This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau, your host. Welcome as well to Failure Friday. This is our weekly segment featuring a collection of short stories about mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course, failure. What goes wrong?
You know, you're always hearing success stories and in the case studies that I bring you at least, I try to focus on what's challenging, what missteps are made and so on. But, you know, earlier this year, we started this segment where we're really delving into the concept of, you know, what does it feel like when you are immersed in that misstep or maybe it's not even a misstep, it's a disaster that just comes to you. You know, what are you going to do? How are you gonna manage this process and how will you overcome? What will you learn along the way and so on?
I have really enjoyed the stories we've heard so far and I know our listeners have enjoyed it too. If you're a new listener, welcome. Now I'm bringing you this podcast every single day, seven days a week. I've been doing that since January 1, 2017. And if you've been around for a while, that's awesome.
Thank you for being part of this community. Okay, so today's short story features Denise O'Connell from Ontario, Canada. I've talked about her business a couple of times. She's the co-founder of Tuck Tats. Tuck Tats, like tuck tattoos, which sells temporary tattoos to cover surgical scarves.
She'll explain that a bit more in her update here. And when they were just getting started, she and her co-founder found a designer, they're gonna call her Brenda, put that in quotes, Brenda, quotes, who was a one-stop shop or so they thought. This was a person that they thought could do everything. Well, let's hear from Denise about what really happened and I'll come back at the end to help us up. [Music]
Hi, my name is Denise and I'm the co-owner and founder of Tuck Tats, temporary tattoos.
We design and sell beautiful and realistic temporary tattoos that cover abdominal scars. So scars that are caused by C-sections, tummy tucks, breast reconstructions and other types of abdominal surgeries. When we first started our company, we were so excited, maybe too excited. And as we started to do our research and look for resources and suppliers, we came across this woman, we'll call her Brenda. Well, Brenda appeared like a dream.
With a Google search, we found a local tattoo shop that was owned by Brenda. She also printed temporary tattoos as her own side hustle. We thought we came across the perfect person who could partner with us and handle our ongoing requirements for art and design and manufacturing. We thought we were so smart and thorough. We made her sign a non-disclosure agreement and started discussions immediately with her.
The first thing we paid Brenda for was a set of designs. We asked for 10 designs, and she recruited one of her self-proclaimed top tattoo artists to sketch some designs for us based on our specifications and what we thought would be trendy and what would sell really well. So they came in and well, honestly, I mean, it was terrible. I mean, this was a sketch and all I could think about was the poor person who let this artist put something permanent on their body. There wasn't one that I would put on myself.
So we attempted to provide direction to the artist, but it was all for naught. At some point, we had to decide whether Brenda had the talent in-house to provide design services to us. But while we were dealing with art, Brenda also came forward and offered her website design services. What? She also does website design?
Another box checked for our e-commerce business. So we've worked out a few thousand dollars for a website, but not so fast. As we went through the process, we gave her our requirements for the site and she delayed and she tried to steer us in different directions. And we soon realized that Brenda was not really a website designer. Brenda knew how to use a pre-formulated template on one specific platform.
We would not be able to have any customizations, nor would we be able to use the e-commerce platform that we wanted to use. My partner and I soon had the realization that we had thrown thousands of dollars at what we would call a jack of all trades, master of none. She was a dabbler in different things and had no real expertise in any of the areas that we needed her for. We had wasted precious time, resources and money, $3,000 to be exact on someone who could not deliver what she promised. So we had to delay our launch as we had no designs, no inventory and no website.
My partner and I felt sick and maybe a bit defeated. $3,000 was out of our own bank accounts. We were funding this little adventure ourselves. We questioned whether we really had what it takes to succeed in this business or whether we were destined to fail this early on and whether we should just pack it all in. Brenda may have over promised, but she didn't run away with our money.
In the end, we were able to negotiate a fee for the work already done and she did refund most of what we've given her. She saw our frustration and she had a conscience, but it left us with the lesson that we have to do our due diligence on everyone we give money to. We have to ask for references. We also have to find the best suppliers for each of our business needs and relying on a one-stop shop may have been just a bit of a shortcut. Since then, we found amazing artists and designers through Upwork.
We contracted one of the biggest temporary tattoo manufacturers in North America and we hired a top-notch website designer. It may have cost a bit more, but dealing with true professionals meant that I didn't have to handhold or babysit them. And at the end, we ended up with what we wanted and how we envisioned our business to life. [Music]
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. That is the theme of Failure Friday.
Thank you so much Denise for sharing this transparent and truthful story. Lots of lessons there. I've had to learn some of those myself through my own experience, but hopefully our listeners can learn some of these things in advance and perhaps avoid at least part of that process. Listeners, I want to encourage you to check out Denise's website. It's tuktats.com.
So just like it sounds, tuktats. You can also follow the business and see lots of cool pictures of the work they do on most social networks at tuktats, T-U-C-K-T-A-T-S. If you have a question for us or an update for us about your side hustle, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you'll subscribe or follow.
Tell your friends, come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
