Office Assistant Profits from Anime Imports

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

[Music]

Hey there, welcome back. Today's episode number 2012. It's actually being recorded or being published the day after the 4th of July. Hope you had a good Independence Day if you celebrate. And really Independence Day, that's the kind of thing that should happen all the time all over the world.

Independence, of course, means you can make more of your own choices. Do more of what's important to you, which is what Side Hustle School is about every single day. I've got a great story for you today. It's all about anime. After noticing a dearth of anime items in the United States, anime, merch, all sorts of fan items and gear, this longtime lover of Japanese culture creates a thriving side hustle.

He does this by working in partnership with a friend on location. So what can we learn about the world of anime reselling? Importing reselling for profit, we'll find out in this story. Office assistant profits from anime imports. The story is coming right up.

[Music]

Despite the naysayers, Ulysses Arachiga always knew that one day his career would be related to anime. At 13 years old, Ulysses' mom forced him and his brother to help her sell plants at a local swap market. While it wasn't the worst thing in the world, he also didn't really enjoy it. At least until his mom let the boys begin selling their Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.

Suddenly, swap markets became thrilling. The brothers had been collecting cards for years. And through their newfound sales skills, they were able to buy toys and video games with the profits. What can you say, live in the dream? While their mom eventually stopped going to this swap meet, the experience never left Ulysses.

Through high school, his interest in anime bloomed. During college, he had dreams of opening his very own anime store. Upon graduation, however, Ulysses found himself stuck in a series of office jobs. Before long, he needed a change. He quit his latest office job and moved to Japan.

For three years, he taught English to students. Eventually, Ulysses moved back to the United States and found himself missing all the awesome anime goodies in Japan. When America was sorely lacking a supply of those cool items in merch, one might say he felt the need to catch them all. And by all, we mean as much cool anime gear as possible. Now, this got him thinking about Anne, one of the friends he made back in Japan.

Anne had a side hustle selling products from Japan in the United States. So since Ulysses was now in the United States, the two decided to team up to sell more products. She shipped her excess supplies to him and he got to work. His strategy was to look for upcoming anime conventions and he searched for the one with the cheapest price to set up a booth. This happened to be called the Pacific Media Expo.

And to have a booth there, it cost $350. He took the risk and booked it. Around this time, they considered creating a website. But Ulysses' brother, you know, that same one that helped him sell at swap meets long ago, he had a website called pikadude.com. Years earlier, he had set it up to sell more of their collectibles, but it never went anywhere.

To save money and time before the convention, Ulysses asked his brother if they could use that old website for this new hustle. The brother agreed and joined the team. To organize inventory, the partners created a Google spreadsheet that included information like the product name, cost, price, and quantity. Finally, the team had to get a California sellers permit prior to the convention. Ulysses says that most conventions require this document, but once you find the right webpage, the process is pretty simple.

While the convention attendance ended up being smaller than expected due to another conference being in town the same weekend, the pikadude team still had some promising sales numbers. They were able to pay for that booth and supplies and had some profits on top. Ever since, Ulysses and Ann have been refining their business. In 2019, pikadude had a booth at 20 different conventions. Then in 2020, it hit a snag due to the pandemic, but they still managed to attend nine events.

In 2021, it bounced back to around 13 and the team hopes to surpass that number in 2022. Since Ann is still in Japan, she has great perspective on what products they should invest in. As Ulysses notes, Japan tends to be the trendsetter when it comes to anime, so I rely on my business partner to pay attention to what is newly released and becoming popular based on merchandise that's selling well at the source. Once Ann identifies the series, characters and styles that she thinks are best, together they figure out which ones will work with their budget and they purchase them. Rather than buying items in bulk, however, their philosophy is to focus more on acquiring a small amount of in-demand items and exclusive Japanese releases.

At this point, it's Ulysses responsibility to research events that would fit those products best and again, fit the budget. While most of their sales come from events, they also have an online purchasing option as well. So, let's talk about the numbers. What's the bottom line? Well, Picadude brings in about $5,000 in profit every month.

In the future, Ulysses hopes to double the events that they attend and he also wants this to become his full-time job while creating his own collector's emporium. He describes it as a place where vendors can come together and share their content. After growing up with the dream of building a business from anime, Ulysses has made it a reality. [Music]

Awesome, congratulations to you Ulysses and Anne. And to anybody else that's part of the Picadude team, I was checking out the website picadude.com.

Listeners, be sure you check it out as well. Keeping the love of Pokemon, anime, and video games alive by offering collectibles from Japan to fans all over the world. Pretty cool project. My brother was really into anime, so whenever I work on a story about anime, I always think of him. And whether you're into anime or not, Side Hustle School, it's all about creating independence through the form of a second income.

So there's all kinds of things that you can resell or create or services you can provide. There's something that you can do, and it might be something that not everybody else is into, and that's totally cool. That's the whole point. In fact, sometimes the smaller the niche, the better. All right, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better.

Gonna leave you with that today. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/20122012. I hope you'll subscribe, follow "Come Back Tomorrow," new episode every single day. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School.

[Music]

- From the Onward Project.