This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Happy last week of December. We are coming to the end of 2021, which is so hard to believe.
Of course, you could be listening in 2022 or maybe even some time after that, which is crazy. But also just here, as I'm recording this, I'm like, wow, what a year it has been. I wanna thank you so much for being part of my year. Thank you for being part of this community as well. Everything we do here is designed to help you create freedom through the form of a money-making project.
This segment, which is our second to last one of the year, I believe, is Throwback Thursday. This is our second to last Throwback Thursday of the year, where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. Now, last week we heard from Julie Sanchez, the soap-making adventurous, who goes all in on a squeaky clean side hustle. Today in our latest feature, we'll hear from Joshua Esnerd in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is the founder of The Cut Buddy, which is a tool for home haircuts.
It actually became a viral moneymaker many years ago. And guess what happened in 2020? Everyone was cutting their own hair. Don't you wish you could go back in time and invest in Zoom and invest in Tesla, invest in sourdough bread, the big sourdough bread industry, whoever is behind that, since that kind of took off, and Joshua's tool, The Cut Buddy. You'd make so much money, but I digress.
Back to Joshua, how has he handled the massive increase in business for The Cut Buddy? Let's hear directly from him, and I'll come back at the end to wrap us up. [Music]
My name is Joshua Esnerd, and my side hustle was The Cut Buddy, but it's now my full-time job. I currently reside in Pittsburgh, North Carolina, and I was on episode 926. And originally, when I met with you guys a few years back, The Cut Buddy was based on an invention that I created when I was 13 years old to shape up and line up my hair, 'cause I kept messing up cutting my own hair, so I needed some kind of stencil.
Around that time, I'd gone viral with my business, and we had become a number one bestseller. Ever since then, we now are offering tools like rotary shavers with ergonomic handles, clipper kits that help beginners learn how to cut their own hair, and then we offer some other accessories that just make haircuts easier for the person trying to achieve a good haircut. So how my business started was, my dad was cutting my hair when I was 13 years old, and he was giving me buzz cuts, and I was really sick of those haircuts, so I decided to pick up the trimmer and try and cut my own hair. And as a 13-year-old trying to cut your hair, it's not that easy. I ended up with looking like a cheetah with all these bald spots all over my head, so I realized the hardest part about cutting my hair was the lines and the curves that I had to cutting my hair, so I decided to cut up my dad's work folders and detergent bottles and place them against my head as a stencil shape so that I get those perfect curves and lines.
And that's how to cut, but he was born. That was my first invention as a teenager. Since you last featured me on the show in July 2019, a lot is happening. Well, A, COVID happened, and as you can imagine, many businesses suffered. However, during COVID, my business actually, the sales skyrocketed because everyone was cutting their own hair at home.
Now, many people think I got rich off of that, but it's not true because I ended up running out of inventory very early, and getting more inventory was a headache because all the shipping docks and all the manufacturers were delayed for COVID as well. But even better since then, we've picked up some retail clients, so we have a great relationship with Walmart right now, so we've been in their store as our own brand for a year, and we are gonna be working with Target in next year. The biggest challenge that I'm currently facing is scaling on a bootstrap budget. So, you know, we bootstrapped this business and had trying to pay for money from your own revenues. It gets really hard when 3,000 Walmart says they need, this many units in a few months.
So, just scaling to retail has been really tough, so we're looking to open up some type of fundraising in the future or figure out some way of funding our retail expansion. The advice that I'd give someone to follow in my footsteps would be make mistakes, try to make them early, and learn from them. Another thing that I would say is don't sit on your ideas. If you're questioning the world, you're always opening a statement with what if, how come, what's wrong with, why is it that I can't do. That's your mind trying to be inventive and innovative, and you should write those questions down, and maybe when you're in the shower or taking a walk in the park, you come up with a simple invention.
Then you can protect that idea with a patent or an electoral property or trademark, and then you own the rights to that. So, that's a real quick way to turn something that is a side hustle into financial freedom. [Music]
Awesome, Joshua, thank you so much. I really appreciate those updates, and I love this advice about don't sit on your ideas. Joshua said, if you're questioning the world, you're always opening a statement of what if, and that's your mind trying to be inventive and innovative, and you should write those questions down.
I totally agree. When you have something that you just can't get off your mind, there's usually a good reason for it. So, thanks again, Joshua. In addition to the wild success of CutBuddy, he and his wife have a newborn at home as well. So, lots of stuff going on in that household.
Check out their website at thecutbuddy.com for all the hair necessities, thecutbuddy.com. We are a little bit late for this holiday season, but maybe a 2021 gift for someone in your life. It has been so fun to work on this series. As we prepare for another year to come, let me know what you think and who you'd like to see featured from our archives of more than 1,000 stories. I'm so grateful for you.
I hope you're doing okay in these last few days of the year. Be sure to subscribe or follow, 'cause I'll be back tomorrow with a new episode. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
