This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
In today's story, a physician designs and manufactures plush toys in the shape of human organs. They are used to teach kids about the human body and as get well soon gifts for hospital patients. Very meaningful project that is also a money making side hustle. Let's talk today about the skills you need to acquire and the tasks you need to complete to create a physical product that hasn't existed before. So it's not an online product, it's not about reselling, it's not just about importing something from overseas with a small tweak.
This person went all the way in terms of creating a unique manufactured physical product. So it's not necessarily complicated or not overly complicated, but it does require a lot of work to make it happen. So perhaps you have not wanted to make your own plush toys in the shape of human organs, but this doctor from Medicine, Wisconsin has taken on the goal. She's built this little business, a fun little business called NerdBugs, again used to teach kids about the human body. I'm gonna tell you how she did it, what she learned along the way and what you'd need to do to pursue something similar.
Welcome friends. It's Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. The story is coming right up. [Music]
By day, Dr. Ronak Mehta is a physician at a Veterans Affairs Hospital.
She has spent years helping others. Recently she decided to try a side hustle that would also be fun for her. The seed was planted back in med school when she set out to help kids understand the human body by writing an educational book called "The Extraordinary Expedition Into the Human Body." She wanted a playful Dr. Seuss-like tone with walking, talking cartoon organs as characters. Ronak wasn't an illustrator, so she hired one on Upwork to create heart, lung, bladder, and uterus designs.
Little catchy, friendly looking characters. And the book went out as an ebook for easy distribution. It wasn't a bestseller, but the project left her with these characters that she loved and an idea she couldn't shake, to turn the organs into plush toys. They can be cheerful, get well gifts for hospital stays, a soft reminder that bodies are resilient. The idea lingered through graduation and years of clinical practice.
Eventually she decided to name the venture NerdBugs. And to give it a real chance, she set aside $10,000, an education expense, she told herself. If it failed, she still had a career and a story. If it worked, she would build something joyful and useful. First, of course, she had to make the toys.
Custom plush manufacturing is cost-effective in China. So she searched for toy manufacturers, shortlisted some suppliers, and compared their previous work. Using her book art as a brief, she chose a certain factory. They sent photos of the first sample, they looked great, and Ronak approved production of several hundred units. But that was a big mistake, because when the physical sample arrived, different from the photos, the quality was poor.
Fabric and stitching were off. The fix required some hard conversations. Ronak is naturally non-confrontational, but she refused to sell a subpar toy. After persistent back and forth, the factory agreed to start over and remake the toys to a higher standard. And from then on, the relationship improved.
Next came logistics. She thought about warehousing the inventory at home and making daily post office runs, but then she pictured long clinic days, followed by late night packing, and decided to go with third party fulfillment. Much better choice. Ship from the factory to the warehouse, let the specialists handle the shipping. That decision didn't prevent a second costly lesson though.
A large portion of her initial shipment went missing in transit. She documented everything and pressed the manufacturer for reimbursement until they agreed. Again, confrontation wasn't fun, but it mattered. With product and fulfillment finally in place, she turned to selling. She built a Shopify site that integrated with the warehouse, then set up some paid search campaigns using Google ads and Amazon.
Nerd bugs would then appear when shoppers search for relevant terms. On day one, a sale popped in. Over the next three months, sales tripled month after month. A few hundred plush organs shipped to customers around the world. But who was buying them?
Well, mostly people seeking a gift for someone in the hospital or heading into surgery. Nurses, med students, and clinicians also buy them. A plush lung on a desk is both a mascot and an icebreaker. Speaking of lungs and product lines, the product line really matters for a toy brand. So she started with heart, lungs, kidney, neuron, and uterus characters.
She's hoping to expand to pancreas, liver, and bladder, growing the family while keeping the same friendly style. She's also partnering with children's hospitals to donate nerd bugs to pediatric patients. Now there's some lessons behind all this progress. First of all, approve physical samples, not just photos. You want to outsource what drains you.
Fulfillment is not a badge of honor. It is a bottleneck. And match channel to intent. People are searching for specific gifts on Amazon and Google. So meet them there with ads and clear product pages.
Nerd bugs remains a nights and weekends project next to a demanding day job. But that constraint has become a design feature. Systems over heroics. Whenever issues happen, Ronak handles them quickly and returns to patients. It's still early, but the signals are good.
Customers write in to say a kid smiled before surgery, or a med student passed an exam with a plush kidney nearby. For Ronak meta, physician and founder, this is the kind of side hustle worth building. It's evidence-based, delight-driven, and stitched with care. [Music]
I want to encourage you to check out the nerd bugs site. It's such a fun project, nerdbugs.com.
Ronak is shipping these beautiful plush toys to educate kids about the human body, shipping them out around the world. She's still going strong. She has expanded her product line since we first featured her. She is in fact now partnering with more children's hospitals. It's just a wonderful project.
So well done, Ronak. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Listeners, thank you for listening. Thanks for being out there. Just thanks for everything that you do.
I hope you are taking care of yourself. I hope you are working on something that's important to you as well. There's something everyone can do. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. The complete archive of the podcast is available for free at sidehustleschool.com.
That's all for now. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
