Becky Powell

Kindergarten teacher Becky Powell built a six-figure side hustle creating digital worksheets for educators on Teachers Pay Teachers. She earned $125,500 last year working just 10 hours per week, leveraging her classroom experience to identify market gaps.

Powell creates digital worksheet booklets designed to help teach literacy to young students and sells them on Teachers Pay Teachers, an Etsy-style marketplace for educators. Her store features 427 different listings ranging from free downloads to $30 bundles of 20 booklets. She uses her classroom as a research lab to develop products that fill specific niches in early childhood education.

• Started earning enough to cover car insurance ($60) within weeks, then student loan payments after three months
• The riches are found in niches - finding your niche within a niche is crucial
• You don't need money to start - Teachers Pay Teachers offers both free and paid seller tiers
• Classroom experience provided invaluable market research and product development insights

• Deep understanding of the education market and ability to identify learning gaps
• Husband's SEO and marketing expertise helped optimize the business
• Focus on a specific niche: hands-on sight word activities for young learners
• Flexible schedule that ramps up work during summer breaks

• Overcoming lack of business and sales background and experience
• Building confidence as a first-time entrepreneur without business education
• Learning SEO, marketing, and consumer psychology outside her educational expertise

• Combine passion with deep market knowledge to identify gaps and build intuition
• Research your market thoroughly and interview consumers to know it intimately
• Find your niche within a niche and drill down to get more specific until you hit gold
• You need to really know your market so well that you can see the holes and know what will work