Looking to grow your Etsy shop? If so, this episode is for you! Meet Carley Zuercher. Carley is a top 1% Etsy seller, educator, certified Magnetic Coach®, and the creator and CEO of Canapy. She helps Etsy sellers make more money and sales without selling to their friends and family. In this episode, she’s discussing her journey to developing her new app, Canopy, which is a platform for Etsy sellers and creatives selling custom products to help organize their orders, save time, and streamline the back end of their business. Carley is also revealing the mindset shifts she’s made to prepare to scale to 7-figures in 2022.
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When did you start feeling that there was a significant gap in this industry in terms of how shop owners can manage all of their orders?
[7:50] Carley I’ll give you the shortest version. I can make it, but it has many, uh, many years experience, but in 2016, my Etsy shop really exploded overnight. There I say overnight, because of course it wasn’t overnight because there was a years behind that of work that I had to do, but it was quite literally overnight.
I woke up one morning. It was like, you know, a Tuesday was like normal. And then I woke up Wednesday with pages and pages of Etsy messages, more orders than like we’ve ever had before I made in January of, I think it was January of 2016. It might’ve been 2017. I made what I made in the whole previous year, in that month.
So, we grew very, very quickly and it was at that time, I realized like, what I had been doing was not going to work going forward. And so I was searching for an app to manage my orders but I couldn’t find one that worked. So at that point, I was just using a pen and paper and writing down the orders and the things we needed to do.
And then we just kind of slowly at that point in my life, I didn’t like I didn’t have a lot of money. Like I didn’t have, I didn’t know how to build an app. Like. Texting my brother and being like, Hey, how much does this, how much does it cost to like make an app? And he was like a lot of money. And I was like, well, like how much?
Cause like, you know, maybe, maybe we could do this. And he was like, I don’t like minimum $10,000. And I was like, oh, never mind. Yeah. Which it was very, very much more than that, but that’s the place that I was at was like, okay, well, whatever. And so I tried a lot of different things and we, we do use Dubsado now end up Dubsado is a great tool and I’m not trying to replace step Dubsado in any way.
This is a different platform for a different users. That would be paired really well with Dubsado. So the main difference is, well, okay. Hold on. Let me back up and tell you the story. Yeah. So I love it. I’ve had this idea for an app. I kind of like had created it in my mind of what I wanted this to look like. And it was just kind of always in the back of my mind of like, someday I’ll do this, but also. More than anything. I was just, I wanted somebody else to do it. Like I was just waiting for somebody to make this so that I didn’t have to, and years and years passed.
Tell us your dreams for this platform. What are you hoping it will offer?
[14:40] Carley My favorite thing bout canopy is that it’s pulling in all of your orders across all of your platforms. So yes, inside of Dubsado, you can put all your orders on there and manage them, but it would take a lot of time to manually enter all those orders in.
I really want to save people time. And I know that canopy will do that both in, just like between like flipping between Squarespace and Shopify and fair, and Then you have like Excel and like all of the Stripe and PayPal, like we’re talking tons of different platforms.
So Canopy saves you the time you’d spend clicking between the tabs and losing track of what you’re doing, like, I can’t tell you how many times I sit down and I’m like, what am I doing?
Like, what was I doing? Because we’re trying to do so many things as business owners, you’re wearing so many different hats. And so canopy is like a bird’s eye view of everything in your business. It will allow you to just like see everything at a really high-level view on your dashboard. So basically you’ll be able to break things up into different sections.
What had the biggest hurdle been while developing a new software?
[Carley 24:12] Well, it’s interesting because I feel like there hasn’t been a lot, but I also feel like there haven’t been any, because I mean it overall has been a really great experience.
We have been working with really great people who have been really supportive and you know, I’m not the one learning the code, I’m like developing the app. So, um, that’s helpful. That saves me a lot of time. I mean, I think the biggest thing for me personally was really just the, like the mindset of this.
Like this was very much, and it also did require it’s requiring me to restructure my life and like up-level my life in really big ways. Um, because I am growing a team like this is, I do expect it to be a seven-figure. Like enterprise and those actions and that person is different than when I started in 2015.
That was just like working out of her mom’s house. Like, yeah, I guess it’s not the same person. And it requires a very different set of skills and a very different mindset. And I think having to like energetically upgrade many times in the last few years, because it hasn’t been like, uh, I’ve had many of those moments where I’m like, I’m here.
Like I’ve, I’m at a new level. I’ve upgraded. Like here we are. And then things happen and I’m continually kind of forced to go bigger. Um, but I’ve also been like learning throughout the process. That it’s much easier when you’re not forced to go bigger and you choose to do it because you want to and because it’s who you are.
And so I think that like looking back at 2016, I was really forced to figure things out. I was really thrown into this and the. The longevity of that wasn’t it wasn’t really there because I wasn’t really mentally and physically prepared to take on what was being thrown at me. I was forced into it. I figured out a way I came out on the other side.
It was a great learning experience. I wouldn’t trade it, but I also wouldn’t do it again. There’s more than one way to do things. And so now I’m planning ahead for the next level up. I’m preparing for it instead of being pushed into it.
How have you overcome some of the mental and psychological holdbacks (such as imposter syndrome) while working on this project?
[Carley 35:08] Yeah, I would say I haven’t felt a lot of like imposter syndrome, which is interesting. It’s just been a lot of like doubt and fear. Um, I would say fear mostly, and it’s not that it’s not like I’ve never felt imposter syndrome. It’s just, I’m not looking at anybody else building an app. Right. You know what I mean?
Like, and I think that, cause a lot of that comes with comparison of like on Instagram, when as stationers like we look at what other stations are doing and then we’re like, what are we like, what am I even doing with highlights? And like, yeah. You know, like, and I think that that’s where a lot of that comparison and like feeling like an imposter and do I know what I’m doing comes from when like I’m not really looking at anybody.
Like I obviously use a lot of apps, but I would say for me it’s been a lot of fear and doubt and just being in the habit of constantly reframing all of those things and getting really comfortable with my emotions yeah. Has been. Maybe the hardest of really moving through them and not sitting in there too long.
So when I’m feeling doubt or fear or anxiety or whatever, it might be knowing that, like, I can sit with that for as long as I want. And that’s one option. I can also actively move through to like shift through and feel the way that I want to feel. And that’s another option that keeps like moving through the doubt and moving through the fear has been much more productive for me than sitting with the fear for a long time and just waiting to feel better about it because that you will eventually feel better about it.
But in the meantime, you’re probably creating a lot of unnecessary problems and just like generally feeling bad and like that’s not helpful. There definitely have been days where I’m like, you know what? I’m just going to sit with this. And then the next day it’s like, okay, things need to change. So something that’s been really helpful for me has been tapping, which called EFT or the emotional freedom technique.
And you just kind of like do the different, you can YouTube tapping. It’s one of the things that I’m certified in it’s um, when I got certified in that, I was like, yeah, cool. Whatever. And then like, it was like around the time all this started, I was like, I think I’m gonna try, like, I think I’m gonna try it more. I do it almost every single day and it’s a really good way to move energy and shift the way that you’re feeling.
And EFT really helps you to recognize the way that you’re feeling. So when you start tapping, a lot of times, they’ll start with kind of just like saying out loud, like this anxiety, like, you know, I don’t feel good right now and it’s kind of just it’s it’s an actively moving through the process.
So it’s acknowledging the way that you’re feeling. Moving through that and like kind of reframing it to decide something else. And I always leave it feeling better that, and like journaling, I think has been really helpful. Um, but I also, like, I, I was really kind of against journaling at the beginning.
When I first started this whole mindset journey, I was like, I don’t need to journal, but I don’t want to write. I was met with a lot of resistance with that, but I have slowly just kind of given in and like writing my thoughts has been helpful.
However, I’ve learned through working with my coach the most helpful way for me to move through things is to talk is to like speak them.So rather than journaling, which can be great and can be helpful. Being able to just like, say this, say things out loud. Talk with my husband, talk with my coach, talk with my friends. Like I can move through those emotions a lot more easily. And so being able to surround yourself with people. Who get it or who are willing to listen to you
Talking through things can be really helpful because I’ve noticed that everybody has these limiting beliefs and limiting ideas that hold them back, like fear and doubt. And you know, what, if it doesn’t work, like all of the negative things, and most people don’t recognize it. And a lot of people will tell me that they don’t really have them. But then they’ll say things out loud and then afterward they realize, oh I do have that specific limiting belief. It’s hard to pinpoint them when it’s swirling around in your head. That’s why verbalizing things is such a game-changer.
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