This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hey listeners, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is episode 1440, going out on the 10th of December, 2020. This would also be the first day of Hanukkah this year.
So I would like to wish a happy Hanukkah, joyous festive season to everyone who celebrates. This is the first day of what is an eight day celebration, the Festival of Lights. When I was growing up, I didn't know a lot about Hanukkah or other Jewish festivals and holidays. And then I had a friend at some point, I think in middle school who was Jewish and he told me about Hanukkah and I was like, "Wow, you get eight days, that's amazing." Like I grew up celebrating Christmas and I was like, "This is pretty cool." So I think I went home and asked my mom if we could trade and she explained it was a little bit more complicated than that, some other factors and such. But anyway, all that to say, happy Hanukkah and welcome everyone to Throwback Thursday.
Where are they now? Where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved considerably since we first featured them. Last week we heard from the co-founder of a Canadian business that is all about helping kids and families with self-worth. Today in our latest feature, we'll hear from a CPA who turns natural deodorant made from apple cider vinegar. It's a whole crazy origin story about that.
And she turns this product into a full on beauty and skincare line. Her name is Rebecca, she's originally from Hong Kong, one of my favorite places in the world, but she now lives in California. So what has happened since she started? Let's hear directly from Rebecca and I'll be back at the end to wrap us up. [Music]
My name is Rebecca So.
My company name is called Sway and I was on episode 566 and we're located in Los Angeles, California. I started Sway to actually show the world the first apple cider vinegar deodorant. That was three years ago. And the reason I started it because I couldn't find anything that helped. Not even clinical strength, antiperspirant, natural, not natural, anything I could find I tried and nothing worked on me.
So I just developed my own deodorant based on whatever I could find in my cabinet, which is apple cider vinegar and some other natural ingredients. And it's worked on me so well that one day I decided, wait, I've always been looking to invent some gadgets to help people solve problems. And I actually have one, so why wouldn't I just market it? And that's how Sway started a few years ago. But now it has transformed into not just a deodorant company, but also a body care and skincare company.
I'm actually still a practicing CPA. So I just finished a gruesome tax season because everyone's working from home and clients are working from home. Lots of uncertainties. So, but then we got through it. So that's still my main hustle.
So Sway remains a side hustle. Since the last episode, I realized I cannot just have one product and also not a product that is a low average order value because it's costly to be running ads and marketing. So I wanted to develop more products or something that has a larger value, average order value. So since then we've added skincare and other body care products. And my latest, latest product is a customizable body oil that has actually showed big success even during COVID because a lot of people are buying online.
So that has been my focus for the past few months is to push my body oil. And so far, we don't really see a lot of similar products on the market. There are tons of body oils on the market, but nothing that you can customize the way that you can customize Sway's. We also include a card in every single order to tell you what your options are. And you can write the name or we will write the name for the customer where it goes to.
So it's a perfect gift idea for people to give out because you can show the recipient how much care you put into making this product because you've chosen their favorite items, favorite scent, favorite essential oil, favorite flowers. I love being a CPM, I'm good at it. But nothing compares to making something from scratch from an idea to a final product. And then to have a customer writing you a review saying how much she loves it. Rarely do you get that from a client when you hand them a tax return.
They usually do not appreciate it. So when I have an idea in my mind and to be able to create that and make it a final product and people telling me how pretty it is, how good it smells, that is the best thing to hear. - Thank you so much, Rebecca. I appreciate that update. It's wonderful to know that Sway is going along so well.
Listening as you can check out Rebecca's site at lovemysway.com. And we actually had some other updates from her about the world of e-commerce during COVID, how it's affected her just as it has so many of our case studies and perhaps you as well in different ways if you have a business or just in your life if you don't. So she said it was really interesting because in the beginning of the pandemic, they actually thought that their sales are gonna go way down because people are being really careful what they're spending. But it actually went the other way. She said, so the sales were going up, but that wasn't all good news because sales were going up and then they had inventory issues, they had shipping issues.
Lots of stuff was being delayed. They were sending stuff all over the US and Canada. And sometimes it took over a month. It's supposed to just take a few days, maybe a week at most, but sometimes it took a month or the packages went to the wrong place. She said in one case, she had an order that was supposed to go to the East Coast, but it went to Hawaii for some reason and then eventually made it back to the East Coast.
So lots of challenges there, but of course, she's been able to navigate those and is doing well. So again, thanks Rebecca. If you have a question, if you'd like to update us about your side hustle, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. And once again, to learn about Rebecca's body care and skincare line, head to lovemysway.com. Thank you so much listeners.
Today's notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1440. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
