Seller Handbook

Before Kirsten Devitt built her laser-cut jewellery business Each To Own into her livelihood, she hopped between a hodgepodge of retail and hospitality jobs. She also worked as an industrial inspector and sold Christmas trees in Scotland. “I'm not very goal-driven,” Kirsten says. “It's just about what looks interesting at the time and what will pay the bills. And I think that's a really happy way to live your life, for me.”

Along the way, Kirsten was always a maker, making jewellery for herself and painting. About a decade ago, friends started asking her to make jewellery for them too, and it occurred to Kirsten that maybe there was something bigger she could do with her creative side projects.

After a few years of experimenting with product lines while working for her family’s shoe business in Brisbane, Australia, she hit on the idea that stuck: jewellery made from laser-cut components. In 2011, Kirsten opened her Etsy shop, Each To Own. To start, she worked with an Etsy seller in the US, who laser cut her original designs. And she found a supportive community of local Etsy sellers in the BrisStyle Team. At markets, orders began piling up. “My beautiful dad said, ‘This looks like it's got legs. You go and chase that whenever you want to,’” Kirsten recalls.

Soon Kirsten took another leap of faith: With a bank loan, she made her first major investment in the business, her own laser cutter. “We had no idea how we could possibly set up an industrial machine with a massive extractor and stand in the middle of inner-city Brisbane without annoying the heck out of the neighbours,” says Kirsten. Along with the new machinery, she and her husband Richard, a pipe organ builder, and their new baby Clem moved out of the city. In the countryside, Kirsten now runs the business from an off-the-grid, solar-powered studio.

Recently, Kirsten spoke with Seller Handbook senior editor Julie Schneider about her path to surpassing a big milestone — 10,000 sales on Etsy — and the community of women who helped her get there.

What has your Etsy income allowed you to do?

I like to reinvest a lot of my money back into the business. Originally we just used it to have a nice holiday or maybe a new appliance once a year. But my Etsy income has given us the life that we have, which is pretty sweet. When you run an online business, you can do it from the moon, you know? It gives you such freedom. Being able to sit in the middle of a beautiful green paddock in the hills and make stuff is pretty dreamy. It's a very nice life. It was worth the leap of faith.

How do you cope with the unpredictability of running a business?

All of a sudden, it will go quiet for a few days and I think, "Oh, my god, it's all over. It just stopped!" I'll say to Richard, "I’m going to have to get a job. It's over!" and he just rolls his eyes because he hears it every couple of months. He says, "Just look at the numbers. It's growing every year.”

It's a confidence trick, the whole thing. Relying on the ideas that come out of your head to actually feed your family, it's a really skittish way of living. You've got to go down and find that kernel of whatever it was inside yourself that made you start doing it in the first place. It's an interesting time that we live in that we can do this kind of thing for a living.

There's another side of working alone: I really love the post office. The post office people think I'm mad because I run in there every afternoon, and I'm like, "Good day, coworkers! I haven't spoken to anyone all day. How are you guys?" I consequently get invited to their Christmas parties. I give them presents at Easter and Christmas and stuff because they do so much for me.

How have you come up with your prices? Do you have a formula?

Yes, and everyone should have a formula. It's your materials plus your time multiplied by two, and that's your wholesale price. That's multiplied again to become your retail price. You can't ever, ever undersell yourself because you will resent what you do for a living. A really important aspect of business is knowing what your time is worth. When I started with the BrisStyle street team — and then I eventually ended up as president for a while — we hammered that into everybody. Seriously look at what you do and what you're giving up by spending an hour making that item. That's an hour you're not with your family or friends. Don't sell yourself short.

The first nine years of business was just saying yes to every opportunity that came along. And now I am learning to say no because I can see what projects have value for us — not necessarily financial value, but value as in time with family.

Which women have inspired you along the way?

My mum grew up in a small country town. Her house was beautiful, and she knew how to pick colours. She had an innate style and creativity about her, and her ideas and taste were original. And she was a part of the community. Back in the 80s, she and a bunch of friends opened a shop selling the beautiful things they made. So I was brought up being able to watch someone effortlessly choose creative ways of living. She had ovarian cancer and died 10 years ago. I get a bit emotional when I talk about her. I often sit in my workshop, and think, "If Mum was still here, she would be right next to me gluing. She’d be coming down every weekend and helping out.” She is probably my biggest influence as a woman.

And also, Cath Young from My Bearded Pigeon. She and I started Etsy Parents. She's one of my best friends and we met through Etsy. With her professionalism and the way she helps and organises people in the community, she is incredibly inspirational. Same with Belinda Harris, who has helped run BrisStyle since the beginning. She just supports everybody on that team.

There will always be women that help me along the way. That's what women do.

What have you learned from supporting other makers?

I have always subscribed to the notion that you take people with you if you’re having successes. If you got 500 new followers on Instagram last year, then make sure you keep posting other people's work. Make sure you keep buying other people's work that you like. Support the people that you love. Always be as generous as you possibly can and take people along with you as you go, because it's not worth it otherwise. You'll be lonely. Etsy has given me a lot of great opportunities and friends that I would not have had otherwise.

I'm opening a brick-and-mortar shop in town and I’m so excited because it'll be no problem to stock it. I won’t have to go to a trade fair. It will be stocked with all the people that I know through Etsy, craft groups, Instagram, and Facebook. People that are doing original things. And this is a great opportunity for me to say thank you, too, to all my friends and just go, "I'm going to showcase you and I'm going to sell you every day because you do amazing stuff."

To see Kirsten’s bold laser-cut jewellery, check out Each To Own. To nominate your shop for the Quit Your Day Job series, fill out the Seller Handbook pitch form.