This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, what's up? Welcome, thanks for tuning in today. It is the Ides of April, 15th of April, episode 1931. At least that's when this is being published. And today's segment falls in the framework known as Failure Friday.
I love working on this segment. I think I say that every week, but it's one of my favorite things to work on. And it's because people are bringing us these very honest stories, very honest, truthful stories about learning from failure or mistakes or missteps, disasters, maybe something that just goes wrong or something that's unexpected. There's just so many good things that come through these stories. They often begin with an idea or an assumption, something that someone thought would happen.
And then of course what really happened and then what they learned from that. I don't wanna spend too much time on an introduction. Today's short story features Jen Pinero from, I believe it's Pennsylvania or Delaware, the general area. She is the owner of Waste Well, a curbside composting company that provides educational resources. And it is a company, but it's mostly a side hustle.
You're gonna hear all about that. Also, you're gonna hear that Jen had the opportunity to undertake a major contract with a municipal government, which sounded amazing. In fact, she committed to it. But as the start date grew closer, she began having some real regrets. So she's gonna give us the story, Jen Pinero.
[Music]
Hi, my name is Jen Pinero and I am the owner of Waste Well, a local curbside composting company that also provides educational resources for those looking to compost at home. In the summer of 2020 and on a bit of a whim, I decided to start a local curbside composting service. I had written extensively about composting at home on my personal blog and knew many people struggled to find the time, resources or interest to compost themselves. I wanted to help more people in my community compost and expected a collection service could connect the dots for some of them. Over the next couple of months, I created a website and some social media accounts and I started to spread the word about my business plan.
Curbside compost collection service has limited startup expense. So it wasn't long before I had customers and ran a biweekly collection service using my personal vehicle. The business hummed along and grew slowly but steadily just as I'd hoped. About six months in, I received an inquiry from a local municipality to partner to provide compost services to some of their residents. This sounded like an amazing opportunity and I told them I'd love to pursue the idea.
At the time, I ran the business myself. I did all of the collection and managed the back office on my own. I didn't have the capacity or infrastructure to serve such a contract right then, but I expected over time I could hire and invest sufficiently to serve the contract at inception and grow with it over time. It took about six months to negotiate the contract and move through the municipal approval process. Over the course of that six months, I began to question whether or not I actually wanted my sustainable side hustle to grow into a full-time company that would be required to properly serve this municipal contract.
I love composting, but I didn't love the idea of running a waste management logistics and transportation company at a large scale. I have no regrets about diving into the business to learn and find out which parts I liked and didn't like. As I think living through the experiences and testing the waters is part of understanding what we want to do with our careers. In the last couple of months before the contract was to begin, I met with the municipality on many occasions. I introduced them to another partner in our area who could also help serve the contract, and I invested just over $1,500 in legal expenses.
As we hashed out the details of the partnership, it became increasingly clear to me that I did not want to move forward with this work, and I wouldn't be the best long-term partner for the municipality. At the 11th hour, just days before the final contract was to be executed, and after local media had unofficially announced the exciting partnership, I walked away. I dreaded the difficult conversation with the municipality, who had been great to work with throughout the process. I was bummed about the immediate attention that would ultimately highlight the failed partnership, and $1,500 in legal expenses was significant relative to the profit margin of this small but growing side hustle. But the reflection and analysis I did that led up to my final decision to walk away from that contract also gave me clarity about the future I wanted for a waste well.
Unfortunately, for about half of my customers, I could no longer serve them while also moving waste well in a direction that worked for my family and my goals. Just a few hours after telling the municipality that I could no longer commit to the contract, I also sent an email to most of my customers informing them I'd be winding down waste well. The experience felt pretty crappy. Fortunately, I hadn't spent immense amount of time investing in the partnership, but at the end of the year when I looked at my financial statements, all those legal expenses were a glaring light item in the company's first year losses. However, I had many customers reach out to me and thank me for my services.
Several customers offered to pay more to keep the service going, while others offered to help drive or assist to make waste well sustainable. In the end, I retained about half my customers in a smaller service area. I continue to receive inquiries from potential customers, many of whom are outside of the new smaller service area I committed to maintain. In order to ensure waste well was a sustainable side hustle for the foreseeable future. I love composting.
I know it's a strange thing to be passionate about and many people think it's pretty gross, but I see it as an opportunity to incorporate more eco-conscious lifestyle habits into everyday lives that support the health of the planet and our communities without significant financial investment or massive lifestyle overhauls. Even though I'm passionate about helping as many people as I can find a way to compost at home, the experience of pursuing and then walking away from a public contract reminded me of the importance to pause once in a while and be more thoughtful about the financial, operational and personal implications of pursuing a side hustle and potentially allowing it to flourish into a full-time commitment. Bigger isn't always better, even if we're providing a resource or service that helps others. It's okay for a side hustle to remain a side hustle, even if bigger opportunities are knocking at the door when those opportunities don't serve our goals and passions. [Music]
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.
That is the theme of Failure Friday. Thanks so much, Jen. I also love her advice on pausing, like pausing once in a while and reflecting. What is it that you really want? Like what is the purpose of this project or really anything in your life?
You know, what is the purpose of it? Bigger isn't always better. I think ultimately the goal is meaning, meaningful, purposeful work, finding alignment between all the things that you do, your relationships, your personal wellness, all that kind of stuff. And so it's really smart, I think, that Jen walked away from this contract. The wrong thing to do, at least in my opinion, or maybe the lesser desirable path, 'cause it could have turned out okay too, but the wrong thing would be to just, you know, ignore that voice in your head that says, this isn't really, you know, the right fit, and I'm just gonna kind of push through.
So thanks again, Jen, for sharing that transparent, truthful story. Check out her website, listeners, mywastewell.com, mywastewell.com, or follow her on Instagram @wastewell. We'll link it up in the notes page as well, that's sidehustleschool.com/1931. If you have a question or an update for us, you can leave it there on the site as well. Let me know what you're working on, what's going well for you, as well as what's not.
And thank you once again for being part of this amazing community. You're awesome, I hope you do something for yourself today, and I hope you'll come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau, you're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
