This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hey, hey, what's up? This is Chris Guillebeau, episode 268 of Side Hustle School. We are beginning an all new week and it's actually week two of book tour for me. The Side Hustle Book came out last week. I went to five cities and I've got, I think four coming up this week.
I'll be in New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia and Boston. I'm having a great time meeting lots of fun people, including many listeners. And I'm also getting lots of great stories from people who are reading the Side Hustle Book, including some emails from people who said they just bought the book and they've actually already started their Side Hustle. No joke, no exaggeration. I will actually read you some of those emails later in the week.
But for now, I'll just say I'm so glad it's starting well. Thank you for your support. And let's jump into this week's episodes. Now today's episode's really good. You might recall an extended cut I did on how to recover from a Side Hustle disaster.
And in that episode I talked about probably the biggest Side Hustle disaster that I've experienced when I was overseas living in West Africa and the fulfillment center that I was using back in the US completely went out of business with no notice. I was reminded of that story of my own when working on today's story, which includes some lessons in drop shipping and working with a fulfillment center. If only I'd had those lessons before my fulfillment center went out of business. Well, enough about me. Side Hustle School is about you.
And today's story features a woman who sells hair grips, earning not only fringe benefits, but also $4,000 a month. That story is coming right up after this quick shout out to our sponsor. [Music]
Today's story comes from S.T. Brick in New Jersey. She works as an administrative assistant for Yeshiva University Stern College for Women.
And she's a busy mother of two. That's not all she does. Her Side Hustle is selling a product called the Hair Grip, a $20 velour band that goes underneath wigs and scarves to prevent them from falling back. S.T. started her Side Hustle after she first got married.
In some parts of Jewish culture, it's customary for married women to cover their hair. And S.T. was looking for options to help keep her wig and scarves on throughout the day rather than falling off. When she discovered that a velour band would do the trick, she thought maybe other people could use her solution too. So she decided to make her own.
The logo was created by a friend who was a designer and the packaging was created by a manufacturer they found in China. Once the design and creation was done, S.T. and her husband placed an order and started selling them. At first, they started the business to help keep wigs on women's heads, especially women in the Orthodox Jewish community. But the band isn't just for that population.
It also works well for people suffering from conditions that cause baldness, people undergoing chemotherapy, or just anyone with a penchant for wigs and scarves. In addition to Orthodox Jewish women, it turns out they also had a market selling to drag queens and to Broadway performers. They created this side hustle to have another income, but S.T. says the responses from people who say the product has helped them is what keeps them going. With a four-year-old and a one-year-old at home, juggling work and her children is time-consuming.
So S.T. tries to make her side hustle as passive as possible. That's where the dropshipping comes in. Dropshipping is basically a process of using a warehouse that stores your products and then sends out inventory whenever you receive an order. So in the case of S.T. and the hair grip,
it's delivered by boat from China to New Jersey. S.T.'s husband then hires a truck to move the product to the warehouse in Brooklyn where the dropship company is located. And once they receive it, the items are logged into a database so that both the dropship company and S.T. can see how much inventory they have on hand at any time. Having a dropship company house their inventory and manage their shipments means they don't have to buy boxes for delivery or pay rent for a storage facility, or most important of all, deal with shipping out products on a daily basis.
So that's pretty awesome, but still, even though it has those benefits, S.T. says the worst part of her side hustle experience thus far has been managing that dropship company and making sure they're giving her the best shipping prices. S.T. says if you want to do this yourself, it's crucial to find a dropship company you trust. She suggests you look for one that you can drive to so that you can stop by the facility to make sure everything's running smoothly and done properly.
And there were some challenges along the way. One time, the database that the dropshipper maintained said that they had 1,500 pieces left in a tan color, but they actually only had 77. As a result of that mistake, they soon had more than 1,000 tan hair grips back ordered. Because the product is coming from China by boat, they can't just go out and get more in the next week. And as a result of that challenge, S.T. learned to keep on top of her own inventory separately
instead of relying on the partner's dashboard. She also has a stamps.com account for international shipments because she feels like the partner overcharges for those. But if she gets busy or is just unable to fill those international orders, she'll pay for convenience and let the dropship company mail them. Oh, and one more tip, when you're doing this, she also recommends placing an order yourself. That way you'll know for sure how your product is being packaged.
Now, as you might guess, this is not just a little hobby. Even with the day job and the two young kids at home, S.T. has built this out to a very successful side hustle. The hair grip is now making an average of $4,000 a month in profits, and in addition to selling direct to consumers, they also sell to retail stores, and they also have distributors in Brazil, New Zealand, and Australia who buy at a discounted rate and then wholesale to their own stores. In short, it's a hair-raising adventure, and she's gone on to serve far more people than she first imagined.
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Some lessons in dropshipping for you today. Like I said, I wish I had known this or at least been more diligent back when I had a fulfillment center. And also, if you're trying to figure out what product do I make, well, this story is a great example that something that is just very simple and helpful and useful that meets a need can actually do really well. A lot of people I hear from are always trying to find the next big idea or something that's never been imagined before. And if you can do that, that's great, but if not, maybe you should think about things like a hair grip that ends up serving not only the first community that SD thought about, the Orthodox Jewish women community, but also a number of other people as well.
Helpfulness and usefulness are probably the top criteria you should consider. If you're thinking about offering something for sale or making something new, make sure you have a pretty clear answer to the question of how is this gonna help people? How is this gonna make someone's life better? And in this story, even though the product itself might not sound that exciting, like you heard, it's very successful, it probably doesn't have a ton of competition, and it also seems pretty sustainable. Like I don't think someone can easily come along and take this away from her.
Presumably that very significant second income is gonna continue month after month, hopefully year after year. And if for some reason it ever ends, well, first of all, that was a lot of money coming in over time. And second, she's learned so much through this process that it would probably be even easier to start the next project, which for a lot of side hustlers is what it's all about. You do one thing for a while, and then when it stops working or you just have a different interest, you pursue something else. Well, I hope you enjoyed this story.
We'll be back with you in tomorrow's episode with another one. If you'd like to learn more about the hair grip or dropshipping in general, just come check out the show notes at sidehustleschool.com/268. If you've got a comment or question for the show, give me a call on the Hustle Hotline 844-9-Hustle or 844-948-7853. Thank you for listening. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
