This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, what's up? Welcome back. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School, bringing you episode 236 today. Our story this time is about a style-savvy police officer who funnels his frustration finding clothes into an online styling business. And for everyone out there who has ever struggled, which is basically all of us, you might like this story.
It has a great conclusion. This actually turns into a six-figure side hustle. But what's interesting is the process and how long it took to reach that point. And not only that, but how long it took until he had his first sale. Now, I don't wanna give everything away in advance, so I'll just say that for every story where you hear they launched the project and they were making money right away, or they had a sale on their very first day, there's probably at least one other story, if not more, where it takes a bit longer to see that kind of success.
So as I said, if you've ever struggled or if you're struggling now, you might like this story. And I'll bring that to you after a quick shout-out to our sponsor. [Music]
As a full-time police officer, father and husband, North Carolina-based Samuel Gonzalez rarely found himself with free time. And when he did stumble upon some time, he rarely used it to go shopping. This created a problem.
Whenever Samuel needed to refresh areas of his wardrobe, finding the right items of clothing was frustrating. There simply wasn't time to find the right clothes for his shape and style. He eventually realized the effort wasn't worth the meager reward, and he began exploring automated options. He looked into online styling services, but didn't come across anything promising. In fact, with some of them, a single pair of jeans could run upwards of $200.
And most of the services only sent items from their own brand, rather than working with multiple brands. So Samuel decided to try creating his own service. He wanted to target the audience that those current options were not appealing to. People who are interested in items from a variety of brands, and people who needed a time-saving shopping option, but can't afford to pay premium prices. So basically, he wanted to create a service that's valuable, not only for high spenders, but also for the average person.
Filled with excitement for this vision, Samuel went to New York City for a trade show called Project NYC. He had no website and no customers, but was ready to start making connections. Well, without an existing business, most brands gave Samuel a quick no thanks. Some wouldn't even meet with him. The trip wasn't a waste though.
He did find two brands to work with initially. And then once he found a few more over the next couple of months, it became easier to find others. So Samuel placed his first clothing orders, built a website, and started marketing with $5,000 of his own cash. His free time was limited, but he spent every ounce of it developing his brand, product, and content. It was exhausting, but finally his new service, Urbane Box, launched.
And nothing happened. Nothing at all. A couple months went by. No sales, no interest. And Samuel began to lose hope.
He realized he was out of serious crossroads. He could quit and cut his losses, or he could press on and hope for improvement. Well, as you can guess, he decided to press on, and it's a good thing he did. He says, "I was under the impression "that creating a business online would see success quickly. "But I learned that getting traffic to a website "is not as easy as I thought.
"It involves a lot of consistent work." Samuel began focusing on Facebook. It took a while, but he finally found his groove with Facebook ads. And four months after launching, Urbane Box landed its first customer. He also began exploring content marketing. He used the Urbane Box blog as a platform to publish fashion and lifestyle content that's valuable and relevant to his audience.
And it's been working. In year two of the business, he decided to hire a marketing agency to help him build even more traction. But this didn't turn out so well. They wrote guest posts on a variety of websites and blogs, but the investment just wasn't yielding returns, and it wasn't a cheap investment. So Samuel decided to pull the plug on that, and instead he developed an affiliate program for his business.
It's still new, but he's already seeing much better results from this project than he did through hiring the agency. Three years in, after that very slow start, Urbane Box had made a total of $280,000 in sales. At that point, the operation was getting too big to run out of his extra bedroom, so he felt it was time to take the next step. Fortunately, after the earlier struggles, finding a fulfillment center was a lot easier than Samuel expected. Even though he wasn't a massive client, he found one that was accommodating, they helped him ship all of his inventory to them, then they worked on sending out the packages efficiently.
That was last year, and Samuel is grateful that he decided to make the move before he was too big. He says if he'd waited till now, the transition would have been difficult, because Urbane Box is now on track to generate $150,000 in sales this year alone, website traffic is up, brand trust is on the rise, and more brands are opening their doors. In fact, now, even though he still finds most of his brands at trade shows, some companies now reach out to him to be featured. When Samuel was growing up, he had a difficult childhood. His mother didn't know English, and his father struggled with substance abuse, and Samuel knew he wanted to do anything he could to help kids in difficult situations.
In fact, it was those early experiences that led Samuel to become a police officer, and inspired him to adopt an orphan. They also impact how he runs Urbane Box. For every sale the company makes, they donate $1 to organizations that help homeless youth. For Samuel, it's not a gimmick attached to his business, it's part of who he is. Samuel's wife recently left her job to work on the hustle full-time, but Samuel himself is not quite ready yet.
He loves his job as a police officer, and he's only seven years away from being able to officially retire. So for now, the company is happy with growth, and is excited to partner with more brands and charities. In this case, perseverance was the answer. [Music]
If at first you don't succeed, should you keep trying? Well, I actually think not always.
Perseverance is not always the answer. As you may hear from other stories, if something isn't working, sometimes you should try something totally different. And I think that's totally fine. But I also really like stories like Samuel's, because if you believe in a mission, you should absolutely keep going. You should change how you're doing it, just like Samuel did.
He had to learn along the way about the Facebook ads, and then he hired an agency, but they were too expensive and didn't bring a good return. So he's willing to adjust along the way, which is a common and key characteristic of successful side hustlers. But he didn't lose sight of the bigger picture, that mission he was focused on. And now, as you heard, it's doing really well. So congratulations, Samuel, you inspire me.
And for all our listeners, I hope you're inspired too. But as always, I hope you combine that inspiration with action to work on your side hustle. If you've been struggling, maybe it just takes time. Maybe you have to adjust your method, try some different strategies, or maybe you just have to be patient. Anyway, that's my encouragement for you today.
Our show notes for this episode are at sidehustleschool.com/236. More is on the way tomorrow. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
