This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Hello and greetings. I'm Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. And as we begin today, I just want to make a quick note. Today's story may not be appropriate for young children.
I know we have some families listening to the show together, which is awesome. And if you're a parent of young children, I don't want to tell you how to raise your kids. But because you should make that decision, not me, you might want to listen to this one on your own. So kids, I'll see you tomorrow. And everyone else, now that I've got your attention, this reminds me, I gave a talk once, and I said something like, "The next slide contains nudity, just in case you're offended, you want to close your eyes." And all over the theater, it was like everybody woke up, like every eye is open, everyone's staring at the screen.
I was like, "Great." So now that I've got your attention, let's talk about how a chemical engineer created a themed series of sexual health products in a highly unique form of packaging. And you'll hear about that right after this. And now, our story. By day, Ann Moyer is a chemical engineer working as a systems manager for a Fortune 500 company. But her side hustle is called Novel Erotics, a collection of fun and sexy products for adult couples who want to try something new.
Novel Erotics consists of a kit that looks like a book and has a short sexy story on the inside cover, but then actually contains an assortment of products to complement the story. And these products range from a PG level to well beyond PG. So there's things like bubble bath, massage oil, candles, then of course reusable bondage tape, blindfolds, rope, some other things that you'll have to go to their website to read about, all combined in this kit, which differs depending on which novel you buy. And the kits themselves have different themes and ratings, going from that PG level for bachelorette parties, progressing to bondage 101, and then, and anything goes level. Because obviously, bondage is so basic these days.
The packaging for these kits is really unique, because as I said, it looks just like a regular book, albeit with titles like The Rendezvous and Indulgence, and it stores discreetly on a bookshelf or nightstand. Ann got the idea for Novel Erotics from her husband, who thought someone should do something as a response to the Fifty Shades of Grey Craz, which apparently is now back and darker than ever. He came up with some early drafts and registered for a trade show, which is when Ann got involved. And she got so involved that at some point her husband jokes that she did a hostile takeover of the company. She took his initial ideas, did a lot more research, and then used her procurement skills that she'd acquired as a systems manager to work with a number of suppliers in China and the US to make the project a reality.
Together, they came up with concepts and themes for each novel, putting together collections of existing products so they didn't have to manufacture each of the items themselves. To design the actual kit, they went to craft stores like Michaels and Hobby Lobby to get inspiration from book storage boxes. They played around with them, putting in sample contents, making prototypes to see what size of book was necessary, putting it on a bookshelf to see how it looked, and so on. To find suppliers, Ann used a website called Alibaba, which I'll link up for you in the notes. It's actually a great resource to find suppliers all over the world.
And again, she had a little background in purchasing, so she was able to vet Chinese suppliers carefully by evaluating advanced samples, and she picked her US suppliers from interviews after doing internet searches and phone calls. She also looked for advertised offerings that were similar to what she wanted, and in some cases with the US suppliers, she even conducted site visits to meet representatives and review the factory operations. Now, Ann was a very diligent engineer in this process. She also customized a box specification for the books, working with a graphic artist friend, and she would then send the files to the manufacturer who would do the custom printing. At first, she had her kits assembled in a packaging facility in New Orleans, but the cost was pretty high, so Ann decided to buy the equipment to put them together herself out of a storage locker.
She feels this gives the project better quality because she's able to check every box after it's packaged. Now, since beginning less than a year ago, Novel Erotics has had a lot of sales. In fact, they've sold around 1,500 kits for an average price of $49, and they expect that number to increase further once they bring on more distributors. This novel endeavor hasn't been without disappointments and challenges. The biggest disappointment actually came from one of her US suppliers, not one of the Chinese ones, and she was really excited about working with the supplier, but then they kind of dropped off the map, stopped returning phone calls, and never made a single delivery.
Ann says now that she should have vetted them with the same care and concern as she did the overseas suppliers. Another disappointment, she says, was her own mistake in buying too much inventory in advance. If she could do it over, she says, she wished she'd begun working on marketing a bit earlier. Also, when they first started, they were focused on selling directly to consumers online, and that didn't work as well as they'd hoped, since they're using the same keywords as some larger distributors. Apparently, Bondage is a big business.
They've had better luck marketing at trade shows where they connect with retailers and distributors. Going to these shows enables them to reach large distributors and retailers, get their products in the right sales channels, which increases brand recognition. And they also sell some of those PG-rated products on Amazon, and they're hoping to add the 50 shade style ones too. Apparently, this is possible, but it takes a while because of restrictions that Amazon places on sellers. So you have to go through a bit more of a process.
As I said, business is going well. They're adding distributors, trying to reach other markets. Most buyers are in the U.S., but there are some in Canada and France. And there's also a big market in Mexico where they've started selling directly to retailers. And as long as there's that evergreen need for reusable bondage tape, presumably Ann will continue providing it in her novel form of packaging.
All right, so what can we learn from the novel erotic story? Well, first up, I think it's important to be cautious about trend marketing. Whenever there's a trend or a craze in the culture, you can definitely make some money from it. There are some creative projects that spring up, but they need to spring up pretty quickly because most trends, by definition, don't last very long. I think this is an exception, though, because with 50 shades of gray, it is, as I said, more of a phenomenon.
If it's a trend, it's a very long-term one. And so one way or another, it will probably be in the culture for a while. And Ann has been pretty smart to capitalize on it in a way that's not totally derivative. So if you look at the website, there are some references to 50 shades, subtle and not so subtle. And obviously, I referred to it here, and I used it in the title.
But she hasn't really built the branding on that, which is why I think it's an interesting concept to have a kit like this that looks like a book on the outside. It really does sound like an original idea. And I also think that these kinds of things are great gift products. Some people buy them for other people, even if they wouldn't buy them themselves. For those bachelorette parties, for your adventurous friends, maybe under the Christmas tree, I don't know.
But when you're doing gift marketing, it's important to have great packaging. The packaging matters a lot because when people buy a gift for someone, they want it to look really good from the outside. And it seems like Ann thought a lot about that in all of her research and all the investments she made in creating the physical product. If you've been listening for a while, you've probably heard me say before that manufacturing is a challenge, especially compared to some other business models that we look at. All those suppliers, lots of things that can go wrong, lots of lead time.
So you should really only enter this kind of field if you're pretty sure you're willing to experiment for at least a few months, if not a year or longer. And there will also be some real investment costs. But as you can see, with the right idea and the right execution, you can create a real asset. Side hustle school listeners, whether your hustle falls in the category of PG rated, that middle ground of bondage, or the Anything Goes department, if you listen to these stories and you begin applying them to your own hustle, you will see results over time. Remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better.
If you want to find the show notes for today's episode, head to sidehustleschool.com/58. That's 5-8. I'll be curious to see if website traffic is significantly higher for this episode. Lots of people using their incognito windows. We'll find out.
Either way, I'll keep bringing you the stories. I'm Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. I'll see you tomorrow.
