This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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26,000 handmade hair scrunchies. That is the topic of the day here on "Side Hustle School." Welcome, my friends. My name's Chris Guillebeau, your host. This is a segment known as Throwback Thursday. We do it every Thursday.
In fact, that's why we call it Throwback Thursday. And we also take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. More than 3,400 episodes on the show so far. So we have a wealth of back catalog episodes and features to go back to and be like, hey, what's happened with your business since a number of years ago, often? And so today we're gonna hear from a woman in Iowa who makes and sells a lot of scrunchies.
Like a lot of scrunchies. Hair scrunchies, right? You know what a scrunchie is. Long live the '90s. Let's talk about it.
We've also featured headbands. We have featured hair ribbons. All kinds of hair accessories throughout the years. So let's talk about this particular business. How did she get the idea?
How did she make it happen? What's happened since? All those things. Her name is Kristin. She's the founder of BrynBands.
Let's go to her. I'll come back at the end with a few words of wrap up. [Music]
My name is Kristin Robert. I'm from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. My side hustle is BrynBands.
And it comes from my middle name, which is Bryn. And I was featured on episode 737. And when I first started, I wanted something that would kind of go along with what I was doing. So I started with just scrunchies, but I didn't want to just be like Kristin scrunchies. So I kind of brainstormed on what I wanted to do and Bryn and bands kind of just fit together and kind of worked from there.
So it's BrynBands. And I create different handmade hair accessories for ladies across the nation. About two and a half years ago, I was at my old job and I was in charge of some college girls through the summer camp that our college hosted. So scrunchies were making a comeback and they knew I was crafty. And so they asked if I could make them a scrunchy.
And it kind of just snowballed from there. And I was like, sure, I'll try it. I knew that in the 90s, my mom had actually made scrunchies. She worked at a hospital and she just made them and all the nurses loved them. And so I asked her for help 'cause you can find them on YouTube and everything, but I wasn't really satisfied with the tutorials that I was finding.
They kind of were cheaper quality. So I knew my mom made really good ones that didn't snap. BrynBands is my main hustle now. I guess I would add that I'm a mom as well. So the last time we talked, I was still working at the community college as a program developer.
And shortly after our interview is when I realized the potential for BrynBands to be able to grow and for me to be able to focus full time on it. Then I also found out I was pregnant. So I knew I had nine months to work from home and grow BrynBands. And then I was gonna figure it out when my son came. It's so crazy to see where BrynBands started.
It used to be scrunchies. And so now we've added all these new product lines as well. So we have headbands in different styles. There's like a turban and knotted and a tie on one. We have scrunchies for littles, all these new products.
So it's just really exciting to see like the growth that we've had in different product lines and everything is still with that band name. So, you know, a headband is still has it. So that's still my focus. Like, I feel like a lot of times people are always like, can you do t-shirts? And I'm like, that's just not what BrynBands stands for.
And I feel like we've just changed the focus of our hair accessory kind of line. We've added all the new product lines. So it's a lot of organic customers. So I'm really proud of that. And some other things on Etsy, I just reached my 26,000 transaction mark.
So that's a lot of products that I've made. I guess one little positive though, it seems like at least once a month, I will get a message in my DMs or on Etsy saying that they heard me from side hustle school. And that just like makes my day. It's so exciting to have people still listening to my episode so many years later. So that's always really exciting.
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Awesome, thank you so much, Kristen. I appreciate you sharing that update. This is a very low priced item. So you gotta sell a ton of them to make real money. But in this case, Kristen has been able to do that.
So well done. Check out Brin Bands on Instagram or Etsy. Listeners, let me know what you think. Let me know who you'd like to see featured from our archives of, as I said, 3,400 plus episodes. We've been going every single day since January 1, 2017.
Going all throughout the year again, seven days a week. Subscribe, follow wherever you get your podcasts. It's all free. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School.
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