This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
When North Americans travel to parts of Europe or Asia for the first time, they sometimes encounter a strange fixture in the bathroom, the bathroom, the washroom, the toilet as you prefer. That feature is a bidet, and more than one person has asked, "Wait, how does that thing work?" Well, today's story features a man in Toronto, Canada who decides to bring in the bidets and sell them primarily to immigrant families who are accustomed to using them. Is he flushing away his startup costs? Not at all. He's actually keeping clean and banking sales of more than $10,000 a month.
Welcome friends. Welcome to Side Hustle School, episode 3,210. We are just trucking along. I'm going to bring you this story of Canadian bidets modernizing bathroom life. This was a pretty cool story when we first featured it long ago.
We've got some updates here. It's actually been, I guess, eight years and this guy is still going. I'll tell you about that at the end. First of all, I want you to understand where this idea came from, how he made it work, and how it's been so effective and so profitable. The whole point of these stories is to get you thinking about what you could do.
Stay tuned. I'm going to bring you this story of Canadian bidets right after this quick shout-out to our sponsor. Hamad Iqbal grew up everywhere. His dad's work took the family from Canada to Pakistan, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Korea, the UK, the United States, Italy, and Dubai all before he turned 22. That constant moving gave him a broad lens and a knack for noticing opportunities that others might miss.
In his early 20s, Hamad settled in Toronto. Instead of taking a traditional job, he and a friend launched a nametag and lanyard business for conferences. They did almost no research, learned on the fly, and shut it down when it flopped. Hamad took a consulting role at Deloitte, but the itch to build something of his own never disappeared. A couple years later, he decided to try again, this time with validating his idea first.
He started with what he knew, the everyday problems faced by immigrants in his family and neighborhood. One gap stood out from his time abroad, bathrooms. North Americans, US, Canada, etc. mostly used toilet paper, but in much of the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, people use a bidet. He describes it as "like a mini shower you can use while you're on the toilet." He asked friends and relatives why they hadn't installed one, and the answers were consistent.
Installation seemed complicated, and many didn't realize bidets were available here. Both issues were solvable. Make installation painless, and get the word out. So he decided to create Nadif Bidets. Familiar with Chinese sourcing from his lanyard experiment, he went to Alibaba, found several hand-held bidet suppliers, and ordered samples.
After some decidedly hands-on testing, he picked the best performing, highest quality, easiest to install model. Next came demand testing. He spun up a simple Shopify store with product photos and checkout, but he held off on acquiring inventory, confident he could place a small order quickly if sales came in. Early purchases came from people he knew, and then he tried Facebook ads targeting immigrants in his area, and orders jumped. In fact, 20 sales arrived quickly.
That was enough validation to pull the trigger on stock. Ahmad's first order was 100 units, but he should have ordered more, because by the time the shipment landed, he had already pre-sold 80, and he immediately reordered. Testing wasn't overthought, the first 100 went out wrapped like Christmas presents. For the second, larger batch, he had the supplier pre-package each unit. Volume rose, he began ordering 250 units per batch, and priced them around $70.
With the product market fit in place, he tested selling on Kijiji, which is Canada's classified ads, eBay, buy buttons on his Facebook page, and other incentives. He tucked discount coupons into each box, encouraging customers to share with friends. He posted flyers at local halal grocers, and even bought ads on foreign-language TV channels. All of it contributed to success, but Facebook ads remained the best funnel. His audience, immigrants familiar with bidets, was so well defined.
Today, most sales come from Kijiji, Facebook, and organic search. Facebook's targeting lets him zero in on location and interests that correlate with bidet familiarity. At the time we first featured the story, Nadif Badez was bringing in about $10,000 a month, still running lean, just a mod, no employees. That income was enough for him to leave Deloitte and go full-time. Start-up costs were small, he just paid $180 for his website, $500 for those Facebook ad tests, and $50 for supplier samples.
Remember, he didn't acquire inventory until he had actual orders. The combination of low-outlay and disciplined validation turned a fragile idea into a durable business. His neighborhood gave him an initial, reachable market, he kept the operation scrappy, and from the outside, Nadif looks like a straightforward import and sell business. But under the hood, it's tighter. Identify a clear problem, source a quality solution, validate with an audience, then scale with the channels that actually convert.
Ahmad didn't need a huge budget or heavyweight brand, he just needed a simple proposition, like Badez easy to install and easy to buy, a reliable customer acquisition engine, which was Facebook's targeting, and the willingness to iterate. Follow these lessons and you can wrap your first 100 units like GIFs and still earn referrals. Today, Ahmad runs a profitable, niche, hardware brand, and also a software business that may outpace it. He's doing some other stuff as well. He's also kept his ad spend tight and watched conversion rates closely, doubling down only on the tactics that returned more money than they consumed.
Hey, you never know where a good flush can lead. I love stories like this because it's not a crowded market, not a ton of people selling this kind of product, and yet it is something that a lot of people want to buy. So think about practical needs, practical problems, and if you're interested in the product or just want to check out his business, Ahmad's website, getnadeef.com, n-a-d-e-e-f.com is still up and running. Also, most people have more than one bathroom, so in this situation, they buy multiple Badez. That makes his average order at least $140, not $70.
So that's another fun fact. Think about a product that people need not just one of, but if they like it, they want more than one. Oh, and he does ship to the US, even though he's in Canada. He's focused on the Canadian market, but for our American listeners, it is available to you as well. And listeners, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better.
Thank you for being part of Side Hustle School. I want to share these stories to give you ideas and nudge you along as well. I hope you'll create something that brings you more freedom, life, satisfaction, motivation, all those good things. And of course, I hope you'll continue to listen. New episodes every day.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
