Start an Etsy Team!

The beginning: finding a niche for your team and attracting members.

To start a team, the first thing you should do is check through the profiles of teams that already exist on the Teams page. This way you can get an idea of what different teams are up to - blogs, offsite groups (Yahoo, Google, Flickr, etc.), when they meet, what activities are planned, etc. You can also see if there is already an organized team for your area of interest.

If you want to start a new team, find at least a couple people to be on the team with you. You can do this by convo'ing people you think should join you, approaching artists/crafters in your town or city, and posting in the forums and seeing the response. Just don't send too many convo's ina short period of time containing the same message - your convos might get frozen by the spambot. If your convos do get frozen, email support@etsy.com to rectify the situation.

Setting up: goals and organization.

Once you have a couple people on board, you can email your info to the Etsy Teams coordinator, Sara (sarawearsskirts) at teams@etsy.com. Make sure you send information according to the Etsy Team template, and include all relevant info in your email to us, such as the group's name, the contact person (Etsy username), any links that are important for the team (groups, etc), and a list of the team members. *It is very important this list of team members be their username, in paragraph form, with commas between names. (for example: aliceofkansas, tamron, girlscantell, sarawearsskirts, etsylabs, preciouspups, reconstructionist). This allows us to plug them seamlessly into the template with links to everyone's shops.

Please allow about a week (5 business days) to hear back from us - don't let this hold you up! You don't have to have a team profile page up to start working together as a group!

Decide what your team's goals are - if you're a location based team, are you meeting in person regularly? Will you get together for skill shares or organize a local event? If you are a global team (interest- or medium-based), will you raise money within the group to pay for off-site ads? How will you communicate? What does everyone gain from being on the team? Will you have team-wide sales, etc?

Maintaining the team: participation and keeping etsy in the loop.

Once your team has started, keep it up - plan events and encourage members to participate on a level they feel comfortable with. If running a team becomes an overwhelming amount of work for one or two people, re-evaluate what the team is doing, and how your efforts are meeting the established goals of the team. Delegate the workload of maintaining the team as you can. If you have questions, try checking this Team FAQ. Also, you and your Team members are welcome to attend the weekly Team Workshops at noon (est) on Thursdays in the Virtual Labs. There are also some guides for Teams you might want to check out. Also, don't forget to use the Resources page!

Keep Etsy updated and let us know how your Team is doing by emailing teams@etsy.com. If your Team is adding new members or having events frequently, email us monthly (or more frequently) with updates, like small batches of new members (in the format specified above) or events your Team is planning.