Man, July 2020 was a weird time for everyone, right? The world was kinda just… figuring things out. For me, personally, my career was feeling a bit like a car stuck in mud. I was churning, but not really going anywhere. I’d been messing around with this idea for months, trying to build something that felt real, something that was actually mine. It was a side hustle, really, a small online thing I wanted to get off the ground. But honestly, the progress was slower than molasses in winter.
The Grind Before the Shine
I remember just sitting there, day after day, in front of my beat-up laptop, staring at lines of code or trying to make sense of what people actually wanted. My big idea was to create custom digital art, something unique that people could get easily. I figured, everyone’s at home, everyone’s online, maybe they’d want something cool for their digital spaces or as a gift. The problem? I was good at the art part, but the making it happen online part was a total headache.
I started by trying to learn everything myself. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on how to set up an online store. I spent hours wrestling with website builders, trying to drag and drop things into place. It felt like I was constantly hitting walls. One day, the payment gateway wouldn’t connect. The next, my image uploads were all messed up. I even tried to learn a bit of HTML and CSS, just enough to fix some small things, and let me tell you, my brain felt like scrambled eggs after those sessions. I was working my main job all day, then coming home and diving straight into this project until way past midnight, sometimes even two or three in the morning.
My initial attempts were, well, a mess. The first version of my little shop looked like it was put together with duct tape and hope. The navigation was confusing, the images were blurry, and I barely had any products listed. It was disheartening, really. I even thought about just giving up. What was the point? Nobody was going to buy anything from this shoddy setup. But something in me, some stubborn little voice, kept pushing. I had invested so much time and effort already; quitting just felt wrong.
Pushing Through the Mess
So, I didn’t quit. Instead, I told myself, “Alright, you gotta get your act together.” I decided to take a step back and identify the biggest pain points. I wrote down everything that wasn’t working. It was a long list, believe me. Then, I tackled them one by one. I learned that trying to do everything myself, from scratch, was slowing me down big time. I needed to streamline.
Here’s roughly what I did during those weeks leading up to July:
- I finally bit the bullet and invested in a slightly better website builder that handled most of the technical backend stuff for me. It wasn’t free, but it saved me countless hours of frustration.
- I stopped trying to be a graphic designer for my shop’s layout and found a simple, clean template. I just focused on getting my art itself to shine.
- I started reaching out to a few friends who knew more about online marketing than I did. I showed them my crude site and asked for brutally honest feedback. They tore it apart, in a good way.
- I spent a whole weekend re-photographing and re-uploading all my digital art. I made sure every single image was crisp, clear, and looked good on different screen sizes.
- I simplified my product descriptions. I used to write these long, flowery paragraphs. My friends told me, “Nobody’s reading all that, just tell ’em what it is and why they want it.” So I chopped them down.
- And the biggest thing: I made sure my “buy” button was clear and easy to find. It sounds dumb, but I had buried it on some pages before!
I was literally ripping apart old bits of the site and rebuilding them. It felt like a constant battle, a never-ending cycle of fixing one bug only for another to pop up. There were many nights I just wanted to throw my laptop out the window. But I kept at it, adjusting, tweaking, learning new little tricks from online forums. I even stayed up late, just watching people review other online stores, trying to catch what made them good or bad.
The July Breakthrough
And then, something shifted in July. I remember it vividly. It was a Tuesday morning, probably around the 15th or so. I woke up, dragged myself to the computer, half expecting to see the usual zero sales. But instead, I saw an email notification. Then another. And another. Someone had actually bought three pieces of my art! Not just one, but three! I stared at the screen for a solid minute, rubbing my eyes, thinking it was a glitch or I was still dreaming. But no, the orders were real. And then, later that day, another order came in.
It wasn’t a flood, but it was a trickle. A steady, encouraging trickle. Over the next two weeks, I was getting an order or two almost every day. It wasn’t enough to quit my day job, not by a long shot, but it was proof. Proof that all those late nights, all that frustration, all that tinkering and tearing my hair out, wasn’t for nothing. My damn little thing actually worked! People actually wanted what I was making. The feeling of that first batch of sales? It was like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I felt this incredible surge of energy, like I could take on the world. It was a small win, but it felt like a massive victory at the time, especially with everything else going on in the world.
What I Did to Keep It Rolling
I couldn’t just stop there, though. That initial push gave me a taste, and I wanted more. I knew I had to double down on what was working. So, I started analyzing what pieces were selling the most. I paid attention to any feedback customers left. I even started responding to every single customer email personally, thanking them for their purchase and asking if they were happy with everything.
I began creating more art in the styles that were popular. I tried experimenting with new designs that were similar to the best-sellers. I also started looking into very basic social media promotion. Nothing fancy, just posting my art on Instagram with a link to my shop. I watched what kind of posts got more likes and tried to replicate that. It was all about consistent effort, keeping that momentum going. That July win wasn’t just a one-off; it was the spark that ignited the whole thing. It taught me that sometimes, you just gotta keep pushing, even when it feels like nothing’s going right.
