355: 16 Year Old Makes 1K/Month Selling Opossum Products With Erick Strider

Podcast: Download (Duration: 43:50 — 50.5MB)

Selling on Etsy successfully starts with finding where your customers already gather and validating demand before you spend anything on inventory. Eric Strider found roughly 30 Facebook groups dedicated to opossums, asked for opinions on her artwork without selling anything, and had people asking when they could buy before a single pin existed.

In this episode I spoke with Eric Strider, a 16-year-old full-time student who makes over $1,000 a month selling enamel pins. Eric is a pen name used to protect her identity.

Below is the whole process: how she validated demand for free, what enamel pins cost to produce, how she vetted overseas manufacturers, and why a tiny niche was the advantage rather than the obstacle.

Key takeaways

• Find where your niche already gathers. Roughly 30 Facebook groups exist for opossum enthusiasts.
• Ask for opinions, never sell. Presenting as an advertiser is a turnoff in community groups.
• She started with $230 for 100 pins, selling at $10 each.
• Ask admin permission before posting a link. That is what separates you from spam.
• A small passionate niche beats a large picky one. Chickens had more competition and less enthusiasm.
• Chinese manufacturers cost roughly half of a US middleman for the same pins.
• Handwritten thank you notes produced 18 five-star reviews with no negatives.
• Kickstarter works for enamel pins, where backers actively seek projects to fund.

Why a tiny niche was the advantage

Eric sells opossum pins, which is a small niche whose members are passionate enough to buy nearly anything available to them.

The reason is scarcity of supply. Very little opossum merchandise exists, so enthusiasts have few options and welcome new products.

Her own comparison proves the point. She tried the same approach with chicken designs, and chickens are popular enough that plenty of product already exists, which makes buyers considerably pickier.

The lesson is that niche size matters less than the ratio of passion to available products.

How she found her customers

She searched Facebook for opossum groups and found around 30, including four with roughly 20,000 members each.

Most require an application, which asks whether you like opossums and whether you agree to the group rules. The purpose is filtering out people joining to sell unrelated products.

That filtering is exactly why the groups work. The barrier keeps them clean enough that genuine members trust what appears there.

How to post in a community group without being an advertiser

Introduce yourself as a member and ask for opinions, because presenting as an advertiser is an immediate turnoff.

Eric’s first post said she was new to the group and to Facebook, that she was a small digital artist, and that she wondered what the group thought of her art.

She asked for nothing. No link, no product, no offer.

The response was people asking when the pins would be manufactured and when they could buy one, which is validation you could not buy.

The permission step matters. Once pins were actually being produced, she asked the group admins whether she could share a link, and posted only after they agreed.

How much validation you actually need

Twenty or thirty comments expressing interest was enough to justify the first production run.

The math is what makes that sufficient. At $10 a pin against roughly $2.30 in cost, twenty buyers already produces a profit.

That is the entire threshold for a first product. Not thousands of followers, not an email list, just enough people saying they would buy to cover the order.

What enamel pins cost to produce

Eric’s first order was 100 one-inch soft enamel pins in four colors for about $230, or roughly $2.30 each.

She sold them at $10, which she arrived at by looking at comparable Etsy listings. Larger pins at 1.75 inches support around $13.

The structural cost is the mold. Enamel pin pricing is a base price of roughly $50 to $60 to create the die, plus a per-unit cost that can run from a few cents to about a dollar.

That base cost is why minimum order quantities exist and why one design per order is standard.

Production runs about a month through a US middleman, with hard enamel and soft enamel as the two options.

There are no US enamel pin manufacturers, which Eric attributes to the machinery overlapping with equipment used for counterfeiting currency.

How to vet a manufacturer with no experience

Check their public work, then verify it belongs to real customers.

Her method for the first supplier: review the pin gallery on their site, then check their Instagram to confirm those pins came from actual artists rather than stock imagery.

For overseas manufacturers she went further. She contacted about 30, asked other pin sellers in Facebook groups about their experiences with each, and prioritized how many pins each had produced and how many customers they had worked with.

She found them by asking. Posting a single request for manufacturers in a pin community produced roughly 20 direct messages overnight.

The quote request form she sent covered payment terms including whether they offered 50% upfront and 50% on completion, the design, quantity, size, metal type, number of colors, and the backing configuration.

Why she moved production overseas

The same pins cost roughly half through a Chinese manufacturer: about $180 against roughly $400 through the US middleman.

Minimum order quantities largely disappear too, though the mold base cost remains regardless of how few you order.

Turnaround is comparable or better at two to three weeks for production plus about five days of air shipping.

The design constraint is real. Enamel pins use a fixed palette, so submitted artwork comes back with adjusted colors matched to available enamels, which shifts hues slightly without changing the design meaningfully.

How the Etsy side works

Etsy charges roughly 20 cents per listing, which makes the ongoing cost of testing products very low.

Eric had 18 reviews at the time of our conversation, all five stars, with no dissatisfied customers.

The differentiator is packaging. Every order ships with a handwritten note thanking the buyer for supporting her business.

Etsy flags repeat customers with a star on the order, which she uses to write a more personal note thanking them specifically for coming back.

That combination produces genuine repeat business, which for a $10 product is what makes the numbers work.

How Kickstarter works for physical products

Kickstarter suits enamel pins because backers there actively look for projects like them to fund.

Eric’s chicken pin campaign targeted $400, which was the US middleman quote, and raised about $550.

You do not need finished product. Kickstarter is specifically for funding manufacturing, so you present artwork and renderings representing what the product will be.

The payment structure protects backers. Funds only transfer if the campaign fully funds, so a failed campaign returns everyone’s money.

Promotion came from her own social accounts plus Kickstarter-focused Facebook groups, where posting a project link is welcome rather than intrusive.

Why she chose enamel pins

Pins are among the top-selling categories on Etsy, cheap to manufacture, and function as collectibles.

The product qualities matter. They are small, work as backpack accessories, and cost little enough to be an impulse purchase.

The collecting behavior is the durable part. People actively collect pins from small artists, which produces repeat purchases that a one-off product cannot.

Her customers also suggested extensions during the validation posts, asking about shirts and mugs, which is free product research.

What she did before Etsy

Eric spent years taking art commissions on DeviantArt before a platform change destroyed her visibility.

The progression was gradual. She started charging two or three points, worth a few cents, and raised prices as she grew until she was earning real money.

The collapse came from an algorithm and layout change called Eclipse, which made smaller artists significantly harder to find. Her posts went from 200 or 300 likes to around 10.

That is the platform dependency risk in its clearest form, and it is why she moved to a channel where she controls the listings.

Her entrepreneurial start was earlier still. She entered a children’s business competition at about six years old and won for most profitable.

Her advice for people who think they cannot start

Find your people, come to them directly, and behave like a member rather than an advertiser.

Her observation about the cost is worth hearing from someone who started with $230. She did not realize how cheap starting actually was, and that initial amount compounded into a business by being reinvested into more product.

Her honest note on the anxiety is that she was genuinely nervous and did not think she could do it, which did not turn out to be predictive of anything.

What drives her is a specific image: seeing booths at conventions and wanting to be the person sitting behind one, confident in what she made.

Frequently asked questions

How do you sell on Etsy with no audience?

Find where your target customers already gather, most commonly Facebook groups, and participate as a genuine member. Ask for opinions on your work rather than selling. Eric Strider had people asking when they could buy before a single product existed.

How do you post in Facebook groups without getting banned?

Introduce yourself as a member and ask for feedback rather than posting links or promotions. Once you have something to sell, ask the group admins for permission before sharing a link. That request is what separates you from spam.

How much does it cost to make enamel pins?

Eric paid about $230 for 100 one-inch soft enamel pins in four colors. Pricing is a base cost of roughly $50 to $60 for the mold plus a per-unit cost ranging from cents to about a dollar, which is why one design per order is standard.

Are Chinese pin manufacturers cheaper?

Substantially. The same order quoted around $400 through a US middleman cost roughly $180 from a Chinese manufacturer, with comparable turnaround of two to three weeks production plus about five days shipping.

How do you vet a manufacturer you found online?

Check their public gallery, then verify through Instagram or elsewhere that the work belongs to real customers. Ask other sellers in relevant communities about their direct experience, and prioritize suppliers with more completed orders.

Is a small niche better than a large one?

When the niche is passionate and underserved, yes. Opossum enthusiasts buy readily because almost no products exist for them, while chicken products are plentiful enough that buyers are far more selective.

Does Kickstarter work for physical products?

Yes for products with collector appeal like enamel pins, where backers actively seek projects to fund. You present artwork rather than finished product, and funds only transfer if the campaign fully funds, which protects backers.