Tote Bag Titans! Teachers’ Custom Bag Shoulders $110,000 Profits

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

So I get really, really excited when I hear stories from our listeners who are taking action, applying the lessons that they learn, and then going out to make something happen for themselves. Because that is ultimately my goal with the show. Not just to entertain you with the amazing puns and wordplay, but to actually show you something that could make a seriously positive, practical difference in your life. So today's story illustrates that really, really well. I'm going to tell you about two teachers who started a project and made $110,000 in profit in their first year.

They did this in part by connecting with some social media influencers in their field. But key point, they did not know them beforehand or have any special connections. They also emphasized that they didn't have any business background before doing this. One of them teaches kindergarten and the other teaches high school math. So I really loved hearing about this.

It's got great branding, great story, and hopefully great inspiration perhaps for somebody else out there. In this story, the two teachers create a multitasking tote bag from scratch and build it into a six-figure business in six months. We're calling it tote bag titans. Teachers custom bag shoulders $110,000 profits. That story is coming up in just 30 seconds.

Stephanie Doherty and Allison Panio are high school friends who met on the softball field. They developed a close friendship that's endured many years. Now, they're both teachers in New York and Connecticut. Stephanie teaches high school math while Allison teaches kindergarten. Being teachers gave them summers off and they'd always wanted to start a side hustle together.

So they would hang out and hash out ideas. They thought of a few, but nothing ever panned out. Then at the beginning of 2017, they discovered, "What? What's this? This podcast?

Oh my gosh. They began drawing inspiration from the stories heard. They said those stories were encouraging because they were tales of busy people who put time into their projects when they could. It was inspiring to hear about a mom who would work at night when her kids were asleep or a dad who'd work early in the morning before anybody else woke up. That summer, they decided to go from idea to action.

They asked themselves, "What's something that all teachers struggle with and how could they solve it?" They knew from experience that most teachers carry multiple bags with them to school. You got your laptop bag, your lunch bag, your pocket book, and so on. They also knew what a drag it was to lug all those bags around all day. Stephanie and Allison were determined to find a solution. What if they designed a bag specifically with the modern teacher in mind?

Now, I know what some of our teachers out there are thinking, "Does this bag come with a better salary and a smaller classroom size as well as a reasonable amount of time to plan their lessons?" Well, no. It doesn't have that. However, it would have some other nifty features. This bag would have all sorts of pockets. Two outer side pockets to hold your liquid containers like coffee or water, a zippered front pocket to perfectly fit your cellphone.

Inside the bag would be a built-in insulated lunchbox. There'd be a middle zippered compartment to safely store your laptop, several smaller pockets for pens and wallets. It would even come equipped with a keyring. It also came with a name. That name was the teacher tote.

Stephanie and Allison set out on a quest to turn their vision into reality. They started by doing a lot of research related to dropshipping, Shopify, and Alibaba. Those are three topics or resources that we've talked about a fair amount on the show. I will, of course, link them up in the show notes. Working part-time, it took them about a year to put everything into place.

This is from July 2017 to July 2018. Startup costs were $14,000. They ordered 500 bags for their first run, and they had no idea how sales would go when they launched, but they ended up selling out within 10 days. By the end of the year, 2018, the teacher tote had profited $110,000. How did these two full-time teachers leverage their network and build a successful six-figure project?

A couple of things. They scoured Instagram for teacher accounts with thousands of followers. Pay attention to that teacher accounts with thousands of followers. I'm going to talk about it at the end. They sent sample totes to 15 influencers and politely asked them to try out their bag, and if they liked it, to post about it and tag them.

By now, they also had a slogan. Do totes need this bag? By the way, for our listeners who don't always like the wordplay, you can't complain about that one because that's their actual slogan. Many of the influencers they reached out to were impressed. Stephanie and Alison were quick to point out that these people they reached out to were not people they already knew.

Their advice, if you're trying to do something like this, is to search hashtags or look for people with the right keywords. After beginning with teachers as influencers, they moved outside the teaching niche when looking for customers. Recently, they've been targeting hashtags like women bagged, women in biz, women entrepreneurs and women style. Doing this has helped them break into other areas and widen their customer base. They're also quick to point out that neither of them has a business background.

They said don't be afraid to ask questions, and in fact, ask as many as you can. You'll find people who are willing to help if you just get out there. For example, they contacted Shopify numerous times to figure out how to code something into their website or how to work a certain feature. They spoke to their accountants about how to file their first quarterly tax return. Whenever they ran into trouble, they wouldn't get stuck.

They would do some research or they would ask. So what's next for the teacher tote while the business is expanding with orders increasing every day? They're now trying to figure out how to go from a small business of storing product in their parents garages, packing up the bags themselves to growing into a warehouse and outsourcing their delivery method with dropshipping. So I'll look forward to hearing what happens as they go. For now, the tote-tacular journey continues.

Okay, so first and foremost, amazing story. Congratulations, Stephanie and Allison. It's so wonderful to hear these stories and I'm so glad you took action. So well done. And like I said, I can't wait to hear what happens next.

So do keep me posted. Now I want to comment briefly on this concept of moving outside the teaching space to look for more customers. So in their case, they began by targeting teachers, influencers who were teachers using Instagram and then after they saw a lot of success with that, they began to branch out. So here's the thing for all of our listeners who have not seen $100,000 in profits in six months, which of course is incredible. I think it really is critical to start with the more specific group, just like they did.

That's kind of what I want you to take away from this episode. Who follows popular teacher accounts on Instagram or any other network? It's going to be other teachers for the most part, at least a lot of people who follow are going to be other teachers. I bet a lot of those people get pitched less than everyone who's in the second space, the all purpose women entrepreneur influencer. That's just like a really crowded space.

It's also really general. And I think it's kind of hard to break through there. So I think a big part of their success was really focusing on teachers from the beginning. And so my question to you would be listeners, what is your group like that? Who are your people like that?

And if you're not sure, slow down and think about it. And I really mean that. Like, did I say slow down? Well, yes, at least in this case, usually, I think it's good to just kind of plow ahead. But if you don't know who you're making your product or your service for, spend some time thinking about that.

Because I really think when you do, you're going to have much better results. Just like Stephanie and Alison did here in this story. So again, I'm so happy to hear these things. I feel inspired myself. And like I often say, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better.

So I hope that somebody out there is going to go take action today. Our show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/759 and come and check out, learn more about the teacher tote, as well as all the resources I mentioned, Shopify, Alibaba, et cetera. Much more is coming up, including another episode tomorrow. Do be sure you're subscribed. Thank you so much for listening.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.