Trio of Friends Creates Ergonomic Desk Accessory

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

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Friends, listeners, community, what's up? Welcome to a brand new week of Sato School. So glad you're here. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Now, if you're out there and you wanna start a product business from scratch, you've got a lot to think about and it can be overwhelming.

So what if you think, well, I can't do this because I don't have a lot of advantages. I don't have a big network. I can't go out and do a Kickstarter campaign and ask 1000 of my closest friends to all give $100. I can't get on Shark Tank or maybe I don't even wanna be on Shark Tank because why would I wanna take other people's money in exchange for their co-ownership? Well, let's say you're out there and you're like, I just wanna solve a simple problem with a very simple practical product.

Well, the whole point of what I do here every day for 1045 days and counting is to provide a model, to provide case studies, examples, stories of people just like you who also don't have a ton of advantages, but find a way to make something work, perhaps to inspire you, perhaps to give you a practical tip or perhaps to just kind of keep you motivated as you go along. So in this story, three former college roommates say goodbye to elbow pain by creating a new product designed to alleviate discomfort from working at a desk. There's a lot of people out there working at desks. This is a very simple practical product for them and they have built this project without debt and while working full-time jobs. It is of course profitable like every story we feature and I'll tell you all about it, all the good details and how they made it work, what it might mean for you perhaps after this message from our sponsor.

Stay tuned. [Music]

Great ideas are often born out of necessity. This was precisely what led Kyle Kunkel and his two former college roommates, Chris and Brandon, to create gel bows, ergonomic solution for desk workers. And it all started during a brainstorming meeting. The three friends would meet on a call once a week to throw out ideas for potential businesses they could start.

There was also a way to stay connected. Most of the ideas never stuck, but during one call in spring 2015, that changed because one of them had an idea worth looking into. Working in a call center, Kyle mentioned that his elbows hurt after leaning on his desk while making calls all day. To counter the discomfort, he brought in Dr. Scholl's heel inserts to put on the desk to lean on.

It worked, and he began to bring in more as gifts for colleagues. While at first the ideas seemed like a stretch, they realized it just might be crazy enough to have some merit. And again, the name would be gel bows, gel for your elbow. These ergonomic elbow and wrist pads would alleviate stress and tension on joints caused by making repeated phone calls, leaning on elbows, typing, and other desk activities. Kyle immediately went into product research and development mode.

He started by going to Alibaba, a well-known site that lists products from Asian manufacturers in hopes of finding suppliers who are producing items similar to their initial concept. After he had identified about a dozen, he sent out a request for quotation, known as an RFQ. He sent it out along with a questionnaire that asked about things like lead times, tooling costs, and if they had experience selling to both the US and through Amazon. After he received the quotes back, he requested an initial Skype call with each supplier so he could determine if there were gonna be any tech or communication barriers that would make the deal more time or resource intensive. Once they'd chosen a supplier and received samples, they handed them out to friends, coworkers, and family members to ask for input.

The feedback was helpful in learning that they needed to make some adjustments, so they kept making more samples. In total, they went through about 10 different versions with sizes, shapes, and chemical blends before deciding on the perfect solution. How much did all of this cost? Well, their initial investment was about $1,200 each, so not insignificant, but also reasonable, manageable, feasible. In addition to the production costs for different sizes and shapes, they also spent money on their website and photography.

They made that website, set up Shopify, and tried advertising on Instagram, which ended up not being as great of a return as they had hoped, live and learn. When it came time to decide on pricing, they looked at similar products on the market. They also took into account Amazon fees and logistics so that they might be able to scale in the future. Now, to be clear, this took a lot of work. During the first six months, they were each spending two to five hours a night after their full-time jobs working on gelbooks, but it was all for a good, comfortable cause.

Sales began during the 2015 holiday season, and they set some ambitious goals, including earning a million dollars in revenue and one day being able to sell the company to retire on a beach. Set your sights high, right? It's always good to dream big. Figuring out how to ship the orders proved to be one of the most time-consuming tasks, as they would receive large pallets of the product from their supplier and then pack them by hand to ship to buyers. And the more that they began to sell, they knew this way of shipping wasn't going to be sustainable.

That's when they learned to rely on Amazon to not only gain traction and make sales, but to handle shipping as well. Although Amazon takes a cut from those sales, handing off the behind-the-scenes work was crucial for gelbo's growth. Gelbo's, like gelbo's S apostrophe, or is it like S apostrophe S? I don't know, I wasn't given a style guide. To keep profits and expenses at a desirable level, they now collect inventory reports and send smaller pallets to Amazon to drop ship.

Here we are four years in with annual revenue over $100,000. Gelbo's operating on a 50 to 60% profit margin. They have no debt and are cash positive every month. They've also got close to 300 reviews on Amazon, and they offer options for two sizes and three colors. Last but not least, they are still at their day jobs.

Kyle is a senior manager at Dell working in procurement, while Chris is in medical sales. Their third business partner sold his interest in the company to focus on other work. The two remaining partners now spend time thinking about how to scale and reach their new goal to triple sales within the next year. Another future goal for Gelbo's is to ship internationally, 'cause they currently only sell within the US. While they've seen amazing growth since 2015, Kyle and Chris are firm believers in not getting too comfortable, no matter how comfortable their product may be.

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Great success story. I wanna go out and get myself some Gelbo's, because I work at a desk all the time. I don't make a lot of phone calls, 'cause I hate talking on the phone, but of course I'm always at my desk. So I probably need something like this, just like many of our listeners, just like many of the people in the world. So it is, as I said, a simple, practical solution to a common problem, which is what we look at over and over and over on the program.

Some of these things might sound kind of boring. You're like, well, I've got this sexy business selling elbow pads for desk workers. But again, practical, simple, helpful, useful, valuable. That last word is probably the most important, like all of these simple, practical solutions can be valuable, that's where the money is. That's where you're gonna be able to build your business.

And as you see in this story, just like so many others, they're able to do that without spending a lot of money, relatively small investment, especially to source your product from Asia, learn all about shipping, logistics, marketing, pricing, all that kind of stuff. So it's not easy, there's a lot of work to it, but there is a proven model. And that's what I wanna show you day after day. I'm gonna link up a few other stories on the show notes page of people who've done this kind of product business without going into debt, without quitting their jobs, et cetera, just like Kyle and Chris have done. So congratulations to them.

Be on the lookout for gel bows, everyone. And of course, inspiration is good, but action is better. The show notes page, including links to everything I mentioned is at www.sidehustleschool.com/1045. It's episode 1045. All right, I'll be back tomorrow.

I've got a whole bunch of stuff coming up this week, but I hope you'll join me for it. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.