This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Friends, listeners, Side Hustle School community, welcome, and thanks for tuning in today. My name's Chris Guillebeau, your host. Today's segment falls under the feature we call Failure Friday. I have so enjoyed working on this series this year. It is a collection of short stories about mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course, failure.
In other words, all the things that go wrong, often a side hustler or a small business owner who is struggling to get something off the ground, or sometimes they've got a business that's actually going really well, and something goes very not well, shall we say. Now, these stories tend to vary, but they often begin with an idea, an assumption, but then that idea or assumption meets reality, and of course, what do they learn through the process? So, without further ado, today's short story features Jay Perkins. Jay now operates a lifestyle fitness blog at living.fit, but previously, he founded a business called Kettlebell Kings. Kettlebell Kings.
So, let's hear from Jay about a big struggle the team had as they were scaling up their business. I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap-up. [Music]
My name is Jay Perkins, and my side hustle was Kettlebell Kings. I started while selling software, as well as driving for a ride-sharing service full-time. We started a business importing Kettlebells and other fitness equipment.
None of us had ever done anything like this before. We were in our mid-20s, and this was our first business. As the business started gaining momentum, we were looking for new suppliers to improve production time and expand our product line. This is grueling work in the beginning because we were operating our own warehouse in Austin, Texas, which in the summer has temperatures that reached in the hundreds of degrees. We didn't have air conditioning, and we're surrounded by a bunch of metal fitness equipment, which helped heat up the room because they took on the temperature.
We were unloading our containers by hand. We didn't have a setup that was conducive to using forklifts, and so it was just backbreaking work to even unload these shipping containers. It took four or five hours at a time, oftentimes having to unload 15 to 20,000 pounds by hand, carry it in individually, and then restack it. So we brought on a new supplier, and after we were successfully selling through the first load of products we got from them, we put in an order for a new restock. This was a new product line that we were trying to get up and running as we identified a potential need in the market.
At the time, we're pouring our heart and soul into the business on a daily basis, and oftentimes it just feels like you're living and dying with different things that happen in the day-to-day. For example, you get a good review and you're on top of the world. You get a bad review, you come crashing down, or if any other obstacles get in your way, it just feels like maybe you're never gonna make it. So when we received the restock from the new supplier, we went through the four hours of hard work to unload the container. We opened up a few boxes to check samples, and they had shipped us just a completely different version of the kettlebell.
It wasn't what we ordered, it wasn't what we were currently advertising on our website. We had taken pre-orders from customers in the thousands of dollars who were expecting a specific product, and this just did not even look like it. It was vaguely similar in the same way that if you were selling chairs and a supplier sent you bar stools, meaning it's something that you could sit on. This was a kettlebell that could be used, but it did not resemble in the slightest what we had ordered. It was an odd thing because when trying to speak to the supplier, they just seemed to think, well, it's a kettlebell, they're all the same.
The concept of the difference in craftsmanship or branding didn't really occur. So we felt terrible. We were potentially gonna be out of $25,000 or so, which we had spent with the order if we decided to just completely trash the stock and not use it. We were bootstrapping this business. It was with our own cash.
And so that was gonna be a potentially big loss for all of us. We had sold pre-orders to people who were expecting a specific type of looking product. We felt that it made us look completely inept to customers that we couldn't even consistently source the same product. And we were trying to build our brand as this premium provider and seller of kettlebell. So to us, this felt completely inconsistent with everything we were trying to do as a brand and the image we wanted to project.
In the moment, we have to worry about losing the money for the container, as well as what seemed to be an existential threat for our ability to do business. And it just felt terrible. This is an example of something you don't really know if you're gonna survive. In the end, we had to make time to think about the best way to handle it. We ended up redoing product images so that the new items would be sold as is and people could expect what they were getting.
We let the pre-orders know about the issue and if they wanted to offer a refund, they could. Or if they wanted to exchange it for a different product, they could. Most of which did not. And they still ended up liking the product, which is great. But we did have some disappointment that we had to deal with.
What we learned from this is that we needed to implement some form of quality control measures, like finding someone on the ground to inspect products before they ship, or requiring images and videos from the supplier before it ships. We also realized we needed to renegotiate supplier terms so that we did not lay out as much cash for any delivery before we received it. Especially if we were bringing on a new supplier. But early on, we actually went through a few similar experiences in other suppliers where they sent us either just bad and rusty or different products. So it wasn't uncommon that we had to deal with this a couple of times.
Since none of us had ever imported or started a business before, it just didn't even occur to us that someone might not send the right product to us. They would send a bad product or just not keep their word in the transaction. So the thing we learned is we had to be a lot more guarded about the money we lay out for new orders, how we vet suppliers, and especially if we're bringing on a new supplier, not necessarily offer things for early ordering for customers so that we could manage those expectations. And as a result, we now work with different terms on suppliers. We're a lot more cognizant of how we bring on different suppliers as well.
Additionally, it taught us to be resilient. The bottom line is in business, many things will not go according to plan or how you want them to happen. There's a virtually infinite number of people you're relying on that are outside of your control when you talk about suppliers, the individual workers, and those factories, supply chain along the way and the thousands of people that those employ. So very often it won't go according to plan. You do just need to be resilient.
You need to make notes about how this could have been avoided, how to handle it next time, and how to reduce your financial risks as much as possible. But if you're showing and successfully sell your product, you shouldn't give up either. Again, my name is Jay Perkins. My current business is www.living.fit. That's living.fit.
This story is in relation to a business that I've previously started as a side hustle and successfully exited called Kettlebell Kings. [Music]
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. That is our theme of this weekly segment. And to add Jay's advice, learn to be resilient. Anything that helps you learn to be resilient, not just in a knowledge or intellectual based way, but an actual practical way where you're going through something and you feel it.
And it's tough, but you also believe you can get through it. That is in essence resilience. So thanks to Jay for sharing this transparent and truthful story. As you heard him say at the end, he has now left the Kettlebell sales business. His new website is www.living.fit, or you can follow him on Instagram at www.living.fit.
And actually you can buy Kettlebells there. Even though he's no longer the Kettlebell King, I did notice that you can in fact order some Kettlebells on www.living.fit. So check it out. You can also find lots of tutorials, great content. And if you have a question or an update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions.
That's it for today. Got a new episode coming out tomorrow and I hope you'll subscribe or follow, come back again. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
