Cheese Connoisseur Makes Legen-dairy Creations

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

[Music]

Friends, listeners, welcome. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm excited because today is something special. We are releasing my new course, Idea to Income. This course is delivered entirely through audio and text message direct to your phone.

It just takes a moment to enroll and then for 21 days, you'll get directions, advice, and practical tips sent directly to your phone through text messaging, SMS, WhatsApp, whatever you prefer. It works anywhere in the world. And it's all about helping you find your first or your next idea. You can explore ideas, learn strategies, and refine your plan in easy steps, courses.sidehustleschool.com. Go check it out, courses.sidehustleschool.com.

And you can use the discount code IDEA to get 20% off. That's my gift to you as a loyal podcast listener, discount code IDEA to get 20% off. And let me know what you think. I'm excited because this is a completely new medium in terms of communicating and providing instruction. And I would very much like your feedback.

Now, of course, we still have a story today, right? We're not taking today off because I have committed to bringing you every single day a different story or a question and answer or an in-depth look at someone's side hustle. And in today's feature, we're talking about a remote worker who wants to show appreciation for healthcare staff. And in doing so, she accidentally stumbles upon an untapped market for her charcuterie and cheese boards. This cheese connoisseur makes legendary creations.

That story is coming up right after this message from our sponsor. [Music]

Monisha Misra loves charcuterie and cheese boards. The delicious, aesthetically pleasing displays of crackers, cheese, cured meats, fruits, and spreads are hard not to like. And in college, Monisha and her friends began to make them for fun. Creating platters quickly became their go-to thing when guests came to visit.

10 years later, Monisha's college days were behind her and she was living in Boston while working in software sales. She still loved making charcuterie platters for evenings with friends, but those gatherings were about to halt because it was March, 2020. Like so many, she had recently been sent home from work due to a mysterious virus. Monisha watched from home as her friends, family members, and countless strangers in healthcare worked 12 to 15 hour shifts, trying to keep the pandemic under control. She felt lazy sitting around in her sweatpants, all while knowing so many people were working to manage the crisis.

Monisha realized that after those long days, a charcuterie board or cheese platter, or both, would be the perfect way to recharge. She reached out to a friend who worked at a hospital and offered to drop her specialty creations off to the hospital staff for free. Every time she made a visit, she would give away 30 to 40 snacks and meals and was soon greeted with much appreciation. Monisha loved being able to help. As the months went by, the pandemic was still raging on, Monisha was still at home, and then a few people began to reach out to her about purchasing some of her boards.

She loved giving them away for free and hadn't even thought about selling them, but decided to give it a try. She created an Instagram account called Boards by Mo, and in her words, she had no direction or strategy, but she began to post tag and hashtag to get her product in front of as many eyes as she could. She also decided that she needed to get to know her coworkers, which she defined as other Instagram accounts that had to do with food in Boston. From there, she started to gain a lot more traction. In a two-day launch, Monisha had dozens of orders from her fellow Bostonians.

After months of lockdown, there were a ton of people who were sick of cooking or ordering the same delivery meal over and over again. That would be me, I'm in that category. Unfortunately, despite the huge volume of orders, Monisha actually lost money in her initial launch, and that was mostly because she picked a random number for a price that seemed reasonable. That price was $40 a board, and between the ingredients, the physical boards, and delivery, it just wasn't enough to break even, much less make a profit. Despite the loss, she was encouraged.

There was clearly a customer base for her product. She just had to work out the kinks. First, she adjusted the price to $55. Then she set up a website, boardsbymo.com. She wanted to make sure that her website was 100% e-commerce, since she didn't have a lot of time to manage emails or write blog posts.

All you could do on this website was look at pretty pictures of food platters and make a purchase. In addition, by using Shopify, she had access to analytics about how people were finding the site, and she discovered that a whopping 92% of those visitors entered through her Instagram page. With that knowledge, Monisha invested more time into growing her social media presence, and before much longer, she was profitable. Not only that, but in August 2020, she decided to add a new component to her business, online courses. Whoa, how did we go from food sales to online courses?

Well, now on month six of the pandemic, people were craving new, safe ways to have experiences with their friends. And what better way to do that than with a charcuterie building class? The virtual classes were a huge hit. Monisha is currently making about $15,000 in sales each month with a more than 40% profit margin. Her Instagram account has 50,000 followers, and it's constantly growing.

She's even partnered with companies like Grubhub and TJ Maxx. For now, the day job continues. But at some point, she hopes to go full-time and franchise Boards by Mo. [Music]

Congratulations to Monisha, love the project. I especially love how she's gone from not just making the charcuterie boards, but also teaching the beginner board business class.

She's just looking at her website, boardsbymo.com. She has so far taught 26 live classes with a total of 291 people. She also used Teachable, an online platform to create the workshop that you can undertake at your own pace. So very cool, well done, check it out. And if you'd like to see my new course, which is just out today, check it out at courses.sidehustleschool.com.

You can use the code IDEA to get a 20% discount. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes, including links to everything mentioned in the episode will be at sidehustleschool.com/1655. To find me again tomorrow, just download the next episode wherever you'd like to listen. Thank you so much.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the Onward Project.