This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Welcome, welcome, welcome. What's up my friends? Thank you so much for joining me. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
Every day bringing you lots of different stories, case studies, tips, and sometimes perhaps, well, once a week to be precise. Every Thursday, we're calling it Where Are They Now? Where we take an in-depth look at someone who's evolved considerably since we first featured them. This is also known, of course, as Throwback Thursday. Now, it's been a wild year with these segments.
They've been very popular with listeners. We have heard from a lot of people worldwide who have been doing things like expanding a coffee empire, raising a million dollars on Kickstarter for a new board game, going full-time with illustrations of houses. That was one of our previously featured case studies from Australia, selling virtual paint brushes for iPad artists. I believe she was actually in New Zealand. And of course, many of these adventures have been taking place under the overarching limitations of a global pandemic.
Have you heard of that? Yep, me too. All right, in our latest feature today, we'll hear from a personal trainer who sells pumped-up pancakes full of protein. You could say she puts the pro in protein. They're also profitable pancakes.
She's proud of them, passionate about them, and she's also a very personable individual. Okay, I'll stop now. What has happened since we first featured her way back in episode 541? Well, let's hear directly from her. Her name is Ashley, and I will come back at the end to wrap us up.
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My name is Ashley Drummond. I'm in Tampa, Florida. My side hustle episode is 541, and this is for abs pancakes. So while I was working as a personal trainer and training a lot of my clients, I have a huge passion for food and baking, so I went to the kitchen. I tried dozens of different concoctions, trying to make something that tasted good that was low sugar, all natural, high protein, no artificial sweeteners or anything.
Some of it was terrible. But finally, I came up with, it started out as a protein pancake mix, and I used it for myself, so I would wake up in the morning, I'd make a stack of pancakes, and then I'd go train my clients all day, and with my clients, I started asking them, hey, this is what I eat for breakfast, because it was always the same thing. They'd ask, I'm so tired of drinking protein shakes. What else can I eat, Ashley? Please don't put that in my meal plan.
So I started giving it to them in little Ziploc bags. I would just make the dry mix up and give it to them, and all of my clients loved it, and they were talking about how it kept them full for three or four hours. They didn't have that spike where you have a ton of energy and then your blood sugar drops. They were talking about how they didn't feel like they were on a diet. So the big aha moment that turned it into an actual product and business is one of my clients had made breakfast one morning for themselves and for a friend, and their friend found me on Facebook and sent me a message and said, hey, I tried the protein pancake mix that you gave my friend, and I wanna know where do I buy it?
And that was the moment that I was like, oh my God, people actually wanna buy this. It's not just me. I'm not the only one that struggles with this. So that's how it started, and I mean, I started it just doing it one order at a time. I'd get a Facebook message.
I'd send them a PayPal link. I'd mix up the powder, stick it in a plastic tub container, and I would write their name with a Sharpie on it, and that's how it started out. So that's how it started as a side hustle was training full-time and then just slowly building up the customers. It's evolved into like a one-stop wellness shop because a lot of people with COVID have had to work out at home. They've had to figure out their own meal planning.
So now we offer fitness and weight loss programs. We offer nutrition and meal planning. We offer the mix, and it gets shipped and delivered directly to people's doors. We've also released two recipe books. There's a recipe book that's all breakfast recipes you can use with the mix, and then there's another recipe book that's all protein desserts that are low sugar, low carb you can use with the mix.
So it's been a lot over the last year and a half. The other thing I would say too is don't get so caught up, and this is a mistake I think we all make. Don't get so caught up in paralysis analysis and being a consumer. If you're creating a product in a business, you are considered a contributor. You're a creator.
And what I mean by that is don't consume every piece of business advice and book that is out there because it's gonna keep you overwhelmed and from actually taking action and contributing what you're trying to do. And I mean, everybody does it in the beginning because you don't know what you're doing. So you're like, I need this podcast and that coach and this book and this court. No, you don't. Find like one thing that feels silent to you and then stay on that path and put your blinders on with everything else.
And you have to really just be your own boss, which everybody's like, I wanna be my own boss, but create your own routines and daily habits. Get up, take your shower, have your coffee, do the top three most important things for the day. And then the rest of the day work on the small things that aren't making the biggest impact. So that would be my few pieces of advice start now. - Awesome, thank you so much, Ashley.
It's great to see how Abs Pancakes has evolved. One thing we didn't mention earlier is that Ashley was actually featured on Shark Tank. She got $120,000 investment from Damon John. So congratulations on that as well. Now, just like so many other businesses, Abs Pancakes has had some COVID challenges.
In particular for them, they've had issues with Amazon deliveries, especially in the first few months of the pandemic. But of course, they're still going strong. And as you heard a bit about, they have expanded the initial all pancakes all the time product line to a full on wellness brand. If you'd like to learn more about it or perhaps order your own, just go to abspancakes.com. That is, once again, Abs Pancakes.
Like, you know, these pancakes are gonna give me Abs. AbsPancakes.com. I'm really grateful to Ashley for helping us out with this segment. We're gonna keep doing them throughout the rest of the year. If you have a question, if you'd like to update us about your side hustle, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions.
And also today's show notes for everything I mentioned, everything that Ashley mentioned as well, will be at sidehustleschool.com/1419. That is 1419. Thank you so much again for joining me. Be sure you're subscribed. Much more is coming out.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
