This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to Side Hustle School. So glad you're here. My name is Chris Guillebeau. I'm your host.
I have the privilege of making this program for you every single day. Here we are on episode 1482. This is also our Throwback Thursday segment where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. We have tons of archives. You can always access those archives completely free at sidehustleschool.com/podcasts or just go to the homepage and you should be able to find it pretty easily.
Of course, the show is also available in Apple Podcasts and Spotify and, you know, all those other places. The problem is a lot of them don't allow you to have archives that are more than 1400 episodes. Some of them only have like the most recent 200 episodes. And why would you want 200 episodes when you can have 1400? So that's why I mentioned, you know, coming directly to the site.
Now here in our latest feature, we will hear from a woman in Iowa who has sold 26,000 scrunchies. That's right, scrunchies. Long live the 80s or the 90s. What was the decade of the scrunchie? I'm not sure, but it was a while back.
But the scrunchie has had a big comeback. Also research shows that in households with scrunchie wearers, you know, people who wear scrunchies of whatever gender they are, approximately 26,000 of them can be found lying around the bed and in the cushions of the couch. That's why, you know, our featured sideasil here has been able to make so many. Well, that and also her scrunchies are in great demand. Now three or four weeks ago in this series, we did headbands.
We had somebody who had done really well with that. Now we're back with scrunchies, but this is in fact a different person. Who knows? Maybe next week it's all about hair ribbons. I'm not sure.
Anyway, what has happened since we first featured her on the podcast, her name is Kristin. So let's hear directly from her and I'll come back at the end to wrap us up. [Music]
My name is Kristin for Horbert. I'm from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. My side hustle is Bren Band.
And it comes from my middle name, which is Bren. And I was featured on episode 737. And when I first started, I wanted something that would kind of go along with what I was doing. So I started with just scrunchies, but I didn't want to just be like Kristin scrunchies. So I kind of brainstormed on what I wanted to do and Bren and bands kind of just fit together and kind of work from there.
So it's Bren bands and I create different handmade hair accessories for ladies across the nation. About two and a half years ago, I was at my old job and I was in charge of some college girls through the summer camp that our college hosted. So scrunchies were making a comeback and they knew I was crafty. And so they asked if I could make them a scrunchy and it kind of just snowballed from there. And I was like, sure, I'll try it.
I knew that in the nineties, my mom had actually made scrunchies. She worked at a hospital and she just made them and all the nurses loved them. And so I asked her for help 'cause you can find them on YouTube and everything, but I wasn't really satisfied with the tutorials that I was finding. They kind of were cheaper quality. So I knew my mom made really good ones that didn't snap.
Bren bands is my main hustle now. I guess I would add that I'm a mom as well. So the last time we talked, I was still working at the community college as a program developer. And shortly after our interview is when I realized the potential for Bren bands to be able to grow and for me to be able to focus full time on it. And I also found out I was pregnant.
So I knew I had nine months to work from home and grow Bren bands. And then I was gonna figure it out when my son came. It's so crazy to see where Bren bands started. It used to be scrunchies. And so now we've added all these new product lines as well.
So we have headbands in different styles. There's like a turban, a knotted and a tied on one. We have scrunchies for littles, all these new products. So it's just really exciting to see like the growth that we've had in different product lines and everything is still with that band name. So, you know, a headband is still has it.
So that's still my focus. Like, I feel like a lot of times people are always like, can you do t-shirts? And I'm like, that's just not what Bren bands stands for. And I feel like we just changed the focus of our hair accessory kind of line. We've added all the new product lines.
So it's a lot of organic customers. So I'm really proud of that. And some other things on Etsy, I just reached my 26,000 transaction mark. So I sold, I've had 26,000 transactions on Etsy. So that's a lot of products that I've made.
I guess one little positive though, I love, it seems like at least once a month, I will get a message in my DMs or on Etsy saying that they heard me from side hustle school. And that just like makes my day. It's so exciting to have people still listening to my episode so many years later. So that's always really exciting. And one girl was actually from the same hometown as me.
So that was kind of fun too. - Thank you so much, Kristin. It's wonderful to hear how well you're doing and 26,000 scrunchies again, very impressive. As I mentioned in the headband episode, a previous hair accessory feature, you have to sell a lot of those to make real money. But it seems that Kristin is doing that.
So well done. Listeners, check out Brin Bands on Instagram or Etsy. It's pretty cool that our listeners have found her before. So Brin Bands, that's B-R-Y-N-N, double N, B-A-N-D-S, Brin Bands on Instagram or Etsy. And of course, we'll link it up in the notes page as well.
I am grateful to her for helping us with this segment. I am grateful to you, our listeners, those notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1482. And wherever you are in the world, whatever you're up to, I hope you do something to get closer to a goal that you're working on, something that you believe in. We are all about following dreams here on the podcast. It's just, you know, following your dreams in a very grounded, practical way so that you can actually make those dreams happen.
I'll say more about this in an upcoming episode. For now, I wish you well. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
