This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, hey, what's up? Welcome back. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. Super excited to begin an all new week with you.
Every single day, I've got a different true story of somebody who's an employee and starts an income generating project, something to help them make money on the side, and they do that without quitting their job. The whole purpose is to show you there's all kinds of things that you can do. Whether you just wanna make some extra cash or you're trying to make a significant second income, if you want to eventually replace your full-time income with the money you make on the side, or if you just want a different creative outlet. I believe that everyone needs more than one source of income, and my mission every single day is to help you get closer to that goal. Now, I've got a bunch of great stories for you this week.
Today's is really good. It's all about a software engineer who creates a tiny, simple tool that fits in your wallet and goes on to sell more than 500,000 units. It earns $50,000 in its first year, and within a few years, this little project now employs more than a dozen people. So, how did this engineer get investment capital? Well, he didn't.
How did he survive after quitting his job and draining his savings account, staying up every night worrying? Oh wait, he didn't do that. This little project that has grown so much all started as a side hustle. There is so much opportunity in the world today, and I'll tell you all about this story in just a moment after this quick thank you to our sponsor. [Music]
Nate Barr's side hustle story begins back in November 2012 when he locked himself out of his apartment, again.
He had just run to the corner store and managed to only have his wallet on him for getting his keys. As he was waiting for someone to come let him in, he started thinking about how he just had some sort of metal shim. He could maybe get the door latch open. It took a while before he could get back inside, so he kept thinking about how such a thing would work. He also thought how convenient it would be to have a bottle opener on him at all times, which for him meant it would have to be in his wallet so he wouldn't have to think about it.
Once he got back in his house he began making notes on what a tool like that would look like and what other kind of things he could fit in it. He wanted it to be super thin and fit in his wallet like a credit card so that he would carry it with him by default. He also made a list of all the things that would be cool or just useful to have on the tool. He knew it wouldn't necessarily be a pocket knife replacement, but he wanted it to be super functional and also be able to pass through airport security with no issues. Nate used a free and open source software program called Inkscape to work on the design on evenings and weekends and come up with a few different concepts.
But when I say a few, I mean like 100. In two weeks, Nate created more than 100 iterations of his idea, finally deciding on a design that packed as many tools as possible into one tiny metal card. There was that bottle opener, but also screwdrivers, a hex wrench, a phone kickstand, and a headphone wrap, in addition to about half a dozen other features. He also added a monkey into the design, which served a couple purposes. Well, first it was a monkey, which is cool.
Who doesn't want a monkey in your pocket? But second, it made the product protectable under trademark law. And that's how Pocket Monkey came to be. With a functional but aesthetically pleasing design, he was ready to move to the next step. And he kept it simple.
He just cut the design out of cardboard, made sure it felt right in his hands while doing each function. From there, he sent the design to a group that does laser cutting in metal so that he could try it out in the material slightly closer to the end product. Once he road tested the metal prototype to the point that he was confident it would work, it was time for a Kickstarter campaign. He decided to crowdfund the product for a couple reasons. First, it would give him some capital to actually create the product in larger quantity.
But more importantly to Nate, he wanted to make sure this wasn't just some crazy idea. He wanted to make sure that there was a market for it. He wasn't the only person locking himself out of his house and wishing for a bottle opener in his pocket. And so asking people to put money down for it seemed like the best way to test this. Now this was still November 2012.
In the same month that Nate had gotten locked out of his apartment, come up with this idea, drawn all those designs and iterations, created two prototypes, he was also able to prepare that crowdfunding campaign. He wanted to hurry because he was thinking about the holiday season, knowing that his pocket monkey would be perfect for gifts. He launched that campaign on November 30th and by December 14th, he had more than 1,900 backers and had raised over $27,000. Nate was encouraged by the enthusiasm for the campaign and he began to look into getting the pocket monkey produced. But he quickly realized that he was overconfident in his timeline for delivering a finished product by Christmas.
He was able to work fast, he could get a lot done in a month, but this process was largely outside his control. As he called manufacturer after manufacturer, he kept running into the same problem. Everyone would politely hear him out, but then they would say, it's not the right fit for us, we don't do that kind of thing. Almost everyone gave him a referral to another manufacturer that might be able to help, so then he would begin the process anew. Still, the frustrations continued because when he found someone that was willing to work with him, he'd get them the design files and spend some more time going back and forth, making some tweaks to make sure it was actually manufacturable.
But then more than once, he wouldn't hear from them for a while and when he'd follow up, they'd finally admit it just wasn't the right kind of thing for them. Of course he said, gee, thanks, I wish I'd known that before we went down this road, but sometimes that is the reality when you're manufacturing a new product. After five more months and multiple failed attempts, he was finally able to find a manufacturer that could actually produce the product he designed. This meant his promised 2012 Christmas delivery turned into 2013 with pocket monkeys going out in batches as he received them from his new manufacturer. Some people didn't get their shipments until June, and that experience got Nate thinking about two things, how he could control more of the manufacturing process himself and what other products he could make that would fit into this brand.
He knew that making just one product and launching it on Kickstarter wouldn't change his life overnight, so he wanted to keep expanding. But before he could do that, he needed a steady stream of revenue now that the Kickstarter campaign was over and he was in, as he called it, the valley of death in terms of web traffic. So Nate took his remaining revenue from the Kickstarter and spent it all on getting himself to the New York Now trade show. That trade show booth cost $5,000, plus another $5,000 between decorating it and traveling to get to New York. It was a big risk, but the decision turned out to be a great investment as he was able to get into retail stores all across the country.
This resulted in him making more than $50,000 in income in 2013. With that predictable cashflow in place, Nate was able to hire a couple of contractors to work on the business while he continued his nine to five job as a software engineer. It wasn't until the third year, 2014, that Nate felt comfortable enough to quit his day job and devote all of his energy to scaling up the hustle. He said, "We slowly started swimming upstream in our supply chain. We began acquiring more and more machines.
We got a polisher, we got a laser engraver. Finally, we had everything we needed to make the products in-house. Having the ability to do that also made it much easier to launch new products, to create prototypes, and to handle shipments to all the customers." Over the past three years, Nate has been able to continue bringing on more people while sticking to his ideals, which are manufacturing and creating jobs in the US while creating a high quality and functional product at a competitive price point. As of 2017, he's up to 18 employees and now has dozens of products. The man works fast.
And so far, he's sold over 500,000 of just the pocket monkeys. He recently launched a line of tool jewelry called ToolRee that stacks either four or 10 different tools into a stylish chevron-shaped necklace. And of course, has more ideas that he is still thinking about. Nate didn't intend to become a full-time small business owner, but I'm pretty sure he's glad he didn't take his keys with him that day he got locked out of his apartment. And I bet he's also glad he actually followed up on that crazy idea.
I love these stories of resourcefulness, of people getting creative, kind of bootstrapping, figuring things out, maybe doing crowdfunding, maybe doing something else, but really focusing on what's in front of them, what's available to them, as opposed to saying how can I go out and get a big loan? Or how can I think of this really big grandiose vision? Now, if you think about it, a pocket monkey, this little tool that goes in your wallet, it's the most practical of items. It's not this big picture grandiose vision, but it's sold 500,000 units because it's useful. It helps people.
It's kind of fun with the monkey branding. So congratulations to Nate, well done. And as I said, I love these stories. If you wonder where the stories on Tada Soul School come from, a lot of them come from you, our listeners. We have a lot of folks out there doing projects like this.
We also have a lot of people who know people who are doing things like this. So if you've got a referral for us, someone that we should speak to, or if you want to nominate yourself, you got two easy options. You can go to sidehustleschool.com/about. And on that about page, if you scroll down, there's a little link that says, submit your side hustle story. And that will take you to a survey where you can provide some information about your business, how it came to be, what challenges you overcame, like all the kind of stuff we talk about on the show.
Or if you prefer, if you're just telling us about someone else, just send us a quick little note, write to podcast@sidehustleschool.com. And we'll take a look. The more interesting, the better. Remember, we're only looking for stories of people who start these kinds of projects while they're working a full-time job, or they're a full-time primary caregiver or going to school. The whole focus of the show is for busy people who are in situations like that.
So we're not really looking for stories of entrepreneurs who risk it all and worked a hundred hours a week, went into debt, all that kind of stuff. We are looking for regular people doing awesome things just like you hear about every day on the show. Once again, that email is podcast@sidehustleschool.com. If you've got somebody we should talk to, or if we should talk to you. Thank you so much for listening today.
I hope you enjoyed it. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/345. You can check out "The Pocket Monkey." You can see that free design software, Inkscape, anything else I mentioned today. And of course, I will be back right here tomorrow.
Hope you'll join me. I'm Chris Guillebeau for "Side Hustle School." [Music]
