This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Hello, greetings. Welcome to Side Hustle School. This is the only show where every single day you hear a different story of someone who starts a side hustle without quitting their day job. I love making the show for you seven days a week. My hope is that it leads you to create freedom for yourself, make something of your own, even if you never wanted to have a business or be an entrepreneur, even if you're super busy like most of us are. Well, today we
are kicking off a new week and I have a great story for you. It is a story about a family, a husband and wife who runs a side hustle together with their kids and they're able to travel the world and do this. They actually took a year-long sabbatical and went around the world. And while they were traveling, they started this side hustle. This is a fulfilled by Amazon project, which a lot of people ask about. If you're new, I'll explain what that is. And in the past year
with this project, they have made more than $40,000 and it seems like they're actually ramping up from there. So I think you're going to like this. And by the way, a little experiment we're doing, if you would like a free travel course, if you'd like to know how I've been able to go around the world using frequent flyer miles, different kinds of travel hacking, just send a quick email to travel@sidehustleschool.com. We will automatically add you to this free course. You don't have to write anything in that email, just send a blank email to travel@sidehustleschool.com and you should get something back right away. If you do that, be sure and let me know what you think.
And today's story is coming right up. At the end of 2015, Nathan and Catherine Spackarelli decided they wanted a different life for themselves and their children. After selling everything they owned and taking a year long sabbatical from work, where they went out to see the world, they returned from traveling a year later with a completely different purpose in focus. Nathan and Catherine were proud of their coffee business and everything else they'd built back in their home state of Oregon, but nothing to compare to the rich experiences of seeing the world as a family. They wanted to bring together their love of entrepreneurship and family travel into a side hustle that worked for all of them, or in this case, put all of them to work. Nathan and Catherine
promised their two young sons that the profit from this new venture and their work with it would go into the family travel fund and give them more opportunities to explore the world. They were determined to create something that would allow them to be location independent. So Nathan spent every free moment he could researching. One day he stumbled upon a podcast called the Amazing Seller that focused on how to start a profitable and mostly passive Amazon business. Through this podcast, they learned about the Fulfilled by Amazon program, how for a nominal fee and a percentage of the profits, they could import and sell their products on Amazon without having to keep any stock on hand or having to ship anything out themselves. This seemed like a pretty ideal
side hustle for this nomadic family. So they started to brainstorm all the different products they could possibly sell through it. Like any good savvy side hustler, they decided to capitalize on the skills and knowledge they already had. Over the 20 years they've been running their coffee distribution company, Catherine and Nathan had learned a lot about water filtration systems. This knowledge and some research led them to discover that carbon shower filters were actually not very effective at high water temperatures, that there was a special kind of filter that did a more efficient job. After locating a manufacturer in China through Alibaba, who would be willing to
create a modified version of their filters, they decided to invest a few thousand dollars to import them and began selling them using that Fulfilled by Amazon program. Now there was a bit of a learning curve for Nathan and Catherine in the beginning. But before they knew it, their filters were on Amazon and they started receiving a trickle of business in the amount of two or three sales a day. It wasn't quite the grand start they were hoping for, but these filters served as an easy way for them to test the market at something new. And after a few months, they discovered a product that inspired them to shift their focus from shower filters to a very different item that would actually allow them to build their own brand. See, on their around the world trip, they had picked
up a healthy nonstick ceramic pan at a market in Italy and brought it back with them to America. Nathan loves to cook and even after months of use, they were still getting great results and felt this would be a perfect addition for their Fulfilled by Amazon endeavors. The market was saturated with Teflon pans that contain chemicals that raise health and environmental concerns. But this ceramic coated nonstick Italian pan was a much healthier alternative to Teflon and other nonstick cookware. They could also easily transition from stovetop to oven and ceramics bake at half the temperatures required for conventional materials so they use less energy too. They tracked down the manufacturer and customized the pans to accommodate a few design
elements Nathan requested, including a longer handle and a high heat aluminum base. And since this was their first product order, they went with the minimum amount they could, but that still ended up being a whopping 1500 units. This initial investment caused them some sleepless nights, but Nathan and Catherine were confident in the product they had created. They launched this cooking line in 2016 under the name that Terra Cucina, literally translated as from the ground kitchen due to the all natural volcanic minerals used to create the nonstick coating on their pans. They were worried they were going to be stuck with these nonstick items forever. But in spite of that,
they managed to make over $200,000 in sales by the end of their first year in business. Much of that money went right back into the business, but they were still able to add $40,000 into a new family travel fund. After the first quarter of 2017, they'd already cleared $85,000 in sales, putting them on track for an even more profitable year than their last. This has allowed them to invest in more stock and grow the business by adding three more sizes of pans to be introduced by the end of the year. Now there's a lot of nonstick pans on the market. So you may wonder how the Spacarellis were able
to create such a profitable side hustle. Nathan says the quality of their products and their customer service is what sets them apart. He says they would never sell something they would not willingly use themselves. And if you look on Amazon, you can see hundreds of consistently high reviews. So it's not just him, their customers feel the same way. There have been a few late
nights and long weekends, especially building the Terra Cucina website. But overall, it's been an easy side hustle to manage around the rest of their lives. Nathan and Catherine have been back at their full time jobs, and their kids haven't had to sacrifice activities and social events to make it work. Whether this new project will ever come to replace their coffee distribution company remains to be seen. But it's clear that they have a huge success here. In fact, you might say it's a
fantastic success. And going forward, the Spacarelli family is looking to expand their income streams even further so that they can live the intentional life they want and continue to show their kids the world. Congratulations to Nathan and Catherine have actually known them and their family for years. I profiled them on my blog a while back related to their year long round the world family trip that they took. I think this is a wonderful creative project using that Fulfilled by Amazon platform that I've talked about in a few different episodes before. Now, if you're totally new to
that world on the show notes page today, I'm going to link up the previous episodes about Fulfilled by Amazon, as well as that other podcast I mentioned, maybe some other resources so you can learn a bit more about how to get into this world yourself. That show notes page will be at site of social.com/170. If you'd like to get that free travel course that I mentioned at the top of the show, this is an experiment. You can just email travel@sidehustleschool.com. Just a blank email is fine. It will automatically add you to that course. And of course, if you don't like it,
you can unsubscribe. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. If you think your side hustle just won't pan out, don't get panhandled. There's something out there for you to do something today to get closer to the freedom you want. I'm Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
