This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Engineer turns home energy problem into million dollar solution. In this story, a construction engineer discovers how much energy is wasted by attics. He goes on to create a simple product that saves homeowners money and builds a cytosol for himself that earns more than $2 million a year. Is that right, $2 million a year? Sometimes you hear about cytosols in the popular press or in the culture and they talk about cytosols like driving for Uber or DoorDash or something and making a small amount of money.
And look, nothing wrong with that if you're just getting started, but you can do better, you can do better. And that's why I try to highlight all kinds of stories of people making real money with side hustles. Sometimes they go on to become a full-time business, but sometimes they don't. This is one of our classics, a remix of a story that came out in 2018. If you happen to remember everything in 2018, well, I'm gonna have some updates for you.
And if you weren't around listening in 2018, this one's gonna be new. And in fact, we'll go back in time further than that because this cytosol actually started more than 15 years ago. It was immediately profitable. It has grown considerably ever since and it's now a seven-figure project as noted, but yet it is still operated as a cytosol. So I love that.
The stories just get better and better. I'm so excited to make the show for you every day. Gonna bring this story to you right after this quick sponsor break. Again, engineer turns home energy problem into multi-million dollar solution. Stay tuned.
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Let's take a trip back in time. The year is 2002. The internet is nothing like it is now. E-commerce is really just getting rolling. And Mark Tyrol is a construction engineer.
He tests and certifies building materials. He loves his job, but there's something he doesn't love, a problem he sees all the time. That problem is addicts. Addicts are never sealed properly. They let in air from the outside.
They tend to cost homeowners hundreds of dollars a year and lost energy from heat or air conditioning, even if they don't realize it. Now Mark's own addict wasn't any different and this really bothered him. So one weekend he created a foam cover for his addict stairs that would provide at least some level of insulation. And almost overnight his electricity bill went down. It was so simple yet so effective, he knew he had landed on something that others would want.
Mark started working on a website during nights and weekends. Again, this is a long time ago. He wasn't sure it would work. He was far more of a technical guy than a marketing one, but he figured it was worth a shot. Being a construction engineer, Mark had a pretty good idea of where to look for a manufacturer.
He talked to a few in his area and signed an agreement with one $5,000 for the first batch of product. Now this was a pretty big risk. He put it all in his credit card. And in late 2002, Mark launched his website. It was called Baddictor.com.
Still up today. The only product at the time was his addict stair cover, priced at just over $100. Now to do his marketing, Mark called his friends. He emailed the link to his coworkers and that was pretty much it. Yet somehow Baddictor received its first sale that same day.
For the next several weeks, he actually had a fairly steady stream of roughly three to four sales per week. Stricken with the entrepreneurial spirit, Mark and his wife decided to give selling at trade shows ago. They were like, we're selling a couple of these a week. How can we sell more? Some of these shows were profitable.
Others were not, but they were all expensive. They were all exhausting. The next year they tried to do 10 shows, but it was just too much. They both had full-time jobs. The side hustle was becoming a stress hustle.
So what else could he do? Well, Mark started uploading his products to different channels, starting with eBay, then Amazon. I heard a little bit about this in last week's story. Faux taxidermy, near and dear, they started selling on Etsy and then moved to eBay and Amazon as well. And in Mark's case, just like the last week's story, the products were exposed to more people and sales grew.
By the end of year two, Mark was generating roughly $50,000 in annual sales. Using feedback he received from customers, he also created a handful of other energy saving products. He's included a draft stopper for your chimney, shutters, seals, and covers, even some energy efficient pet doors. Another sales channel that Mark wanted to take a whack at was the Home Depot website. He applied online and was invited to pitch a product at their Atlanta headquarters.
They accepted the product, even more than one product in fact, and trained him on how to be an effective seller on their site. By the end of year four, BaticDoor was generating over $200,000 a year. He'd still been going to trade shows and by now it was clear which ones were profitable. That went well, more things kept going well. He kept adding sales products, channels.
And in 2012, after 10 years in business, BaticDoor had its first million dollar year. A few years later, the business had its first $2 million year and sales have hovered around there ever since, at least at the time we feature the story. And despite the growth, Mark never left his day job. That's what I think is so wild, right? He never left his day job because he loves it.
He does what is good for him. It's not been 20 years since Mark had that idea to save energy costs on his own home and then help others as well. He's really glad he took that risk, that $5,000 investment. And he's really glad that he kept his day job as well. Isn't that fun?
So important to do what you love. Thanks to BaticDoor, the possibilities for Mark are endless. All right, another classic story in the books. BaticDoor is still up and running. I took a look at the website, badicdoor.com.
I think when I first featured the story, I said something like, the website looks like it's still living in 2002. So, you know, it's good to update things, but also if you've got a multi-million dollar lifestyle business, and maybe you should just keep doing what you're doing because it seems to be working pretty well. And last but not least, Mark is a pioneer in some ways. And he notes that aside from that one big decision to put $5,000 on his credit card, the initial costs, since then he's been pretty conservative and consistent. So it was a big risk that he took, but he didn't just take that risk lightly.
He really believed this product could work. So that's what I always encourage people to do. Be careful taking financial risks. A lot of businesses can be started for a lot less than $5,000. But if you do need to spend for manufacturing, like in this case, just be careful as you do it and make sure you're addressing a clear need, like obviously he was.
So it's worked out well for BaticDoor. Congratulations, Mark. Thank you listeners. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Thanks for being out there for nearly 3,100 episodes.
I'm excited to bring you more new episode every day. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
from The Onward Project.
