This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Greetings, what's up? Thanks for tuning in. My name's Chris Guillebeau. We are listening to Side Hustle School. And this episode here on day 2046, since we started, you know, 2046 days ago, this episode is part of a new feature we're doing called Your First Thousand Dollars.
I guess it's not so new. We've been doing it for, I guess, about seven or eight months so far, but it's one of my favorite things to work on all about how someone made their first thousand dollars. How did they get to that point? Not their first hundred thousand dollars or million dollars. That's cool too, but we really want to look at how someone got started.
So today's feature comes from Becky Hoy. We first featured Becky back on episode 1261, military spouse starts subscription box mission. She'll explain it more. It's essentially monthly boxes that go to spouses of deployed service members. But what about her first thousand dollars?
How did she make it happen? What did it feel like? And what did she learn? Oh, also bonus. She's going to share a little bit of a pre-launch strategy, basically how she earned that money before her product actually launched.
So this is really cool. If you don't have any money at all, which was her situation, very, very little money to start, she wanted to essentially bootstrap it with almost nothing. And that's what she did. Business is going well now, but how did it begin? Let's hear from Becky.
[Music]
Hi, my name is Becky Hoy and I'm the founder of Brave Crate, the deployment countdown box for military spouses. I was featured on Side Hustle School, episode number 185. And today I'm sharing the story of the first $1,000 that I earned through this subscription box business. More importantly, I'm sharing how I earned that first $1,000 before my product had even officially launched to the public using a pre-launch strategy. So when I began Brave Crate, I was working a regular nine to five job.
I'm a military spouse myself. And I noticed that there was a need to support military spouses during deployment countdowns. I was really passionate about doing this, but I also knew that I had to do it in the margins and I needed to do it in a way that didn't require a ton of investment upfront. So I decided to use a pre-launch strategy to build my business before I had to really expend any additional money. I started by drumming up excitement through social media.
So I created social media accounts for my business and I shared our vision for Brave Crate. I shared spoilers to show our audience what they could expect when our box was available. And I engaged with military spouses online who were counting down deployment whenever I had spare time. And as a side hustler, that usually meant I was engaging with my audience in the morning over coffee, during my lunch break, or even on an Uber ride. The next thing I did was I created relationships.
So I started connecting with bloggers, podcasters, influencers, who were also supporting military spouses. I shared my vision. I told them what I was doing with Brave Crate, that I was creating a monthly deployment countdown box. And I ended up having quite a number of invitations from my new friends to write guest blogs or join them for podcast interviews. And we even did a number of shared social media giveaways to help grow both of our audiences.
Then a few weeks ahead of our pre-launch sale, I created a digital download. It was called 10 Conversations to Have with Your Partner While They're Deployed. And it was just a list of 10 conversation starters that couples could use during a deployment season. I shared that in groups on Facebook that supported military spouses. And I also used a few low-budget Facebook ads to share as well.
My newly found content creator friends were also happy to share with their own audiences and that really expanded our reach as well. In exchange for receiving this free digital download, users shared their email address and subscribed to a pre-launch email list to stay updated about Brave Crate so that they could know when it was ready to launch. As users were added to that email list, they were automatically delivered a flow of emails that shared a behind the scenes look at all I was doing to start Brave Crate. And they were given a heads up that they would receive a special opportunity to subscribe and join us with a fabulous deal, of course, before we were open to the public. Finally, on the day of our pre-launch sale, I invited everyone on my email list to join as a founding member with a special discount available only for two days.
And that day has really been one of the highlights of my journey as an entrepreneur. The entire day I was receiving alerts that new customers had subscribed and we actually saw $1,000 in earned revenue within the first six hours of going live. I felt so incredibly proud, so relieved. And if I'm being honest, a little bit shocked, it can be so easy in the early stages of our business to start wondering whether all of the work that we're putting in will actually pay off. And when it does, when you see revenue begin to grow, when you see customers who are excited about what you're offering, it is just such a confidence boost.
And it's a reminder that all of this work is really to serve whatever your mission is. So if you are just getting started, I hope that this strategy is helpful. And I hope that this story inspires you to know that all of the work you're putting in will be worth every effort. - Build your business before spending money. Listeners, you heard it from Becky.
It's not just me, I'm saying that all the time, but it's always nice to come across somebody who's like, yes, this is the way to do it. Of course I say that, but so many of the stories in our archives are people like Becky who are starting with very little and go on to create something really cool. So congratulations, Becky. Thanks for telling us about your first $1,000 listeners. I hope you found it encouraging.
Check out her website, bravecrates.com. Bravecrates.com, also a great brand name. Or follow on Facebook and Instagram at Bravecrates. If you've got a question for us or an update about your side hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Thanks for tuning in today.
I hope you'll subscribe, follow, come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
