This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
A while back in episode 975, we featured the story of this tool for public restrooms that allows you to use your foot to open the door, therefore allowing for greater hygiene. This tool is called the Steppenpole. Well, guess what? Their business is doing phenomenally well. Over the past year, as more and more people have become conscious of hygiene and sanitation, they have realized more companies have realized, "Hey, we wanted to do an overall audit of all of our experience, all of our workplace experience, our customer-facing experience for people who are coming into stores, perhaps using the restroom." This was a problem long before COVID-19, of course, issues of hygiene and sanitation. Maybe you've
wondered perhaps when you go to use a public restroom and you have to open the door with your hand to go out, you're like, "Well, I just washed my hands." Couldn't there be some better way? We don't necessarily want automatic doors in the restroom either. Anyway, these guys came along and solved the problem, now just doing phenomenally well, as I said, making lots of money, lots of contracts with corporations everywhere. In some ways, you could say they were in the right place at the right time, but of course they had to do all the work to be able to be in that place. They solved this problem before there was as much awareness, there was some of course still, but before there was as much awareness of hygiene and sanitation in public settings. I always love when people end up getting rewarded
by putting lots of hard work into something, really building a quality product, and then there's something else that also comes along, some circumstance that ends up being a great benefit to them. To me, all that said, it comes back to this question of, "If you want to be lucky, to have more luck, take more chances." With that said, today's story, by the way, welcome to Side Hustle School. I'm so glad you're here. Today's story is about two friends who start a natural air freshener business that's cleaning up to the tune of "Seven Figures." That's right, the business is bringing in seven figures a year on air fresheners. I mean, what a world we live in. It's called Gentsense, Gentsense, and it's
been quite the journey. So I'll tell you how they got started, how they made it happen after this quick message from our sponsor. The episode is called Natural Air Fresheners Are Big Business. In the summer of 2015, friends Christian Thrap and Ryan Bayless were out mountain biking. They were also bouncing around business ideas. Ryan pointed out the lack
of good options for car air fresheners that weren't tacky and full of chemicals. After all, fake plastic trees was a great song by Radiohead, but the world didn't need any more of the actual fake plastic trees. Besides, how hard could it really be to make natural air fresheners? Christian admits now that if they'd foreseen the challenges they'd soon face, they wouldn't have gone any further. But he's also grateful for their ignorance.
Not every business requires you to spend money upfront, but in this case, they each put in about $2,500 to buy wood, oil, metal clips, and some online ads. When they spent $1,000 on an order of metal clips from overseas, Christian was worried they'd never see that money again. But it worked out and they launched Gentsense, a brand of natural air fresheners for men. They started by cutting different shapes into wood, eventually landing on a rectangle, not because it was the most beautiful, but because it was easiest to cut. Christian had minimal woodworking skills beyond what he'd learned in high school wood shop class, but he figured it out while Ryan worked on marketing. After experimenting with different
types of wood, they ultimately went with cedar. Then there were the scents. They used a lot of oil trying to figure out the best combination, making the first batch in the laundry of Christian's basement apartment. After a few mishaps, they tested the product in their own cars. When Christian's wife got in the car and caught a whiff, she complimented the smell. And that's
when they knew they were on to something. Still, it wasn't an immediate success. Their original business model was based on sending the air fresheners through the mail using a 45 cent letter stamp. But when a post office employee told them they'd have to pay $3.50 to ship each air freshener, Christian thought it was all over. Thankfully, it turned out that employee was just misinformed. In October 2016, the pair gained some traction with a
Kickstarter campaign. Now here's a trick that might help somebody out there with crowdfunding. Don't be afraid to make a pledge to your own project. Toward the end of the campaign, they realized they weren't going to hit their $7,500 goal and would therefore lose out on the other money they'd raised. To make sure that didn't happen, they ended up backing the last part themselves. At first, Christian and Ryan both juggled their day jobs. Christian as a sales
rep and Ryan as a videographer alongside the business. They were both also new dads and therefore incredibly tired. But they powered through. Soon, Christian and his growing family moved into his in-laws where he started producing the products on their back patio. As the business grew, they hired a couple of high school kids and moved it into Ryan's garage and into a small windowless office space, which they quickly outgrew. By 2018, they'd grown so
much they knew something had to give. They both decided to focus on the business full-time. Since then, they've never looked back. In fact, Christian says leaving his job to focus on the business was one of the top three best decisions he's made in his entire life. He also points out it was a decision most people around him didn't understand at the time.
Gentsense rebranded his drift to capture more of the market and sell other products beyond air fresheners. For instance, they now sell room sprays and offer a cent-of-the-month club starting at just $8. Thanks in large part to paid social media, which they have really cracked, they're now hitting sales in the mid-seven figures and growing. Interestingly, search engine optimization hasn't been a big driver for them because people don't Google for air fresheners. It's much more of an impulse buy. Christian says they plan
to keep building drift until they take over the air care business. Despite the challenges, they've come out smelling like a rose or in their case, winter pine and sugared citrus. What are the top three decisions you have made in your life? Also, let's talk about this element of courage because when Christian quit his job, he said that not a lot of other people around him understood. In fact, he said he'd just gotten a promotion at work. So in quitting, he absolutely had to make it work. His mom kept reminding
him that he didn't have insurance, all that kind of stuff, but it was the right thing. He had to take that risk. And at that point, it wasn't so much of a blind risk. It was a, "Wow, this thing has really taken off. This is our chance to kind of go all in and see what happens." So I don't encourage you to go and quit your job with something that's completely unproven, but I do encourage you to work towards something that gives you the option to do that perhaps. And then if you are in a place where you're trying to weigh
this big decision, I guess just ask yourself like looking ahead years from now, "How are you going to feel if you didn't try?" And I think most of the time when we ask ourselves that question, regardless of the outcome, even if it's not successful, we would say, "I'm actually going to feel a lot better if I decide to try because I've got an idea. The idea is there for a reason. What am I going to do about it?" So I will leave you with that today. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes, including links to drift/Gentsense, just go to www.cytussleschool.com/1471. Thank
you so much for listening. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
