Creator insights: Saifur’s journey to success

Saifur Rahman Saif was born in Barishal, Bangladesh and is currently studying Electrical Engineering at Ahsanullah University of Science & Technology. He’s also been selling with Teespring for the last year to earn extra income while studying. Saifur dreams of becoming a young entrepreneur and enjoys his free time listening to music, watching movies, playing cricket, traveling and cycling.

How did you first learn about Teespring?

In March 2015 I discovered the Facebook group “Teespring BD” (Teespring Bangladesh) through my friend Zafar Hossain Zafi (Teespring’s Country Manager in Bangladesh).

Why do you like selling with Teespring?

The best part of selling with Teespring is Teespring’s Boosted Network; it’s an automated system which is a huge help for sellers! I sold 250+ products for my first winning design through the Teespring Marketplace; I added relevant keywords to my campaign title and description helped buyers find my products on the site.

I also really like how much my buyers trust the Teespring brand, which plays an important role in my sales. Because people know and trust Teespring’s quality it’s easier for me to get them to buy my products.

Another characteristic that is important to me is the fast payment system. We get our payment within one day after the campaign is over. This means I can immediately reinvest the funds in my ads.

What was the most challenging aspect of starting to sell online? How did you overcome this challenge?

The biggest challenge I faced was picking the right design and finding the the right audience. I was designing t-shirts one after another, losing money and sinking into a depression. Then I found the right system.

At first, I chose passionate niches knowing that these were the people who were most likely to buy designs. The only problem was the niches I chose were already saturated with tees which is why a lot of my designs failed. But as they say, “practice makes perfect” so I kept looking for new niches that weren’t as saturated and after several months of hard work I found my first winning design. It took me a long time to achieve my first success because of the suspension of my Facebook ad account and my lack of funds to invest in ads, but it was completely worth the hard work in the end!

Teespring Bangladesh Meetup – November 2015

How has Teespring changed your life?

Teespring has completely changed my life. After getting admitted to an Engineering University in 2015, I thought of doing something out of the box to make extra money. I tried different online jobs but I couldn’t find anything that I really enjoyed. After discovering Teespring I  borrowed $300 dollars and tried selling designs one after another, investing all my money in Facebook ads and losing it. Once I ran out of money I borrowed more from my mother and started reinvesting again. I became depressed after losing even more money…$1200 to be exact, but the funny thing is that it only took me 3 days to make it all back again! Once I found my first winning design I haven’t looked back! During Father’s Day, I made a huge profit. And now am I not only earning extra spending money through Teespring, I am actually able to pay my semester fee on my own now. I’m completely debt free and am able to financially support myself using Teespring.

During those hard times I wouldn’t have been able to pull through without the support of two important people; my mother and my girlfriend. My mother acted as my secret sponsor; she gave me money to invest without telling my father. And my girlfriend Ashura inspired me not to lose hope and keep trying. I couldn’t have succeeded without their help.

I also want to thank Kawsar vai and Khorshed vai – they gave me advice and helped me find success!

Saifur & Zafi (Teespring’s Bangladesh Country Manager)

What advice would u give who is just starting out?

1. If someone wants to start selling with Teespring, firstly, they need to visit the Teespring Training Center: https://community.teespring.com/training-center. There is a lot of useful insight on Facebook and using Teespring -anyone can get started with the basic information provided here.
2. Do some in-depth niche research! The more you know your audience, the faster you’ll find success. The smartest system is to start with less competitive niche to find success early. The reason it took me so long to succeed was because I focused on niches that many other people already sold to.  
3. Set up a long-term goal and work for it; plan how much income you’d like to earn selling with Teespring over a long period of time (months/years). When you make profit reinvest the funds to help you reach your goal.
4. If you want to sell using paid ads try start with at least $500 of investment. Because when you first start selling you will lose ad spend as you learn. If you don’t have money to invest you can try Zafi’s guide to generating free traffic on Facebook, once you earn profit you can reinvest that into paid ads.
5. My best advice is to never lose hope and keep trying. If you promise yourself you’ll work until you find success…it is inevitable that you will succeed. The one who loses most, learns the most and improves the most. And above all, you must remember that “failure is the pillar of success”!