This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hello, hello, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. This is your host, Chris Guillebeau. It is 25 days until "The Money Tree" is released to the world. Today is our 25 day countdown.
My new book is all about finding the fortune in your own backyard, and I'm excited to share this journey with you. Or of course, if you're listening later, it might be sooner than 25 days, or perhaps the book is already out. Whatever the case may be, welcome to Throwback Thursday/Where Are They Now. This is our weekly segment where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved considerably since we first featured them. So far on these features, we have had a Denver woman who leads food tours for up to 700 people a month, among many others.
And last week in particular, a designer in Australia who sketches and sells illustrations of houses. This is now her full-time hustle since we first featured her. She's gone all in, so you can hear that update there. In last week's episode, that would be what episode 1160 it looks like. Okay, so today in our latest feature, we'll hear from the founder of Z Bears, Z Bears, which makes teddy bears for military families to help kids sleep at night.
One of my favorite stories, I actually told this story a lot on book tour, maybe a year or two ago. What has happened since? What is his greatest current challenge? And what is his advice to those who'd like to do something similar? This is Justin, so let's hear directly from him, and I'll be back at the end to wrap us up.
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Hey everyone, this is Justin Baum, founder and CEO of Z Bears. I was featured on episode 604, and our company's based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the USA. From 2005 to 2012, I was the lead writer of recruitment advertising for the United States Marine Corps. And every time I'd go to a Marine base to film a commercial, I'd bring my then five-year-old daughter home a small gift like a T-shirt or a key chain. And at the time, she was having a hard time sleeping.
The usual kid stuff, afraid of the dark, bad dreams, monsters under the bed. So I bought her a teddy bear from the Marine base, and I told her a story. I said, "This is Sergeant Sleep Tight, and for 200 years, he's defended our nation, and now he's gonna protect you while you sleep." And she asked me, "Well, what if he falls asleep?" I said, "He's a Marine." He would never fail his mission. And that night, we put the bear on duty outside of her door, and she slept like a bear in hibernation. And the idea for Z Bears was born, because I knew if it helped my own daughter, it could help thousands of more children who were having the same nighttime fears as she did.
So a lot of exciting things that happened since we were last featured, one of which is that we won the FedEx Small Business Grant, which had a ton of benefits. Not least of which was a nice influx of cash, which we used to create a storybook to accompany the bear. So we always had a military grade sleep system, a door hang, a sticker, a sleep tight oath. But now we have this full-color storybook, which really is a nice compliment to the bear. So I wrote the book myself, I hired an illustrator, and then we had the first run of books done at my local FedEx office at no cost, thanks to the contest.
So that's been a really big hit for us. The biggest challenge we're currently facing, believe it or not, is the coronavirus. Not personally, thankfully, but many of the factories we rely on overseas are either closed or not running at capacity right now. So we have a product that's been waiting to ship, but it's been in a holding pattern. And in the meantime, we're out of stock and several products, which is obviously affecting our ability to serve our current customers and potential customers as well.
Being an entrepreneur continues to be a series of ups and downs, and you really have to work hard, be consistent, be focused, and enjoy it, or else I don't think you'll make it. So that's where we are. [Music]
Awesome, thank you so much, Justin. As I may have mentioned in the intro, I told this story or the story of Z Bears on one of my tours. It was always a crowd favorite.
I got some really cool images of these bears, kids hanging out with the bears, et cetera. So I'm glad to know he's going strong, even in the midst of challenges such as the coronavirus. Wow, the struggle is real. Now, one of the interesting things from his original case study was when he first got his bears into Target. And naturally, he was thrilled about that.
I thought it was going to be his big break. Target made a big order, distributed the bears throughout the country, and it actually ended up being fairly disappointing. But through that process, he learned to focus more on boutique stores where personal relationships tend to be more of a factor on both the distribution side, as well as the store to consumer side. So lots of lessons there. You can listen to the original case study if you're interested.
And I believe we also featured Justin in the "100 Side Hustles" book. So I'm grateful to him for helping us out with all that stuff. We'll be doing these new segments throughout 2020. Let me know what you think and who you'd like to see featured from our archives of more than 1,000 stories. [Music]
I'm gonna give a shout out today to Castbox.
Castbox is the best free podcast app with over 95 million volumes of content, which is pretty much every episode of "Sidle School," and probably some other shows as well. You can access Castbox on Android, Apple iPhone, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, CarPlay, pretty much whatever your device, they provide an easy to use interface that you can use to access, download, and listen. So check it out today. Again, it's called Castbox. 2020 is our year of interaction.
If you have a question, if you'd like to update us about your side hustle, if you'd like a free shipping container of Z Bears, which does not contain the coronavirus, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We've got at least two of those three things. Today's notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1167. Thank you so much for listening. Much more is coming up.
This is Chris Guillebeau, your host for "Sidle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
