This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Greetings, side hustlers. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Thrilled to welcome you back today to the only show that features a daily story of someone who starts an income generating project without quitting their day job. Now by the way, when should you quit your day job? Well, I don't necessarily think you ever should. At least not if you enjoy what
you do. But maybe the better answer is you quit your day job when the time is right. When you feel ready, when you're excited about the next thing you're doing, and when you feel safe. So about every ten days or so, usually every other week, sometimes once a week, we feature a story of someone whose side hustle has led to full-time work. Now here's the key point. Once again, even if they eventually do go full-time, they usually
start this project while they're working their job, which is of course very different from the advice you may hear elsewhere. Now today's story illustrates this well, and it also illustrates this concept that sometimes your first side hustle, or your first experiment, leads to what becomes your real side hustle later, or at least one that goes above and beyond what you originally envisioned. I'll explain how that works right after this. For nearly ten years, Del Jone worked in the tech industry in San Francisco. Her employer was an online commercial real estate company. It was a good job, not a dream job, not what
she'd always hoped for and longed for, but it met her needs and provided some challenge. To pursue other interests, Dale started a fashion and lifestyle blog called SavvySpice.com, which featured clothing reviews, tips on getting legs like JLo's, and how to make classic Italian cocktails. Now this project was both fun and somewhat profitable. It did make some money, and she got a lot of free clothes to review. But it was mostly a hobby and a form of mental escape. And she needed that escape. The long days of being a tech worker, stressful
city life, and even some dating drama, led to Dale feeling frazzled and frantic. It wasn't just her emotions that were worn down, her hair paid a price for it too. See, Dale's aunt was a hairdresser, and during a visit, she noticed a lot of split ends and breakage, and recommended that Dale sleep on a hand-sewn pillowcase. This aunt loaned her one of those pillowcases, and after a single night, Dale noticed a difference in her hair and skin. She immediately knew that satin was the best possible fabric to sleep on, but it was hard to find a high-quality satin pillowcase. At least not without spending $100 or more, which
Dale thought was ridiculous. So as one does, she set out to make her own. She'd been encouraged by that fashion and lifestyle blog she started, so she decided to go bigger. She called her idea "sabby sleepers," and after doing some initial research, she flew to LA to check out manufacturing options and costs. Through a friend's connection, she met a woman from Shanghai who had other connections to factories producing for high-end bedding brands, including Pottery Barn. Dale then flew to China with her sister and best friend, who was conveniently
fluent in Mandarin. They went to the factory towns and tested over 200 satin blends to find the best quality and shades of color. Dale then designed the satin pillowcase with a secret pocket embroidered with her new "savvy sleepers" logo. Initial startup costs for all of this, including traveling to visit her manufacturer in person, ordering inventory, and launching an online store, were approximately $11,000. She paid for this with her savings.
Perhaps Dale got lucky on this point, or perhaps it was a result of her detailed research or maybe a combination of both, but she's worked with the same manufacturer since beginning and has a great relationship with them. She says that any mistakes have been on her end, like ordering nearly 3,000 pillowcases with the wrong paper insert and having to switch them out manually. She's had other challenges, including shipping delays and lost orders, but nothing has been impossible to overcome. The first year, she expected sales and large orders to roll in, and unfortunately her expectation was unmet. Sales didn't roll in, but they did trickle in. After about six months, she had just under $10,000 in sales. Now, for
a lot of our stories, that would be great. Just yesterday I told you about a teacher making curriculum and selling it online. That project had very low costs. It's really easy to start up. So $10,000 for something like that would be great. But for Dale, with a
project that required physical inventory, ordering from a manufacturer in China, creating an e-commerce website, as well as just living in San Francisco where costs are high, she was discouraged with those initial results. Yet, she persevered, and after another six months, things began to turn around in the second year. Savvy Sleepers was featured in a PopSugar beauty subscription box, which helped create more attention and multiple press features, and continued to grow over the next 18 months, and by 2015 she hit six figures, which continued in 2016 as well. Now, as the side business continued to grow, Dale considered making a big change. Her employer's company was getting bought by a competitor, and a number of her coworkers were moving on to other things. She had enough savings
to last six months to a year, even if Savvy Sleepers failed. She'd made a plan of how she'd cover living expenses, health insurance, and so on, and then she took the leap. But actually, was it really a leap? At this point, the business was working. She had two years of solid sales. She knew there was a market for her products, and she was excited to continue
growing this business. Dale's Savvy Sleepers pillowcases are now available in the world's largest blow-dry chain, and also in hair swans and spas nationwide. Her next step is more international expansion, and her long-term goal is to go from six figures to one million dollars in annual sales. Was it all just a dream? No, this six-figure income is a reality that exists long after Dale wakes up from her Savvy Satin Sleep. It's not an overnight success, or maybe it
is, and it's definitely not snoozeworthy. So when do you quit your job? You quit your job only when it's the right time, and the number one thing you can do to get to a place of feeling secure about making that kind of decision is to establish an additional income source, preferably something sustainable, some kind of asset that you create that you have ownership over. And Dale's story illustrates that very well. She began by experimenting.
She wrote about things she was interested in. She started by learning about blogging and fashion, setting up websites. And then when she had a specific idea, she did some research, then she followed up. And she did take a bit of a risk in making that first investment, but it was a manageable risk. It was $10,000 from her savings, not $100,000 in loans, or whatever the number is. And she steadily built that business to the point
that when her company changed, she was able to reevaluate and say, "What do I really want to be doing with my life? Maybe it's this thing I've built. And maybe I won't do this for the rest of my life, but at least for now, it's sustainable." I can trust in the process. And I can also look back and say, "I made that." Friends and listeners, that's a wonderful feeling. I hope you are working toward that feeling. Personally, I
almost never sleep through the night. So maybe I need a savvy sleeper pillowcase. It's on my list. And by the way, did you hear about the guy who got paid for being part of a study at the sleep clinic? It was his dream job. And then after that, he was offered a job
at The Mattress Factory. And he said, "Maybe, but I think I'd like to sleep on it first." Wherever you are today, if there are miles to go before you sleep, come check out the show notes. You can learn about savvy sleepers, as well as PopSugar, that subscription box I mentioned. Those show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/143. That is for episode 143. If you are a rock
star, don't fall asleep. I'll be back tomorrow. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
