Emily Odio-Sutton started her Etsy side hustle on her couch while watching a “Real Housewives” TV show in December 2022. She doesn’t recall which one, but she does remember the months of research fed into that moment.
Her oldest daughter would start kindergarten the following year, and she knew she couldn’t leave her 9-to-5 job in the middle of the day — even though it was a remote gig — for school pickups, or gymnastics or swimming practice drop-offs.
Amid her “doomscrolling,” Odio-Sutton found a series of YouTube videos about print-on-demand — an e-commerce method where sellers create designs for products like T-shirts, tote bags and mugs, and list them on online marketplaces like Etsy or Amazon. When a customer places an order, a third-party manufacturer prints the design onto the product and ships it out.
Odio-Sutton decided to give it a try. Her shop, which specializes in gifts for people with hyper-specific …