Retail is a demanding business. For me, among many things, I have the “Feed me, Seymour” drive for new designs, an Etsy store that needs regular attention, and constant promotion for traffic. To keep me going, I have been keeping an eye on some milestones, two of which have just been passed.
Milestone 1: Number of active listings
One of the rules of thumb for Etsy is the need for a good number of active listings. I am proud to say that last week, on 24 April 2026, I reached 300 active listings.
For me, that’s a huge milestone. I remember when I passed 100, which was a milestone that said to me that I could keep that flywheel of new designs going. When I hit 200, I didn’t even flinch. But 300 is a big number and I am wondering how I can make it to 400, or if I should stick around 300, refreshing (aka culling) designs that just don’t seem to resonate.
Let’s see.
But, yay, for 300!
By the way, Listing 300 was a hand-drawn Raspberry Pi Zero 2. The flagship Raspberry Pi 5 is my most popular design, so the Zero is, appropriately, an homage to that. Also, the Zero has become a wee more popular lately with the RAM battering the Raspberry Pi 5 has been receiving. Haha.
Milestone 2: Anniversary, baby!
While the number of active listings is important for a store for so many reasons, I think the bigger milestone is completing one year of operation on 01 May 2026.
What I’ve heard is that most Etsy stores start with a lot of hope, folks put up a few listings, don’t get far, and peter out in a few months. Getting to the end of the First Year is actually hard. And I kept myself motivated to meet that milestone.
And because I trusted my process, by focusing on hitting one year, I’ve built the processes, styles, brand, and momentum to keep going. While I am not sure about how fast the number of designs will continue growing, I do know there’s no reason for this store to peter out any time soon.
For my anniversary listing, feels appropriate to list my hand-drawn Adafruit Trinket M0. The Trinket was the heart of the first permanent build of my own*. Since then, the mighty little board has held a special place in my heart.
Thank you
The stats on the store are visible in Etsy, so I am being honest when I say my designs are not flying off the shelves. But the modest metrics around visits, views, favorites, and sales, makes me confident I am creating something of value. So I thank all those who have contributed to my store to get me to these milestones.
And despite the nature of the two milestones, this store is not a straight line. The processes that have been driving the store have given me a foundation to start expanding into new products where my designs can live. So while Year One was crafting designs for shirts, I hope Year Two takes me beyond shirts.
Let’s see.
*The Celebration Goggles were the first permanent build I made for myself. The project broke my hesitation to commit hardware to a permanent build. But this wasn’t my first build. That would be a project I did for work, that set me off on my maker journey that leads to today and my focus on the hardware maker world. That project, of course, had an Arduino Uno at its heart.