This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, hello, what's up? Welcome my friends, listeners, community, everybody. What a month it's been. I mean, what can I say about this month? I don't even know where to start.
So that's why I focus here on the program with positive affirming stories of real people out there who are thinking differently and applying their skills to this new economy, like this new economy that we're all in one way or another. So keep that in mind, we're all in it together. And this is a throwback Thursday episode, a throwback Thursday slash where are they now, where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved a lot since we first featured them. This one is actually interesting. It's called returning to the workplace after quitting your job.
Okay, so we've got someone who had a part-time side hustle, went full-time and then made a different decision. And it wasn't because the business failed. That's what's interesting about it. So today in our latest feature, we will hear from Kirsten Legrecca, a former TV producer who left her job when her e-commerce side hustle selling monogram scarves began to take off. But as I alluded to, in this update, there's a twist.
So let's hear directly from her after the break. Here's a shout out to our sponsor. [Music]
I'm Kirsten Legrecca. I live in New York City. I was featured on episode 221.
And my side hustle is Rosa Gold, which is a multi-channel e-commerce business that sells personalized and monogrammed accessories. And the biggest item that we sold were monogrammed blanket scarves. The way that I started this business, it was really organic. I was working as a television producer in a role that wasn't as creative as I had hoped it would be. So I think in my spare time, I felt like getting creative.
So I started to make things with my hands and my natural habitat in creativity was always sewing and making apparel and clothing and accessories. That's what I had always done when I was like a kid for fun. So I started doing that again. I just needed to inject some more creativity into my life. And I created this monogrammed scarf for myself and I wore it and all of my friends were asking for one.
So I was like, maybe this is something that people want. And at the time Etsy was kind of on the newer side and it was only for handmade items. So I put this one style of scarf on Etsy. This was my first foray into e-commerce and it sold. Like I was selling stuff.
I wasn't selling a ton, but people were buying these monogrammed scarves for me. So it clued me into the fact that, oh, like people want this and it's something that, you know, they're willing to pay money for. And I was getting good reviews. So I was like, okay, great, they like it. And it kind of expanded from there in a way that I never intended to start a business.
I did it for creativity. I did it as kind of a hobby. Once I put everything on Etsy, e-commerce became very, really fascinating to me, how it works, how you can get ideas from customers, how you can try new things with like a very low fall on your face rate. Like you can try something out. If it doesn't work, you can change direction and it's like not that big of a deal.
So yeah, it was very not normal in the sense that I started with the thought of I want to start a business. I just wanted to be creative again. And then from that, from the business. And what I realized in that process was I really enjoyed thinking about other types of businesses, how to make them grow. And while that happened, the passion for my business or the joy that I was, that I used to get from my business, it just became really, I felt burnt out a little bit.
I was working a lot by myself. I felt a little bit isolated. So kind of all in that timeframe, I realized that I really now am fascinated by e-commerce and every day there's something new. There's a new way to get stuff that you need delivered right to your house and bought on the internet. So I sort of decided that using all of what I learned from starting my own business and running it for a few years, and then now helping other e-commerce business owners, I wanted to take all of that and land myself a role.
So go back to work, which is the antithesis of what many people start out when they start their side hustle to do. But I decided I wanted to go back into the workplace at a company I was really excited about working at with people that I was really excited to work with and to work on an e-commerce team where I felt like I was part of something and we were really growing it and exciting things were happening there. So that's what I did. I now work at a health and wellness startup in New York City. I love it.
It was for me the best decision. I just get to spend my days with the smartest people out there. I'm challenged every day. I get to work on a team again, and that is really fulfilling and rewarding to me to work collectively with other people to accomplish something. So my side hustle, Rosa Gold, is still operating.
Well, one of the challenges was when I was going to go back to work a nine to five, I knew I did not want to just shut down my side hustle. It has brought so much into my life that that would be a disservice to me for many reasons. I had made new friends through it. There were so many reasons why it was so great for me to keep that side hustle running. The biggest challenge right now is figuring out how to transition that business and continually come up with new ways to allow it to run on its own, but removing me from it a little bit like the day-to-day operations.
I still am involved, but I just needed to not be the one running the day-to-day. - Thank you so much, Kirsten. I really appreciate those updates. I know our listeners do as well. I always like hearing from people who find different approaches or creative approaches who are pursuing some kind of hybrid model.
We have a lot of listeners out there who are side hustling while they're working their day job. Then they go all in, or maybe they go halftime. Maybe they're focusing on parenting for a while, but then they're also trying to build an income source, maybe eventually go back to the workplace. Everybody's navigating these things differently. We're all on a journey, right?
So I think the key point is you have to find what works for you. You gotta find the thing that works for you at this time, at this season in your life, recognize that it might not be the same thing that other people are doing, recognize that it might not be the same thing you did last year. It might not be what you end up doing a year from now. And just having that flexibility, that adaptability really is a key to success, or at least a key to wellness. People often feel pressured to do things a certain way.
And one of my favorite things with this whole podcast, 1200 episodes and counting, is showing that there are a lot of ways. You don't have to live your life the way others expect, which is kind of my life mantra, what I've been teaching in different ways for 10 years, more than 10 years now at this point. So it's just so fun to highlight different examples. And thanks again to Kirsten for bringing us a new one. Okay, 2020 is our year of interaction.
If you have a question, if you'd like to update us about your side hustle, what kind of hybrid life are you finding? And oh, I guess I don't have a free monogram scarf to offer you, but you can come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Sorry, I said that really fast. sidehustleschool.com/questions. Lots of coffee today.
We'll be featuring them throughout the year, along with updates from other listeners as they launch their projects. Thanks so much. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
