Skincare Woes Lead Moody Sisters to Picky Products

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

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Welcome to Sidusville School. This is your host, Chris Guillebeau. So glad you're here. Hope you've been enjoying the year of interaction, where we are coming to the end of February. It's been so fun to get so many questions from people, hear updates, just kind of understand what people are working on, succeeding in, struggling in, you know, all the things.

So I feel grateful as always to be able to bring you the show every day. Now today we've got a story, a case study, when two sisters are unable to find the perfect skincare products for their needs. They embark on a DIY quest to test hundreds of recipes. The result is a $4,000 a month business and a growing community. At the end of the episode, we'll also look at the ideal qualities for a successful partnership.

It's called Skincare Woes Lead Moody Sisters to Picky Products. That story is coming right up. [Music]

Jess Acheson had resigned herself to a lifetime of skin oiliness, acne, and rosacea. With the exorbitant prices of skincare products on the market, she decided she might be better off living as a hermit. Her sister Whitney had another problem.

Despite being a beauty consultant, Whitney was unable to find products that wouldn't flare up her eczema or cause a severe allergic reaction with her dry and sensitive skin. This was a problem that even doctors couldn't make go away. Exhausted after spending hundreds of dollars on consultations and commercial products, the two sisters decided that they'd had enough. They came together and started researching alternatives. They experimented with hundreds of DIY recipes, some they found online and some they invented.

Then they would tweak and enhance their creations, increasing or decreasing the amount of the active ingredients. This went on for months as they balanced their project with full-time jobs and families. Before long, they had quite a stash of reject lotions. Still, they knew this was part of the learning curve, so they persevered through the mishaps. Eventually, the sisters created blends they were satisfied with.

Whitney remembers that the first products they successfully made included a thick cream for her dry skin and her daughter's eczema, along with a deodorant and face wash that wouldn't cause an allergic reaction. As they continued the experiments, they toyed with the idea of selling them. Might there be people just like them somewhere out there? Six months later, Whitney and Jess decided to launch an Etsy shop. They named it Moody Sisters to reflect the duo's attitudes toward mainstream commercial skincare products.

Within minutes of launching their store, they got their first sale. Now, this wasn't completely a fluke because growing up, the two sisters had spent their time in the world of handmade products, accompanying their parents to weekend fairs to sell pottery. This gave them the real-world experience that no marketing or sales workshop could. They made sure that photos of their creams and lotions looked uniform, appealing, and professional. They tried to mimic a level of authority, what they called "I know what I'm doing," even when they didn't.

In many ways, this is the approach that they have taken ever since. Whether you call it empathy or a trial and error, Whitney and Jess would go with their gut feel and then adjust based on the results they were seeing. There wasn't a strategy business plan or market testing, and their first products were priced by asking what they themselves would pay for it. They also tried all sorts of methods of advertising, blogging, hosting online parties, offering referral coupons, you name it, and they probably tried it. They eventually found their main winner with Facebook groups, which allowed them to stand out by engaging on a personal level with customers.

They even started crowdsourcing new products through a unique membership that allowed their customers to test new ideas and vote on the ones they wanted to see sold. The business group and the two sisters eventually reached a point where they faced a big decision. The little basement they worked out of could no longer hold all the product they were making, and they were both tired of their day jobs. So they quit those jobs, rented out a friend's basement, and hunkered down on the business. With slow, yet steady progress, it grew to the point where it was bringing in more than $4,000 of profit each month.

Looking back, the two sisters say the reason they've been able to build a business is that they have the right partner. They have split the work according to their own personalities. The organized and detailed Jess handles inventory and customer service, while the sporadic and energetic Whitney handles product development and marketing. This team spirit has enabled them to weather the ups and downs, from solving their own skincare woes to developing products for customers. On some days, the sisters are so moody, but they no longer have to put up with poor skincare products, and they have a new way of making a living.

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Congratulations to Jess and Whitney, the moody sisters. And I wanna say just by way of analysis here that partnerships aren't for everyone. We talk about this from time to time, and in fact, they aren't for most people. And this one works not merely because they're sisters, but because A, they have a similar level of interest and investment, and B, they have complementary yet different skill sets. So when I say level of interest and investment, I don't just mean financial investment, I mean like this is how much they are emotionally invested in the project.

Like they both equally want to see it succeed, which is a key component of a good partnership. And those complementary yet different skill sets allow them to each focus on what they're good at, but also kind of owning their own portfolio, while at the same time working together for the betterment of the whole project. So with that in mind, here is some advice from Whitney, one of the two sisters. She says, "Try to have a clear idea of the big picture, what you want from your business, what you want your products to look like, how you're gonna make it work. Hand, then be prepared to throw it all out the window and start again." She also said that before this project, before the Moody sisters, she dabbled in her own wedding planning business, and that one didn't work out, it failed.

And she says, "I think it was because I needed a partner to keep me motivated and grounded." So that's how they made it work. Again, thank you so much, Moody sisters. We're gonna link that up in the show notes page for people to check out. That page is sidehustleschool.com/1151, 1-1-5-1. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better.

If you've got a comment or question for the show, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Thank you so much. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the Onward Project.