This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Curated gift boxes for breakups and baby bumps. This is a fun story. Welcome friends. Welcome to Side Hustle School. The story is about a breakup that brings two sisters together to create one very happy side hustle.
And I'm not just being punny by calling it a happy side hustle. That's actually the name of the business. Well, the business is called Happy Box, I believe. We're gonna hear all about it. This story first came to us in 2018.
We've got a little bit of a remix here, an updated version, rerecorded, of course, for your benefit. We always wanna give you something new and fresh and might include some updates to the story as well. So if you're out there and you're trying to figure out what's my next side hustle, how can I, in fact, turn ideas into income? Well, that's why I bring you so many different stories and case studies and questions and answers all designed to get you thinking and taking action. Thinking and taking action.
So the story, as I said, features two women who sell gift boxes for all sorts of reasons, breakups, baby bumps, just because they're focused on reaching other millennial women. At the time we first featured them, they were selling hundreds of boxes a month and they're still going strong. So I'll bring you that story, the story of Happy Box, in fact, right after this quick message from our sponsor. [Music]
They say that when one door closes, another door opens. Who says that actually?
I'm not sure, but it is a thing that people say, right? And that's the case for many things in life, including love and money. In this particular story, the closing door was Ariel Redmond's breakup. The opening door was all the inspiration needed for a new side hustle to blossom. You see, Ariel's sister, Hannah, was a brand strategist.
Hannah wanted to be there for her during the breakup, but they were separated by distance, lived at least a few hours apart. And Hannah was like, "I can't be there with, you know, a pint of ice cream on the doorstep. So what's the next best thing?" So she runs around the city trying to find fun little things to send to Ariel to cheer her up, basically like an adult care package. And as she's doing this, she's thinking, well, I'm probably not the only caring friend or sister, you know, who wants to help somebody make their tough week a little less difficult. Curating a box of goodies was fun, but running around to get everything much less so.
And at this point, she hasn't even been to the post office yet. She knew that it would be worth it when Ariel opened the box, but Hannah still wished she could cut out or at least minimize some of the legwork. There had to be a better way. And if there wasn't, Hannah would make it happen herself. And thankfully she didn't have to go it alone because Ariel loved her care package.
She also liked Hannah's idea so much that when the side hustle concept was floated, she jumped at the chance. And the result is called Happy Box. Happy Box, just one word. This idea was simple yet innovative. Hannah and Ariel wanted to create a modern day gift basket that would suit any occasion in a millennial's life.
Each box would be both personalized and convenient. Customers could pick a preferred box theme from a selection like breakups, cheer ups, baby bumps, and housewarming. They then fill their chosen box with fun gifts. Well, that's what Hannah and Ariel do. They also include a card to send along with it.
Hannah and Ariel will pack up the box, write a handwritten note that comes from the customer and ship it to the lucky recipient. So that's the business model. That's the target market. And let's talk about launching Happy Box. So Hannah correctly identified a problem when she was running around trying to find or curate the perfect breakup gifts.
But she still wanted to do market and competitor research to back it up before she actually started the business with her sister. So they had to dig into understanding how their customer would think, feel, and act on certain things. And most importantly of all, why they would buy curated gift boxes. Now, gifting is a huge industry. It's $130 billion industry in the U.S. alone.
There's no shortage of suppliers, but that also means that customers are looking for unique and custom solutions. Nobody wants to gift their friends something that they already have. They're looking for something that's unexpected, again, personalized and convenient. So to get going, Hannah and Ariel invested a combined $5,000 of their savings into Happy Box so they could build a website and purchase their first stocks of inventory. And this investment has paid off very well.
They're now selling and packing and shipping hundreds of boxes a month. They sell for $40 to $60 each. Their cost is less than half of that. And the customer testimonials are also rewarding. Ariel told us that each testimonial makes them feel like what they're doing has a well-deserved space and purpose.
Balancing our work lives and side hustle lives can be tough, but each happy customer makes it worth it. Now, on that point, Hannah believes that creating a side hustle you're passionate about helps it feel less like work and more like a puzzle to solve. They're now focused on making website improvements, choosing new products to offer, and are starting to test out a line of corporate gifts as well. Perhaps we need to update that old saying. When one box closes, another one opens.
[Music]
Well, check out happyboxstore.com. This business is still going many years after we first featured it. You can also unlock a $10 off code whenever you build a box that costs $60 or more. That's a little pop-up that will appear right when you go to the website. Also, here's a fun fact.
Hannah and Ariel handwrite all the cards themselves. They don't outsource that. I thought that was a fun little, just a fun little touch point because of course they are all about personalization and convenience, like convenience for the customer, but personalization for the end user or the person who's going to receive the box, let's say. The customer perhaps is the person buying the box. Also a note from the original episode, they were doing advertising and it looks like they're still doing some, but they dialed it back because they were getting too many orders, which is another one of those good problems to have.
So I'm so happy to see that Happy Box is still up and running. Again, happyboxstore.com. Check it out. And listeners, remember inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. There's something out there that you can do.
There is a side hustle or small business waiting for you. Even if you don't think of yourself as an entrepreneur, we've got a global community of awesome people just doing really fun things. So I'm so happy to feature many of their stories. Last but not least, thank you for listening. I hope you'll continue to subscribe or follow new episodes drop every single day.
My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
