I’m Glad Redbubble Suspended My Account

When failure is a blessing in disguise

This past summer, I realized that I needed another income stream.

The realization that my 9–5 was never going to grow to the point of achieving my goals of financial freedom led me into the search for a side hustle.

At first, I ran across all the ridiculous suggestions that come up when you search “how to make money online.” Things that make pennies per hour like surveys, things you can’t do in a small town like Uber.

After a little while, I ended up finding someone on YouTube giving clear instructions on making money selling Print On Demand (POD) shirts.

I like shirts.

He made it sound so easy!

So I set myself up with a couple subscriptions and opened stores on TeePublic and Redbubble.

Redbubble started to take off. Modestly, really, but enough that I thought yes, this has real potential.

And then….

Redbubble “suspended” my account. This really means closed with no warning, no explanation, and no recourse. Also, no payment of my one month worth of royalties.

But you know what is really crazy?

I’m GLAD they closed my account!

Why am I glad that an account was closed and I lost money?

I’m so happy you asked.

There are two big reasons this suspension was a blessing in disguise.

I learned an important lesson

I learned about the importance of diversification in a real way.

I knew already that I needed multiple income streams, but I didn’t yet know about it for real.

I had opened other POD accounts, but as soon as Redbubble started getting traction, I stopped investing my time and energy in those. That turned out to be a mistake, one that is so easy to make.

Nothing teaches you a lesson like losing money.

Losing a month’s worth of royalties stung, but it was my first month, and so it wasn’t a large amount.

I’m glad that it happened when it did — far enough in for a proof of concept, not so far in that I lost a significant amount of money or time.

It gave me the kick I needed to start writing

I had been on Medium for about 2 months as a reader only. I had thought about writing, but later, after my POD thing was up and going.

When my Redbubble account was gone, I started writing.

First, I wrote about the account suspension.

I’m not proud of the articles that I wrote on that, but how long would it have taken me to start writing if I hadn’t been taken down a couple of pegs on my POD venture? Maybe forever.

Writing is so much better, for me at least. I’ve learned, I’ve grown, I’ve faced things that I’ve been running from for decades.

I’m still hoping to find a way to make POD work. I haven’t given up on it.

But if all I ever get from that attempt was the push to start writing and publishing, then it was a good investment.

Turning a bad thing into a good thing

I don’t want to get into toxic positivity here.

Let’s be real: sometimes, a bad thing is just a bad thing, and you can’t turn it into something else.

But in many cases, especially when we are talking about side hustles and making money, we can turn a failure into a launch pad for something better.

I’m learning to take a disappointment and pivot instead of giving up.

Take the lessons and apply them to something new.

I hope that you will also look for the opportunity hidden in a disappointment.

Maybe, the thing that seems bad will turn out to be the start of a great new chapter.