Rules of Engagement

Why this exists

I'm going to build an Etsy store in public, using the tools and methods actually available to a new seller, and publish every number it produces whether they're good or bad. The rules go up first, with a date on them, so I don't get to decide what to measure after I see the results. If this thing fails, I publish the failure, because I said I would before I knew the answer.

Why the store isn't named

I'm deliberately not naming the shop during the run, and I'm not linking it from here. I co-own a print provider, and I have an existing audience. If the store's name were public and tied to me, any success could be waved away as "his audience found it." Keeping it unnamed is the cleanest way to protect the result: if it breaks out, it broke out because a real buyer found it and shared it, not because I sent traffic. If that changes, I'll say so and quantify it. The name, and the final reveal, come after the run.

Who I am, and what that means

I co-own a print-on-demand provider. I have a direct financial interest in you believing POD is workable. That's a real conflict, and a disclaimer doesn't fix it. Here's what I'm doing about it structurally:

• I pay full retail. The store buys at published customer pricing. No internal cost, no comped anything. Invoices get published.
• I take no money out. Any profit over the run goes to charity, and the receipt gets published.
• No affiliate links. Anywhere. Ever. Every tool I pay for, I pay full price for, out of the budget below.
• I'm not selling a course. There is no course. There will not be a course.

The budget

The ceiling: $500 for the entire six months. Research tools, mockups, listing fees, design assets, ad spend. It does not cover the per-order cost of products, which comes out of revenue like any real shop. If I hit $500 before Jan 31, I stop.

The starting point: $0, for as long as I can. Free plans on everything that has one. I don't spend until I hit a real wall, and when I do, I write down what the wall was. The cap is a ceiling, not a target - unspent budget is a result worth publishing.

What I measure, and how

Every number here is defined before the run starts.

• Revenue is gross order value actually received, product and shipping separated. Sales tax is Etsy's to remit and is never counted as revenue.
• Costs means all of it: product, shipping, Etsy fees, offsite ads, refunds, reprints, tools, mockups, design.
• Net is revenue minus every cost. Net is the headline, never revenue.
• Hours is every hour, logged the day it happens, to the nearest quarter hour.
• Effective hourly rate is net divided by hours - the number that never appears anywhere else in this industry.

I will never annualise a partial period. I will never lead with revenue. Seasonality gets labelled every time. I will not delete or revise a bad week - the history is append-only, and corrections are published as corrections with the original still visible. Round numbers are suspicious, including mine.

The unfair advantages ledger

I can't pretend to be a beginner. I keep a running, public list of every advantage I use that a real new seller wouldn't have - experience, industry knowledge, an existing audience, people I can ask, and the fact that I can change the software when it annoys me. It's linked from every report, and it's going to be long. That's the point. I will not promote this store to my existing audience during the run.

When I change the software mid-run

I build the tools this store runs on. Nothing I use is something a normal seller can't use - if I improve a tool, it ships to everyone before I benefit. Friction gets logged before it gets fixed. Dev time is not store time, but the fact that it happened goes in the log. And when these rules conflict with actually fixing something that's costing real sellers money, the rules lose: I fix it and show you which numbers it touched.

What failure looks like

The store may not become profitable in six months. That's a realistic outcome and not a reason to stop publishing. On Jan 31 I publish the final net whatever it is (including negative), the final effective hourly rate (including under a dollar), the full hours, and an honest answer to "was this worth it, and would I tell someone else to do it."