College Student Starts Million Dollar Design Biz

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

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Today's featured side hustler, one of our listeners in fact, says that if it wasn't for the design business she started in college, she might have had to drop out because she couldn't afford it otherwise. Well, this business is now her full-time work together with her husband and a number of employees. And it all started from selling stickers during her freshman year. Welcome to Side Hustle School, my name is Chris Guillebeau. How can designers stand out in a crowded field?

Or perhaps it could be some other crowded field. If you have a talent and you're like, "I know this is valuable, I know this can be useful "and helpful and hopefully profitable for me, "but there's a lot of other people out there "who have these kinds of skills." Well, what can you do? And the answer is usually, there are lots of variations, but the answer is usually by doing something different, unique or just better than everyone else. Not trying to be better about everything 'cause that's not gonna happen, but better about one thing. So how can you find out what that is?

Well, this story might give you an idea because among other things, I learned about bridesmaid proposal boxes. I'd never heard of that before and now I'm educated. If you have not heard about it, perhaps you will soon. All right, stay tuned. Here's a message from our sponsor and then College Student Starts Million Dollar Design Biz.

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Taylor Walden had just begun her freshman year of college. She had always been interested in all things artistic, from painting to photography to calligraphy, so she chose to major in interior design. For the holiday season, she used her skills in calligraphy to make meaningful homemade gifts for friends and family. Soon, the people around her took notice of what she was making. As more and more of them became interested in her art, Taylor decided to try opening an Etsy shop to sell art prints.

Unfortunately, there was a ton of competition on the site for products like that, so she didn't get many sales. But she thought if she could just tweak what she was making to create something a little more unique, she would get a lot more sales. So on Black Friday of 2016, Taylor woke up at 2 a.m. to buy a die cutting machine so she could make her own vinyl stickers designed with her own handwriting. Soon, her sales began to pick up, both in her Etsy shop and on campus.

To broaden her reach, Taylor mentioned the stickers in college Facebook groups. It would often meet her buyers in front of the student bookstore to give them their orders. Around campus, she quickly became known as the sticker girl. By the end of her freshman year, Taylor had over 500 Etsy sales. Since she had the summer off from school, she decided to expand her shop.

She had noticed a new trend of bridesmaid proposal boxes being sold on Etsy. And after reading the comments, she quickly noticed a lot of frustrated customers. The people selling these boxes never seemed to include everything they showed in their pictures. Plus, once the box arrived, the customers had to assemble it themselves. It didn't take long for Taylor to decide that she could solve this problem.

So she created her own bridesmaid proposal boxes. She included everything that was needed, put it together beautifully, and even offered to send the box directly to the bridesmaid to take out an extra step for the buyer. Since this trend was already popular, and since Taylor had already established herself on Etsy, the boxes ended up being hugely successful. By the end of the summer, Taylor had 2,000 Etsy sales and three local stores carrying her products. She realized she was onto something.

When she went back to school in the fall, she was ready to take her side hustle even more seriously. Soon after she returned, Taylor noticed a flyer on campus for a competition to win money for your business. The grand prize was a total of $12,500. Taylor replied, of course, and she made it through the first round of cuts. At the end of the year, she realized she'd made almost $60,000 in 2017, all while running everything out of her apartment as a college student.

The final round of the competition took place in February. It just so happened that the day before, another local competition was scheduled. Taylor figured it would be a great way to practice her pitch. As the award ceremony began, she heard them call third place and then second place. Not hearing her name, she thought, well, at least I got that practice in for tomorrow.

But then first place was announced and her name was called. She had won. She left $6,000 richer and even more prepared for the entrepreneurship school competition the next day. Again, Taylor took first place and in less than 24 hours had brought in $18,500 for her business, which she was now calling simple and sentimental. She used the money to hire her first employee and moved into a 500 square foot office space.

Gone were the days of overcrowding her apartment. From there, she expanded to selling engagement gifts, drinkware and Christmas ornaments in addition to the stickers and bridesmaid gifts. By the end of 2018, Taylor had brought in over $250,000 in revenue while still maintaining her full-time college course load. It was a lot to take on, but the hard work and dedication paid off. She paid for her college, her rent and her wedding to Nick who works with her in the business.

By the time she graduated, Taylor was ready to commit to her business full-time. In 2019, simple and sentimental brought in over $600,000. And in 2020, she expects to bring in over a million. The business now donates a portion of proceeds to a local nonprofit. And Taylor says she can't imagine doing anything else.

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Bridesmaid proposal boxes. That was a new one to me. And maybe you've been familiar with it before, but the point is Taylor now sells lots of other things, but that's how she won the competition because she was doing something unique, because she had leveled up. There were proposal boxes out there, but they had these flaws. Not everything was included.

The bride or somebody at least had to put things together when they arrived. Taylor obviated both of those concerns and then went even further by offering to send the proposal box directly to the bridesmaid, which of course saves another step. So another good lesson here is always take free money. You know, like, I don't think you need any money for your business. That's the whole point of side hustle school.

You can start where you are right now. But if there's a competition, you know, it's offering free money. You know, I often say like, if you see money lying under a rock somewhere, you don't have to think too hard about it. You can just take it, right? I often say, you know, if you see money lying under a rock somewhere, you know, you should pick it up.

So good for her. Definitely a big success there. We'll look forward to hearing what happens next. All right, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1312.

That is one, three, one, two. If you've got a comment or question for the show, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Thank you so much for listening. Be sure you're subscribed wherever you get your podcasts because a lot more is coming up. That's it for today.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.