Etsy is a good training ground for entrepreneurs.

The starting cost is extremely low (20 cents for listing a new product).  If you can pick the right product, it can be a side job with 200-2000 dollars a month of side income.

And you don't need to do any learning of website, blogging, social networking, or advertising.

For my own store, most orders come on weekends and evenings - the store is not busy all the hours everyday.

We all hear about the shops and companies that make a lot of money, but we never hear about the ones that don't.

"One never hears about stores that don't make money!"

"You are likely to become the one that no one hears about".

The key to make profit is not to charge high price - it is to control your cost.

===

In the list we have references to top selling stores, and some stores with descent sales (15+ sales per day).

Etsy start essential resource is only - 20 cents.

Etsy does not charge many fees that Amazon and Shopify charge.  On Etsy you can start NOW, and build your business up and learn.  You don't have to pay a lot of fees to go through the learning curve.  There is no need to

1. Social network;

2. build your website;

3. advertise.

A check list for Etsy start is attached.  Come on board!

Having the right product beats anything you can do with SEO.  An SEO will not make your unique item found.  If people are not finding, not typing your keywords, then your keyword association is useless.

Sell something SHOPPERS ON ETSY market want - they want gifts, they want crafts, they want personalized items.

They don't want things they can find elsewhere.

Which of the following product is from a million sales store?

1. A calendar book;

2. A zipper part;

3. A personalized necklace;

4. A personalized wallet.

The answer is 3.  Gifts for women or crafting for women is among the highest selling category.  All four have the potential, depending on your sources and skills.

1. Tend to customer questions, orders and complaints.

2. Handle logistics such as receiving from the source, packaging, and shipping.

3. Watch new trends and competitors and see what they are doing.

4. Buy new inventory if the current inventory is low.

5. Adding new products and tweaking current offerings, such as adjusting price.

The five things an owner do everyday include

Here are some real store tales.

The other day I sent out a purchase to England. Two weeks later, the person said she did not receive it. Now, is it because she was trying to scam me, or is it because the mail is lost in England? I did not make any money on that sale, so I certainly can not afford to send another item to her across the Atlantic ocean. On the other hand, it is early in my store development and I don’t want to have an expensive negative review. What do I do?

One time I was contacted by someone in a different city who bought a sensor from me. I wanted to help her use the device correctly, and I also want to know how she wants to use it. So I boarded a train and travel to her home in a different city.

One time a customer bought a super low price item from me. I shipped it to him. Two weeks later, he complained he received something totally different and very cheap. He attached a picture, which is an item I included as a gift. Now, where was the original item? Was it removed by USPS during transit? Or was the customer trying to scam me? I never know. The only thing I could do is to ship two of the same item to him for free. Again, I don’t want to have a bad review. It is not worth the trouble.

These are all the things in a day’s work.

===

The website is only your front.  The store won't sell things for you, even for a well trafficked site like Etsy.  You must conduct the business yourself.

The web and digital communication system are just tools and media - they don't sell things - they bring customers to you.  You sell things.  You pick things to sell.  You ship things.  You order things.  You do research and development (if you are advanced).

I will show the conversion table of my real youtube channel, Etsy, Udemy, wix blog, and wix website.

Take a look at the attached Light in the box company's SEO funnel - it has millions of backlinks, purposefully made to increase the ranking on Google - they are using Google as the funnel.

Funnel has to be insanely big.  Look at the Udemy class I advertised in Quora space with 2 million subscribers.  10K people viewed it (sort of), 8 upvoted, and 1 left a comment.  I got 25 enrollment (since I did not charge any money) and zero income.  I cultivated this Quora space for months.

A traditional business or shop is a small building next to the street.  The street has foot traffic - that is the market goers.  They window shop, and sometimes come in to check out.  This is the easiest way to understand conversion.

In Etsy, you already are in a market and there is foot traffic.  You just need to decorate your windows and make sure there are interest stuffs for people to check out.

IF you have a drop shipping website or store, it is not even located on a street - no one passes.  You have to bus them over one at a time from social media - it is said the customer acquisition is very expensive.

===

This is a critical concept for people who have not been sellers before (including coders, professors, engineers, students).

You don't find someone and convince him to buy.

You let 100 people come to you and surely 1-3 will buy.

This is conversion.

This is marketing.

Marketing beats selling, or cold selling.

The key is to get more people to "come see".  In the old days it is called "foot traffic" - you want a million people to pass your store, or pass your website, to land about 100 sales everyday.  The conversion applies in both online or traditional physical business.

---

Don't "go see people".  This is critical difference of business vs. hobby.  Business sets up baits and funnel and lead people to you, following "THEIR INTERESTS". 

Marketing is to investigate the market, as you are selling in the market.

===

As shop owner, your job is to market, not "sales".  You are not to be pushy selling, but rather lay the funnel for people to come visit you.

As rule of thumb, every 10,000 web "impressions" turns into ONE SALES.  So you need a lot of impressions.

You nee to do everything efficiently and effectively to increase the impression.  Many stores that sell well have hundreds of products to increase the "statistical chance" of purchase.

===

This "conversion" is NOT the exception, it is the rule.  You can get 3-9 out fo 10,000, but it is really the best you can get.  It is mush like the percentage of people on the street coming to your store and buy things - it is brutal, but all the great stores are great under this circumstance.

The formula for success is: main stream x large variety x long time in business x unique sauce to stay cash positive x right timing.

On Udemy there are people who sold over 1 million copies of courses on "how to use Excel".  This is amazing timing and luck.

To catch timing and luck, you must be in the market, so the luck can catch you one day.

===

Please visit Lecture 31 if you are confused by the notion of conversion rate.  Understand conversion rate in physical world may be a bit easier.

Business is like a game.  You must be creative and make plays.  There are no rules for ingenuity.  However, you must know the basic rules of the game.

Niche does not always mean unique. Niche is a specialization.

---

Go to a market.  Setup a store. Wait for people to come.

The total number of people in the market is the Total Addressable Market.  Etsy has a small TAM, but it is free to enroll - the entry barrier is low.

===

A market is not a store.  A market contains many stores.  People go to a market to buy, and pays in a store.

In a market, you don't have to approach people and sell.  People will come to find you based on your funnel. 

Why a niche?  what is a good niche?  why should I study the market and the customers? how do I do it? why should I focus on a niche?

Access free market database and ranking list to investigate Etsy niche for yourself.  Here is a quick guide.

I show you how to access ranking of stores, products, and dynamic database listing of Etsy stores and products.  The website in the resource list contains large amount of data to gives you a perspective bird's eye view of the Etsy market.

Information about a stores' average price, age, and items sales speed are lists.

Information about a product's sale speed, price and age are presented for selected items.

See lecture 51 for more details.

Enjoy.

Dominate a niche within a main stream.

Niche is not about being Original or Different.  Niche is a segment of something big.

A good niche can pivot into a bigger one without a hitch.  A niche not too big for you and not too small for the market is the key.

A good niche is big enough to grow, and small enough that you can win without much capital at the beginning.

A good niche allows pivoting.  Extending to different products, markets, people, or income strata.

Most people got it wrong.  They make something unique that THEY like.  They don't focus on a niche, and they don't know the importance of growth.

To be rich and successful is easy - be number one of ONE THING.

WIn a niche.  That is all there is.

Any niche can get you rich.

However, don't try something too big, and don't try something too small.  At least not initially.

No one gets profit automatically.  Even after you HAVE business.

No company automatically have business.

After you prove you have business, then you can figure out a way to squeeze out some profit.

Profit = (earning - cost - shipping )x #volume

Earning = clicks x price

Clicks = 0.01 * impressions

Impression = function of SEO and market interest (if strong interest and bad SEO, no impressions; if strong SEO but no market interest, low impressions).

Cost = how you manage to control quality and source. 

Volume = function of history, review score, store social proof.

Shipping = function of location, size, weight, and competition (if competitors offer free shipping, then unless you are well established, you must offer free shipping).  Free shipping = you pay for shipping.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-profit-margin-on-selling-diapers/answer/Chang-Liu-793

https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-good-profit-margin-for-an-online-store

ETSY charges on marketing, advertising, shipping, and commissions.  Overall they charge 2/3 of your revenue.  Etsy is a publicly traded company since 2015.

https://youtu.be/5ByRy3tkcjo

A good product should satisfy a number of rules.  Here are six rules you should consider.

Never ask people to buy what you want to sell.  Always try to sell what others are eager to buy.

Direct translation: You will only have sales if there are enough people searching for your keyword organically.

Customers and clicks you get from advertisements are expensive and non-sustainable.

If there are not enough people in a market searching voluntarily, your keyword engineering and thumbnail improvement can only go so far.

SEO is figuring out what customers are searching.

---

SEO is not to optimize the search engine FOR YOU.  SEO is to find what others are search.  You make yourself found by figuring out what others are finding.

Customers don't naturally come to your store or website on their own.  They must be lead to it.  The search engines lead them to you. 

You must know what the people are searching, and the search engine must know what you do.

SEO is to listen, and then act.  SEO is to focus, and get listed correctly in the business yellow page.

If there are two streets, one on which the jewelers are located, and one on which the restaurants are located, you want your restaurants to be on the restaurants row.  That is SEO.

If the majority of customers are looking for sandwiches and you are offering a unique salad you are in trouble.  Listing to what the customers want is SEO.

Take a look at the SEO details of LightInTheBox company's website - and feel the awesome size of SEO marketing.  3.2 million backlinks are from insignificant sources.  That is NECESSARY.

There is also the SEO statistics of Oberlo, a shopify sidekick website ... look at the SEO tactics they use and the funnel they use.

---

Think of business as fishing ... you are trying to catch customers.  The best is to fish in the ocean with a big net - that is Google.  The worst is to fish in a small pond with a single hook - that is your own website store.

On Etsy, there are enough fish stocked in the pond.  You don't need to outside advertise with advertising fees and social networking.  You can just focus on business.

How much should you pay for SEO service?

Do you want someone to do SEO for you?  not at the start.  it is a game that any big company must play, but you will have to pay a lot of money for it.  Here let me review how big companies and Google play in dishonest ways - you should learn SEO basics and make sure you are on the right track, and that is all you need at the start.

So called professional SEO companies are often not based in your country and they try to cut corners or try to "delay the progress" - their goal is to have you pay them on monthly predictable basis.

Most traffic produced by them will be low conversion rate - but they know the game and you don't.  However, it is not important to do it "rigorously" right off the start.

Make sure you have business first, and then try to optimize it.

Advertise is not always necessary, and will not always help.  There are many other factors a shop owner should diagnose first.

Etsy ads is based on an interesting algorithm.  It is cheap and you should do it.  However, success depend on many other factors.

The screenshot attached at end of 2025 sample advertising screen shot.  You can see the typical click rate.  However, for two of the items the click rates are zero.  This means either the product is bad match or the images are not cool.

How do you boost sales?  which is the most exciting and effective option? is it reducing price? or running sales? or getting good review scores at all cost?

Reach out, don't wait for people to buy, even if you have a great item.

People ask for very low price and bargain - they react to lowest price.

After you got the SEO right, after you got the product right, you will find people DO care about price.

The price they want to pay is the price you won't make profit with.

People are intelligent about reading reviews.  If your product has bad reviews but people demand it, they will still buy.

Email marketing is out of date.  The key for 2021 and beyond is fan out reach.  It is high budget - you hire 15 people to make cold calls to Linked In accounts all day for example, and get 2% response, and you pursue them to get deals.  It is not for a small solo operation.

Email is too slow, and Facebook advertising is mostly low efficiency.  For new starters, using built in market goers in the Etsy market to establish yourself first.

https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/comments/o7yl48/targeting_specific_peple/

Marketing is to sell people what they already want to buy.  Marketing is to find out what sells.

What and why do people pay?  what do they demand in return? 

What is value and what is profit?

We summarize for a newbie shop owner the critical understanding you must have to have a healthy start.  The first 50 sales is a crucial phase.  May you cross it safely!

Many Etsy stores are operated by experienced sellers who port their shops to Etsy platform.  If you are not one of these sellers, your first 50 sales or 100 sales is going to be a major test.

Digital marketing is not to promote what you want to promote, but to find what others are searching.  Unless you do, you will waste a lot of money on advertising and money on social networking.

Get your name of the BUSINESS right first, then worry about the shop name.

There are four names of concern, in order of importance:

1. The keyword niche you choose;

2. the name of a product

3. the name of your business - what you do?

4. the internet name (website name)

5. the name of your corporate (company, or tax payer account for government purposes).

If you are beginner on Etsy, 1-3 are the most important.

---

Get the name of the product right first, then worry about the store name.

On etsy you can change your store name but your "Etsy URL" address will still carry the old name.

---

Name is important, but don't spend too much time.

Step 1: Get what your business is.  "Name your business" first.

Step 2: Name your "web name" and "google name" first.

Step 3: Last step is to name your company.

---

Don't spend time on:

1. Making your name "legal" and registered.

2. An ultra unique and cute name that YOU appreciate.

Do spend time on:

1. Making a unique name online searchable;

2. Make a name that is hard to forget.

3. Get a name that represent what you do.

===

Make sure you know what business you will do first.

===

Names have psychology power.  Hence the names of Coca-cola, Lulu Lemon, Darth Vadar, Star Wars, Google, and such stuck through.  To some extent, a good company almost must have a good name.

However in the internet era after 2021, it is also OK to have a name such as "reducestudentloan.com", which instantly gets you on search engine and put you on the playing field.

Eventually, a successful company or shop has a successful name.  But really, don't sweat it too much at the beginning or first time.

===

Names with repeat sounds typically gets attention and easier to remember.

Coca-cola.

Lang Lang.

Yo Yo Ma.

Darth Vadar.

Lulu Lemon.

Don't spend too much worrying about it.  The best practice is to have a repeat unit.  The second practice is to make the name reflect your theme.

Two principles:

1. Make people understand what you do right from the name.  It is also good for Google engine.  Google likes your dedication by naming your title merged with business.  Your name, keyword and actual reputation will be identical - Google favors those.  Google will recommend you to its visitors more often.

2. Use double sounds, such as Lulu Lemon, Coca Cola, etc.

---

Worry about "web name" rather than "company name".  It is 100 times more important to have and "capture" the right web name.

Web name should be easy to understand.  Don't make people wasting 2 seconds guessing.

The name on your Etsy platform eventually does not matter because people come to Etsy for the Etsy name first and foremost.

Sneak peak screen capture session showing how to add a new shop for no cost.

The materials you need to prepare:

1 A credit card or debit card (but only 20 cents would be charged for the first session for adding one product).

2. A factory where your product is made (if it is not hand made);

3. Dimensions of weight of your product item.

Sneak peak screen session for adding a product.

I will show you various elements contributing to the first 100 sales, and what I learned from the experience.

The first 100 sales is the dark age, even if you are destined to greatness.

For two reasons:

1. Any single negative review will drag your review down a lot! (and perversely, this encourages people to leave negative reviews)

2. As you have no sales, people and Etsy algorithms don't know you well.

Over time, the following will happen:

1. Reviews will stabiliize

2. Etsy knows your buyers and can advertise and out reach on your behalf.

The first 100 sales typically takes a year, unless this is your second go around. (It does not matter if you are smart or if your product is great in your eyes).

Let's understand what is "online business" or "e commerce" from understand physical store business and stores.

There are physical market, and digital markets.

There are digital products, and physical products.

There are physical stores, and digital stores.

There are physical funnels (called streets) and there are digital funnels.

There are physical indexes (yellow page) and digital indexes (Google).

There are physical affiliates and digital affiliates.

They can all be mixed and matched.

For most people, digital is a means to do business, not the business itself.  Digital business and old world physical business have a lot in common.

---

There are digital stores doing digital marketing.

There are real stores doing real world physical marketing. 

But real world stores can also do digital marketing, and digital web stores can also do real world marketing and advertisement such as radio stations.

===

Marketing is for your potential clients to approach you.

Sales is for you to approach your clients.

They both need to happen in a market.

---

But the business is never virtual.

And the business mindset is the same.

---

If you get the products right, the SEO right, but you get the thumbnail wrong you still won't get sales!

In terms of sales generation, price is most important.  The price must be right.  Then, the thumbnail has to be right.  You must try.  After that, SEO and advertising start to offer some effects.

Below are pictures of similar rock from two stores.  One sold 227,000, one sold 152.  See the difference? making a good image is not just good artists - it is by chance and luck sometimes.

===

Thumbnail is the window shopping in the old days - it does not need to take a ton of money, but good Thumbnail wins you clients.

No business succeed without a bag of tricks.

Marketing is to understand the market.  Marketing has no rules.  Everything is learned while you sell.

---

No business plan is complete without knowing how to cheat or beat your competitors.  Or, your competitor will cheat you.  Here are some of my own cheat sheet items, or something I know others would use without hesitation on you.  If you plan by the rule book, you don't win because everyone can predict your next move.

Marketing is also a form of scheming - we wish to live in a perfect world where there is a menu for success, but that is not the case. 

No plan works without the secret sauce.  No honesty is complete until you know how others cheat.

As Sun Tzu says, business is war.  You don't "open a business", you must "win a business".  You need to know what Googling will not teach you.

Making business work is back breaking labor. 

Logistics such as shipping is very expensive - we are all used to receiving Amazon prime shipping for fast speed and free shipping - but it cost the SELLER a lot of money to ship.  The shipping companies and postal services squeeze your profit margin to almost zero.

Shipping heavy things with fast speed costs.  Be aware.   Be careful with international shipping (especially possibility of returns and scamming).

Etsy asks you to sell - it is good because otherwise you must pay Amazon for using the Amazon Prime shipping service.  With Etsy at least you have some options. 

Before you start, make sure you get a rough estimate of how much it cost.  If most your competitors are offering free shipping, then you perhaps needs to do free shipping.

When your competitors do free shipping and when your customers compare price, you are squeezed.

===

Business is built, one order, one product, one shipping at a time.

Your "company" or store may be online, but your physical labor is real.

Let me show you the pictures of my store's receiving, inventory, packaging, and shipping.  Once you have a lot of sales, that is a lot of work.

A store has a front and a back.  All business details are handled at the back end of the shop.  The "store front" or "facade" is only for attracting POTENTIAL clients people inside.

As shop owner in a market your job is not to get on the street and approach people.  Your job is to have people in the market approach you.

---

A business is not selling.  Business is buying AND selling.

No one makes money alone!  you make money WITH your supply chain.  You have a responsibility to keep your upstream happy.

Your source works very hard to keep his price to YOU low.  So you need to do the favor of moving his products to your customers.  You are fulfilling responsibilities both ways.

A second person is equivalent of 10,000 sales a year for a store.  It is very expensive.  A second person can not come on board unless you are handling about 30 shipments a day.

A brand means ability to increase the price.   The opposite of branded product is a generic product that every merchant can source.

A brand is special - and it takes money and research to become special.  People appreciated branded products more and are willing to pay a bit more.

Branded products make more money - because you spent more money and you are serious about your specialty.  You are proud.  You are better.

Many people think of starting business as a self high, self centered, thinking centered "planning" - and instant reward or confirmation.  That is not true.  Business is to give your customers what they want, not to ask them to get what you want to give.  It is relation and trust based extremely benefit giving.  Success is not discussed in books or school - you do the experiments in real life on your own dimes.

There are no "instructions".  If something does not work, try it another way.

It takes a while for ETSY to figure out what you want to do.  It takes a few months actually.

Most "over night success" have a story that is untold.  In fact, there is no such thing as over night success. 

On Etsy, your first new store need to cross three phases in serial fashion:

1. Etsy must know what you are trying to shoot for;

2. Etsy must start to put out trial balloons and see people's response;

3. After 1-2, then you need to accumulate 10,000 impressions for first sale.

Any big success would take 2-4 years of running.  Any failure would take 3-6 months to identify.  Be patient.

The first sale will be the first 100 people who review your product.

The first sale is the first 10,000 people who sees the impression.

Your impression is based on three facts: interests, SEO, and market size.

If the market size is small, then you can do good SEO and still won't have impressions.

If the market is large but interest is small, then no one is searching.  You can have good SEO but it won't work.

===

The following in the resource is a real store first 100 sales time chart.  It took about eight months.

A case study of a Udemy owner who earned 600 k dollars in four years.  See how much it makes in first two years.

It is intriguing to notice how someone stuck through two years of relative no growth to hone his skills and eventually won meaningful income.  Dedication multiplied by time is what is needed to win any business.

So you want to make 100 dollars a day on etsy?  Let me explain to you in detail how to do it.

Let's make some simplifications first.  First, let's assume the cost of shipping and labor is not included.  Second, let's assume one item in your store is a flagship product.  It is the cash cow that sells the most for you. 

Assume the prevailing price is 20 dollars.  You need to sell 5 items on an average day to make 100 dollars.

To sell that many, you need 500 clicks of your item link.  You need 500 people "checking it out".

To have 500 clicks a day, you need 50000 impressions a day.  50000 Etsy market goers must see your thumbnail.

If you don't believe the conversion ratio, check out my actual store etsy conversion table of the product "magnifier".  For this product, 15,000 impressions produced about 9 sales each month, but I was pretty lucky there.  And this is when my SEO and Etsy ads make me top listed.

Without Ads, I got 1700 views in 8 months and made 48 sales in that period.  Under Etsy ads, I made 9 sales for 15000 views in a month.  The return on investment is 2 to 1.

So, how do you get 50,000 impressions?  this is the wrong question.  The right question is, how does Etsy GIVE 50,000 impressions a day to site visitors?

You see, your item must attract more than 50,000 searches a day on etsy website.

What kind of items attract that many searches a day?  what kind of keyword is hot?  Here we have a ranking of top selling Etsy items.  These products all sell more than 5 a day, some even close to 100 a day.  Check out the market data base for yourself.  These are the following:

personalized necklace, personalized wallet, pet portraits, personalized puzzle toy, and personalized wedding gifts.  Check out the website listed below.  It will also give you monthly sales of other items so you can have an idea.

I am not saying that only these items can have fast sales.  I am not saying anyone selling these items can have fast sale. 

If you don't pick the right category, you will unlikely get lucky and become viral.  See, the size of the market and the frequency of search matters.  Never take a chance and try to get lucky.  You won't.  What matters is the total market volume for your product.  Your item won't sell fast if there are not enough crowd looking for it.  It is just like if there are not enough firewoods, you won't suddenly make a forest fire.

Remember, the sales is a percentage of impression, and the impression is a percentage of market interests.  If you do SEO well you may capture all the interests, but your total sale still depend on how many people searches for this item keyword.

Here is a criteria for good Etsy products.  Please pause the video and see the details.  All the things including SEO, design, products have to be good, but none of that can fix the problem of lack of demand.

If you want to make it beyond a hobby, you can not count on luck.  Never count on hope.

The key are (1) demand (2) what you can make or source in important niches.  Beyond that, you want to have more than one good selling products in your store.  Good luck.

At the start, one or two bad reviews can kill your entire shop.  After you establish, one or two bad reviews barely register.

The best way to avoid bad reviews is to stop putting bad products on the market.

Typically each review has about 6-10 purchases behind them - most people do not give reviews.

Opening new stores costs nothing.  You can use new stores to experiment and test the market.  For example:

1. opening a new market and see how easy it is for you to rank - you probe the market.

2. you can close a non performing store and start a new one.

Etsy made it pretty easy for someone to open a new store.

Make sure each store is managed by a different device - computer, iPad, or phone.  They should never cross use the IP address of a device.  This will severely limit their potential.

The only way to start is start.  Start with any idea.  Start low.  Start now.  Start to learn.

If you like to think and you are clever and smart and skillful, your start will be harder and your struggle may be longer.

Start small.  Start with what you have today!

---

Three big mistakes people have:

1. They think and want their idea to be unique and BIG;

2. They don't want to start but they want to prepare;

3. They either have too many ideas or they don't have one they want to commit to.

What they don't know is, "Ideas happen after the start".

Learn everyday. 

Business is to learn what no one teaches.

Any business can be profitable and make one rich - as long you finish number one.

===

Etsy or any business is where you learn.  The learning beats anything you can get at a regular university.

University of Etsy beats Harvard.  At Harvard someone teaches you for a fee.  At Etsy you learn on your own.

Opening an etsy store or online business is full entrepreneurship.  You don't have to skip school.  However, going to school does not help.  It is a different track and realm of life.  It is business life.

Graduating from Etsy to enter Amazon or full scale product development is possible, once you know something about the market and have some funds you control.

Business is a game.

That is right.  Business is right or wrong, evil or civil.  Business people can be rich, but most business people are not rich.  Business is in fact not to get rich, but to fulfill a purpose of life.

Find your business first, and don't try to get rich.  After you find business, try to get rich.

Don't try to become rich through Etsy.  Don't even try to get rich from business.  It is a fun and fulfilling experience.  It teaches everything schools do not teach. Once you know how it feels to make business, you can make any business.

Be fast, not hasty.

Money is water.  Business is river.

Find the river.  Never mind the water will come.

===

Money is water, and business is river.  Make a business - don't try to get water - try to make water flow.

Once money flows through you, you can generally find ways to keep some of the water from the water.