Notion-like Avatar of You! -- How I started a business from just sharing my work
How I Made $50 Online on My First Day and Why You Should Share Your Work Publicly
Today marks my 4th anniversary of making my first dollar online through the Notion community. 🎉
Like many students, I dreamed of finding a source of income to move closer to financial freedom. At the time, Notion wasn’t as huge as it is today but was rapidly growing. I loved their avatars—unique and eye-catching—but they were only available for their staff.
With barely any graphic design skills, I decided to tweak one of those avatars to look like me and shared it with the community on Reddit’s r/Notion.
One comment changed everything: "You should offer this as a service."
300+ upvotes and countless comments later, I realized there was demand. I scrambled to set up a PayPal account and offered to create personalized Notion avatars for just $5 each. With limited skills, I focused on learning and improving as I went.
As orders grew, I transitioned to Shopify to provide a more polished and customer-friendly experience.
Key Takeaways From My Journey
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Share What You Create Publicly
Don’t hide your work! Share it with communities that would care. Know your audience—who would love to see what you’re working on? -
Seek Feedback and Build Credibility
Use feedback to refine your product and display testimonials to build trust. -
Reinvest to Grow
Put profits back into your business. Learn skills like marketing or invest time into creating free products that can drive traffic to your paid offerings. -
Have Fun Along the Way
I’m lucky that this started as a hobby. If you enjoy what you’re doing, let the fun fuel your creativity and growth.
To celebrate my 4th anniversary, I’m offering 20% OFF for orders with the code: "ANNIVERSARY". 🎁 @ https://notionistics.com
If you’ve ever thought about starting something, take this as your sign to just begin. You never know where it could lead. 🚀
The 'share your work publicly in Notion' path to building a business is underrated - it works because the Notion page IS the demo. People see the actual system in action, not a polished marketing page.
The pattern this unlocks: you build the thing for yourself, it solves a real problem, you share it, people ask 'can I have this?' - and suddenly you have product-market fit before you've written a line of sales copy.
The operational upgrade most Notion creators miss: once you start selling, you need a system to track who bought, what they asked, what they're struggling with, and what features they'd pay more for. That feedback loop - from buyer behavior back into product decisions - is what separates the creators who build one successful template from the ones who build a sustainable Notion business. The product is the easy part after you've sold the first 10.
Hey, after you develop a product, will you consider building a community for users to exchange feedback?