A Doggie Bag With a Twist

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

[Music]

In today's story, a Cleveland woman creates a dog walking accessory bag for active pet owners. Prototyping is rough, but eventually she begins to prosper. What's up everybody? Welcome to Sidus Will School. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

The only program in the world bringing you daily inspiration through the form of money making projects, started by people who have jobs and lots of other responsibilities, but like the idea of creating freedom for themselves, little extra money, pay off some debt, perhaps even eventually quit your job, if that's your goal. But if that's not your goal, that's cool too. That's what Sidus Will School is all about, different goals for different people, but a common vision. Now I wanna mention as well, we've been doing this segment called Failure Friday for the past two months or so. It's been going out, well, every Friday, just about every Friday.

I wanna encourage you, if you wanna be part of this, if you have a disaster story, a disaster and recovery story typically, but it's okay if it's just a disaster story in the world of small business, if you have started a side hustle and something has gone really wrong and you're willing to share, especially if it's a mistake that you've made, because I think, one thing I say in those segments is we can learn as much from failure as we can from success or from mistakes as we can from whatever the opposite of a mistake is. I don't know, doing something really smart, let's say. So if you know someone who might be a good fit for that, or if that's you, let us know. Or send a quick little note to team@sidehustleschool.com, team@sidehustleschool.com, Failure Friday, maybe put that in the subject line. And now our story.

Well, first, a message from our sponsor, and then the story, "A Doggy Bag with a Twist." [Music]

Lisa Bast never had enough Kleenex or waste bags when she walked her dog, a golden doodle named Micah. Because Lisa has bad allergies, her nose runs whenever she's outside. Tired of stuffing tissues into her pocket, she wanted a carry-all with separate pockets for waste bags plus all the other stuff she brought along. She did a focus group with friends and family members who have dogs to get their input. And there didn't seem to be a good solution.

She didn't see anything that had compartments for all that she needed in a compact style. So Lisa jumped on the opportunity and decided to launch the Woof Pack Dog Walking Accessory Bag, the Woof Pack, that's right, Woof Pack. The first step was prototyping. She worked with a young Amish man she found through a network for volunteer business experts and mentors. That man made boat tarps and had the type of material and expertise needed to make her prototypes.

Lisa then purchased about six different handbag designs from Macy's, integrating the best features of each until she was happy with her own design. Now, this was a bit of a process and this prototyping process was rough. In fact, it took seven versions to get it right. Still, she knew she was barking up the right tree. So she did some research and finally found an antimicrobial material which is used in hospital settings to line the inner compartment.

The design continues to evolve based on feedback from customers. Initially, she had just three colors but after some customer comments, she expanded to five. Now, of course, let's talk about the money. Lisa used about $1,500 of her savings to launch. Of that, she spent $1,300 on a digital agency for help with website design.

$100 went to inventory and $75 went to prototypes. She also spent $25 on website hosting using the basic plan from Shopify. Her first sale was from a friend who purchased through the site. Lisa was so nervous about getting it right that instead of printing out the prepaid postage, she went to the post office to mail the package herself. She's now worked out the kinks of order fulfillment and brings in approximately $1,000 a month, which for now, she's putting back into the business.

Her biggest struggle is search engine optimization. And this is because nobody knows how to search for the product or we could say nobody knows to search for the product because it's a new product category. But when pet owners see the product in person and she explains its benefits, they immediately spot the value. Still, that doesn't mean they always buy it. When people came to Lisa's first booth at a dog show, saying they love the product, she was sometimes disappointed that they didn't actually pay for it.

As she dug further, she realized that the pain point for them wasn't bad enough to warrant spending $30 on the bag. Facebook ads and other social media also haven't been effective for Lisa. But because she has a public relations background, she's managed to get some product mentions in "Dogster Magazine," tagline "For the Love of Dog," as well as her hometown paper, and also from dog blooders. She's still waiting for a call from Vanity Fur. These media mentions have really helped to boost sales, much more so than those advertising attempts.

Lisa also partners with pet charities to donate 10% back to their organization through joint marketing efforts. This is challenging as some don't wanna promote a product to their followers, even if they benefit, and others rely on big corporate sponsors. Growing the business is a passion for Lisa and she hopes to take it full time one day. She's gotten the product into two small pet stores already and is hoping to bark into bigger pet retailers. Several of the chains have told her they're holding off on introducing new products into their stores because of COVID.

But as they say, don't stop retrieving. [Music]

Lisa says one of the best parts of her hustle is seeing her sales go international. She's already had orders from Canada and the UK, and of course is hoping to reach many other people going forward. And just to comment on that SEO, it is tricky because people aren't often searching for something like this. Like they don't know that they need a better dog bag necessarily.

So that's why visibility is key. Getting into those pet stores, perhaps going to more dog shows, encouraging customers to take pictures and share images of the Woof Pack, et cetera. So it's kind of a long game here. But I encourage you to check out the Woof Pack. If you're a dog owner yourself, or if you know one, check out the Woof Pack at woofpacktrails.com or in the links from our notes page.

As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Those show notes for today will be at sidehustleschool.com/1592, 1-5-9-2. If you have a comment or question for the show, that would be at sidehustleschool.com/questions. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you'll come back tomorrow.

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the Onward Project.