Every Dog Has Its Side Hustling Day

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

Hey there, this is Chris Guillebeau. If you are listening to Side Hustle School in real time, it is just four days to go until the Side Hustle book is out. I will also be out and about in a different city every day, but of course the show will continue and I look forward to speaking to you from lots of different places. But for now, does the name Pavlov ring a bell? Well, today's story features two computer scientists who happen to be sisters and one of their boyfriends.

Who all join together to create a side hustle for the greater dog world. Every dog has its day and today you'll hear about a rough social good story that also makes money, of course, right after this shout out to our sponsor. What do you get when you combine a love of dogs with a motivation to make a difference, plus the determination to succeed? Well, you get the little collar, a side business built from the love of man's best friend, and I suppose woman's best friend, to be fair. The little collar makes wristbands that look like small pet collars, yet are actually worn by humans looking to show solidarity with the homeless and hungry dogs in developing countries. True story. And with every

little collar sold, the company provides a day of food to a dog in need. This is, of course, the buy one, give one model most famously created by Tom Shoes and then emulated many times over. And the little collar is a new side hustle started by two of our listeners, sisters Julia and Erica Spellman, both of whom are computer science students earning second bachelor degrees, and Julia's boyfriend, Rick Krizos, who's a full-time software salesman. The idea first came to Julia during a trip to Ecuador to visit family. She had been there several times and over the years she witnessed the hardships, overpopulation, and cruelty faced by stray dogs, but was always left with a question, well, what can I do? How can I help? Because in

Ecuador, there's not a lot of animal shelters. However, on this trip, she discovered a newly formed shelter. Julia wanted to support it and thus created a little collar. Back home, she borrowed her dad's old singer sewing machine and power watched YouTube tutorials to learn how to sew. Using that borrowed sewing machine, the free learning of YouTube, and other available resources is also how the little collar kept startup costs extremely low, less than a few hundred dollars in total. For example, Julia signed up for a 10-day free trial for Adobe

software in order to design and create the logo. And her goal was to create and design that logo within the 10-day trial period. They use an inkjet printer they already own to print the labels, and they built a low-cost website with Wix. They continue to keep costs down by purchasing materials in bulk to get a lower rate, thus making the largest investment into their hustle their time. Now, I mentioned this was more than just Julia. When dividing up responsibilities,

Julia makes each of the collars by hand, Erica manages much of the day-to-day operation, and Rick, Julia's boyfriend, is in charge of communication. This is a very new project, just a few months old, so the profits fluctuate, but they're currently averaging at least $500 a month. And since April, the business has generated enough money to cover more than a year's worth of food for one dog or 365 days of food for 365 dogs. I guess it just depends on if that one dog wants to share. The little collar is now working to establish a local presence in Boston, reaching out to their community for potential collaboration and partnership with like-minded businesses, including boutique dog stores. But Julia, Erica, and Rick's Vision is greater than

just a Wix website and a local presence. They want to create a brand that spreads awareness about the stray dog problem, they want to raise enough revenue to help on a larger scale, and really they just want to do more. In addition to supporting animal shelters in developing countries, they also hope to build shelters themselves one day, offering employment to locals while helping homeless dogs. And it all begins with a little collar. Well, my friends, it is a dog-eat-dog world out there. But don't give up, don't stop retrieving.

Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes are online at sidehustleschool.com/258. I'm Chris Guillebeau bringing you the Side Hustle Dogma every day. Come back tomorrow for another story.