This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Greetings and welcome. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host for Side Hustle School. Great to have you back for an all new week. Or if you've just joined recently, great to have you here for the first time. Every day on the show, I'm telling a story of someone who creates a little more freedom for themselves.
Not everyone wants to be a full-time entrepreneur, but most people want more freedom. Most people want more options and choices. And that's what a side hustle can bring you, but you have to know how to start the right one. And that's what I try to highlight on the show, not telling people to get part-time jobs, not telling people to participate in the gig economy, but actually create an asset for yourself. That's what it's all about.
I'm also on the road to meet listeners and readers of my brand new book, Side Hustle, from idea to income in 27 days. Today, I'm in Chicago, Illinois. This is actually my last stop for a week. I'm going home to Portland before visiting Canada next week. If you'd like to see where I'll be and sign up to come out and say hi, just go to sidehustleschool.com/tour.
I would love to have the chance to talk with you somewhere along the way. Now, we're going to start this week off strong with a fantastic story. This is one of my new favorites. It's about a corporate employee, a marketing manager, who makes $350,000 selling mosquito wristbands. That is $350,000 in a single year, in fact.
And in addition to that huge success, there are a lot of lessons in this story. He didn't know a lot about mosquitoes. He was just annoyed by them, like everyone is. He didn't know much about manufacturing a wristband. But as you'll see, he drew on some existing skills and some experience he'd acquired from his job to figure it out.
Sidehustleschool is all about figuring things out. I think you're going to like this one and I'll bring it to you after this quick thank you to our sponsor. [Music]
Matthew Konstaneki has always had a knack for knowing what would sell. A lot of that skill came as a result of his day job. As a marketing manager at a software company, his responsibilities involved seeking out small businesses that would benefit from having a better inventory system.
And in his previous job, Matt was responsible for sourcing medical supplies and equipment from China. These experiences gave him the exposure and knowledge he needed to understand the different aspects of running a business. All that would come in useful as Matt has always had some kind of side hustle, some successful and some not, but he was certain that he also had the necessary skill to launch something bigger. The only two questions he had to figure out were what to sell and how to sell it. In his extensive travels, he had found himself struggling to deal with mosquitoes, especially in the Caribbean and other humid places like Thailand.
With the airplane restrictions on aerosols, he found himself looking for a good anti-mosquito product that would be easy to travel with and still worked. After much research, he decided to create a mosquito bracelet that would release geranium oil, a substance that was proven to repel mosquitoes. Matt contacted potential suppliers through the online platform Alibaba and hunted for one that was willing and able to produce what he wanted. His idea was simply to create generic mosquito wristbands and then slap a brand name on it to differentiate the product from the rest. The name he chose was Invisiband.
Now, for a lot of people, this step might be intimidating, especially the prospect of dealing with unknown suppliers far away. But Matt understood this process. He knew he just had to add prospective suppliers on Skype, give them a call and choose the one with the best responsiveness and communication. He says most people overcomplicate this step or never make the calls in the first place, but there's no need to have any preexisting contacts. There are many suppliers who are eager to work with you and just talking to them on a simple phone call would give you a lot of information on how they do business.
Now, the second part of the equation for Matt was figuring out how he would move his products from supplier to consumer. Searching for a distribution company, he quickly stumbled on Fulfilled by Amazon, also known as FBA, a service provided by Amazon that helps anyone store, pack and ship their products. I've talked about this a few times on the show and I always get lots of emails about it. For a lot of people and a lot of side hustles, Fulfilled by Amazon can be great. The only challenge was the slight learning curve in the process of setting up since Amazon has strict rules about packaging and labeling.
For Matt, however, it was worth it because he could have his suppliers shipped directly to Amazon fulfillment centers and he would be totally hands off. He wouldn't have to manage the inventory himself. Now, all of this would have been for naught if Matt wasn't able to generate some kind of demand for his product. In fact, it would probably be a little crazy. Fortunately, Matt was aware of this and he listed Invisiband on Indiegogo before he even launched.
His hunch that Invisiband would sell was quickly validated as he raised more than $12,000. Being successful in crowdfunding can be an art of its own, but the gist of what Matt did was just hustle. He says that the most common mistake people make is simply listing their product and hoping for an audience to show up. Matt didn't do that. He got to work talking to everybody he knew and pitching journalists.
His strategy was to seek out journalists and writers who have covered similar products and then reach out to them with a special angle. For Matt, that angle was under promising and over delivering. Backers of Invisiband could expect to receive a batch of five bracelets within two weeks of making their pledge of just $19. He had committed to manufacture 2,000 wristbands before launching to ensure that they would be instantly ready to ship when backers placed their order. If you've ever made a pledge to something on Kickstarter only to wait a year or sometimes longer for the item to show up, you know that this kind of accelerated delivery schedule is rare.
Building on the strength of the Indiegogo campaign and all the research he had done about Fulfilled by Amazon, the product was a tremendous success. Invisiband grossed more than $600,000 in the first year and with profit margins over 50%, Matt actually made more than $350,000. Yet for such a huge profit, his startup costs were minimal. After that first order, he only scaled up production when demand for Invisiband was validated. His Fulfilled by Amazon account cost just $40 at the beginning.
As he began to sell more, those fees increased, but he was also making a lot of money. Now to be fair, there was something else that happened randomly that also helped him a lot. For better or worse, panic over the Zika virus brought a lot of attention to the need to avoid mosquitoes. Matt never marketed the product as a precaution to Zika because that would be against the US Food and Drug Administration guidelines. But still, people were definitely buying it as a response to that.
Demand has since fallen a bit, although Invisiband continues to make more than the typical month's salary. So to be clear, he's making more from the side hustle than he did in his full-time job. The worst experience was having a $10,000 shipment seized at the border because of documentation issues, which almost crippled the business at that point in time. He had to fly out and negotiate with border agents for them to release his goods. It turned out it wasn't that complicated once he actually showed up, but the experience was frightening.
In fact, the whole journey for Matt so far has been somewhat of an emotional roller coaster, but it was all worth it. From the moment he made his first sale, he knew he'd stick with it. In fact, his thought was, this works. One customer down, millions to go. He hasn't got to his millions yet, but he's doing pretty well.
For those who have thought about making and selling a product like him, Matt has some advice. First advice is what I talk about all the time on side hustle school. Think about a personal problem you have, then consider what product or service might solve that problem. If a product already exists, how can you make it better? And then once you have that idea, find a manufacturer on a platform like Alibaba and request samples.
Establish some credibility through crowdfunding, and then launch on Amazon, using that fulfilled by Amazon system. That's the same system that Matt used. Anyone can sign up for it. And while you're not guaranteed to make $350,000, it's wide open for experimentation. Since starting this project, true to the spirit of side hustling, Matt has since gone on to create two more brands in completely different industries.
He's now looking at consulting and helping other clients with product launches, and yes, he's still selling mosquito bracelets. He says you should focus on a single project at first, then shift as you go along to make sure you have continual success. [Music]
What do you do when mosquitoes attack? You call the SWAT team. Okay, and also I guess you call Invisiband.
So much we could say about this. Congratulations to Matt, first of all. I love how he took action on this. Found a way to take a little risk, but not too much. Use this fulfilled by Amazon system, which as I said, is accessible.
It does have a bit of a learning curve, but as you can see, the results can be worth it. And he also figured out how to hack Alibaba. I know a lot of people are intimidated by trying to find a manufacturer overseas. Well, that's also not simple, like there is a learning curve to that as well, but it's doable. Now I wanna read you something.
Matt's project was featured in Entrepreneur Magazine. I went to look up that article and there's a paragraph that stood out to me. This paragraph says, "This isn't the first mosquito-repelling wearable to raise money on Indiegogo. Last summer, the Kite mosquito patch, a two by two inch adhesive square, also launched a campaign on the platform. That product was an absolute hit, blowing past its initial funding goal of $75,000 in a mere four days." Now, what does that suggest to you?
The reason I wanted to highlight that is because people often ask me, this is one of my most frequently asked questions. I've answered this a few times on the show, but people keep asking me, what if somebody else is already doing what you're thinking of? Well, here's a great example. On the same platform, just the previous summer, somebody else had done almost exactly what Matt was doing. It was a little bit different.
It was an adhesive square, not a bracelet, but still an attempt at a solution for the same problem. Instead of being scared off by this, instead of thinking like, oh, too bad, I can't do this, got to choose something else, that success is validation. That success is showing like, hey, people are interested in this. If I create the right product, if I think about the right brand name, if I get some details right, there very well might be more demand for this. So just to restate, just because somebody else has created something similar to your idea does not mean you shouldn't proceed.
It very well may be a good sign. Well, as I said, I love this story. There's so much we could take from it, and I hope you will take something from it. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes, including links to everything I discussed, filled by Amazon, Alibaba, Matt's project, are at sidehustleschool.com/282.
I'll be back tomorrow. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
