I’ve made over £50,000 with my online side hustle – it’s so easy, anyone can do it

A WOMAN has revealed how she’s racked up £50,000 in passive income thanks to her Etsy shop which runs itself.

Ana Colak-Fustin, 32, from Sweden, used to work as a recruiter and career coach, and decided to start making CV templates for people hunting for jobs.

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In 2021, she opened her shop after noticing that many people from all career levels could use help with applying to jobs.

Speaking to Business Insider, she said: “Initially, I thought 1:1 services were my only option, but when I stumbled upon digital products on Etsy, I realised that balancing a digital product-based business with my 9-5 job would be much easier than a service-based one.

“I've made over $70,000 (£50,000) in revenue on Etsy. I pay Etsy a standard 6.5 per cent transaction fee for each sale, and I pay a few dollars a day for Etsy ads.”

The best part is her shop makes money without much input from her, while she works full-time doing HR consulting for small businesses.

Ana added: “Now, I average 30-40 hours of work a week on my business, while my Etsy shop runs almost on autopilot in the background.”

Every day she’ll do a quick 30-minute Etsy check-in for stats, keyword trends and customer interaction.

But the rest of her time is spent on main business and creating content for her website.

She tops up her Etsy shop with new CV templates around two to three times a year, and has found one strategy helped her scale up her profits.

After only raking in $4,000 (£3,141) in the first 15 months, she released she had to “switch things up” and incorporated Pinterest into her strategy.

Using Pinterest helped to expand her reach and boost shop visitors, with 35 per cent of traffic coming from pins she has created.

Ana advised prioritising SEO to help people find Etsy shops using the right keywords, and hailed it the “backbone” of her success.

She concluded: “One of the most fulfilling aspects of my business is witnessing the significant impact these simple products can have. I've played a small part in the career journey of thousands of people, and I regularly receive messages about the interviews and job offers my customers secure, which is incredibly rewarding.”