How Julie Listed 167 Etsy Products With AI in 3 Weeks
Two Etsy coaches on running ChatGPT and Claude listing pipelines in the background, what actually sold on Halloween night, and the numbers from their first 50-listings AI challenge.
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2 days ago
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Interview
sincere
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Big Idea
The argument in one line.
AI lets an Etsy seller run listing production as a background process controlled from a phone, and the biggest time savings come from automating the boring file and listing chores, not from generating the art.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
You already run an Etsy digital-download or print-on-demand shop and spend hours renaming files, building mockups and typing titles, tags and descriptions.
You are curious about AI for your shop but uneasy about generated art, and want uses that keep your own designs and templates.
You sell seasonal or giftable products and want to know whether it is worth batching Christmas listings with AI right now.
You avoided crowded Etsy niches like wedding or bachelorette because you could not out-design the incumbents.
SKIP IF…
You have never sold on Etsy; the hosts say plainly their challenge teaches automation, not the basics of research, design or listing.
You want a step-by-step build of the AI workflow; this episode describes results and the course, and the actual prompts and connectors live behind the paid challenge.
You are not willing to pay for at least a ChatGPT or Claude plan plus a keyword tool like EverBee; the free tiers hit usage limits.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
AI has turned Etsy listing into a background job: one seller put up 167 digital downloads in about three weeks with ChatGPT and Claude running on two computers she steers from her phone, and her co-host built an idea-to-listed flow that takes about eight minutes. The products sold, including AI-assisted trick-or-treat signs on Halloween night. The hosts argue the biggest savings come from automating file renaming, uploads, Dropbox and Canva cleanup and listing copy rather than generating art, and that building your own template and having AI re-theme it per holiday sidesteps copying concerns. Their first challenge cohort produced 1,600-plus listings in two weeks, and they urge sellers to batch Christmas products now.
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Julie reveals 167 digital-download listings in about three weeks, all made with AI running on two computers.
01:09 – 02:02
02 · Running AI systems from your phone
The computers stay on in a dark basement while she directs ChatGPT and Claude from her phone during the day.
02:02 – 04:03
03 · Idea to listed in about 8 minutes
Cody's eight-minute idea-to-listing flow, the soup-stirring analogy, and proof the listings are selling rather than piling up as slop.
04:03 – 04:47
04 · Students making sales within days
Challenge students sold AI-made products within one or two days of listing.
04:47 – 05:40
05 · Research tools: EverBee, eRank, ProfitTree
Why they added EverBee for keyword research (AI connectors) and that the traditional Canva plus eRank route still works.
05:40 – 07:02
06 · How the 50-listings challenge started
Seven coaches plus both hosts were challenged to list 50 products in two weeks to pool what worked.
07:02 – 10:01
07 · What sold on Halloween
Trick-or-treat signs with a coquette-bow ghost and a costume contest kit, plus AI handling file cleanup across Dropbox and Canva.
10:01 – 12:16
08 · AI opens competitive niches for Christmas
Q4 demand, and why red-competition niches like bachelorette and wedding are now worth entering.
12:16 – 13:22
09 · Using AI to update your own templates
For the AI-wary: design your own template and have AI re-theme it for each holiday.
13:22 – 15:11
10 · The real time-saver: boring tasks
Most savings come from automating downloads, uploads, renaming and file organization through connectors, not generation.
15:11 – 18:35
11 · Cohort one results
1,600-plus listings in two weeks, a 124-listing student, Brian's 280 queued POD listings, and confidence scores jumping.
18:35 – 21:54
12 · Why AI skills pay off beyond Etsy
The Bachelorette data-science analogy, a Claude-built fitness app, and learning AI through something you enjoy.
21:54 – 25:12
13 · What's included in cohort two
Sales-page walkthrough: setup videos, Sasha's digital track, Emily's POD track, Nov 9 to 23 dates, live Q&As.
25:12 – 26:28
14 · Can't make the lives? How Q&As work
Questions submitted ahead by Google form are answered on the recording.
26:28 – 28:15
15 · The software you'll need
EverBee, a paid ChatGPT or Claude plan, and Anywhere POD for the POD track.
28:15 – 32:24
16 · Who the challenge is (and isn't) for
Not for total Etsy beginners; hand-holding setup calls with timestamps for advanced users.
32:24 – 33:50
17 · A thank-you to cohort one
Gratitude to the first cohort for trying a brand-new format.
33:50 – 34:41
18 · Shop Brain and where to sign up
Shop Brain loads shop context into AI memory; short link to the sales page.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
One Etsy seller listed 167 digital downloads in about three weeks by leaving ChatGPT and Claude running on two computers and steering them from her phone.
A tuned ChatGPT plus Claude workflow can take an Etsy digital product from idea to live listing in about eight minutes.
Running AI product creation is closer to stirring a pot of soup than pressing a button: you check progress, give a direction, and walk away again.
AI-made Etsy listings sold within one or two days of posting for first-time challenge students, not just for experienced coaches.
Trick-or-treat signs listed days before Halloween still sold on Halloween night because AI made it fast to produce a trend-led aesthetic like coquette bows.
AI makes red, highly competitive Etsy keywords like wedding and bachelorette worth entering again because you can out-produce the incumbents on design quality.
The most defensible AI use on Etsy is re-theming a template you designed yourself, turning one Halloween product into Christmas, Valentine's and graduation versions.
Most of the time AI saves an Etsy shop comes from download, upload, rename and organize chores, not from generating artwork.
Connecting Dropbox or Google Drive to ChatGPT or Claude lets the AI archive unused draft files and keep Canva tidy after each product run.
A challenge cohort of AI-novice Etsy sellers produced 1,600-plus listings in two weeks, with one student posting 124.
Self-rated AI confidence among challenge students jumped from about 38 percent to 88 percent after two weeks of guided setup.
Learning Claude through a hobby you care about transfers directly to a day job, the same way a data science student mastered Excel by analyzing reality TV.
Free ChatGPT or Claude plans hit usage limits fast enough on bulk listing work that a $20 per month plan pays for itself in time.
Print-on-demand is easier to bulk-produce with AI than digital downloads because text-only designs like candle labels can reuse the same mockups.
Loading your own shop context into AI memory gets the first draft of a product much closer to finished than a cold prompt.
Takeaway
AI earns its keep on the boring Etsy chores
WHAT TO LEARN
Bulk AI listing works when you treat the model as a background worker you supervise, aim it at file and listing chores first, and keep your own templates as the creative core.
02Running AI systems from your phone
Volume comes from parallel background runs, not long hours: keep machines on and steer ChatGPT or Claude from your phone between other tasks.
03Idea to listed in about 8 minutes
Treat a single listing as a supervised pipeline that can reach about eight minutes from idea to live once the prompts and memory are tuned.
Check in on AI runs like a pot on the stove, giving a direction and leaving again, rather than expecting a one-click end-to-end result.
04Students making sales within days
Beginners can sell AI-made products within days, so the barrier is setup and process, not years of Etsy experience.
05Research tools: EverBee, eRank, ProfitTree
Pick a keyword tool that connects to your AI, since manual research becomes the bottleneck once production speeds up.
06How the 50-listings challenge started
Set an ambitious shared target, like 50 listings in two weeks, and have several people try different methods to learn faster.
07What sold on Halloween
Even crowded seasonal products still sell when AI lets you ship a fresher trending aesthetic days before the holiday.
Add an AI cleanup step that archives unused drafts in Dropbox and Canva so high volume does not bury you in files.
08AI opens competitive niches for Christmas
List seasonal products early, since Q4 gift demand peaks in December and late listings miss the ramp.
Highly competitive niches are worth revisiting when AI lets you produce better-looking designs than the current bestsellers.
09Using AI to update your own templates
Build one template in your own style and let AI re-theme it for every holiday to stay original and avoid copying.
10The real time-saver: boring tasks
The largest time savings come from automating downloads, uploads, renaming and organizing files through connectors, not from generating art.
If generated art bothers you, still use AI for file management and listing copy, which takes nothing from other designers.
11Cohort one results
Hand-held setup sessions moved AI novices from roughly 38 percent confident to 88 percent in two weeks.
High-volume output is achievable for newcomers, with one first-time seller queuing 280 print-on-demand listings.
12Why AI skills pay off beyond Etsy
Learning AI through a subject you enjoy makes the skill stick and carry into a day job or household logistics.
Claude skills learned for one hobby transfer to other personal projects, like a fitness app combining wearable data.
15The software you'll need
Budget for a paid ChatGPT or Claude plan, since free tiers hit usage limits during bulk listing work.
Print-on-demand scales faster with AI than digital downloads because text-led designs can reuse the same mockups.
16Who the challenge is (and isn't) for
AI automation assumes you already understand Etsy research, design and listing; it speeds up a process you know, not one you have never done.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Digital download
An Etsy product the buyer receives as a file, such as a printable sign, planner page or Canva template, with no physical shipping involved.
Print on demand (POD)
A model where a design is printed onto a physical product like a shirt or candle only after a customer orders it, handled by a third-party printer.
EverBee
A paid Etsy keyword and product research tool that shows search volume and competition, which the hosts use because it connects to AI tools.
eRank
A long-running Etsy SEO and keyword research tool that colors competition levels green to red, but lacks AI connectors.
Red keyword
An eRank label for a search term with very high competition, meaning many existing listings are fighting for the same buyers.
Connectors
Integrations that let ChatGPT or Claude read and write files in services like Dropbox, Google Drive or Canva instead of you moving files by hand.
Skills (Claude)
Reusable saved instructions in Claude that run a defined workflow, such as building and listing a product, the same way every time.
Anywhere POD
A print-on-demand tool used in the challenge's POD track to produce and publish products and mockups in bulk.
Mockup
A listing image showing a design placed on a realistic product or scene so the buyer can picture the finished item.
Q4
The October to December quarter, when gift shopping makes Etsy sales for giftable products spike, peaking in December.
“The time saving comes from the boring manual routine tasks of running a digital downloads Etsy shop.”
The episode's real thesis in one line→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
14:43
“Use AI to organize your Dropbox. Use AI to organize your Canva files, to rename your files. Like that's not stealing anyone's work.”
Reframes AI for the anti-AI crowd→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
26:50
“It's going to be the best $20 you spent to get your time back.”
Tight value line on paying for an AI plan→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
Topic Map
Where the conversation goes.
00:00 – 04:03denseAI listing volume and background workflows
04:03 – 07:02steadyStudent wins and research tools
07:02 – 13:22denseSeasonal products, competitive niches and templates
13:22 – 15:11denseAutomating file and listing chores
15:11 – 21:54steadyCohort one results and AI skills beyond Etsy
21:54 – 34:41sparseCohort two pitch, logistics and fit
The Script
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Welcome to another episode of the Crickets to Cha -Ching's podcast. I am one of your hosts, Cody from Gold City Ventures, and my co -host today, Julie. We're going to be diving into some exciting AI developments in the Etsy world.
Julie, how are you doing today? I am addicted. I'm running two computers all day, every day, all cashing in on AI.
So excited to talk about it. Okay, let's just give people the Tarantino and share the number of listings that you've listed in the past two or three weeks. 167 listings.
All digital downloads. Do you have any idea what your time per listing is? Are you working on your computer for 12 hours a day?
Well, I am spending a lot of time on it because I'm trying to get ahead of things and I want to figure out how to sell all different types. So not just basic one pagers. I've moved on to Canva templates.
I've moved on to digital animations using ChatGPT's new video feature. I'm just addicted to it, honestly. But I think it has allowed me to multitask quite a bit.
I have it running on in the background. So I wouldn't necessarily say I'm on my computer all day, but my computer is running all day and I turn my screensaver off so it continues to stay on. What I was getting at.
is you're managing a lot of this from your phone, I think. And you can just allow chat or Claude to continue to make products while you're hanging out with your daughters, while you're at the bus stop, while you're doing other things. Like you literally have these systems running in the background.
Because I think a lot of people, when they hear a number like 167, they think, oh, she must be sitting in her basement for 12 hours, just glued to her computer, which couldn't be further from the truth. Like you set up the systems and then you can control those systems from your phone, which just makes this whole process that much easier.
Yes, I have my computers on in the basement. The lights are off, but the computers are open. And that's kind of weird.
When I go to bed at night, I'm kind of thinking, oh, I forgot to turn my computer off. Oh, wait, this is my new way of living. And I can control it all from my phone.
So it's just a really exciting time. And I want to make sure that I'm ahead of it and that Gold City Ventures were at the forefront. So I think we are.
We've made tons of progress over the last month. We've been doing a lot of testing. And even though I don't have 167 products listed, what I was really happy with was building a system where I could create a new product from idea to listed in about eight minutes using ChatGPT and Cloud, which is just crazy.
Because before when we first got started, Julie, in 2019, you think of the idea, you make it in Canva, and you make all your listing images in Canva. Then you get to go type the title and description and tags and all that stuff. And now these super humans have this amazing memory and they can just like kind of do a lot of the stuff for you.
Not everything. We are guiding and prompting these things, but it just has made the process so, so much easier and so much faster and allowed Julie and I and our whole team and our students, we're going to get into some fun student wins to be so much more prolific. So we're heading into an exciting time with AI and digital products and print on demand and just Etsy in general.
Yeah, it's kind of like stirring soup or cooking something all day. You go back and you just check to see where the progress is. Does it look good?
You give a direction and you go back. I haven't been able to crack the magic button yet where I ask it to make something and then it goes end to end with no issues. But every single time I do it, I'm getting better and better.
I'm able to expand the product categories that I'm trying to make stuff in. And we can get into the details of some of what I'm making. But what I think is most encouraging, Cody, and I know you feel the same way, we are making sales.
And the coaches that we also have experimenting with this who are part of Gold City Ventures, they've made sales on their AI listings too. This is not like produce 167 pieces of AI slop and hope it sells or have customers be mad at us. It's actually selling.
So that to me was the most surprising but also encouraging part. I was ready to make a bunch of listings and have it be. a learning process.
But it was really nice, for example, Halloween night to check my phone when we're trick -or -treating and to hear that cha -ching, cha -ching, cha -ching, and look at all the sales that I was making then. So it's encouraging to see that this is the way of the future, but it also can provide sales in the present too. You know what I think is even more encouraging?
So people can hear us talk about this, like, okay, they're Etsy experts and our coaches, okay, they're Etsy experts. We had students who were making sales within like one or two days of listing products. Like I have a couple of our wins here from the AI challenge we just did.
Michelle made two sales from her first batch. So she literally made an AI batch of products, got two sales. Autumn ended up selling a chat GPT assisted item nine times.
And there was so many of these wins where... students had listed the products in their shop and within a couple of days, they were already making sales on those AI products. So I think beyond us and our coaching team, like the fact that students who may have never had any experience with chat or cloud can also do this and make sales is just super encouraging, more encouraging.
Yeah. So disclaimer, when you are making the products with AI, you do have to have additional software. So if you are not interested in adding another item to your monthly subscription.
I understand that. But most of us are using Everbee for the keyword research. And I think it's possible for you to get really far with a month of Everbee if you wanted to just try it out.
But we did add that only because we've been a big E -rank shop over here, but they just don't have the connectors into AI yet. Another alternative, people use Profit Tree. I haven't tried it on the AI side.
I've used it a lot because we're friends with Hannah here on the pod. But that is something that we're doing differently. I just want to mention that if anyone's listening and kind of curious about it, you would have to add that additional thing.
Also, to Cody's point, you can absolutely still use Canva and use E -Rank. And we still have students and we ourselves are making products the traditional way still. We just.
see this opportunity with AI. And we want to make sure that we really know what we're doing and we're buttoned up as a Gold City Ventures team and wondering, you know, how more productive can it make us? So what we did a couple of weeks ago, we challenged our coaches, can you list 50 listings in two weeks?
And it's funny because I picked that 50 out of the blue. I'm like, well, I don't want to pick. Earlier when we did a challenge, we did 20 listings.
I think in a month in a traditional way, we thought that was like a fair number. And then we said, well, what would be like a crazy stretch goal? Cause my goal was how do I, how do we hive mind?
Cause the benefit of gold city ventures, we have seven coaches that work for us. Plus me and Cody, that's like nine of us with Etsy shops that are going wild. How can we just go as fast as possible where we're all going to try it different ways.
And then we can bring it back to our communities and our students. And we picked 50. Not knowing whether they were going to hit it or not.
They were able to hit it. We were able to hit it. And now we ran it with the students and the students were able to hit it.
And that was like such a big win. And in fact, the fact that I was able to do 167 in that timeframe is pretty cool without, you know, producing. There were definitely some errors here and there, but like some solid stuff that got me sales.
So I'm excited. Do you want to dig into any product in particular? Like, was there one product you're like?
I could have never made this before. This is way better than I expected. Or just a product that started making sales for you.
I think just speaking to Halloween, at the beginning of the challenge, my goal, I wasn't trying to be super sales mindset. My goal was, okay, I think what is most helpful to our community is can I... automate the process as fast as possible?
And can I make a bunch of different types of products? Because I think at first our coaches were having sales with more of like the template method, like making one core category and then spreading across a bunch of different ones. So I felt like, okay, how can I take that to the next level?
I can try to make different types. So I tried signs. I tried Canva templates.
Like I mentioned, I went all over the place. For Halloween, obviously I cut it really close. And I said, oh, okay, I only have a couple of days to Halloween.
So I'm going to list some trick or treat signs, which I know in the past, they've always been a hit. We've seen many people have success with those. And in my head, I said, well, this can't be done because I can't make any sales because people...
Everyone has listed a trick or treat sign six years ago. But what's cool about AI is you can create a bunch of aesthetic design trending options more quickly. And also for any type of like signage, I've stayed away from that because I hate providing the files in five different sizes.
And I know, Cody, you know, I'm like 100 browser tabs open. never clean up your download folder, a thousand screenshots on my background type person. So providing wall art or signage to me just sounds horrible.
But now with AI, AI cleans up my Dropbox. I have a step where after it is done, any of like the draft files that it didn't use, it cleans up for me and like puts into an archive folder and it does it on Canva as well. And that has been just eye -opening for a messy, busy person like myself.
It's been pretty cool. And, yeah, so I was nice, you know, Halloween night, seeing the trick -or -treat signs and being able to, I think for myself, I know that the coquette bows are really trending. And I tried to, I hadn't seen a trick -or -treat sign that was more of a cuter style, like one that would be trending for an invitation or something like that.
So I made a ghost that had a black kind of coquette beautiful bow on the top. And that sold a bit on Halloween night.
costume contest kit and that was kind of faster because other people had just the regular like signs but I wanted to make the ballots and the badges and everything combined and AI helped me take my clip art and like you know move it now that being said it wasn't the Halloween one was a little tricky because I had to get the skeletons to be better than the other people's skeletons that were already out there, but like still unique in my own.
And that was tricky. That's a strategy that I know we've taught in the challenge to kind of help people because we definitely don't want to be ripping copies of anyone's products. It's not going to do anything.
But yeah, those are some examples of things that I sold Halloween that I wish I honestly wish I had listed them earlier. I feel like I would have been in a better spot, which is leading to why now is a good time to list the Christmas stuff. Don't wait.
Yeah, I was just about to ask if you had any things that are working now, whether it's just types of products or things that have already sold that your mind is spinning on the million different ways that you can convert it into something for Christmas. Because as you and I know, Q4 just goes gangbusters on Etsy. Like for anyone in the giftable product space, whether that's print on demand or digital, your sales just go through the roof in December because everyone and their mother is looking to buy someone else something on Etsy.
Have you started thinking about some product types or product ideas from what's already working? I think the game is just wide open. Like sometimes I stayed away from certain products because I felt like, okay, there are some strong bestsellers in this category.
And I don't know if I, with my design skills can make it any better than theirs. And so I was trying to find those unicorn, very specific unicorn products where there's... like a good amount of search volume, but not much competition on Etsy.
And I know that's a strategy that we've always historically taught. That still makes tons of sense. I do think though, there's an opportunity to go after the more red competition keywords.
And for those of you that use E -rank, you know, sometimes like the bachelorette niche, for example, you're going to see a lot of red, which means like very competitive. I have been afraid to go in those categories because I thought, you know, I want to... find this obscure thing and do well.
And that's what has been working for me in my shop. But I think because of AI, I can create something quicker that is better and more aesthetically pleasing than maybe some of the historical ringleaders in those very competitive categories. And I'm like super excited about it.
Also, I usually didn't do wedding. And I know you've kind of been similar where we're like, all right. If you if you're not like super into the design aesthetic of wedding, then maybe don't do it.
But with AI, you can you can enter those categories now. So I guess what I try to say is everything is nothing is off limits anymore. Like it's an open it's an open world.
And AI can be the productivity difference, I think, for someone that is struggling a little bit that just like wishes wish they have more time in the day. So long winded way of answering your question is like, this is a great time to get going on this. I think as someone who comes from the seasonal product background, like that's where I got my start.
I love seasonal products. I love selling for holidays. And I know that there's a lot of staunch anti -AI folks that are like, I don't want to use AI because I don't want to steal other people's artwork.
I don't want to steal designs. Julie and I are not saying that we want to do that at all. One of the best use cases I see for AI, if you're someone who's like, kind of AI curious, but you're like kind of anti -AI is building your own template and then using AI to update that template.
So it's your design. It's like your structure, your fonts, all your stuff. You're just having AI turn it from a Halloween thing to a Christmas thing, to a Valentine's thing, to a graduation thing, to a, you name it.
I think that's such a good use case for AI. And I know that. We have some folks in our community and it's completely warranted.
We don't want people to be stealing other people's artwork and, you know, trademark, copyright, all that stuff. But you can totally like create your own template and then use AI to update that template for you. So I just wanted to mention that because I'm such a huge fan of templatization, if that's even a verb, and then using that template method to create products for all different seasons, all different holidays.
And that's a way that I've been kind of experimenting with and using it myself. I'm so glad that you mentioned this because this was actually something, this is our second cohort of the AI challenge. We just finished one.
That was the October cohort. And the questions I was getting leading up to that cohort starting via the email inbox, team at goldcityadventures .com if you ever want to email us. But students were focusing more on the AI generative aspects of what they would learn.
And I think what probably surprised them after attending the cohort was. OK, that's great. And I've talked a lot about the design aesthetic and the trends and this and that.
Like, of course, that's exciting and that's always going to be something we're going to talk about. But the time saving comes from the boring manual routine tasks of running a digital downloads Etsy shop. The download, upload, download, upload, rename the file, blah, blah, blah.
All of that can be accomplished in your actual. either ChatGPT or Clot accounts. And I'm just going to give one small example.
We teach students how you provide a system of connecting your files like Dropbox or Google Drive, whatever you use, so that the Etsy AI process is actually sped up because we're having the computer do that stuff for you. It's not necessarily about the generative. So if you are like, hey, I'm okay with AI.
I don't want to use AI to generate art. I don't want to use AI to generate the images. Cool.
Use AI to organize your Dropbox. Use AI to organize your Canva files, to rename your files. Like that's not stealing anyone's work.
That's just saving you time clicking buttons, which, you know, who wants to be sitting at a computer clicking buttons all day and typing things? That's something that I think is really overlooked. And I think when people were considering doing the cohort that we had before, they didn't quite understand until they experienced it of like, oh, actually, this is what's going to save me the most time and what's going to be the most valuable thing I'll learn from this.
So we are launching a new 50 listings with AI challenge cohort. I do want to brag about the last cohort for a second, though, just some high level stats. So we had 1600 plus listings made in two weeks.
The most listings posted by one student was 124. So they didn't beat you, Julie. But one person did beat you in listings created.
He just hasn't clicked post yet. Brian, he said this is. His words, I'd never been on Etsy before.
So this is a brand new shop. I hit 50 POD listings and have about 280 more ready to post. AI was a game changer.
That one lit me up. That's a really cool testimonial. That's actually hilarious.
And also, Brian, we gave out a gift card. I think it was like a $500 Etsy gift card for people that completed the challenge within the two weeks. And Brian actually won.
So I feel like, you know... The person that listed the most doesn't necessarily mean, it wasn't like a contest, whoever listed the most, but it is funny that he listed the most. And, you know, I think what he said in this thing that this was, the AI was the kick he needed to, he's been buying our programs, but he hasn't actually opened his Etsy shop.
And like this challenge was the kick he needed to actually get it done. I thought that was hilarious. So well done, Brian, but well done anyone, whether or not you hit the 50 listings, just learning this stuff.
I know it was like drinking from a fire hose for people because some people had zero AI experience. We had a question one to five. How much AI experience do you have going into this?
Or how confident do you feel with AI? And I think, Cody, you might have the numbers on that, but I think in general, people went from like 2 .9 average. Good memory.
So POD was 2 .9 to 4 .3 out of five. Digital was 3 .1 to 4 .4 out of five. 38 % of digital people said they felt confident with AI before after 88%.
33 % of POD people said they were confident with AI before after 85%. So. Most of these people were brand new to AI and now 85 plus percent and people are scoring out of five, 4 .3 and 4 .4 in terms of their confidence levels.
Huge. Absolutely huge. Game changing.
And I know, so the challenge it's. Cody and I, we were bringing people through setup week. So setting up ChatGPT and Claude.
But then we brought in Sasha, who's got 30 ,000 plus sales on Etsy. Emily was a million dollar Etsy seller. And they teach the tracks either for POD and digital.
And you could pick doing both. You could pick doing just digital or just POD. And it's a lot.
There are, I think, six kind of main recordings plus the setup recordings that people, if they want to join cohort two, would get access to. They were literally just recorded. We just finished last week.
So they're entirely fresh. The UIs all match. That's why if you want to get in, this is a great time to join.
Right in time for the Christmas season, as we mentioned, holidays, all of the big Q4 on Etsy. But we, all of us, this was our first time doing it. And we wanted to know, could students learn in this format?
And they did. And then it's like amazing to see, you know, all the, when they, when we asked the question, how confident do you feel with AI now to see all fours and fives on that Google form? I feel really good about it because I think for myself, yes, I want in the past when we've sold Etsy courses and stuff, I want to focus on the making sales aspect.
But for this, also for this group too, my main focus was teaching them how to use these AI tools because I think that. The world is changing and knowing how to use either ChatGPT or Claude for day -to -day stuff is going to help somebody no matter what. If you're still in a nine to five, if now you can put on your resume that you know how to use Claude and you know how to set up skills and you can help your boss or whoever automate some of the stuff that they were wasting hours doing manually.
I mean, that's like an unbelievable unlock. And if you're learning how to do it through Etsy, which you love, awesome. I think of, I don't know if you watch The Bachelorette, but there was this data science woman that she was bored with learning data science and spreadsheets and stuff for like whatever they teach you in school.
Boring. So she did all this like data science metrics for The Bachelorette over like which people were going to win and how much their Instagram accounts grew after being on the show and all the stuff that the reality TV junkies follow and know. How long people's relationships lasted after the show, all that stuff.
And she told us like how much it helped her day job because all she needed was like the content to be something that she actually enjoyed learning about and doing. And once she did, it was like suddenly she was the best person at work like with Excel. And I think about that here.
It's like. a lot of you, this is not your main thing. Like you have other things that you're doing, even if you're home.
I mean, running a household is wild, right? Imagine if you can connect your Google calendar and your email and all that together, and you'll never miss, you know, you'll never miss something again if you're worried about that. So yeah, I just feel like so good about it.
And I feel so good about the results that people got. And I know Sasha and Emily had fun too, because I was worried we were going to burn them out with how much instruction is provided, you know? But they felt really good after too.
So it was just a wonderful experience overall. That was a 10 out of 10 analogy, Julie, with the data scientist friend and the bachelorette. That was really good.
I know. Well, to be honest, I used to be really into the bachelorette. And at the time, I was trying to get my master's in data science.
So that's why I was following her. But now I'm in the Etsy space. So that's why with this data stuff, like I...
I really love it. Like, I'm not going to lie. I use Claude to like do crazy wild stuff in that area.
But whatever you're into, you can use it for it. For example, you know, Doug, my husband, he's a strength and conditioning coach and he's building a fitness app through Claude where it's connecting his whoop or whatever the thing is and his, you know, Garmin watch and all of his sleep scores and his aura ring and everything that he's doing.
It's all being DEXA scan results. He's putting it into his thing and he's using it that way. Yeah, I mean, the world is like opening up to this, but I really think that what we have here.
is going to be the way to teach people how to do it in a way that they like that could make them money. I mean, I wasn't necessarily doing it, like I said, because I wanted to make a million sales on Etsy. Having students make sales is nice.
Having them list things is great. But just being able to teach people how to do something that was intimidating. Because you know, when I went on maternity leave and I came back, it felt like everyone switched from ChatGPT to Claude.
And I was a little overwhelmed. It took me having a screen share process of someone showing me, click this, click that, click this to figure it out. And I did.
They weren't an Etsy coach. It was a totally different space that I learned it. And now we can be that kind of hand -holding person for students, but also they can list things and make money from it.
So that's cool too. All right. So should we get to some of the specifics of what this cohort two is going to get with the challenge?
All right. So I have the... sales page up here so I can make sure that I'm not misquoting and getting everything right.
So you'll get the setup videos that Julie mentioned. So this is Julie and I kind of over the shoulder, mostly Julie, Ashley, thank you for driving on the cloud and chat GPT setup. So showing you how to set up all your connectors, showing you how to use memory, showing you how to set up skills, basically everything that you'll need in order to complete the challenge.
So whenever you join, you'll get access to those setup videos right away. And the challenge is running from November 9th to November 23rd. It's a two -week challenge, and we strategically nestled it in right before Thanksgiving, right before the holiday craziness, so that you guys are ready to go, ready to hit the ground running to make holiday sales.
So we have two different challenges that Julie mentioned. We have the digital challenge. That one is with Sasha.
Sasha has six sessions. You'll get access to the first three sessions in week one. And then if you have any questions about those sessions, which are kind of like finding your first 50 ideas, making the products and then tweaking them with AI, and then how to list them with the correct mockups, titles, tags, descriptions.
And then again, you'll be able to ask Sasha any questions in a live Q &A that you can attend live, ask questions, or if you can't make it, that's totally cool. It's recorded. Week two of Sasha's Digital.
You have kind of how to speed things up and how to batch and create saved workflows. You have a bonus session on how to automate Pinterest. That's like super advanced, but just kind of crazy to see what's possible with Claude.
And then we have some stuff on fixing listings that won't sell. And then we have another Q &A with Sasha for any questions at all. We also have the POD challenge with Emily.
Same exact timeframe, November 9th to the 23rd. And also for those who are interested in both, we do have a both option and we make sure that the lives don't overlap. So you have the option to attend both.
With that one, you have three sessions from Emily that drop on week one, November 9th. One is research, kind of researching product ideas, getting your 50 products that you're going to create. Two is design.
Three is list. Again, that's mock -ups, SEO, titles, tags. everything.
And then we have the live setup call with Emily. And we also have a live Q &A with Emily in that first week. And then week two with Emily, we have a recap of week one, plus adding some mock -ups and just interesting things you can do with sample photos and listing photos.
We have kind of building reusable skills that you can create in Cloud and how you can let your AI work overnight like Julie does. And then the last one is schedule tasks and building your own shop dashboard. And that also comes with another live Q &A.
Actually, two live Q &As in that second week. So there's live Q &As galore. You can ask all the questions you want.
You have those six pre -recorded, but very freshly recorded, like literally last week recorded videos. You'll get access to the first three on week one, and then the second three, four, five, and six on week two. And yeah, we really hope people join up and get in there because the feedback from cohort one has just been fantastic.
And again, that was the first time we did this. So that means it can only get better. We've made improvements since then.
We've changed things around. There's just going to be a lot of goodness. And this is just the best time of year to start doing something like this with the holidays coming up because Q4 on Etsy is where it's at.
That's when sales start to skyrocket. Yep. Did I miss anything?
Well, we had people ask the first cohort, I can't attend the live sessions. I do X, Y, Z at the time that they're scheduled. And we already know when they're going to be scheduled.
You'll see it on the sales page. In that case, and that happened last time, it was no problem for people. We even can see in their feedback that they thought that was totally worked.
We have a Google form where you would submit your questions ahead of time. And then Sasha or Emily will read aloud your question and answer it. And so it will still be in the recording.
So you just watch it, you know, when you get home. And I think some people would ask like, okay, can I still buy this even if I am busy this one week? I think doing it now.
is a great idea for order to make sales for Christmas and also because AI stuff changes. So you want to be watching it close to when we actually recorded it. But in terms of like your live commitment, you can watch the recordings at any time.
The live ones though, we wanted to make sure that you all had an opportunity to show up and get your questions answered or to submit your questions ahead of time. So that's why we added for this cohort, the extra lives. And all of that is on the sales page in terms of what days and what times they are.
And like I said, they're all recorded and you're going to get a Google form every single time ahead of time. So you can just submit your questions and you can watch it later if you want. Oh, Cody, one thing we forgot, software.
I mentioned that Everbee is what we all are using for keyword research. If you want to test it for 30 days, I think that's the best approach. If you really don't want to, you can do any parts of this manual.
That's okay. The other thing we want to mention is that you need either a paid CLOD or ChatGPT plan.
If you were in the digital challenge, you only need the ChatGPT plan. And I think it's like $20 per month. So you could commit to the $20 for this challenge.
You can do the free one, but what happens is that you're going to hit a usage limit and it'll probably drive you nuts. I never felt bad about recommending someone get the paid plan because it's going to be the best $20 you spent to get your time back. And unfortunately, doing it the manual way with the Canva and eRank and stuff, you can skip all the paths and do it free.
But with the AI stuff, I think that it's going to be worth your time to get that one. There's no other ones that I can think of beyond the Everbee and either the ChatGPT or Claude paid plan. You do need Anywhere POD on the POD side.
Yes, on the POD side, you need Anywhere POD. And we have a code for a 30 -day free trial for Anywhere POD just for the Gold City Ventures community. So you are signing up for a plan, but you get your first 30 days free.
And I think, I mean, if you don't like it, you can cancel. But the feedback coming back from the POD people, like on the POD side, it's a little bit less design intensive. You can rip.
280 products, Brian. Crazy. Yeah, Brian, 280.
I mean, Emily did 125 in a week before even we did this challenge. She said she's way up to even more now. And the POD side, like you can crush because you can imagine, like imagine a candle label, for example, that's all text.
You can make like 75 of those and just blah, blah, blah. Keep, you know, the mock -ups don't have to be different. It's a little bit more in the digital.
There's a little bit more human involvement in different parts of it. Oh, one other thing I wanted to mention too. Originally for cohort one, we were not, if you're like, wait, why didn't I hear about this?
It's because we weren't trying to market to people that we weren't sure were in a certain place. So we marketed a lot to our 100 sales club because we figured, okay, well, this way we're not going to be confusing anyone that's beginners until we're sure that this works. Now we're opening up the doors because we feel that anyone who has been around the block and understands the basics can do it.
That being said, if you're like, I literally don't get how to do it, we don't think you can skip the ePrintables course. We don't think you can skip Emily's The Gift Lab course or whatever YouTube videos or other people's courses equivalents are because the challenge is not going to be teaching you conceptually what those things are or the theory of them.
It's going to be showing you how to automate those things. using AI. So I want to mention that if you're like, oh, this is the first podcast I've ever listened to about Etsy.
I have no idea what you're talking about. This challenge is probably not the best fit for you specifically. But if you're someone who's like, oh, I listen to new Etsy podcasts and YouTube every single week or every once in a while, we now have changed our stance now that we actually see that the people that bought that were beginners, they surprised us and they actually were able to follow along and produce listings.
And they actually said this was what allowed them to do it. compared to before. So that was pretty huge.
Also in the setup process, if you had never done AI before on those calls, Cody and I were very like handholding. It was like, Hey, is there, is everyone on this step? And then we made sure everybody was there before we moved on to the next step.
The challenge recordings are not like that, but the setup week is. So in case you're like, Oh my gosh, I've never even downloaded Claude to my computer. I don't know what I'm doing.
I promise you those are very long calls. We put the timestamps for those of you that already were familiar with AI. So you're not like having to listen for 45 minutes.
But in the feedback, it was like some people were advanced and they didn't need them. But then there were tons of people who were like, I actually really needed the step -by -step. I'm glad that you did it in that fashion.
I don't know if you noticed that, Cody. There were a lot of people that were like pumped that we. did the more handholding process for those two calls.
Yeah. And that's why we put the timestamps for the advanced people because they didn't want to sit around for an hour plus watching us click buttons that they're used to clicking every single day. But for someone who's never been in cloud or chat, it can be confusing.
So not knowing like how to open a project, like we got that granular, like here's a project, here's a chat, here's how source files and instructions work. And for someone who uses it all the time, like duh, but for new people, it was super helpful. And I did see that feedback.
Yes, because I wasn't sure after. And then when I got emails, people were like, oh, I was afraid to say it on the call. But that actually was great.
And I never had set up any of this in my life. So now we have the recording. No matter where you are, you can get value out of it.
And then Emily, she's actually going to do, for the POD people, Emily's going to do a new setup call. And she's going to do it live because she's going to go through the process of setting up Anywhere POD as part of it too. So I just want to mention that.
But the digital people are going to use those ones that we recorded. We just did this all. It was honestly so great.
And also we didn't want to wait because if we want people to actually make sales for the holidays, they have to start now. So that's why it's happening like right back to back on the other one. And also because we wanted it to be the freshest UI, everything super fresh.
The challenge starts on November. 9th, I believe is the first day. And we're going to be sending out emails if you're in our email list.
But I would check out the sales page and just see maybe it is for you. And if you have any questions, you can always email us. And if you're listening to this after this point, it's possible that you can still get in.
You'll just have to kind of catch up on some of the recordings, which you can do. And I think that's it. Anything else, Cody?
I think that's it. The one thing I would say is before you email us, check out the sales page because I just went through updating the FAQs yesterday and I'm scrolling through. There's like 20 or 25 of these.
So we might have already answered whatever question you're thinking of on the sales page. Check that out. And then if we haven't, then please email us team at Gold City Ventures.
But there's a lot on there and it should fully explain the challenge, everything you get, how it works, all that stuff. Oh, yeah. And if you looked at the sales page for the cohort one, Cody.
did a wonderful job updating it today with the results of the challenge and the testimonials and even more of what the students said they achieved and the questions. Cause you know, we learned through the process of what questions students are asking. So great job on that, Cody.
Good point. And for those of you who are listening, who did do the challenge with us, we want to say how proud we are of you all. You crushed it.
I know that this was new for so many of you and it like made my day seeing the feedback that you put in the Google form of like, All the listings that you got up or everything new that you learned and even the smaller wins too. I know there are people that had, you know, personal life and challenges that came in and you still devoted your time to spend with us.
We are so appreciative. You crushed it. You did such a good job and we're proud of you.
And thank you also to Cohort One because you all took a chance on trying something new. I mean, we've had ePrintables. We've perfected that course and process for years.
We have the GIF Lab that... for the POD side that we've had for, you know, two or three years now, this was something totally new for gold city ventures. And just like the people that took the stab with cohort one, like you guys rock.
Thank you. It was a lot. It was really fun coaching you the last couple of weeks.
And I just am like, so mesmerized and like, you know, of what you accomplished. So great work. And for people for cohort two, you have the iron down process after what we learned last time.
Oh yeah. I just want to add, there's a thing on the sales page called shop brain, which has to do with. loading in memory from our computers so that your AI output is better.
If you tried it to have it create a product with and without ShopBrain, what it looks like with ShopBrain, you get like significantly closer to the finish line, saving you time. So that's how when you're doing your six to eight minute printables, you're getting it with ShopBrain. And there is a ShopBrain demo video on the sales page that I recorded for those who are Shop Brain Curious.
So go and check that out. And I did create a short link for those who are listening and on the go. You can go to goldstateadventures .com slash 50.
That's goldstateadventures .com slash five zero. And that'll bring you directly to the sales page we've been talking about for the past 10 minutes. Awesome.
Well, thank you, Cody. And thank you everyone for listening. We're so excited to kick off cohort two and let's get creating.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The number lands thirty seconds in: 167 digital-download listings in about three weeks, made while the seller was at the bus stop and trick-or-treating with her kids. The rest of the episode explains how, and why the part that saves the most time is the boring part.
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A 38-minute Etsy seller playbook for building digital product businesses with Claude AI — from budgeting spreadsheets to PNG bundles — where the real edge is micro-niching, not the product type.
A 21-minute walkthrough of Etsy's October 22 policy update: what is banned outright, what changed for photos, and why print on demand and AI art sellers are still fine.
A 16-minute teardown of two Etsy sellers who found the same demand and priced it four seconds apart, one earning $99,000 over two years, the other $412,000 in one.
A 20-item weekly rundown of AI agent news: Claude Dashboards and Motion, GrokBot routing to Opus 5.5, ChatGPT's inline mini-apps, Nano Banana 2.1, and Adobe's open-source clones.
A weekly AI news roundup covering two new Claude artifact types, Claude inside Google Workspace, a 90%-cheaper Haiku model, Grok Bot's switch to multi-model routing, and ChatGPT's new interactive UI.
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