This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, hello. What's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. So glad you're tuning in wherever you are in the world. This is all about making extra money without quitting your job.
We accomplished this mission through questions and answers, case studies, field reports, updates from you, our listeners, our global community of amazing people all over the world. And this episode, of course, is part of a feature we've been doing all year called Your First Thousand Dollars. As you might guess, it's all about how someone made their first thousand dollars. How did they get to that point? Not their first 10,000 or a hundred thousand dollars, million dollars, whatever it is.
All those numbers are good too, but it would be a much longer story. So we're all about keeping things actionable on point, respectful of your time, because of course you are a busy person as well. At least I'm guessing so. That's our market. Busy people who want to make something happen for themselves.
And with that in mind, today's feature comes from Holly, the hula hoop hustler. Holly, the hula hoop hustler. I just gave her that tagline myself, but her name is Holly and she sells hula hoops. So seem to kind of make sense. She is now earning well over a thousand dollars a month selling hula hoops on Amazon.
But of course, what about that first thousand dollars? I think she's actually making up to $2,000 a month now. But how did she get started? What did she learn along the way? She's actually got a couple of lessons for us here.
So let's hear it from Holly. I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap up. [Music]
Hey, it's your girl Holly from Upstate New York. Yeah, I've had a few side hustles, but the one I'm here to tell you about is hula hoops. Yeah, hula hoops.
So I've been selling hula hoops on Amazon for the past year. I'm not sure why I first chose this market, except it kind of seemed cool and unusual. I also thought there really wouldn't be a ton of competition. So I got lucky in finding an overseas supplier and I ended up placing an order for 500 hula hoops using alababa and everything pretty much looked exactly like it did in the pictures. And I know that's not always the case, but my product has been solid.
For a long time, I actually used ship station for fulfillment, shout out the ship station. And I actually only switched because Amazon does everything. Honestly, ship station was great. And if I end up doing anything in house again, I'd probably go back to them. Now Amazon brings a few headaches, but they also bring a lot of customers.
I would say I'm easily earning at least $1,000 a month in profit, sometimes 2000. And at this point it's mostly passive. So what have I learned? Well, did you know that hula hoops are a seasonal business? Yeah, I didn't, but it's true.
They actually sell much more in the summer than the winter. I saw a huge increase as the weather got warmer. And then as it got colder and we went into October, it kind of declined a bit. I'm kind of curious to see about the holidays and if I'll see a holiday increase or a bump. I mean, so far I haven't noticed it, but then again, if everyone's as last minute shopper as I am, then there still could be time.
So another thing, I actually know that having positive reviews is important, but getting them is like pulling teeth. I think I get like maybe 3% of people to leave a review. I try to increase the numbers however I can, mostly by bugging my friends who've purchased to post five stars, but even then it kind of takes several reminders. I would say the best thing I've learned however, is how much fun this kind of is. Every day I'm eager to log in and see what my numbers are.
It makes me want to do this more and more and I don't know, maybe move into a new product line someday. But for now, I'll just kind of keep hula-ing, but thanks for all the inspiration. And I don't know, I hope you can feature my story in the next "Side Hustle" book. [Music]
Holly, thanks so much for telling us about your first $1,000 when I need a hula hoop. I know where to go.
And yes, it's cool to pick a market that has a good number of buyers, like people are buying hula hoops, but not a huge number of sellers. So there's all kinds of different little niches and markets you can find like that. Those are a great thing to go into, especially for your first e-commerce project. So listeners, take it from Holly. And I hope you found the story encouraging.
If you've got a question or an update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. This has been episode 2179, 2179. You can see the show notes page on that same number on the website, sidehustleschool.com/2179. And of course you can subscribe or follow wherever you like to listen. That's it for today.
My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from The Onward Project.
