Party Lover Mixes Up Custom Confetti Business

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

[Music]

One of the major changes that my generation experienced, by my generation, I mean Generation X, broadly speaking, is the shift from a single career to one that typically includes a lot of career changes. Now, again, when I say my generation, it's not like people haven't experienced this before, but I do think this was kind of the generation in which it became very common. And these days, it's not unusual at all for people to do a lot of different things, not only over the course of a whole career, but also in just a few years. And sometimes they do several of these things, like a job, a business, a freelance commitment, something else, all at once. And that's why side hustles are so popular, I think.

It's one of the reasons, at least. What was once unusual, or even viewed with a certain amount of condescension, like why would you wanna do that? You have a job. Why do you wanna have a business in addition to your job? Is now recognized as normal or mainstream, maybe even essential.

So when we think about these kinds of changes, transitions, people going back and forth, sometimes, as you hear in different stories, people start their hustle and then they quit their job. Sometimes they lose their job and they're forced into doing something for themselves, which later they often say, I'm so glad that happened because otherwise I never would have done it. And other times, like the story you'll hear about today, they go back and forth. And in this story in particular, a party lover starts her own side gig selling custom confetti mixes. It becomes a big success for a while, earning up to $70,000 in one year.

But then as you'll hear, she gets burned out. She goes back to work. Now she's taking a look at the whole equation, trying to figure out what's best for her. So she's hoping to rekindle her love of confetti and entrepreneurship while finding the balance of what she calls all the things. I know this is representative of the kinds of challenges that a lot of our listeners are going through in trying to figure out how do I balance this?

How do I do this? How do I have my side hustle in addition to my job, et cetera? So I hope you'll take something away from it today. It's called Party Lover Starts Online Confetti Business. And it's coming right up.

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Many creators talk about their muse as a source of inspiration that comes from an unknown place. It guides their minds almost automatically, telling them where to go and what to do to create their masterpiece. Jessica Highzinga's muse must be a party animal because one day it told her to start a custom made confetti business. Totally normal, right? When Jessica woke up with the idea, she took it straight to her husband.

And to his credit, he agreed to come along for the ride. He wasn't about to be a downer when his wife was so enthusiastic. Jessica was working full time in marketing, but moved quickly. Within a few months, she had figured out how to make her own inventory and how to website up and running. She called it the confetti bar.

The party was about to get started and all in a budget of just a few thousand dollars. It didn't take long for her to find customers. In fact, within a few weeks, she had her first cause for celebration and an order for a custom batch. She puts this quick win down to a very specific product well marketed. That coupled with a website that defined the product well and sold it as a fun alternative to standard confetti, did the trick.

Now let's talk about this product. You see, Jessica's confetti wasn't the typical colored pieces of white paper and rice. She thinks that's so boring and bland. Her idea was to create bespoke batches of confetti specific to the client's needs. That meant custom colors, shapes, sizes and materials.

For example, a batch might include paper colors, sequins, flower petals and herbs. If people wanted blue and yellow, she would do that. If they wanted specific letters of their initials for a wedding, she could do that too. She would take a customer's ideas and then whip up a beautiful concoction of custom confetti goodness. It was usually finished with a laser cutter, but for particularly involved pieces, she did it by hand.

This was a novel concept and it worked. Within six months of launching the site, Jessica was partying hard and was earning enough to quit her full-time job and go all in. Remarkable accomplishment for her first site hustle. Over the next few years, the confetti bar went from strength to strength. Revenue was raining down on Jessica with each and every order.

She attracted the attention of some big brands that found her online, including McDonald's, Twitter, LinkedIn and Dr. Pepper, who all commissioned her to create custom confetti for their events. Some of these companies placed large orders, all the way up to $14,000 for one event. Although that amount wasn't typical, a big order like that could fund her operation for several months. She kept on this way for five years, all the way into 2018.

And for most of that time, she was having a ball. Each customer was a cause for celebration and she felt like she was spreading happiness, one little piece of biodegradable paper at a time. Now, so far, you might think this journey of the confetti bar sounds like a Cinderella story. A first-time business owner pursues a novel idea, achieves success straight out of the gate and runs a successful business for five years. It's the kind of story you'd find in a book or maybe a podcast.

But the story of Cinderella has at least one tragic element and Jessica felt like it was approaching midnight and her beautiful business was about to turn into a pumpkin because somewhere along the way, the fun got away from her. The business became complicated and less fulfilling. What used to make her happy was bringing her no joy at all. And by early 2018, sales had slowed and Jessica felt burned out. She made the decision to return to full-time work, taking a position as chief marketing officer for an online picture framing company.

It was a hard choice after being out on her own for so long, but it was the right one. She knew that she still loved confetti, bringing happiness into people's lives with her creations, but something wasn't working and she needed space, time and money to figure out what that was. She made herself a promise to not lose focus and to not get too comfortable. She considers her new job a great opportunity to learn and grow, but ultimately she helps to return to the confetti bar full-time at some stage. That means treating it more like a side hustle, working nights and weekends to restructure her business plan and gaining clarity on how to grow it in a way that she'll continue to enjoy.

It seems like a wise path because as far as side hustles go, the confetti bar was a bonafide smash hit. At its peak, the business was making over $70,000 a year. And although sales slowed down quite a bit, they're now starting to ramp up again. Jessica doesn't know the timeline of the future, but she's excited to figure it out. She knows that confetti will always be a part of who she is and what she does.

Right now, she's just learning to balance the love of her art with the practicalities of owning a business and working full-time. Through it all, she's still the life of the party. [Music]

All right, got some advice from Jessica here for you. And also just briefly on this point of treating your business like a side hustle, I think this is so wise. I think it's so smart for people, even when you have a full-time business.

Like even if your side hustle grows to become your full-time business, just thinking about like a side hustle is gonna help you make better decisions. It's gonna help you make better decisions in terms of finances, just being frugal, being really mindful and intentional, help you make better decisions in terms of growth strategy, new products, and also in terms of just balancing it with the rest of your life, right? Because when it's a side hustle, you don't have the luxury of spending all week on it. You have to just make those limited hours count. So even if you eventually do go full-on, you're gonna be able to protect different parts of your life, your health, your wellness, your time with family and friends, hobbies, et cetera, if you have that same mindset.

So I always encourage everybody to keep as much of that as possible, no matter what happens in your business. All right, that's my advice. Now here's some from Jessica as well. She says, "At least for me, going back to work full-time was bittersweet. I knew it would give me the financial freedom I needed to refocus, but that also meant losing out on some time.

So it's sometimes easy to get comfortable and forget why you went back to work in the first place. My goal is to keep pushing through, even if I'm more tired in the beginning." So Jessica, thank you so much for letting us share your story. Thank you for being so transparent. A lot of our listeners, like I said, are in similar situations. We're just trying to figure out how to navigate this whole brave new world of all these different opportunities with the reality that sometimes things can get away from us.

And also burnout is a thing. And also, also, also, it's okay to do more than one thing or to make a change. And I always encourage our listeners and anyone really to be open to change and transition. So, listeners, I hope you enjoyed it. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better.

If you want to see the shout-outs and check out Jessica's awesome confetti bar, just come to sidehustleschool.com/873. That is episode 873. I'll be back again tomorrow. Much more is coming up. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

This is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.