Weekender #185

📉 Don’t let the market crash your retirement party.

⚖️ These days, work-life balance might matter more than money.

✊🏼 Know your rights at work during perimenopause and menopause.

📋 Manage projects, deadlines, and team tasks—all in one clean view.

In honor of National Small Business Week (May 4–10), let’s talk about launching your own online store—fast. If you’ve ever had the urge to start a side hustle or monetize a creative idea, this is your sign. You don’t need a ton of time or money to get started.

If I were starting from scratch, here’s how I’d launch a digital-only Etsy store in just one weekend, using Printful as my print-on-demand partner.

🔍 Step 1: Pick Your Product (Saturday AM)

Choose a product that’s digital or print-on-demand:

• Digital (e.g. templates, planners, art prints, branding kits, digital journals)
• Print-on-Demand (e.g. t-shirts, mugs, tote bags, wall art—designed by you, fulfilled by Printful)

Make sure there’s demand. Do a quick Etsy search to see what similar items exist. Bonus: use tools like eRank or Everbee to research keywords and bestsellers.

🎨 Step 2: Design Your Product (Saturday PM)

Use Canva to create your digital files. For Printful products, you can design items directly in their product mockup generator or upload your design.

Popular ideas:

• Motivational quotes for wall art
• Niche planner templates (freelancers, brides, small business owners)
• Trendy t-shirt designs for specific communities or interests

Export high-res files (PNG, PDF, or SVG, depending on the product).

🏪 Step 3: Set Up Your Shop (Saturday Evening)

• Go to Etsy.com and click “Sell on Etsy”
• Create a shop name (check availability)
• Upload a logo and banner (Canva is your BFF here, too)
• Write a short shop description
• Add a headshot and personal note to build trust

🧠 Step 4: Create Your Listings (Sunday AM)

To showcase your designs, take advantage of mockup tools in Canva or Printful. Include multiple product views and lifestyle mockups.

Write detailed, keyword-rich titles and descriptions. Think like a shopper: What would you type in to find this product?

Set pricing, delivery method (digital file or Printful sync), and product tags.

If using Printful:

• Connect Printful to Etsy (easy one-click integration)
• Sync your products and ensure they’re listed properly

🚀 Step 5: Go Live + Promote (Sunday PM)

Once your shop and listings are ready, publish your store!

Then:

• Post to your personal social media
• Share in niche Facebook groups or communities
• Ask friends to favorite your shop or leave early reviews
• Consider $5-10 in Etsy ads to test visibility

Final Tips:

• Start simple: 3-5 listings are enough
• Use your first weekend as a launchpad, not a full-scale biz
• Learn as you go and optimize based on what sells

You could keep waiting until you “have time” or everything’s perfect. Or you could try something small, scrappy, and powerful—this weekend. Either way, you’ll learn a ton and you’ll keep growing your skills. You never know where it might lead!

Being a small business owner means wearing every hat—and sometimes, that hat is on fire.

Forget the 10-tab chaos and advice from “hustle harder” bros on YouTube. You don’t need more stress—you need better systems.

Here’s how to make your business run smoother (without hiring a full-time team).

1. A way to stay on top of everything 

You’re juggling a million moving parts—projects, deadlines, clients. Wrike helps you organize it all in one place. Tasks, timelines, reminders… handled. Bonus: it automates repeat work, so you stop doing the same thing twice.

2. A system to keep clients from ghosting

Following up manually? Nope. Thryv automates client comms, reminds them (and you) about next steps, and keeps your relationships tight. It’s like a CRM, but actually built for small biz life.

3. A website that doesn’t make you want to scream

Your website shouldn’t take weeks or require a developer. Webador lets you build something sleek, fast. Drag. Drop. Done. You’re live in hours, not days.

4. An inbox that doesn’t eat your whole day

Customer questions piling up? Freshworks brings all your support tools into one dashboard—think live chat, auto replies, and ticket tracking. Save your brain for the real work.

5. A way to get paid without the awkwardness

Chasing invoices = not it. With Square, you can send invoices, accept cards, and set up recurring payments—all without that weird “Just checking in…” email.

TL;DR: You need fewer tabs, fewer headaches, and tools that actually do their job. These five? They’re the MVPs of your streamlined, less-stress business era.

📚 Read: Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala

Murder, meddling aunties, and mouthwatering Filipino food? Say less. This cozy mystery kicks off when a food critic drops dead mid-meal—and Lila Macapagal becomes suspect #1. It’s fast, funny, and full of flavor (literally).

📺 Watch: The Last of Us S2

The emotional damage continues. Season 2 introduces new characters (hey Abby 👀), more post-apocalyptic heartbreak, and the kind of storytelling that wrecks you in the best way.

🎧 Listen: Alter Ego by Lisa

Blackpink’s Lisa is in her solo era—and she did not come to play. (Yes, the same Lisa who just joined White Lotus Season 3 as Mook.) Alter Ego is full of hype tracks and pop bangers. Press play if you’re in the mood to strut through your workday like it’s a runway.

If you’ve got a friend in recruiting, you know they live in the trenches: sorting résumés, juggling interview schedules, and trying to get hiring managers to actually submit feedback on time.

Mine? She lives and breathes Greenhouse—and she will not shut up about it (in the best way).

To her, it’s not just software. It’s the one thing keeping her hiring process from devolving into chaos. She uses it to streamline everything—from interview planning to decision-making—without the usual email tag, spreadsheet hell, or “who’s doing what?” confusion.

The part she really raves about? Collaboration. Hiring managers aren’t just cc’d—they’re in it with her. Greenhouse gives them scorecards to capture consistent, useful feedback, nudges them with reminders, and pulls all notes into one clean view so decisions aren’t based on “gut feelings.”

Also, she’s a data nerd. So the fact that Greenhouse lets her see where candidates drop off, which sources are working, and how long roles are sitting open? She lives for that.

It’s DEI-conscious, too—baked-in nudges and reporting help her team stay accountable beyond just lip service.

She once said, “It’s like going from duct-taped chaos to a real system that scales.” And honestly, that stuck with me.

After seeing her use it, I finally get it: if hiring feels chaotic, Greenhouse is how you fix it.

Joanna (TA Co-founder)

Leia is the Queen (capital Q) of her home and makes sure that everyone remembers that. Her hobbies include bopping her kitty sister on the head, stealing chicken off of pizza, sniffing fresh air out the windows when the weather is nice, and sleeping with Mom under the covers!

🐾 Got a cute fur baby? Submit them to be our pet of the week in an upcoming issue.

• Warby Parker is hiring for a Retail Store Manager (Bergen County, NJ).
• ANCRA INTERNATIONAL, LLC is hiring for an Assistant Corporate Controller ( Warrenville, IL).
• Medline Industries is hiring for a Sr Mgr, Human Resources (Grayslake, IL).
• Harrison Clarke is hiring for a DevOps Engineer (New York, NY).
• CALPAK is hiring for a Senior Manager of Performance Marketing (Gardena, CA).

⭐ View more jobs here >

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