This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Can you imagine your money literally melting away? As I listened to this story, the one that you're gonna hear today, I had a memory from 2011 come to mind. So obviously this is going back a number of years, but in 2011, I was starting my first major conference, the World Domination Summit, year one. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was very fortunate to have some pretty cool people working with me on the team, as well as awesome attendees from all over the world. And if that sounds like a success, well, it was, but today is failure Friday.
So we're talking about failure and the small fail that I remember from that very first day of that very first conference was, I thought it would be really cool to commission an ice sculpture in the shape of a globe and have it come to our opening party. And so pretty big ice sculpture. I don't know the measurements, but something that looks visually impressive when you're coming to a party and you're like, wow, there's a big globe made out of ice. So I thought that was pretty cool, but it turned out to be a very warm day. And my awesome ice sculpture globe did not last nearly as long as I had expected.
So I could literally watch the money I had spent, I think it was a few hundred dollars melt in front of me. As I said, I thought about that as I was working on this story, the stakes are a little bit higher in fact, but it also involves ice melting away in front of you. And by the way, failure Friday, in case you're not familiar, this is our weekly segment, a collection of short stories about mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course failure. So the whole point is for you to hear directly from someone who has struggled to get something off the ground. They've often had a very successful project, perhaps one that we featured on the podcast, but not everything went well, or maybe they had an all out disaster, okay?
So stories vary, but they often begin with an idea, what they thought would happen, and then what really happened. Today's story features Glenn Auerbach from Minneapolis, Minnesota. We told the successful story of his "Nice Mug" project on episode 867, where a visit to the outdoor sauna in the midst of a Minnesota winter inspires a mug made from ice that has sold thousands and thousands of units. So that's pretty cool, literally, but as you'll hear now, it wasn't always so amazing. Here's Glenn, and I'll come back at the end to wrap us up.
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My name is Glenn Auerbach, and I am the founder of Nice Mug, a freezable mold to make your favorite beverage in a drinking glass made entirely out of ice. My story is from a few years ago, when with the help of my sister, we hosted a launch party for Nice Mug on a rooftop restaurant in Uptown, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Planning a party for 100 or so guests is enough of a project, but planning a party with 100 or so guests and making a couple hundred glasses made entirely out of ice is, well, it proved to be quite a challenge. For a couple of cold, long Minnesota winters, I had been making and freezing Nice Mugs outside, but just a few at a time, and now it was summertime, and this was our coming out party to show off how we can make ice glasses and freezers any time of the year. We had a few freezers set up on the rooftop restaurant, and I started freezing the Nice Mug molds a couple days before the party.
When it came to party day, well, I remember it was a beautiful, warm, and sunny day. Certainly awesome weather for a party, but for a guy inventing drinking glasses made entirely out of ice, well, sun and warmth added to my ice melting nervousness. As guests arrived, the pressure was on, and truth be told, I hadn't yet perfected some of the nuances of how to make clear ice, which is critical for making Nice Mugs that don't leak. So the reliability of my invention was certainly in question. I think it was the restaurant's idea to make bold red vodka punch for the party as the thought was that the bold red color would show off well in the ice glasses.
Well, about 15 minutes into the party, and the first Nice Mugs sprung a spectacular leak, red vodka punch dripping down a guest white shirt, the first of several. My sister and I did our best to keep the party flowing, so to speak. We replaced Nice Mugs as they began to leak, and some moved their drinks over to the conventional regular glasses. While talking with guests, I could only look at their Nice Mugs praying and hoping that they would hold up and that they would stop talking to me and start drinking their beverage. We got through the party, but I was just a wreck.
The lesson. What I learned was a crash course in how air bubbles create leaks and glasses made entirely out of ice. The launch party sent me back to the drawing board to learn how to freeze ice clear without air bubbles. The top-down freeze method came out of a party where we could have given away laundry detergent as a parting gift. But everybody was good natured about the experience, and maybe it was because there was some fast drinking happening after people learned that the life of their Nice Mugs were unpredictable.
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Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. That is the theme of Failure Friday. And yes, a nice, beautiful, warm summer day is wonderful in lots of ways, but not so much when you've got a globe sculpture made out of ice or Glenn's Nice Mugs. And like I said, the stakes are a little bit higher for him because the whole point of his business was to make these mugs. But as you heard, he survived this disaster.
He was able to make some changes in his process, and Nice Mug is going along pretty well. So good job, Glenn. Thanks so much for helping us out with this segment. Check out his website at nicemug.com, just like it sounds, nicemug.com, or follow along on social @nicemug. Maybe a good thing for your next party or event.
If you have a question, if you'd like to update us about your hustle, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Last but not least, today's show notes, including additional links, are at sidehustleschool.com/1686. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope you're doing well wherever you are in the world, and I hope you'll join me again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
You're listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
