. hi to him, thank you so much for coming on. I love your company. And your journey is so inspiring. I was hoping we could start with a quick overview of how you started and your background and why you started Beaugen. Tu-Hien Le Founder of Beaugen Tu-Hien Le 2:50 Yeah, thank you so much for having me on the podcast is super exciting. And I would love to share a little bit of my story with you. In 2015, I had my first daughter. And from that I experienced my own personal difficulty and pain from breastfeeding and pumping. And that's the sort of the genesis of Beaugen. And how, in my discovery, I found that I wasn't the only one that felt the same way. And I talked to many other moms and moms could meet in the mom community. Momtrepreneur Solution And a lot of us had shared this, this same pain and discomfort and breastfeeding and pumping. And I was like, Well, if I'm not the only one that has this problem, all these other moms have this problem, why can't we do something about it? So my husband and I actually kind of decided to develop something, a product, we didn't even exactly know what it was when we started develop a solution to solve the issues of discomfort and pumping. And we really took a grassroots approach. So instead of us taking the I have a solution, and here it is, I hope everybody loves it. We really actually, you know, spoke with hundreds of moms to really hone in and figure out what was the pain point. And then and then kind of back into salt solution from there. And that's how Beaugen started. And so it's we've always been a very customer centric company. And we always really listened to what our customers wanted and and their pain point and try to solve it from there. Stacy Caprio 4:33 That's awesome. I think many businesses fail because people don't take into consideration the customers and what they really want. So that's really cool to know that you did that. Where did you find that? ...
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    46 mins
  • 3. How to Create a Podcast: How I Started My Own Podcast & The Tools I Use
    Oct 18 2020
    How to Create a Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWZbHx_wPgo Podcast Transcription Tool I decided to use Otter.ai to create my podcast video transcripts because it works (pretty much) flawlessly, and is only $10/month that you can use when you need on a monthly on and off basis, so I got it for this month to transcribe all 6 of my episodes. You can also use it for free for small audio files, and that's how I tried it and saw how amazing it was so I had to get premium which is something I don't usually do. You literally upload an audio file to Otter, it takes a few minutes to process it, and then gives you a perfectly transcribed text version ready to copy paste, with all punctuation, amazing spelling, and speaker names and timestamps. I couldn't believe how perfectly it worked, especially because I'd been playing around with Google's Demo transcription tools, which had so much trouble getting punctuation right, among other issues. If you use my referral link to sign up all I get is another month of Otter.ai free, no affiliate money or anything like that, and I love it so feel free to send the free months my way because I'm sure you'll love it as well. My Podcasting Story Because it was my own rule that I didn't listen to podcasts, I thought they were a waste of time. And things that could be summarized in much shorter bullet points. I just really disliked podcasts, which is so funny because now, I obviously have a podcast. Hi, and welcome to the Hearst SEO podcast with Stacy Caprio. The best advice comes not from your critics, but from those who are already where you want to be. Listen along with Stacy each week to learn from those who have already built their dreams so you can learn how to build your own. Welcome to the episode where I'm going to walk you guys through my podcast story. Starting with why I ended up starting my podcast to what tools I use for each step. And to make it easy for anyone thinking about starting a podcast to get started. Or if you're just curious about the behind the scenes of how podcasts are made and what goes into it, then this will be a fun episode to listen to. I've been thinking about starting my her SEO podcast for over six months, from six months ago from now. And I kept pushing it to the bottom of my to do list. Because it was such a daunting task with so many variables and moving parts. First, I'd have to decide exactly what guests I wanted on, then I'd have to email them and see if they were interested, then workout scheduling, and then eventually choose times to record put that in my calendar, then I'd have to have all the proper equipment. And what type of recording software would I use? Choose the type of recording software, choose the hosting for the podcast, which I didn't even know was a thing until I really started researching it, I'd have to edit every single episode, or hire someone to do it. And I have to say, editing podcast episode takes so much time. I only interviewed guests for 30 minutes apiece, but it took me hours to edit each episode. I keep getting better as I go along. But editing podcast episodes is a very very dull, dull task. And it takes a long time. It's the same with editing YouTube videos, it takes so long to really do a good job. And it's not my favorite activity, which is my least favorite part about starting this podcast is editing the episodes. And it's actually the one reason that I might not film as many episodes in the future unless at some point, if the podcast does start making money, and I can hire someone to edit. It's very, if you ever have edited a YouTube video or a podcast video, you'll understand what I'm talking about. But before you actually do it yourself. I don't think you'll ever understand what I mean when I say it's a very difficult task, it's not something you want to do and it takes a lot of time. Anyway, the editing the episodes you have to either do it or hire someone to do it. Then there's the keyword research for YouTube keyword research for blog posts, keyword research for the podcast name, the podcast description, then there's figuring out how to post it on the different podcast networks and getting to rank for organic search, you've got to transcribe the episodes, you have to record the audio, video and video intros and outros. Record the actual audio of the sessions and use a tool to do so. And then you have to figure out how to post the podcast and promote it. You also have to make sure you have a good branding, figure out what images you want to use, maybe have a mini little photo shoot or other things and make sure you're setting up a brand for long term success. So much goes into each episode. And for me, it was daunting to think about, so I just kept pushing it to the bottom of my to do list. Since I wasn't sure when starting my podcast this month, I decided to finally dive into it. I wasn't sure if it would or ever will make any money at all. Or if I even will enjoy it enough to keep doing ...
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    34 mins
  • 2. B2B Podcasting with Logan Lyles: Podcasting Tips From a Podcast Production Company
    Oct 18 2020
    B2B Podcasting Logan Lyles, director at Sweet Fish Media, a podcast production company, also produces the company's top 100 Marketing Podcast the B2B Growth Show. Logan shares his unique podcasting tips that can a help a business generate new sales, customers, content and more. He also shares unique ways to organically promote your podcast through how you set it up and structure it. Watch Logan and Stacy talk about B2B podcast production tips: [embed] https://youtu.be/hnfguVcvWYo [/embed] Logan Lyles & Sweet Fish Media Logan Lyles 0:00 Other people find that getting up to the mic is way easier than staring at the blank screen with the blinking cursor and trying to create written content from scratch. So podcasting can kind of grease the wheels and help you create more content that then you can turn into written content and video content, short form LinkedIn posts, long form blog posts, those sorts of things. Stacy Caprio 0:23 Hi, and welcome to the Hurst SEO podcast with Stacy Caprio. The best advice comes not from your critics, but from those who are already where you want to be. Listen along with Stacey each week to learn from those who have already built their dreams so you can learn how to build your own. In this episode, we get to talk to Logan of sweet fish media. Logan not only directs a full service podcast production company called Sweet fish media, and is the host of the b2b growth show podcast. He's an incredible podcaster and the most strategically thoughtful podcaster I've ever met, the way he structured everything from his podcast names to the thumbnails to the marketing and promotion are so thoughtful in a way that will not only bring more podcast listeners, but also increase sales for the company running the podcast. I've never spoken to anyone so strategic and good at aligning running a podcast and actually getting business results from it. In this episode, we get to hear all his juicy podcast tips. And we get a behind the scenes peek of what has worked for his own podcasts. And his many successful suite media client podcasts. He's the most qualified podcaster I know of. And I'm very happy. I was able to have him on the show before I officially launched this podcast because I was able to structure things differently. And plan my promotion and production strategy for the best possible results after learning how the best of the best in the podcasting business, aka Logan, and sweet fish do it. Hi, Logan, thank you so much for coming on today. And I was hoping we could start going over your background how you got into podcasting, sweet fish media and how your company helps podcasts and businesses. Logan Lyles 2:27 Yeah, absolutely. Stacy, thank you so much for having me on today. It was great to meet you via LinkedIn and I love making LinkedIn friends, friends in real life as as much as we can be in real life these days. And and podcasting is a great way to do that. My name is Logan Lyles. I'm the director of partnerships at sweet fish media. We are a podcast agency for b2b brands. So we help companies that sell business to business, develop and continue production have a podcast that they use for both their content marketing efforts as well as a creative way to engage decision makers at Target accounts that their sales teams are trying to reach. I kind of had a winding road getting into my current role in b2b marketing and in podcasting in particular. So I actually graduated college in 2008. With a journalism degree which I always tell the story, you know, it was a great time to graduate college and hit the job market during the Great Recession and also a great time to hit the job market with a journalism degree when the news industry was going through all sorts of convergence and newspapers were closing their doors, left and right all over the country. I quickly sold my way into my first sales job, and did that for about 10 years, I actually sold locally and regionally b2b office equipment. And for anyone who you've ever heard say, Oh, it was in the office equipment industry or I sold office equipment. That's code for I sold copiers and printers. So anyway, I did that very fun job for about 10 years. And then I came across sweet fish media by getting to know James Carberry, our founder and CEO Now, a few years back through LinkedIn, and we became friends and I was eventually the first sales hire at sweet fish. And so for the last two years, I've been heading up sales for our podcast agency, being the serving as one of the primary co hosts of our flagship show b2b growth, where we interview b2b Marketing Leaders every single day. And I also do some other hosting and content creation on the team as well. I'm a host for some of the shows that we produce for our clients. Stacy Caprio 4:34 Awesome, thank you. Yeah, that's a really interesting background. And one question I have is, what are the benefits you've seen for businesses who you've helped have podcasts as well as your own podcast? ...
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    50 mins
  • 1. Michael Essek - T-Shirt Side Hustle to T-Shirt Business Success Story
    Oct 18 2020
    Michael Essek's T Shirt Side Hustle to T-Shirt Business Success Michael Essek talks about his successful online T-Shirt company, his own marketing and sales tips, and how to go about starting your own print on demand T-Shirt company. Michael Essek helps designers and illustrators come up with creative T-Shirt ideas, create better designs, and grow a long-term business from their art. Michael has been designing and selling T-Shirts online since 2013, primarily through Print on Demand sites like Redbubble, Merch by Amazon and Teepublic, and using Print on Demand companies like Printful. To start improving your ideas today - visit MichaelEssek.com [embed] https://youtu.be/FnESOm2ZokY [/embed] T Shirt Sales Marketing Tip Michael Essek 0:00 A lot of times people will buy a shirt as a kind of afterthought. They'll be like, Oh, that's funny. I'm gonna buy that and click click, click and they've bought it without really going through a process of That's amazing. Wow, I really need that you know data and then thinking about it for days or anything like that. So anyway, you can kind of make the T shirt fit that mold if you like fit that pathway, so that someone notices it thinks it's cool goes looking for it, finds it and buys it without you know, making too big a deal of it. Stacy Caprio 0:30 Hi, and welcome to the Her.CEO podcast with Stacy Caprio. The best advice comes not from your critics, but from those who are already where you want to be listed along with Stacey tweak to learn from those who have already built their dreams so you can learn how to build your own. Today we get to talk to Michael Essek who sells t shirts online. I followed Michael's t shirt selling journey for over six years. Ever since I started my own Etsy and print on demand shop and was looking for tips and help to get better designs and more sales. His 10k plus a month income reports were one of the things that inspired me to originally get into t shirt sales, currently selling on Etsy still, but it's much harder than it looks. And when I focused on T shirts solely. I've had some pretty good multi thousand income supporting months, but nothing compared to Michael. His idea structures, which he shares and almost daily emails and brainstorming idea output are incredibly prolific. I recommend hopping on his email list if you're looking to learn new structures you can use to brainstorm ideas in any niche or in any business sector. Or if you're looking to grow as a print on demand apparel seller, and stay up to date on the new trends and updates on print on demand and T shirt news. In this episode, Michael shares some great marketing and sales tips. A surprising perspective on how to do more effective influencer marketing the different ways he is now selling his shirts, including different platforms licensing and more, and his own experiences and growth in the T shirt sales arena. This is a great episode for you if you're interested in diving into any type of trendy e commerce or t shirt sales niches, or just learning how to think of new ideas and market and sell products online. I'll go into some of my favorite takeaways from this episode at the end. So hang around for that. Without further ado, let's hear Michael story and learn his t shirt selling tips. Hi, Michael, thank you so much for coming on the show. I followed your T shirt, emails and blog for a while now. And I was thinking that you could start by giving the listeners some background, how you got into the T shirt design space, and an overview of how you've progressed since starting. Michael Essek Michael Essek 3:00 Sure. Well, thanks for having me, Stacy, it's a pleasure to be to be here with you today. So I started I think around 2013 2014, I had a small website, a blog that I was running, which I sold to someone. And what I didn't realize in the selling process was that I was going to lose the income from that blog that I was getting on a monthly basis. So I quite soon set out to find another way to get some some income in. And one of the things I stumbled across was people selling illustrations and stuff on on online on T shirts or on prints and stuff. So I decided I would try and teach myself to be better. At the illustration side, I've always kind of been pretty good at art and design. But I didn't know how to use Adobe Illustrator very well. And I saw that a lot of these guys were using Adobe Illustrator and stuff. So I saw it as a kind of learning opportunity and a project for me to work on a kind of side hustle at the time while I had a full time job. So I created some designs started uploading them to or I would say offering them to, at the time what were known as sure today sites like t fury, and others and these were sites that would sell a design for 24 hours and then they would take it down. So yeah, after maybe a couple of months, I think of trial and error. I eventually got a design accepted by one of these sites, made a few hundred dollars in the 24 hours and ...
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    1 hr