Notes from Chris

Episode 1380

Late one night in January of 2020, Erica Hackett and her ten-year-old daughter, Jada, couldn’t fall asleep. So instead, they decided to stay up and talk.

At one point, Jada said that she wanted to start a business. Erica asked her what kind, and Jada said that she wanted to make lip gloss.

It turns out that making lip gloss is harder than it seems, and it’s also incredibly messy. This was not the business of Jada’s sleepless dreams. But they’d bought a lot of supplies—so instead of wiping the slate clean, Erica started researching what else they could be used for.

Through her Googling, she learned that lip gloss and soap had a lot of common ingredients. Thus it was decided: they were going to make their own soap.

For the next five months, Erica and Jada worked to launch their new soap side hustle, called Dreamstar Cosmetics. After a couple of false starts with other online store platforms, they made a website on a platform called Big Commerce. Jada designed the logo and they hired an illustrator to bring it to life.

Once that was done, they applied the logo to the labels and website. Dreamstar launched in May 2020—that’s right, this is prime pandemic time. They received their first order within an hour of launching from one of Erica’s best friends. The next day, they received their very first request from a wholesaler.

Since launching in May, Erica and Jada have made $11,000 in revenue. It’s been hard to keep the items in stock since it’s just the two of them working from their kitchen. Not only that, but Erica has fallen into the slippery slope of working too much on her side hustle. She would work on Dreamstar late into the night after her day job and on the weekends. At first, she wanted to have her company be a household brand immediately, but eventually she realized that she needed to make herself take time away from both her day job and her side hustle.

Despite the struggles, Erica has loved the experience. One of her favorite parts is watching Jada’s entrepreneurial skills surface. Jada finds GIFs and writes captions for them. She picks out scents and colors for the new products.

Not only that, but Erica has loved learning that she can do more than just draw gas and electricity lines all day, which is what she does for her full-time job. With Dreamstar, she has been able to tap into her creativity again.

She would love to make it her full-time gig one day, and even open a brick-and-mortar shop.

 

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  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Check out Erica and Jada's full cosmetic lineup at the website, Dreamstar Cosmetics.

SEE ALSO:

• Squeaky Clean Couple Raise the Bar with Online Soap Sales: A husband and wife clean up with a homemade soap side hustle that’s no lathering matter. It’s currently earning $50,000 a month!
• Office Manager Cleans Up With Etsy Soap Store: A seasoned traveler takes a soap-making course while living in China. Years later, she proves that soap springs eternal by starting a sudsational Etsy store.
• Lather, Rinse, Recycle: Soapy Problem Leads to Clean Solution: An account manager solves the mystery of “What happens to soap after it’s used in a hotel room?”—and turns it into a sustainable side hustle.

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work! Yours in the revolution,

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