I just hit a pretty huge milestone, and I wanted to share it with you. I’ve officially been running my art business for ten years!! 

 

(Even longer if you count the time I spent working a 9-5 while also earning a full time income from my art on the side)

 

It's been a full decade of licensing, pivots, experiments, mistakes, growth, and learning things the hard way. So I thought I’d use this Insiders email to share a few of the biggest lessons that have shaped my business and my life over the last ten years.

Quickly after I started selling my art online, I started earning more on Society6 than I was making at my 9-5 job. And I remember thinking “If this is what I can do on nights and weekends… what would happen if I had all day?”

 

I could see a very real income ceiling at my job. But with art licensing, I didn’t see the same kind of cap. That was the first time I realized this could be more than a side project.

 

But I'm also a pretty risk-averse person. I didn't want to leave my job and be fully reliant on Society6 as my sole source of income. Because what if their site crashed? Or the sales dried up? I knew that in order to leave my 9-5, I'd need to diversify. 

 

So I started experimenting with other income streams like my own online shop, taking commissions, and doing freelance work. Building up a few different income streams made me feel a lot better about finally taking the leap to leave my job!

 

In hindsight, I totally could have left my job sooner, but I'm also glad that I gave myself the time to build a solid foundation so that I knew I'd be covered financially.

 

Once I felt stable enough to leave my job, another realization hit me:

 

I didn’t want to work for my business.

I wanted my business to work for my life.

 

Freedom has always been my north star. Freedom over my time. Where I live. 

How I structure my days. 

 

Whenever I consider a new opportunity, I still ask myself, “Is this expanding my freedom, or restricting it?”

 

That filter has shaped everything from how few meetings I take to the kinds of projects I say yes to. It’s something I protect fiercely. 

 

As you build your own business, think long and hard about what kind of lifestyle you want. This will help shape all the decisions you make in your biz!

 

In my first year of running my business full-time, I treated everything like an experiment.

 

I said yes to almost everything. Not because I thought every opportunity was right, but because I wanted real data. I needed to understand what I enjoyed, what drained me, and just as importantly, what actually moved the needle in my business.

 

I paid close attention to where my time was going and what each effort was returning. When I looked back at the end of that year, one pattern was very clear: I was spending nearly 90% of my time on things that were only generating about 10% of my income.

 

That realization changed everything.

 

It taught me that being busy isn’t the same as being effective. And it pushed me to start checking in regularly. Not just asking what am I doing, but what’s actually working?

 

Since then, I’ve been far more intentional about how I spend my time and energy.

 

Nowadays, I still evaluate where I'm spending my time, and what brings in the most income for my business. I also cut back on spending time on smaller income streams. 

 

For example, my POD sales have slowed down a lot lately. There was a time in my life when POD made up 99% of my income, so I spent almost all my time working on it. But today, it probably only makes up about 10% of my income, so I spend about 10% of my time on it. This is a good rule of thumb if you're stuck in analysis paralysis wondering what to work on!

 

 

When your business starts to grow, it’s easy to get sooooo busy that you lose sight of the lifestyle goals that made you start the business in the first place. That’s why I’ve learned to pause and ask myself questions like:

 

Am I proud of the work I’m doing?
 

How does this feel in my body? (You can thank my therapist for this one 😅)
 

Am I energized or overwhelmed?

 

Burnout is one of the biggest threats to creative careers. These check-ins are what have helped me pivot when things felt off (before resentment or exhaustion took over!).

 

One of the scariest moments in my business was wayyy back at the beginning when Society6 asked me to teach a class for Skillshare.

They asked if I'd create a class about succeeding on print-on-demand, and my first reaction was basically, absolutely not. 😅 I was so nervous. I very nearly said no.

 

But here’s the funny part. It was actually perfect timing.

 

I was still pretty early in my entrepreneurship journey, but I had just enough experience under my belt to feel slightly more confident than I would have a year earlier. If they had asked me even twelve months sooner, I would have shut it down immediately. I would’ve told myself I wasn’t experienced enough, didn’t know enough, wasn’t ready.

 

Instead, it landed right in that sweet spot where something feels uncomfortable… but also kind of exciting. And when something feels like that, I’ve learned to at least pause and pay attention.

 

At the time, I didn’t see this as the beginning of anything new. I truly thought it was a one-and-done situation. In my head, this was about relationship-building. Society6 was my biggest income source at the time, and I wanted to show up, be helpful, and say yes when they asked.

 

Honestly, if they had told me to dance, I probably would’ve danced. 😅

 

I wasn’t thinking, "Oh, I’m going to become a teacher." I was thinking, “This feels like the right move for the relationship. Let’s see where it goes.”

 

And of course, looking back now, that one “maybe I should say yes” moment ended up opening a door to the most fulfilling part of my career – teaching! The fact that I've taught over 500,000 students around the globe is kind of mind blowing. (That's 25 sold out Madison Square Gardens worth of students 🤯)

 

I'm so grateful I took that uncomfortable leap and have had the opportunity to help so many of my fellow artists build thriving careers of their own! That meaningful connection is everything to me.

 

If there’s one thing I think has kept my business going for ten years, it’s this: I’ve never assumed I had it “figured out.”

 

A lot of what I’ve done over the years comes down to staying open-minded, listening to my gut, and checking in often. I pay attention to the industry. I look at where my income is coming from, what partners are growing, which platforms are changing, and how buyers’ needs are shifting. When something starts to dip, I don’t panic. I get curious. I ask why. And then I make adjustments.

 

I’ll be totally transparent with you: I’ve had months where I earned $50,000 on a single income stream… and then months not long after where that dropped to $5,000.

 

That swing taught me an important lesson early on. There are waves in this industry. Platforms rise and fall. Partners change. Trends shift. My goal was never to cling to one wave for as long as possible. It was to ride it, learn from it, and be ready to catch the next one before the first crashed around me.

 

That’s why diversification has always been so important to me. 

 

Licensing appealed to me because it allows for multiple collaborators, different payment structures, and income that trickles in from a variety of places. I never wanted my entire business resting on one relationship or one platform.

 

Ten years in, my income from Society6 looks very different than it did when I was starting out, and that’s okay. I’m no longer reliant on any single stream. I keep my ear to the ground, stay scrappy, pay attention to new opportunities, and put myself out there when it feels aligned. I know my worth now, and I move accordingly.

 

The last decade hasn’t been a straight line up. It’s ebbed and flowed. But the overall direction has been rising, and that’s what matters. Don't let those dips set you back. Think of them as a pivot point!

 

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned over and over again, it’s this: don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Stay lean. Stay adaptable. Respect the volatility instead of fearing it.

 

That mindset is what’s allowed me to build a business (and a life) completely on my own terms.

 

When you’re early in your career it can feel like you're wearing all the hats. 

 

Many artists get stuck spinning their wheels going in a thousand different directions rather than focusing on the things that will actually move the needle in your business.

 

But that can really stall your progress. 

 

The biggest progress I made came from focusing on just two things:

That’s it.

 

It’s also exactly why I built The Art of Collections the way I did. To give artists a simple, effective roadmap to follow that actually works. Plus, a strong community to support you along the way. 

 

The 6-month mentorship program is opening again in soon, and you'll get early access to enroll since you're an Insider! If you want to check it out in the meantime, you can find more details here!

Ten years in, I can say this with confidence: the long game works. Stay adaptable. Stay curious. And don’t underestimate what consistent, intentional effort can build over time.

 

xo,

 

Cat