The Paleo Bagel: No Wheat, No Worries

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

Introducing the Paleo Bagel, also known as the Pagel. And they said it couldn't be done. I'm not sure I would want to eat it, myself, among other concerns. You know, what about the cream cheese? But there is no doubt a market for it.

Welcome to Sadistle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. In today's story, a guy who works in sales for a steel company changes his life using the Paleo diet and then starts baking up a storm. In what might seem like a quicksotic quest for the flour-free bagel. However, he sticks with his quest, baking batch after batch until it becomes ready for prime-time caveman dining.

In his own words, "Once you go pagle, you'll never go bagel." How does it work? How did he make it happen? And how did he grow it into a six-figure business? Well, stay tuned for the story. Steve Friedman played the cross through college and transitioned into triathlons as he got older.

Good health was a lifestyle habit he maintained into middle age. While he was always in great shape, Steve says he also carried around a bit of excess weight here and there. Also, by the time he turned 50, he was experiencing some aches and pains. He put this down to getting old in a lifetime of hard work, and who could blame him? He was raising a family as well as working a full-time job in sales for a steel company.

That company was owned by his wife's family, but even though he was friendly with the bosses, it left him with little time and energy. Then, one day in 2012, he had a realization that totally blew him away, which was a funny coincidence considering it happened during a hurricane. This hurricane left him without power for days. Luckily, he still had his iPad and was able to access the internet. And while bunkered down in his house, doing some research on nutrition, he came across the paleo diet, which was, at the time, a hot new topic.

Paleo is often referred to as the primal or caveman diet. Simply put, you can only eat food that cavemen have access to. That means meat, fish, and vegetables are fair game, but grains, cereals, dairy, and processed foods are not. There were hundreds of stories online of people who had taken up paleo and were doing really well because of it. They had slimmed down, gained muscle mass, reduced inflammation and injury.

Steve saw similarities in his own life to the stories. So, when the hurricane died down, he committed to giving paleo a try. Within five weeks, he saw a noticeable change. He had trimmed down and developed washboard abs that would make any hunter-gatherer jealous. Best of all, he was feeling more energetic, and this enabled him to work out harder, upstaging those a decade or more younger than him at the gym.

Within a few weeks, Steve's wife and kids were also eating paleo, becoming a 100% paleo family. However, there were a few downsides, namely missing out on a lot of the snack foods they loved that weren't paleo-friendly. To rectify this, Steve became an amateur baker. He started making paleo treats for his family, then for friends, and eventually his buddies at the local CrossFit gym. His treats became popular enough that he started selling some on the site, making a few bucks profit here and there.

Enough to cover the gym membership and a few luxuries. Through trial and error, Steve managed to recreate most of his favorite snacks in paleo form. However, like hunting game on the African plains, one great catch eluded him. He missed eating a good, old-fashioned bagel. Bagels are a big no-no when it comes to paleo.

Their main ingredient is flour, which is made from wheat. But the hunt wasn't over, and Steve decided to track his delicious prey. He began looking for a good, paleo-friendly bagel, but the only options out there weren't very good. So he decided to give up foraging and start experimenting. Now the biggest problem with traditional bagels is that they use white flour, which is made from wheat, it's off-limits to paleo eaters.

So Steve knew he'd have to find a replacement. He was reminded of a recent family holiday where he was introduced to cassava flour, which comes from a root vegetable. Steve figured it could be the perfect substitute. So he began baking and baking and baking some more. He spent 18 months perfecting his bagel recipe.

It was a completely paleo bagel, boiled and baked in the traditional way, that used only five ingredients. He named it, of course, the pagle. The pagle emerged from the cave and saw white for the first time. When it didn't see dinosaurs, it was confused, but then it got over it. And Steve began selling the pagle at his CrossFit gym.

It was an instant hit. That gave him the courage to continue the hunt. Like a spear to a target, he took aim and through, taking a big risk. Now here's the big risk. It wasn't cheap to do this because he then set aside $35,000 of his family's savings.

And his goal was to turn the pagle into a real business, but not quit his job while he was doing that. So initially that money was spent on building a website, packaging, trademarking, a little bit of advertising, and with the remaining funds, he would work on growing the business. But he also didn't want to spend any more. So he turned to Instagram and began to explore the world of influencer marketing. He reached out to Instagrammers in the paleo space, ones that had a decent size following, and offered to exchange product for promotion.

In other words, you make a post, we'll send you some piggles. It proved easy enough because paleo was a growing trend. He was there at the right time. There was no shortage of people creating content on the topic. Potential buyers began to flock to his pagle website.

As time went on and order volumes grew, Steve couldn't bake out of his house anymore and eventually moved to a shared facility on Long Island. The only downside of that is that he had to get there at 5 a.m. and bake until 10 a.m. That was partly to avoid cross-contamination of any other products and keep his bagels certified paleo. In fact, that was one of Steve's big wins, the fact that his pagle could be lab tested and certified.

It goes a long way toward helping people trust the product. Since launching, around 70% of orders come in through his website, and about 40% of his customers keep coming back with repeat orders. So many have done so that in April of 2018, Steve left his full-time job and went all in with the pagle. Since then, he's added wholesale customers and become a low six-figure revenue company. Keeping up with production and demand has been the hardest part.

Steve does get help from time to time to bake the orders in the early hours of the morning, but most of the time, he's running all aspects of the business himself. So over the next six months, he hopes to get more efficient with production to increase volume and decrease costs. He also plans to run focus groups with existing customers and explore the possibility of launching additional products to increase income. Like the hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic era, Steve saw a great cytosol opportunity and went on a hunt to make it a reality. He successfully captured his prey right before boiling and baking it in a factory, just like the cavemen did.

Awesome. A lot of good stuff about how he put this together. First of all, that tagline, "Once you go pagle, you'll never go bagel." It's very memorable. And also, just the product name itself, "The Pagle." Like I myself am not in search of a grain-free bagel, but I think I will always remember "The Pagle." So great name, great branding. I took a look at his website as well, and I thought it was really well done.

He's got some great food photography, like really great images, high-res images of the bagels, which is so, so important. If you're selling a food product, like the images on your website have to be super clear, professional, really, really good. You have to make people look at that image and say, "Oh, I want to eat that. I want to try that." Also, 37% of his customers make repeat orders. I think they pretty much have to be.

I think when you're selling this kind of product, which is a relatively low cost, you have to make business on repeat customers. You have to have a really high percentage of people that order over and over. And he does a good job. He makes this easy on his website with a really obvious Subscribe and Save option, where you can customize your frequency, get discounts for ordering more often, and a referral bonus for recommending the Paygal to your friends. So well done.

It's a perfect case study of a great idea that's well executed. Oftentimes people have a really good idea, but then they can't execute. Other people are really good at operations, but they don't have that big idea that kind of sparks everything and provides momentum for moving forward. So the Paleo seems like a big success, and as I said, he's been able to go full-time with it, but only after it was a success, which is, of course, the side hustle away. All right, congratulations, Steve, and listeners.

Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes, including, of course, links to the Paygal, are at sidehustleschool.com/767. Come and check that out. If you got a comment or question for the show, give me a call. That Hustle hotline number is 8449HUSTLE or 8449487853.

Thank you so much for listening. You're a rock star. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. ♪♪♪