This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome to a brand new week. What's up friends, listeners, community. So glad you're here. It is Memorial Day in the US, at least on the day this episode's coming out. I just want to say a shout out to everybody who has served in the military, as well as family members of those who have served and who often bear the burden and responsibility of that as well.
My thoughts are with you today. I know we have people from different countries in different backgrounds. You may observe these days and occasions at different points of the year. But regardless of the timing, I do want to honor those who have made those kinds of sacrifices. Long ago, my brother served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He actually was deployed to Iraq once in Afghanistan twice. So I am thinking of him today, just as I do on many other days as well. Now, in the side of the world, I have a crazy story for you today. This one's really good. I sometimes mention how in working on the show, I have the chance to learn all kinds of random topics.
I've become an expert. I'm not really an expert. I mean, it's all like surface knowledge, but the point is I've gained some surface knowledge and all kinds of things that I never even knew existed. Well, today I learned more about bats than I ever knew before. That would be the kind of bat that flies and like swoops.
The bat is in fact a mammal. I wasn't even sure about that until I worked on this. I had to look it up. But anyway, we're gonna talk about bats and there's a reason we're gonna talk about it. It's not just entirely random because what if you have a product where you need to educate your audience on why this product actually matters?
Like why it's important. Especially if it's something that people are kind of resistant to or like what that's kind of weird. I don't wanna know anything about that. Well, listen, these guys in the story I'm gonna tell you about, they sell bat houses and they've done an amazing job of building a profitable business. I think it's like four or $5,000 a month right now and growing while teaching people not only why bats are good for the environment, but also why you might wanna consider inviting them to your yard.
And then not only why you'd consider it, but why you'd want to pay for it, which is quite an accomplishment here. Personally, to be totally honest, I thought bats were kind of creepy until I worked on this. So I was wrong. Perhaps you out there as well, maybe you'll learn something about bats today or if nothing else, you'll learn about how you can reframe an offer to make it appealing because that is the point of Side Hustle School to teach through stories. And this is a good one.
We're calling it bat house hustle takes bite out of pesticides. Stay tuned. This story is coming right up. [Music]
The year was 2016 and the fear of the Zika virus was getting bad. Governments in Latin America were advising women to not get pregnant for two years.
The United States prepared for a pandemic as summer arrived and mosquitoes came out. And then came the sprays. Millions of gallons of pesticides spread all over the country to try to avoid the coming plague, which never really arrived. This massive uptick in pesticide use disturbed Chris Ranifors and Harrison Broadhurst, two friends in Lexington, Kentucky. Didn't people know that a single bat could eat a thousand mosquitoes per hour all without needing an ounce of chemicals?
Apparently people had no idea. And one day as the two friends walked around Walmart and noticed that there were dozens of bug sprays and not a single bat house for sale, they realized there was an opportunity to do something about it, potentially a profitable opportunity. They both had experience with woodworking and conservation. What if they could build bat houses, beautiful ones, and taught people how helpful and not dangerous having bats around could be? The idea seemed doable and important.
As I learned while researching this episode, bats need our help to adapt to the urban world and we need their help to keep mosquito populations down. But how would they do it? Well, Chris and Harrison immediately started building a community around their idea, which was given the genius name of Bat B&B. They registered Bat B&B accounts with Facebook and Instagram, then built a landing page to collect emails on their website. There wasn't any magic to this process, just regular disciplined involvement on the platforms.
And sure enough, people began visiting the website and putting in their emails. And then it was time to start building. Like what are these bat houses? How do they work? Well, Harrison had previously worked at an architecture firm.
So he asked if they could use that firm's workshop after hours to build their prototypes. And the firm gladly agreed. They started putting together those prototypes, combining bat research with existing bat house models. I learned that bat houses have existed for a while, but they really advanced the design. It took a few months to land on that ideal design, and then it was time to find a manufacturer.
Chris made 3D files of all their parts, which are mostly differently shaped wooden pieces, and a few small metal pieces, then sent those files to manufacturers around the country. They then sent back quotes on how much it would cost to produce the parts at various quantities. He shortlisted a few manufacturers with good rates, then began contacting lumber suppliers, facilities that could assemble the product, and fulfillment centers. Chris compared the whole process to completing a large puzzle. It's not extremely challenging.
It doesn't necessarily require special skills, but it does take a long time to work through all the details. And there's just no way to fast track it. Finally, they landed on a manufacturer that would also take care of assembly and fulfillment. It was more expensive to have it all under one roof, but overall far less stressful, since they'd only have to work with one partner instead of two or three. The issue was, if they didn't sell more than a few dozen units in the beginning, they wouldn't be able to meet the manufacturing minimums.
They'd have to build them all by hand, which would be exhausting and not sustainable. The campaign had to work enough to meet those minimums, or they were going to have to abandon Bat B&B once they'd fulfilled the initial orders. After six months of prototyping and nearly $10,000 invested, it was time to launch the Bat B&B Indiegogo campaign. Chris reached out to their email list, which now had nearly 2,000 people on it, and announced the launch in July. He also sent a press release to dozens of local publications and conservation websites.
The following week, the campaign went live. Chris and Harrison anxiously stared at the clock. Would people really buy a Bat House that cost $220? Were they gonna get stuck building a bunch by hand? Should they have invested in spider houses instead?
Thankfully, the fear didn't last long. After a few minutes of silence, the first commitment rolled in, then another and several more. Within days, Bat B&B had sold over $50,000 worth of Bat Houses. Well, that was two years ago. In the time since, Chris and Harrison have continually invested in the community they built, and that community has become their biggest driver of sales.
They're now preparing for an upcoming appearance on Shark Tank and are excited about their newly released, budget-friendly $95 Bat House. They're also making money with an average monthly profit of $4,000 to $5,000. They've also helped over 100,000 Bats find great homes and built a sustainable business that they're proud of. [Music]
All right, let's talk about the story a bit. If you have a product like this, then you have a big challenge.
Like, you gotta go out there and persuade the general population that Bats are actually good, despite all the stereotypes, you know, the vampire thing, the creepiness factor, beliefs about Bats attacking people, you know, and so on. So, definitely a big challenge in terms of educating your consumer, which is usually a difficult thing to do. Like, normally, all things considered, it's better to not choose something where you have to go out and educate people on why this is needed or why, you know, everything that you've thought about this thing before is wrong. The good news is you have very little competition. And that's what these guys thought when they walked through Walmart and saw like these, you know, shelf after shelf of pesticides or bug sprays or whatever, and, you know, not a single bat house, not a single resource that would actually encourage Bats to come to somebody's yard or area or territory and kind of take up home, therefore being able to eat the mosquitoes.
So you have to do like a whole reframing there. And I was curious how they actually did it because, you know, it's a hard thing to persuade people. I went to their website, they have an amazing video. Like, they did a great, great job with this video they use for their crowdfunding campaign. It includes, you know, bat experts, endorsements, you know, from bat influencers.
I mean, I don't know if they're really influencers, but, you know, people in the so-called bat community. It shows kids learning about bats. It shows all these different bat houses installed on the exterior of various houses. Kind of breaks down the objections. I actually really found myself like watching the whole video several minutes long and then sending it around to people after watching it.
I was like, "Hey, did you know this about bats? You know, it's actually kind of cool." I don't have a yard myself, so I can't go out and buy a bat house. But I definitely had some of my thinking reframed when I went and watched that video. So they kind of knew going into it exactly what they had to do in terms of challenging those assumptions and expectations. And that's what you have to do in this situation, but they did it.
So, you know, well done. $4,000 to $5,000 a month in profit, just getting going. Now they're trying to scale this business and bring bat houses, you know, all across North America. So go and check it out for sure. I'll be curious to see what happens next and what we can learn as they continue to grow.
If you would like to see that video or learn more about anything I mentioned in the episode, our show notes for today are at sidehustleschool.com/877. Thanks so much, my friends. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. I'll be back again tomorrow with another story. I hope you'll join me.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
