entrepreneur

My 11 income streams

If there is one important thing I’ve learned in the 8 years of running an online business it is that you must diversify your income.

That is a fancy way of saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. Relying on just one source of income is risky because you don’t have anything to fall back on if needed.

Today I’m going to talk about my 11 income streams (yes, that’s right – 11!) I’m not going into any figures because numbers can be misunderstood (for example, I get to keep approximately half of my actual revenue once taxes and running expenses are paid).

But I will outline my 11 income streams in order from what makes the most to what makes the least amount. The order is still a generalisation as most of my income streams are fluctuating from month to month.

Online courses

The Online Weaving School was started back in 2017 and supplies the largest part of my income (by a long shot!) The weaving school is hosted at Teachable, which works very well because I, as the creator have my own space on the internet and I’m fully in control of how the school runs, the type of content available there and the pricing for my students.

There are two models on which the school operates – single purchase classes and memberships.

A single purchase class is just what it sounds like – the student make a one time purchase and then has permanent access to the class. They can come back, log in to their account and re-watch the class as many times as desired. They also have the ability to receive feedback, share comments and photos on the platform.

Memberships have been a huge part of my success as an online business. The student chooses a membership tier and then has access to a full class library, including member’s only classes until their membership expires (at which point they can choose to renew or cancel). A membership also gives a student access to the private member’s community. A membership model is excellent because it provides the creator with recurring and somewhat more predictable income.

Premium Membership

Access to full class library for one annual fee. All prices are in US dollars

1796 students enrolled

Last updated Apr 8th, 2025

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Premium membership$157/year

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2. My Design Store

For many years I have also been designing weaving patterns. These are usually project based and provide the buyer with step by step written instructions, colour photos and often video links to complete a weaving project.

I sell my designs in digital format at Kelly Casanova Designs using the Shopify platform.

I have also branched into writing ebooks to provide even more information to weavers and these are also available in my design store.

Digital downloads are an excellent source of (mostly) passive income as much of the work is done up front in the designing and writing. There is often some follow up needed in the form of support for purchasers but this is relatively minimal compared to the weaving school.

Very occasionally I also make weaving/yarn kits available to my audience and these are based on existing patterns.

If you are interested in trying a Shopify store for yourself, you can get 3 days free plus 3 months for $1 each when you sign up for a trial, just use this link to take a closer look at that offer.

3. Youtube

Income from Youtube is made through Google Adsense. The ads are place on my videos and I get a cut of what the advertisers pay to Youtube (about half). This type of income is fluctuating and not very reliable and because I’m in the “craft” niche, advertisers pay much lower rates than they would for videos in something like the business or finance niche.

The beauty of Youtube when it comes to online business is that it can act as an audience funnel for your existing business. It allows you to build and audience that can get to know and trust you. It can be a way for potential students to sample your teaching style before investing in a course or membership.

My business has grown from my Youtube following, so it has been an absolute essential part of my success.

4. My blog

Income from my blog is also made through Google Adsense. This is not ideal, and some readers do complain that there are too many ads when they read articles. Having ads enabled on my blog does cover my hosting fees though, and gives some small compensation for the many hours I’ve spent writing informative articles.

Similar to Youtube, the blog also acts as a funnel or advertising space for my paid products.

5. Affiliate income

Affiliate income is when you recommend a product, service or company to your audience with a special referral link. If someone clicks on your link and makes a purchase, you receive a small percentage of that purchase as a thank you from the company.

Affiliate income is an excellent way to make money, but certainly not the easiest (at least, that has been the case for me!) Affiliate commissions vary a huge amount from as little as 1 -4% of the sale (hello Amazon!) to 30-50% (I don’t have any affiliates that pay that much but I know they’re out there).

It takes a lot of time to insert links and write them into content in a way that provides value to your audience. No one wants to feel like they’re being spammed so it’s important to use affiliate links properly and respectfully.

You can do this by only recommending products/services that you use yourself or that you have sufficient knowledge of in order to recommend with confidence.

Some months my affiliate income now surpasses my blog or YouTube income but this is not a frequent occurrence.

6. Paid newsletter

This year I started my very first paid newsletter through Convertkit (now known as Kit). I have been sending out a free newsletter for many years but the paid newsletter is separate and covers different topics.

7. Magazine work

This income stream involves writing articles and submitting projects. I have completed quite a bit of this type of work over the last year or so and continue to receive requests and proposals.

Submitting projects takes a great deal of work and time and I don’t feel the compensation is high enough for the amount of work required. So, for the near future at least I will stick more to the article writing, which I find enjoyable and rewarding.

8. Public speaking/ presentations

This is another income stream that I just started this year. I receive invitations to speak or present for weaving guilds or groups. So far, these presentations have been online, which is brilliant as it allows me to reach people that live in different locations to me! I prepare a presentation ahead of time and then give the presentation live.

9. Handmade items

This is a very, very small stream as I only sell handmade items occasionally. Before I started the Online Weaving School, I was a handmade seller, but I have very little time now to actually make something physical to sell.

10. Facebook

This one is kind of a surprise. I logged into my Facebook analytics one day and found that I had made a little money! I didn’t even know that was a thing 😆 Since then, I’ve made small amounts every month. It’s really only pocket money but I certainly don’t mind earning money for posting on my Facebook page, which is something that I would be doing anyway.

11. Merchandise

I have tried merchandise with Society6 and Spring. I have closed the Society6 store and will likely do the same for the Spring store in the future. This has not been a good source of income for me, so I have stopped promoting it in order to focus more on the streams that do work well for me.

Being an entrepreneur is such a journey of learning, adapting and pivoting when needed. Having more than one stream of income really helps you to try things out, see what will work and what won’t and then maximise the things that work the best for your business.

If you are starting out with online business, you will find these articles helpful as well:

Should I start with Etsy or Shopify?

Handmade Business Beginner Essentials

3 ways to start selling online for free

Do you want to start selling your weaving?

This article is also available in video format here:

I hope you enjoyed reading about my income streams and I wish you all the best with your online business!

Handmade business beginner essentials

by Kelly Leave a Comment

Starting a handmade business can be a big step in your life but it doesn’t have to be complicated.

My own business is a shining example of how a handmade hobby can organically grow into a business. The funny part is that I had been trying to make a living from my handmade goods for around 10 years when I shared my first weaving tutorial on Youtube that ultimately saw my business develop and eventually take off.

Many people in the business niche will tell you that the formulation of a business plan is an absolute must before starting a new business. While it can help you to plan and gain clarity around what you want to do or what your vision for your business is, it is not essential.

I never developed a business plan for my online business and I have no regrets about that.

However, there are aspects to a handmade business that I do think are really important. Some of these can develop over time and others are better to be put in place as soon as possible.

DETERMINING PRODUCT DEMAND

Basically, without demand, you don’t have a business. You could make something that is really cool and that you love to create, but if no one wants to buy it that can be a harsh reality to face.

My initial Youtube tutorials showed me very clearly that there was a demand for the product I was able to provide. Again, this happened organically for me and wasn’t planned but if you are wanting to sell your handmade products, actually having an idea beforehand whether or not there is a demand for them is super helpful.

You can get a basic idea of demand by googling your intended product or search terms associated with it. Let’s take an example here. I will use a handwoven scarf as our guinea pig.

Determining demand for handmade products is a little different from more commercial products because handmade is often unique and doesn’t “fit in a box” or typical niche. There are more factors involved than just looking at trends and what is selling well right now. Handmade is more nuanced than that.

When I google “handmade scarf” it comes up with a myriad of results. Some are local, authentic hand woven by usually a single person owned business (sole trader). Others are made overseas, woven on hand looms but by groups of people and marketed by an organisation. Some are commercially woven (you can always recognise these are they are much cheaper and usually more generic in appearance).

Googling is useful though, to see what is out there, where they are being sold and what they are charging. These factors can help you not only to find where potential customers might be looking to find hand woven products, but also what kind of pricing is realistic for the type of scarf you’re selling.

A terrific way to help determine demand for a handwoven scarf is social media – Instagram in particular is a very visual platform. I use Instagram not only to sell my products (you can read more about how I do that here) but to gauge interest in new products/ colours/ styles. It’s a simple and free way to get public opinion but in a more targeted way because all the people who follow you on a social media platform and potential customers – their opinion matters!

THE PRODUCT

You do need to have a good quality product and ensure that it meets quality standards, but if you tend towards perfectionism, please do not overcomplicate it! Next time you buy an item of clothing, a towel, whatever from a commercial source, I guarantee that if you inspect it carefully you will find small faults.

Handwoven is beautiful and unique, but it’s made by a real person often in a home or studio setting. It needs to present well and do the job that it’s made for – it does not need to be perfect.

PRICING

This is a non negotiable. You do not have a smooth running and profitable business without correctly priced items. Handmade creators are notorious for under pricing (I know, in my early days I was definitely guilty of this!)

While it is fine to price a bit lower when you’re just starting out, you need to know when to raise your prices and how low is too low. Price your handmade products too low and you don’t have a handmade business, you just have a hobby (and often an expensive one at that!)

Pricing is very tricky and often a fine balance of cost of materials, how much you want to be paid and how much the customer is willing to pay. In this article I talk about this more in depth, based on my personal experiences and I include a helpful formula for pricing handmade items.

WHERE/HOW TO SELL

Again, you really don’t have a business until you have a way or location to sell. To begin with, this can be as simple as selling to friends and family and gradually growing your brand by word of mouth. This is an excellent way to sell initially. It allows you to get a feel for it, you don’t have to pay for advertising, hosting and processing fees and as already mentioned it can help you to determine demand.

I’ll put in a little caveat here that some sellers find it a negative experience selling to family and friends. I have heard quite a few people say that those who are closer to them expect heavily discounted prices, free products or just to pay for the cost of materials but not your time.

On the other hand, those who are familiar with what you do may have a better understanding of the time, skill and quality of materials you put in to your work.

This is something you can explore for yourself and hopefully it is a positive experience for you!

It is quite simple to get started selling online these days. The main avenues I recommend are Etsy and Shopify. Which one suits you will depend on a number of factors and for that reason I have provided a comparison between the two here.

Personally I am moving away from Etsy to focus more on my Shopify store as Etsy is changing and not for the better, in my opinion. Shopify does offer a trial where your first month is only $1, plus you actually earn credits on your own sales to help your shop pay for itself – this is a great deal if you’re curious as to whether it would be a good fit for you.

MAILING LIST

Start a mailing list from day one. No, really!

This will become one of the most important aspects of your business as it allows you to not only contact your audience in a reliable way (you can’t necessarily rely on social media platforms for this) but they are also qualified leads. People sign up to your mailing list because they are interested in what you do.

I use Convertkit for my mailing list and have for many years because they have the best functionality and are constantly improving. Yes, it does get more expensive as you gain subscribers and as you start using automations but for those starting out it is free way to start growing a list.

You can get subscribers to your mailing list in many ways. The first way is to just ask them to sign up if they are interested in your work and provide a way for them to do that (with Convertkit you can make landing pages).

You can also provide an incentive for sign up. Examples could include a discount to purchasing your products, a free guide, downloadable PDF or some other small incentive that provides value to your audience.

TAXATION

Ew, the unglamorous side of business no one wants to think about! So you stow it away and not think about it. Until it comes back to bite you!

How do I know? Because I didn’t keep records to begin with in my business and that was a big mistake. To be kind to myself, because my business grew so organically I didn’t keep records initially because I didn’t think of it as a business.

Then it started making money!

No, record keeping is not glamorous, but trust me folks, you need to do it or you are making a big headache and a lot of extra work for yourself down the track. Make it a habit from day one and it becomes a part of your routine and it’s easy.

I started out by just using a spreadsheet to record sales and expenses, it was very simple. As your business grows you definitely want to look into account keeping software.

The beauty of doing this is you can set up automations (or have someone set it up for you if you have no clue – this is what I did) to make the process really simple for you. I use the online accounting software Xero to automate my record keeping. All of my transactions filter through Xero so when it comes time to submit my Business Activity Statements and end of financial year tax return, all the information is there and ready. Doing this has reduced my stress levels significantly!

BE PATIENT

Building a business takes time, and so does learning business skills. I’m 8 years in and still learning, but that’s ok, you tend to learn what you need to know as the business grows.

Be willing to try new things as the same methods won’t necessarily work for everyone.

A slow growing business, in my opinion is advantageous as it allows you to learn and adapt as you need to. It will teach you a lot about yourself and what kind of business owner you want to be – embrace the slowness!

I hope this article has been helpful to you and given you some ideas for getting started. I have some additional resources here in case you want to do some more research:

3 ways to start selling online for free…

Do you want to start selling your weaving?

What would I do differently if I started selling now?

Selling for weavers online class (members only)

Until next time…

Happy Weaving!

*This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my disclosure policy.

What running a creative, online business is really like.

by Kelly 156 Comments

I’m well aware that as an online weaving teacher, designer and encourager, I have a lot of people’s dream job.

I design my own classes and projects, I make my own hours around my family commitments and I work from my own home.

It could be easy for those on the outside looking in to think “she is so lucky” or “I wish I could do that”. And honestly, I consider myself so blessed to be able to do this. But there is definitely more than one downside to being an online entrepreneur.

Tracy from Knit, Spin Weave wrote a blog post recently that was quite candid about the reality of owning a creative business. It struck a chord with me.

Being a part of the online world can have it’s ups and downs. People will type things that they would not dare to say to your face (depending on their level of rudeness I guess!) It has been suggested that I am somehow a greedy person lacking charity because I choose to earn money from my business rather than doing it just as a hobby. I guess that person (and yes, unfortunately it was someone well known in online weaving circles) never too the time to browse through my completely free blog and Youtube channel. Or signed up for my email list for extra free information, patterns and inspiration. I think I have published more free content to the internet than paid content. I guess that person has no idea how much time I spend every single day at my computer responding to questions and helping weavers with advice. That is not paid either, but I feel it’s an essential part of what I do.

Is there something wrong with wanting to earn money doing what you love? I certainly didn’t make any money for a long time and now earn a modest income. Out of that modest income, I of course pay taxes, materials for projects, online selling fees, I could go on and on. I pay well over $1000USD a year for online course hosting, the same for this website, $79USD per month for email hosting. The costs of actually running a business can be huge, thousands of dollars every year, even without a bricks and mortar shop.

There are times, many times where you simply do not make any money. But still, the bills must be met. And the work must continue. Yes, unlike a wage job, you have to continue to put in the work, whether or not you are being paid for it.

As a business owner, I do everything. I don’t have help with the business, apart from my wonderful sounding board husband and my son who occasionally does closed captions for me when he has time. I’m in that very tricky position of the business growing but still not earning enough to hire out help occasionally – every penny goes back into the business and into raising my family.

I did not start out intending to make money from weaving. It was, and is my passion and above all I wanted (and still do want to) share my passion with others and ignite the same passion for them. My Online Weaving School only grew out of a demand from weavers who had seen my Youtube videos – I had no idea about online courses. Over the past 3 years I’ve seen the potential grow from a hobby to a business. This has allowed me to continue to stay home with my family, homeschool our kids and contribute to our income, which has been an amazing blessing and as a stay at home Mum, was something I prayed about for years and years.

A hobby that is all of a sudden taking over every waking hour can not continue to be a free hobby. It would not be fair to my family if I spent so much time on a hobby that did not otherwise contribute to all of us.

Anyone who has seen my online classes or has purchased a pattern could not claim that I overcharge. I purposefully keep my prices as reasonable as I can. I want weaving to be accessible to anyone who wants to learn, that is why I continue to upload to Youtube even though I don’t need to anymore and the revenue that I earn from ads on Youtube is a very, very small portion of my income.

Perhaps it’s the wrong time of year to be writing this kind of post, but I do feel very reflective as the new year approaches. Perhaps it’s wrong of me to share this kind of information with those who follow me for my lessons and tutorials. It’s certainly something I don’t normally talk about, but I want people to know that this is not all easy and fun. Not just for my sake, but for the sake of other business owners in similar situations.

The internet can be so deceptive. I do love Instagram and social media but there are times I just want it all to go away. Social media can be a monster that never rests, there is always someone doing better than you, looking better than you, having more than you. Increasing the anxiety of those who use it. But don’t be fooled. Things are not always as they seem.

If there is only one point that you take away from this lengthy and disjointed post, I hope that it will be this:

Be kind. Don’t judge. Be patient with others. You can’t see behind the scenes and you can’t assume to take everything at face value. People are complicated, life is complicated! We all have to do our best to love one another, even though it’s possibly the hardest thing we are asked to do.

You know what? I think I need to go and weave something wonderful. I’ve been thinking about Krokbragd again…

Until next time…

Happy Weaving!