Stay-At-Home Mom Starts Bamboo Baby Biz

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

What's up my friends? This is episode 15, 20, 1,500, and 20 of Side Hustle School coming to you here on the last day of February, 2021. Of course, you could be listening at any point in the future. I'm just noting that for our progress, here we are at the end of another month, which always amazes me. I guess this one shouldn't surprise me since it's February, you know, fewer days and all, but sometimes we come to the end of these 31 day months and I'm like, where did the days go?

It felt like a 25 day month. I guess the lesson is time marches on. And speaking of time, today we're gonna hear from somebody who starts a project selling products on Amazon, specifically selling bamboo baby swaddles, turns into other products, but that's what she starts with. And she started when her second child was just six weeks old. A great time for a project, right?

Well, somehow she fitted in and somehow she made it work. So that's what I'm gonna tell you about today. These stories are always an inspiration to me. I hope you enjoy this one. Stay at home mom starts bamboo baby biz.

Oh, and here's a fun fact. Did you know that amazon.com was Jeff Bezos' third choice for a business name? He actually had two other ideas in mind. I don't know if I knew this. I might've heard of one, but not both for sure.

So after the story, I'll tell you what the runner ups were, what amazon.com might have been. [Music]

Vicki Weinberg is a mom of two based in the UK. She used to have a corporate job, but suffered from postnatal depression after her first child was born. She then retrained as a children's yoga teacher and gave local classes. During her second pregnancy, Vicki had some issues with her hip and back.

It meant she couldn't teach anymore and had to find someone to cover her classes. But by the time the baby was born, she was ready to do something, anything, even though she didn't know what. One day Vicki was listening to Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income podcast. She heard a story about two guys selling products on Amazon. The idea of living on the beach with a laptop wasn't her kind of lifestyle.

But having the freedom to work whenever and wherever she wanted, that was appealing. An idea sparked to create a brand of high quality baby products that could be used, reused, and gifted to other families. And so when her second baby was only six weeks old, tiny chipmunk came to life as well. Vicki knew she wanted to create a range of bamboo baby products and used Google's keyword tool to research what would come first. She landed on baby swaddles and used 99 designs to find a logo design.

Finally, she went to alibaba.com to search for a supplier. At the same time, she ordered samples of similar products from Amazon to scope out the existing market. Once her product was ready, Vicki placed the order and spent time building her website and making an Amazon listing. She worked whenever she could, which was mostly when the kids announced. And even though it took her about eight months to get to launch, she's glad she did.

Tiny chipmunk has become Vicki's main work focus, bringing in at least $25,000 a year in profit. She doesn't have to work set hours because the business mostly runs itself. In fact, even though she had to homeschool her kids and cut back on her hours over the past year, sales remained steady. Still, there have been some challenges. At first, she had no idea what legal disclaimers and other information she had to put on her packaging.

So she went back to Google and then 99designs to find a packaging designer. But she never received a sample from her chosen supplier before placing the full order. This turned out to be a big mistake because the quality was poor. The cardboard was way too thin and kept ripping, which led to products getting damaged. Luckily, she found another option by the time she restocked.

If she could go back in time, Vicki also says she wouldn't have tried to do everything herself, nor tried to be everywhere at the same time. Most of the marketing strategies she tried didn't work and ended up costing her money and time. A better approach would have been for her to focus on one sales channel, for example, one social media platform, and build from there. Fortunately, as her business has grown, Vicki has too. Nowadays, she doesn't just sell products online, she also coaches other people who want to sell products.

And she's happy to work on both projects. They feel good, they fit in with her family life, she chooses what she does, who she does it for, as well as where, when, and how. As a bonus, she's also gained confidence and new connections. Going forward, the plan is to launch more of her own products while helping other people create and sell theirs. She also plans to do less one-on-one coaching and instead move towards more group coaching and courses.

It all starts with baby steps. [Music]

tinychipmunk.com, go check it out. Of course, we will link it up in the show notes. One quick comment for me, I might suggest a little bit more personality on the about page. The about page is so important.

I try to remind people of this from time to time. At the time I'm recording this, at least, there's not any images on the about page of people you should like to see who you are. On her Instagram, Vicki does this really well, which is linked to the website. So I would just suggest, you know, bring it over to the blog, bring that same kind of spirit and voice over to the blog or to the main website. Now, amazon.com, what was the deal with that?

Well, Amazon was Jeff Bezos' third choice for his business name, the third choice of Jeff Bezos. His first two choices were Kadabra, like Abra Kadabra, and Relentless. So his lawyer apparently convinced him that Kadabra sounded too much like Kadabra, not the greatest name for any commerce website that's gonna take over the world. And even though Relentless didn't make the cut, he still bought the domain name, relentless.com, which you can visit now and it will redirect you to Amazon. Fun fact.

All right, listeners, thank you for joining me today. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes, including anything I mentioned, 99designs, Alibaba, et cetera, just go to sidehustleschool.com/1520, 1520. If you've got a comment or question for the show, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Hope you'll join me again tomorrow.

Be sure you're subscribed. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.