This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Welcome friends, listeners, side hustle school community. My name is Chris Guillebeau. I have the privilege of bringing episodes to you every single day. We are looking at stories, case studies of real people out there who have found a way to create some freedom for themselves through the form of an income generating project. Now over the course of more than 1300 episodes, I myself have heard about all kinds of little businesses that I never would have stumbled upon otherwise.
And even though I had some experience, a fair amount of experience working with little businesses myself and connecting with accidental entrepreneurs all across North America and beyond, still I just continue to be surprised, especially in the first couple of years of the show. And then after a while, it wasn't like I stopped hearing about interesting ideas. It was more just that I was used to it at a certain point, used to hearing about interesting ideas I hadn't heard of before. Now today is Throwback Thursday, where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved considerably since we first featured them. In our latest feature, we're gonna hear from a physician who designs and manufactures plush toys in the shape of human organs.
So just get your mind around that for a second. Plush toys like stuffed animals, but they're made in the shape of human organs. And they're used to teach kids about the human body and also as get well soon gifts for hospital patients. Again, one of those unique businesses I never would have heard of without starting Side Hustle School, the plush toys are actually really cute. I wanna encourage you to check out the visuals if you get a chance.
The business is called Nerdbugs. So you can go to nerdbugs.com. And we first featured the founder back in episode 634. 6-3-4. So what's happened since, let's hear directly from her and I will be back at the end to wrap us up.
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My name is Ronik Mehta. I'm from Madison, Wisconsin in the US. And the name of my side hustle is Nerdbugs. And the episode that I was featured on was episode 634. Nerdbugs is my passion project that I created.
I create these obnoxiously adorable plush organs that are in the shape of different human body parts that are used as get well gifts and as an educational tool to teach kids and adults about the human body and medical illnesses. When I tell people that it's a plush organ, they're like, you know, you kind of get that reaction. But once they see it, they're super bright and colorful and adorable. And I think people get it when they see it, when they hear about it. It's just kind of hard to conceptualize it.
I got started with Nerdbugs when actually I was in medical school. My main hustle is that I'm a primary care physician and that's what I do day to day. And when I was still in medical school, I had this children's book that I had written. It was kind of this fun, cute, like Dr. Seuss type children's writing book about the human body.
And I thought it would be really amazing to be able to take the characters or the organs from the book and create them into something that was tangible, like a plush toy that people could use. At that time, I thought it would be neat that it could be used in the hospital or in the clinic setting, whether they were undergoing any sort of illness or surgery or recovery. I thought it would be a really neat way to brighten up someone's day. Since I was last on this show, I was on this show pretty early on when I created Nerdbugs. And since then, it has just sort of taken off.
It's been really amazing. I actually was featured in 2020 as one of Amazon's finalists for Women's Own Small Business of the Year, which was really neat. And because of that, that ended up resulting in me being featured in like ABC, NBC, CBS, the Wisconsin State Journal, and a variety of podcasts and publications, which was really awesome and really unexpected. And if you'd asked me like a year or two ago if I ever thought any of this would happen, absolutely not. And it's just been like really incredible to see this idea take a life of its own and people get it and understand it and they enjoy it.
And it's been really humbling. One thing that I would say is, if you're remotely thinking about working on a passion project or idea, I think you should just go ahead and do it. And it sounds so easy, but that's because getting started with 10 to 15 minutes every day is not impossible to do. That's exactly what I did. I would allocate about 10 to 15 minutes, seven days a week, no matter what, without fail.
And sometimes that time is just spent on researching, but it gets you one step closer to the next step and the next step. So I think that's critically important. One of the most amazing and heartwarming things has been to see the stories of the people that have purchased the items. A lot of them will either send me an email or tag me on Instagram or Facebook with a photo of them or a loved one with their nerd bugs plushie and a story of how they were gifted the item because they were going through some medical treatment or post-surgery. So it's been really amazing to see these stories from all over the world and how these nerd bugs plushies have brought some joy and sunshine to people that are going through these really tough things.
So I'm really proud of that. I always say like as a doctor, I feel like my job is really rewarding to be able to impact patients' lives in my local community. But this is just like on such a global level to hear their stories and see their photos. It's just so wonderful to know that you're making that tiny impact on someone who's like all across the world. - Well, I love how Ronak describes herself as her main hustle is being a doctor, right?
Like her job, her profession, her calling as a physician. She's like, "It's my main hustle." That's kind of how I think about my life as an author as well, even though I'm not a doctor, of course. I'm like, "This is my main thing and I've got all these other things I do as well." I love how she described her products as being obnoxiously adorable. That's fun. And then my favorite part here is like, when she talks about 10 to 15 minutes a day, she chose as a very busy doctor to work on her project 10 to 15 minutes a day, but every day, right?
Seven days a week. If you only have that much time, then you really do wanna do it seven days a week. If you're working a couple of hours a day in addition to your main job, in addition to your other responsibilities, then of course you might wanna have a weekend day where you don't do anything at all for your side hustle. But if you just have this limited window, a little bit each day, identifying in advance what that task is going to be, then you are gonna make progress. And you are going to, over time, be able to have your e-commerce store, to be able to have distribution, be able to have your other website or your blog or whatever it is that you're providing.
It is possible. And we hear stories like that all the time on the show. So I am grateful to Dr. Ronak for helping us with this segment. We will continue doing them throughout the rest of the year as our year of interaction.
If you have a question, if you'd like to update us about your side hustle, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. And if you would like your own plush toy in the shape of the kidneys or organ of your choice, check out nerdbugs.com. This has been episode 1391, 1391. Thank you so much. Be sure you're subscribed and come back because so much more is coming up.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
