289
9 min 24 sec

Marketer Creates Six-Figure Subscription Box Success

He looked for a simple solution for a client, and didn’t find one—so he spent the next year building it.
Developer Hustle Low Startup Potential Service Subscription Unique Ideas

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What It's About

A trailblazing subscription box company for people looking for more control of their products.

Business Model
Service
Skills Required
Problem Solving & Bootstrapping
Complexity
Medium
Profit Potential
Medium

Words of Wisdom

A note for programmers and coders: focus on problems—more likely than not, you won't have to look very far. And as you're problem-solving, make sure that you move forward with solutions that people will actually pay for.

Fun Fact

There are currently around 5.7 million subscription box shoppers in the US today. If you can think of a collection of items someone like you would need, this could be your next great side hustle! [Source]

Notes from Chris

Episode 289
Long business meetings are rarely a breeding ground for good ideas. In fact, they often end up getting in the way of good work. But, for Stefan Pretty, one of these meetings is where he was struck with the idea for his side hustle.

Sitting in a client meeting at his digital marketing agency, Stefan was working with a company who wanted to sell juice cleanse subscription boxes—but needed to do it on a bootstrapper’s budget. Creating a site like this from scratch requires a lot of coding, design, and a number of tools being brought together under one roof…. Which is of course something hard to achieve on a tight budget.

So Stefan went in search of more affordable plug-and-play solutions his client could use. But, what he found was that no such system existed.

Even though subscriptions were growing in popularity and demand, nobody had created a platform that made it easy to set up. And that’s when it hit him. What if he was the person to create an all-in-one solution for subscription boxes? He had the coding, design and marketing experience to build a basic model and get it running, so why not put it together himself?

He named his new idea and brand Subbly and set to work in his spare time around his day job. Although this was time intensive and sometimes exhausting, this investment allowed Stefan to start his entire business for less than $200. Not bad considering how high-tech a lot of this can be.

Unlike their main competitor CrateJoy that works as a marketplace for people to buy and sell crates, Subbly focuses on giving you independence. To be able to create, design and sell from your own platform, and not be reliant on someone else’s platform and their search engines for your sales.

So far, it seems to be working. Subbly has grown their income to five figures per month and is growing its member base month on month. Stefan has also been able to leave his digital marketing agency behind and focus on his side hustle!

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

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Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,

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Resources

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Quote of the Day
"Stay lean—you can always do more with less and validate your ideas and assumptions with the simplest of things that cost nothing."
—Stefan Pretty #SideHustleSchool

Sponsors & Gratitude

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To infinity and beyond,

Chris Guillebeau