What It's About
A mechanical engineer trims the fat... and uses it to create skincare products.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
For anyone wanting to launch a similar side hustle or create a product from scratch, Cassy recommends starting small, keeping your day job so you have a steady income to support you, and to test products in your circle first before going to mass market.
Fun Fact
Tallow from grass-fed cows has a ton of natural, nourishing benefits. For centuries, humans used tallow in skin moisturizers and healing balms because it contains an abundance of natural, fat-soluble activators like vitamins A, D, E, and K. All of which are necessary for general health and skin health.
Notes from Chris
Episode 878
For years, Cassy Burnvoth has been on a mission to eat a clean diet, and after completing her first Whole30 (shoutout to Melissa Urban), she began paying closer attention to the ingredients she put in and on her body. She took inventory of her skincare products and noticed that many were filled with chemicals and ingredients that were not aligned with her values. Eager to find more natural options, Cassy expanded her mission to find products that fed her skin with healthy ingredients just like the ones she was feeding her body. As part of her research, she looked to the past for fundamentals of early beauty remedies like using pressed plant oils and animal fats. This is where she came across something called tallow. If you never heard of tallow, it’s derived from the fat of grass-fed cows, mutton, and bison. It contains a lot of natural, nourishing benefits as well as abundant natural activators like vitamins A, D, E, and K, which are all necessary for skin health. For centuries, humans used tallow in moisturizers and healing balms, but somehow the skin treatment routine of the paleolithic caveman had been lost to history. The more Cassie learned of this fatty wonder-ingredient, the more convinced she was that this was the missing mammoth from her skincare products. Excited about this new discovery, she started searching for products that fit her criteria, but to her dismay, she couldn’t find anything. Rather than settling for something else on the market, Cassy decided to use her skills in Mechanical Engineering to engineer the perfect skincare products. After much preparation, she was ready to launch her skincare product line FATCO to the world. She created an e-commerce website on SquareSpace, and started selling. Proving her family wrong, people and cows were jumping over the moon for Cassy’s products. Within the first nine months of launching she had managed to scrape in nearly $200,000 in revenue. Cassy quit her job as a Manufacturing Engineer in the automotive industry to focus on her growing hustle. For Cassy, she saw an opportunity to create something that wasn’t on the market and bring it to life. Thanks to its grass-fed, organic principles, FATCO has grown fatter than she ever imagined. Later this year, you’ll be able to find FATCO stocked on shelves in Target, and you’ll also find Cassy taking on another new role of becoming a mom.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- FATCO: Head on over to Cassy's website to learn more about the history and benefits of tallow in skincare
- Squarespace: The website building platform that Cassy used to create her website
- Do the Thing podcast: While you're at it, check out Melissa Urban's new podcast. Fun fact, it's part of our imprint with Gretchen Rubin's The Onward Project!
SEE ALSO:
- Holiday Body Butters Become $1,000/Month Side Hustle: A teacher-turned-construction inspector aces his exams and creates a series of courses to help others entering the field
- Florist & Sculpture Professor Make Presidential Lip Balm: Adventures in creating homemade presents for friends and family lead a Beyoncé-obsessed duo to lip balm world domination. Bonus: learn Abraham Lincoln’s favorite dessert recipes
- Squeaky Clean Couple Raise the Bar with Online Soap Sales: A husband and wife clean up with a homemade soap side hustle that’s no lathering matter. It’s currently earning $50,000 a month!
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Resources
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