Brooklyn Academic Learns To Upcycle Fine China

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

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Hey, hey, what's up? Chris Guillebeau here, your host of Side Hustle School, bringing you different stories. Case studies, examples, questions and answers, throwback episodes, classroom features, all kinds of stuff, tips, tidbits, anything else I can throw in there. All about starting a new income generating project, using a skill you already have, or adapting a skill perhaps, that's what we're gonna talk about today, and without spending a lot of money. Key critical point.

Now today's story is actually a listener success story, which I love hearing. Always very happy to hear about our listeners who have been listening to the podcast and decided to start a project. So today I'm gonna tell you about the Brooklyn Tea Cup. It's a project that started as a happy accident that came about while someone was running one night and listening to the podcast. Upon stumbling across a collection of fine china being thrown away, this out of work academic learns to upcycle similar items into tiered cake stands.

So you could say she is literally taking these antiques to the next level. You get it, like the next level with the cake stand? Okay, well, let's jump into the story. I've got a shout out to our sponsor, and then Brooklyn Academic learns to upcycle fine china. That story is coming to you in just 30 seconds.

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When Ariel Davis left her job at the City University of New York, she figured she'd take a month off while planning her next move. But it never quite happened. Instead, one month stretched to two, two to three, and eventually nine. She filled the time by working on research assignments that came about through her contacts at the university. But instead of inspiration, she felt anxiety.

Then one night she was out for a run in her Brooklyn neighborhood when she came across a huge collection of fine china on the sidewalk, just sitting out for the trash. Ariel, being one to hate throwing things away, couldn't let it go. She called her husband who promptly abandoned their street parking spot, a valuable piece of real estate in Brooklyn, to come and help her pack all of it up in the back of their car. Once home, they hauled every teacup, plate, and saucer up several flights of stairs and onto the dining room table of their one-bedroom apartment. There it sat for two weeks.

But then a side hustle idea was served up on a silver platter. Ariel's sister was soon to be married, and on her bridal registry was a dainty two-tiered cake stand with a sales price of $120. Ariel thought it would be easy enough to replicate and the perfect way to repurpose some of the china she'd gathered from the sidewalk. She watched a few YouTube videos and read online tutorials about tiered cake stands. She learned it could be made by drilling holes in the china and then sliding a stand through it.

After promptly purchasing some handles on Amazon, Ariel looked for someone to help her drill. But the latter step was harder than it seemed. She called around to no less than 10 local woodworking and industrial workshops, then realized that none of them were able, or willing, to drill the holes for her. It seemed she'd have to take matters into her own hands. She acquired drill bits in a drill press, costing around $350.

After a few false starts with practice materials, Ariel eventually figured out how to center the holes and make the ultimate fine china cake stand. One month later, and she perfected the technique. Soon after, she began sharing with friends and family what she'd been up to. Many of them were interested in repurposing their old china and family heirlooms in exactly the same way. It was always the same story.

They didn't want to throw them out, but they also didn't know what to do with them either. Ariel realized for the first time there could be a business idea. Again, served up right on a plate. It was here that she faced her next hurdle, shipping and logistics. Turns out moving fine china around the country wasn't an easy process.

Customers would have to ship her their china and she'd have to ship it back. Eventually she overcame this with mounds of padding, but she still wasn't sure what to charge. She pulled her friends on what they thought her repurposing service might be worth. She received a range of responses, which helped her eventually land on a price of $15 per tier plus parts. For pre-made options, where Ariel provided the china, she set the price at $120 per unit.

After serving up a few orders for family and friends, she thought it might be time to take things seriously. She built a website and registered the business as the Brooklyn Tea Cup. Around the same time, a friend referred her to a local cafe owner who offered Ariel her first order from outside her personal network. As luck would have it, a few months later the connection with the cafe led to a feature on MarthaStewart.com, which sent another flurry of orders. Then within two months, that article led to a feature in the Washington Post.

Even up till now, those articles still bring in a good amount of orders to the Brooklyn Tea Cup. Now of course she's got Seidler School as well, although we are no Martha Stewart, but we'll try. By now there were so many orders coming in that Ariel never went back to pursuing a different career, at least not yet. Today she's earning around $2,500 of profit each month from this fine China hustle. That's actually increased in the past few months as people in self-isolation perform cleanups, dusting off that old China and looking for ways to repurpose it.

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Well, congratulations to Brooklyn Tea Cup. What a fun story. I'm so glad that Ariel took action, right? Because lots of people might stumble across, you know, a bunch of China on the sidewalk and then not do anything with it. Or they might have a personal project with it, but she has persevered, persisted, and now is making this, you know, pretty substantial income from it.

It's interesting to hear as well that it has actually increased in the past few months as people in quarantine are decluttering and cleaning stuff up. So well done. We also asked her what has not worked well. I always like to know from people what's been challenging, what's been difficult, what did not perform according to expectations. And she said that early on she spent money with somebody who was supposed to help with SEO, an expert who really just gave her a plan based on generic keyword research.

So she learned her lesson, but it wasn't fun. Now she says she has a better way of vetting and just clearer expectations related to outcomes going into relationships with consultants or vendors. I hear about experiences like that, all the time. And I myself have spent money on different people and experts and consultants over the years. And I realized later that I probably wasted my money or maybe it was a little learning experience, let's say.

So you just have to be careful. But anyway, congratulations again. And listeners, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. This has been episode 1270. So you can see our show notes for today at sidehustleschool.com/1270, 1,200 and 70.

Thank you so much for listening. Much more is coming up. Be sure you're subscribed. Very grateful for you. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

- From the Onward Project.