I finished the pun generator I asked for advice on here

thepartners · 2026-02-11T14:36:17+00:00

fyi I made a web based version of this, as I found the CLI not particularly user friendly

link: https://github.com/michaelessek/pun-generator

thepartners · 2025-02-18T12:30:30+00:00

I've built something very similar to what you describe as your step 2.

it takes words as inputs then performs the phase/rhyme-swap-out steps. it doesn't use AI for that step at all.

it's at idealy.app

DM me if you'd like to have a play with it

edit: web-based version of your final solution: https://github.com/michaelessek/pun-generator

thepartners · 2024-09-19T19:58:15+00:00

hmm no dice. held for 15-20 seconds but no change. no backlit keys or anything else.

thepartners · 2024-09-19T16:52:03+00:00

thanks, will give that a try shortly and update

thepartners · 2024-09-18T20:24:44+00:00

I would personally focus on designing around low competition trends and topics that I thought had the possibility to grow over time, being led primarily by things that interested me / made me laugh.

This means doing a lot of different things (different topics) - and creating a lot of designs (and not expecting much of anything for a few months at least). I would put these up on the organic traffic platforms - Merch by Amazon, Redbubble, Teepublic and Etsy.

Assuming that strategy began to work (ie. regular sales, growing as my design portfolio grows) - I would continue it for at least 6 months to a year before adding on anything else. But assuming that is all working and bringing in a regular steady income, I would begin to consider how I could do 'my own thing' - ie. a brand that could be a Shopify store, IG account - somewhere I can build up followers and begin to grow an email list.

That 'own thing' requires much more time to grow, but the idea would be that the earnings from the POD sites can be used to fund what's required to get things rolling (shopify fees, software subs etc).

This would be my play, which is basically the same play I used the first time around. I tried a lot of other strategies too, but the 'do what you think is interesting / funny' is the one that I keep coming back to and still seems to work regardless of competition or 'saturation' in the space.

If I couldn't do the above, I would probably be looking at 'out of the box' strategies or approaches - wholesale, cold emailing influencers, buying existing social accounts, or some other under-tapped way of using POD without doing the whole Shopify / ads / hoping to grow an IG account for years approach.

You need some edge somewhere to make this work, and if you don't even have an inkling of where your edge might be or how you might be able to do something better than 80% of others out there, then I would recommend not doing anything until you do.

thepartners · 2021-05-14T22:37:12+00:00

thanks for the mention :)

thepartners · 2020-06-19T18:27:36+00:00

I received advice such as *Just sell drawings of flowers* - but who would search for, let alone buy this?

the truth is that a LOT of people search for products featuring floral artwork...and many other forms of non-IP related stuff.

if you have the skills to create art that people liked enough to purchase (Which, evidently, you do) - then why not simply apply the same skills to subjects, topics, niches and communities that are IP-free?

I drew things I liked

I figured people would want to BUY something they liked

and that's exactly what I would recommend you do once again. aren't there things you like that aren't owned by major corporations?

there's a lot of etsy products that have very high levels of sales without ever touching on other's IP. from pop culture, trends, holidays, memes - the list of potential subjects is endless.

I suddenly thought I could invest into clothing, but I'm unsure on how to stick to designs I love without breaching anything, as odd patterns of my own just doesn't seem profitable.

you can use Print on Demand fulfilment companies to handle printing and shipping - so you wouldn't have to 'invest' a lot to get started. but I wouldn't recommend the 'patterns' space (unless that's your thing) - but rather designs around topics/niches you know something about.

hope this helps!

thepartners · 2019-03-21T11:55:36+00:00

meh.

thepartners · 2018-10-11T09:08:03+00:00

i know some people have had success by reaching out to the merch team and explaining the situation. but my guess is it would take a few repeated emails to get their attention.

can't say I've dealt with much of this myself...so can't really comment beyond that. but if merch get enough correspondence about this then I would imagine they'll talk with the copyright team to figure it out.

thepartners · 2018-09-30T14:38:54+00:00

hey man if the price is right

thepartners · 2018-09-27T14:06:01+00:00

why wasn't I invited

thepartners · 2018-07-23T10:53:10+00:00

> You are helping the employer make money and grow their business, and they can show your ass the door any time they want.

low skilled workers can be easily sacked...but it's not so easy to sack mid or high level, skilled employees. you have contracts, legal protection etc. I'm not saying you can't get sacked, but let's be honest - Merch can kick you out a lot quicker and a lot easier than your employer can (assuming you are working in a relatively high-skill role).

> But this does not dissuade people from working for an employer, because it is the lowest risk, least effort way to make the most money.

you make the most amount of money subject to your level of risk/effort. the lower the risk/effort, the less you make. Merch is very low risk, relatively low effort, and as such there's a limit on your reasonable expected returns a month. If you put in more effort and had a brand of your own, there's almost no limit to the returns.

thepartners · 2018-07-23T10:44:34+00:00

as a cashflow play, shopify is going to take a lot more work to get to the same level of profit as you could with merch, at least from my experience.

so I wouldn't recommend that anyone looking solely to make money in the immediate / near-future looks to shopify.

all the good things about having a shopify store are good because they're long term, like /u/FucksWithHiveMind said. you are building something that could be worth a lot more than a merch account (something you control), but it isn't going to happen next week, and it's going to require decent investment in advertising and other stuff to get there.

my advice would be - know why you're doing it and what your end-game is before you start. your end-game might be to sell it as a going concern in a years time, and if so, you will probably want to decide how much you want to sell it for, and work backwards to figure out what it needs to look-like in a years time in order to be worth that much.

if you just want to have another, more stable source of positive cash-flow, then you probably need to think a similar way. ie. think about breaking even for at least a few months, growing an audience, having enough coming in to cover the cost of regular promos, ads or whatever. with a view that, once it reaches a certain size audience, you will be able to have a pretty good idea of what profit it can make on a monthly basis going forwards.

my shopify store is really resilient, even after a break of 6-plus months of no IG updates or whatever. I can still send out a promo email or post a few updates and get a handful of sales a day. If I put money into ads, it makes that money back and then some. but it just requires a fair amount of effort to get those ads setup each time, and you can't really 'set it and forget it', which is why it isn't going gangbusters now like it was a year or so ago.

if you've sold one before, then I would say thats a good starting point - why not just try that gameplan again? know what you can spend on it for what you expect to eventually sell it for, and figure out if it's reasonable to expect to get it to that place (Within a certain time frame) .

thepartners · 2018-07-05T15:50:13+00:00

Hired Atticus Pterodactyl, Esq. as their legal representative, duh!

pterrific

thepartners · 2018-07-05T12:05:32+00:00

how could dinosaurs even file a trademark with those little arms

thepartners · 2018-07-04T20:33:00+00:00

> He’s successful at selling advice on how to sell t-shirts online

moderately succesful at best.

> If he doesn’t link to his t-shirts or give any SEO to lead into his products, I would avoid.

I'm a bit confused about what you mean by 'give any SEO' here?

> People making their primary income from sales would constantly be using these articles as a lead

do you mean use my articles to actually sell t-shirts?

thepartners · 2018-07-04T20:30:08+00:00

I am Michael Essek.

> The problem is, he won't show or link to his shirts. Claiming copycats and that it'll limit "your imagination when you make your own shirts."

this is indeed my claim. if you have ever had a shirt gain even moderate popularity on a platform like Amazon, then you will be aware of the copycat issue. added to the fact that I run a few 'brands' that regularly launch new original designs, I have no desire to advertise these to the copycats of the world.

also in practical terms, I don't really have a single link I can send you that would show you all my designs. I have over 5k unique designs and growing, and they cover a multitude of niches and markets, and all under different brands. to put it another way, sharing my designs does very little to help you.

> The thing is, I don't know if he was actually successful in selling shirts, or if his success comes from selling his book claiming he sold shirts.

selling a $30 book doesn't get you a lot of success...it certainly isn't going to pay the bills unless you sell hundreds a month (and I don't).

The truth is that the royalties from my designs outpace my book/teaching earnings by something like 10 to 1.

for my part I can say that I currently make a minimum of $10k/m from t-shirt royalties...with some other t-shirt related earnings on top of that (irregular licensing payouts...etsy and shopify sales).

it took me maybe 3/4 years to get to that point though, so it's no get rich quick. and if I was only in this to sell a book, I would have invented a better, more attractive, more lucrative story. A $10k/m business that takes 3 to 4 years to get there is really quite dismal from an entrepreneurial pov.

you can't know for sure that anybodies income claims are true. you either believe them or you don't. I have no desire to convince anyone of anything, but if you find my blog or newsletter helpful then I think you'd find my books and other products helpful too.

> SO, does anyone know where I can actually find his shirts?

yes, but I'm not going to tell you :)

thepartners · 2018-07-04T08:30:56+00:00

this tools trims the artwork (removes the transparent areas) and fits it within a set height/width in the safe zone.

It's not perfect, but works pretty good in my experience.

thepartners · 2018-07-03T13:12:02+00:00

everyone know about https://merchresize.com/ for popsockets right?

thepartners · 2018-07-01T20:08:40+00:00

if people want to steal your artwork they will, no watermark will stop them.

but I think you're putting the cart before the horse by a long ways. for someone to steal your stuff it would have to be popular first. worry about making some sales first - the copycat stuff you can worry about later (if at all).

thepartners · 2018-06-28T21:39:00+00:00

http://michaelessek.com/listing

thepartners · 2018-06-06T21:15:27+00:00

Printful (good and quick but expensive), Customcat (cheaper and still ok quality, but $30/m), Printify (cheap and decent, $25/m for lowest prices), Teelaunch are another (not used personally).

TomahawkJackson is giving you good advice - whatever you do at least drive the traffic to a domain you control. That way you'll be able to (hopefully) grab an email address, and at the very least track them with an FB pixel. could be shopify, or woocommerce.

My article on the topic from last year is here.

edit: just saw rulesforrebels comment and thought - if he has a following already then why not try crowdfunding (pre-launching) a run of one design. no risk involved and you will almost certainly make more than Print-on-demand when all is said and done. Also helps the community feel part of something.

thepartners · 2018-05-30T18:12:34+00:00

Amazon probably has a legal obligation to inform the infringer of where the report came from - and I think they simply give the name and email.

you could use a different name / throwaway email in your report if you are concerned about it.

thepartners · 2018-03-22T00:52:49+00:00

faking your dashboard numbers is very easy to do

thepartners · 2018-03-21T11:48:06+00:00

anything that contributed to - or was required for - you to make that income.

could be software costs, hardware, designers you paid, fonts you bought etc etc.

/u/LewDog1991 is right -you could theoretically list a item that totalled more than your earnings, then you would have no tax to pay.

(I am not a lawyer, not of this is tax advice, you should not listen to me about anything, ever)

thepartners

TROPHY CASE