Electrical Engineer Rides Demand to Dog Collar Empire

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Welcome to a brand new week of Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Hope you got a chance to listen to yesterday's episode all about a big announcement, some big changes that we're gonna be making for 2020. As part of that, I would love to hear your questions and updates. We're gonna remix our format to feature many more listener questions, comments, et cetera.

The year of interaction is coming up. Just go to sidehustleschool.com/question to ask your question or give us an update or whatever you'd like to share. All right, as I worked on today's story, I thought, oh, this is a nice little project. Somebody is making dog collars. Isn't that sweet?

And I imagine she was selling them at the farmer's market and making exactly $500 a month, which is our minimum to be featured on Side Hustle School. Well, I should know better by now, but after a thousand episodes, I'm still being surprised. Nothing wrong at all with making $500 a month at the farmer's market. But in this story, of which you'll hear all the details in just a moment, the punchline is that this little business is now bringing in millions of dollars in annual revenue. That is correct, millions of dollars annual revenue selling dog collars.

I suppose anything is possible. All right, stay tuned. Electrical engineer rides demand to dog collar empire. That story's coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]

You might think that graduating with a master's degree in physics would set you up for life.

After all, engineers are in demand and rarely spend much time looking for work. But for Alicia Navarro in North Carolina, job security wasn't good enough. She was working as an electronics engineer and she didn't love it. She wanted to do something she was more enthusiastic about, but she also wasn't sure what that was. Meanwhile, back at home, Alicia had a different problem.

Well, she had two problems actually, her two greyhounds. Because a greyhound's head is smaller than its neck, typical buckle collars tend to slip off. She needed martingale collars, which are specifically designed to be non-slip. And she wanted something that hit the perfect combination of humane, safe and beautiful. And she wasn't happy with anything she found.

Now Alicia was crafty. She'd been making Christmas ornaments and candles since she was a kid. And she knew her way around a sewing machine. So it didn't take long before her greyhounds had beautiful functional collars, she and they presumably could be proud of. The collars made an impression.

Soon she was running into other dog owners who wanted to know where they could get one. Alicia saw the opportunity and jumped on it. She started by making collars for friends and acquaintances, buying just enough fabric to sew each one. It didn't take long for demand to outpace her one by one production plan. So she invested $500 to buy a bulk set of fabric and materials and set up a store on eBay.

Whenever she sold a collar, she'd use the money to buy more fabric. She'd make more collars, sell them and repeat the process. She was enjoying it, but things were still a little rough at her engineer job. She couldn't help but wonder if she could make some real money off her designs. Alicia decided to ramp up efforts, ditching eBay and making her own website under the name Two Hounds Design.

She was already involved with her local community, including Animal Rescue. So she leveraged those connections to create awareness for her product. She also made sure to optimize her website for organic searches whenever she designed a new collar. The side hustle grew enough that Alicia decided to quit her job. You could say it had her on a short leash.

It was a doggy dog world at the office. Her initial plan was to look for another job while using the income from Two Hounds Design to support her in the interim. But as the story goes, running the business soon began taking more and more time. Alicia was designing, sewing, and shipping the collars all by herself. She hired her first employee shortly after she quit her job.

And she let that person know this could be a temporary gig. This first hire helped with the sewing, so Alicia could put more of her efforts into marketing the collars and prepping them for shipping. The additional marketing allowed the business to grow even further. So eight months later, Alicia had to hire more help. She brought on a second person to assist with sewing and a third to prep the collars for sewing.

It's like a dog collar assembly line going on here. Three years in, Alicia crossed an important threshold. Two Hounds Design had completely replaced the income she had made as an engineer. That was when she knew it had grown into something more. So she stopped looking for a job and went all in with collars.

In fact, it was so successful that her husband quit his job to work on the business as well. Two Hounds Design soon had five employees working out of Alicia's home. They had flexible schedules. She wasn't dogmatic about what time they came to work. And that same year, they released a new product called the Freedom No-Pole Dog Harness.

The harness is a simple system that loops around a dog's chest rather than the head or face to allow for smoother, more enjoyable walks without force or pain. It's now one of the company's signature products. This diversification paid off, and Two Hounds Design made enough from that bump in revenue to move out of Alicia's home and into their first building. So where are we now? Well, in 2019, Two Hounds Design has grown far beyond the small side hustle that was there to hold Alicia over until she found her next engineering job.

They sell their collars both direct on their website and at independent pet retailers worldwide. The company is now housed in a custom-built 20,000-square-foot building, employs more than 50 people, and averages over $4 million in sales each year. [Music]

Well, as I said, nothing wrong at all with making $500 a month at the farmer's market, but it's also just so cool to see how, or see when it happens that someone is so passionate about something that they end up just working on it month after month, year after year, growing it into this business that's now employing a lot of people and serving dog owners worldwide. So well done, Alicia, and team. It really looks fantastic.

And the website in particular looks fantastic. It's just excellent, really good tone, really good design and wording. You can tell everything is super optimized. You can tell that things are there for a reason. It's a wonderful example of an e-commerce website.

The tone specifically is just so welcoming. I can also see how it's kind of improved over time, like right on the frequently asked questions page. It says, "At Two Hounds Design, "we are always delighted to hear from our customers." And you get the sense that it's true. On the email sign-up pop-up, it says, "Looking for a tail wagging time? "Subscribe to receive 10% off your first order." And there's, of course, picture of a dog with some confetti raining down.

So just so, so well done. And of course, $4 million in dog collars per year. We could all learn something from this. Alicia is definitely not barking up the wrong tree. All right, does your job have you on a short leash?

Well, listen, that's why you need to have another source of income. That's what we're all about as we close out 2019, prepare for some big changes in 2020. I'm just so excited to be able to keep bringing you to these stories, and I look forward to all that is to come. Remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes, including links to Two Hounds Design, anything else I mentioned, will be at sidehustleschool.com/1066.

That's episode 1066. You can also ask me a question or leave your update at sidehustleschool.com/question. Thanks so much, I'll be back again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]