This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, welcome, welcome, welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is episode 2,242 in fact, and today's episode is part of a feature we call your first $1,000. You might guess or you might know if you've been listening for a while, it's all about how someone made their first $1,000. How did they get to that point? Not their first $100,000, how did they get to their first $1,000?
And it's because once you get some momentum with something, it's so much easier to just keep going, make $10,000, make more money, whatever it is, but you gotta get that first $1,000. So different feature every week, every Monday, usually it comes out. And with that in mind, today's feature comes from Sarah in Nebraska. Sarah is a candle seller who doesn't flame out, but what about her first $1,000? How did she make it happen?
What did it feel like? What did she learn? Let's hear the story from Sarah. [Music]
Hi, this is Sarah. I'd always been fascinated by the art of candle making and had even dabbled in it as a hobby for years.
I would often make them as gifts for friends and family, but never considered turning it into a business until one day when I was laid off from my job in tech. Feeling a bit burned by my job loss, I decided to take my hobby to the next level and see if I can make a profit from it. I dove headfirst into researching different techniques and materials and soon realized that there was a whole world of possibilities beyond the basic paraffin wax candles I had been making. I learned about soy wax, beeswax, and even gelato candles, which are made with gel wax. I knew I needed to stand out in the crowded candle market, so I decided to focus on creating unique and creative scents.
I began experimenting with fragrance oils and essential oils and soon had a collection of one-of-a-kind scent combinations. My favorite was lavender vanilla scent that I called soothing serenity. With my candles perfected, I set up an online store and began promoting my creations through social media. The response was overwhelmingly positive and soon I was receiving orders from all over the world. You could even say I was lit with excitement.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. However, I soon learned an important lesson. Shipping can be a wicked expense. I had underestimated the cost of shipping, especially for international orders and was barely breaking even with my sales. I had to get creative with packaging to keep the costs down.
I started using bubble wrap and packing peanuts made from biodegradable materials and increased my minimum order size. Despite the shipping woes, my candle business continued to grow. In month two, I reached a flaming milestone, my first $1,000 in sales. I was over the moon with excitement and couldn't believe I had turned my hobby into a profitable business. I'm back at work in a new job now, but I learned several important lessons from my candle-making journey.
The first was that persistence pays off. I didn't give up when I faced obstacles and instead found ways to overcome them. The second lesson was the importance of being adaptable. By being open to new ideas and techniques, I was able to go from hobby to moneymaker. And the final lesson, always factor in the cost of shipping or else you'll be left burning money.
- Thanks so much to Sarah for telling us about her first $1,000. Love the lesson of being adaptable, being open to new ideas and techniques. I try to be adaptable as well, but I think it's one of those things that's easier said than done because you tend to kind of just get stuck in doing things a certain way and doing one thing, expecting a certain result and variables change over time. So you have to be adaptable. You have to kind of flex that muscle.
So I'm working on it too, just like Sarah is, just like perhaps you as well. Anyway, I hope you found it encouraging. If you have a question or an update about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Today's notes, sidehustleschool.com/2242. That's all for today.
You can subscribe, follow, get more wherever you listen. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
