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Until about 2 weeks ago I was the largest creator of stores on CafePress. I was earning decent residual income on existing stores that I had put up, but due to

by jdvolz 15y ago

Until about 2 weeks ago I was the largest creator of stores on CafePress. I was earning decent residual income on existing stores that I had put up, but due to some external forces (some in my control, some out of it) I got my accounts shut down by CafePress. I still expect to earn some residual income for the next couple months on things I had already sold. I had just started to seriously follow this path but I was earning between $100 and $375 per month in commissions from the test runs of my software that creates stores. I am in negotiations with them concerning turning my accounts back on. I plan to expand this into a series of blog posts about lessons learned both business and technological. Upvote if that sounds like something you want to read.

systemtrigger 15y ago
Your software sounds clever. Are you confident CafePress will let you use it? How automated is the process? You're planning to use it yourself, correct, not sell the software? A blog post on your lessons learned sounds interesting, definitely.
- jdvolz 15y ago
  I have been using it myself. I'm also looking into using it for other people as a service. I'm not sure how clever the software itself is but increasing the throughput was fun across as many as 8 slicehost slices. I did discover all of the pitfalls of this type of approach, which I'll cover in my series of blog posts. My internal process is extremely automated, as in I wasn't involved directly unless something broke. There is some politics involved also, including Osama Bin Laden stealing my retirement. I'm working on a new site to sell my designs directly and these blog posts will mysteriously coincide with the launch of that site. As to CafePress reinstating me: They were letting me use it at lower upload levels and when I got things really going I was a big piece of their API traffic (like half). I'm confident that they will see the value proposition to them, particularly after the projected numbers I worked out yesterday (which I will share in the posts).

by jdvolz 15y ago

systemtrigger 15y ago

Your software sounds clever. Are you confident CafePress will let you use it? How automated is the process? You're planning to use it yourself, correct, not sell the software? A blog post on your lessons learned sounds interesting, definitely.

jdvolz 15y ago
I have been using it myself. I'm also looking into using it for other people as a service. I'm not sure how clever the software itself is but increasing the throughput was fun across as many as 8 slicehost slices. I did discover all of the pitfalls of this type of approach, which I'll cover in my series of blog posts. My internal process is extremely automated, as in I wasn't involved directly unless something broke. There is some politics involved also, including Osama Bin Laden stealing my retirement. I'm working on a new site to sell my designs directly and these blog posts will mysteriously coincide with the launch of that site. As to CafePress reinstating me: They were letting me use it at lower upload levels and when I got things really going I was a big piece of their API traffic (like half). I'm confident that they will see the value proposition to them, particularly after the projected numbers I worked out yesterday (which I will share in the posts).