This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, greetings, and guess what? Well, first of all, this is Saadisle School. I am your host, Chris Guillebeau. But also, this is episode 400, 400. We have been going strong since January 1, 2017, a different episode every single day.
Haven't missed a day, wouldn't do that to you. And it just so happens that at the end of the year, we were at 365 episodes, and now we have crept up to number 400. I wanna give a big shout out to everyone who's been with us since the beginning. Whenever I'm in an event or meetup, I often have people come up and say, you know, I've been listening since the beginning. I've heard every single episode.
You guys are phenomenal. Thank you so much for being part of the journey. And of course, if that's not you, if you've just joined recently, that's totally cool. I just wanna acknowledge our longtime listeners. And whenever you joined in, the best is yet to come.
We've got so much more stuff coming up. All right, so this is the weekly recap. Wanna look back on some of the episodes and lessons of the week. This week featured the guy who started the relay race series, the music therapist who writes custom lullabies for restless children. And of course, we can't forget the romance novel cover model.
Where else could you learn to do all those things? Of course, only on Side Hustle School. I want to say hello to everybody in the Side Hustle Society as well. We've had about three weeks of conversations in the online community so far. People are sharing all kinds of stories, talking about what they're working on, what their idea is, getting feedback from other people.
It's going really well. So if you didn't get a chance to join, we had the inaugural invitation. We're gonna do it again at some point. And you can be the first to know about it by going to sidehustleschool.com/society. There's a little email announcement list that you can join.
Now, before we do anything else, I wanna explore a question that's been coming up a few different times. We've had a number of episodes of people manufacturing something or purchasing something from a factory overseas, often doing some kind of customization or personalization, sometimes just purchasing something that's already made and doing a private label on it. And there are lots of different iterations of this. But the common question that comes up is, well, how do you find these manufacturers? And I got a listener call-in message recently that I think explores this question really well.
Like, how do you actually do this? How do you know where to start and who to trust and all that? So let's hear from her. And then I'm gonna come back and give some feedback and some possible suggestions. Not just for her, but for anyone who's interested in doing something like this.
[Music]
Hi, my name is Jessica. I'm calling from Phoenix, Arizona. And I've been listening to you for a couple of months now. I'm trying to go into a business now, similar to do with like a printing and personalizing mugs and cups. But I'm very scared of finding these places like online or Google.
I mean, there's all these companies that I find on the internet and I just don't know which one to trust and which one is real. So that's just being kind of holding me back because I don't know if it's what's on the other side of the computer. So that's my fear when you have to actually find a company or a factory or something that's going to actually produce what I want or personalize what I want. So I need your advice on that. Keep it up, it's a good work.
You guys are doing great. I listen to you every day. I work at LA Fitness Cleaning and my four hour shift. I'm listening to you. I love you guys so much.
Bye, God bless. - Hey Jessica, thanks so much. You have set this up so well for us to have a conversation. About where to find manufacturers. So I'm gonna spend a bit more time on this question than I normally would.
Just because I know there are a lot of other listeners wondering the same thing. And by the way, thanks so much for your kind words. I'm so glad to know this show is helpful to you. Hope to see you sometime in Phoenix. And now let's talk about that problem.
So you wanna create some kind of customized or personalized mugs or cups or some other sort of item. How would you go about figuring out what to do so that you could proceed with confidence and be able to trust that you'll receive what you pay for? - Well, there are of course many ways to do it. Probably one of the easiest and one that we've seen a lot of people go through is using the online resource Alibaba. That's just Alibaba.com, A-L-I-B-A-B-A.com.
And they are a global directory connecting manufacturers, factories, suppliers, wholesale businesses, retail businesses, just regular people who want to own a small business or start a side hustle or otherwise do something like what Jessica mentioned in her question. Now, working with a factory and getting something customized or personalized is not quite as simple as ordering something on Amazon or winning an auction on eBay. By nature, there's gonna be a bit more complexity to it than that, but it doesn't have to be that difficult. Like if you've been listening to the show for a while, you've heard all kinds of people who have navigated this process and found a way to make it work. So the first thing I would encourage you to do, if you spend some time on Alibaba's website, they are very aware of the number one concern that a lot of people have, which is exactly what Jessica said.
Like, how do I know this is gonna work? How do I know I won't lose my money? How do I know it's gonna be a trustworthy supplier or factory? Well, I was just poking around and they have this huge section called trade assurance with this big headline that says, "Let us protect your orders from payment to delivery." And basically it's in their best interest to make sure that everybody plays by the rules, both for the producers as well as the buyers, because on their side, the factories and the manufacturers wanna make sure that they're dealing with somebody who's honest and acting with integrity. So on this page that I'm looking at, which we'll link up in the show notes as well, you can see all this information about their guarantee, about how you can file a claim if something goes wrong, about how your payment is secured by their anti-fraud system, and they're working with thousands of factories and manufacturers.
So it's not to say that something couldn't go wrong somewhere, but the point is they have these protections in place so that you can proceed with confidence. So after I looked at the trade assurance page, I decided to go through the process of seeing what it would be like to get a quote on something. Now, if you're doing something that is relatively common, like a mug, well, then the process is gonna be quite simple because there are a lot of manufacturers making mugs and cups. So what I did was I just went to products at the top and I searched mugs, cups, custom printing. And lo and behold, there are lots and lots of results and the results are sorted by supplier.
You can see photos of the different kind of items they make. You can see the price per piece. It's right in bold text, like right at the top. You can't miss it. You can see what the minimum order is.
You can see various details, including their place of origin. And then next to all this stuff, you can see the name of that manufacturer. You can see how many transactions they've had in the past six months, what their average response rate is. So basically you get all this information. It's very transparent.
Then there's a little button that says contact supplier. So you can reach out to them by email. Some of them even have a chat box next to it. So you could actually chat in real time. So let's say I've got that vision to make personalized mugs.
Just by scrolling through some of these listings, I can get a lot of information really quickly. So for example, one of the ones that comes up at the top looks like it's new and it hasn't had any transactions or at least it doesn't show any transactions. It also has a 56% response rate. Now this doesn't mean that this company is terrible. Maybe they're just getting started.
Maybe they're figuring out the process too. But when I have a choice and I want to proceed with confidence, I'm probably gonna look for somebody who's been doing this a bit longer. So then I go to the next listing. And the next listing is for the Zhejiang commodity company. They are located in mainland China.
And I can see that they've had 16 transactions over the past six months for more than half a million dollars. They also have a 94% response rate. Then they have a little icon next to their name that says 13 years. So basically all of that information gives me a lot of confidence. They've been doing this a long time.
They've handled a lot of money with a lot of different customers and they're very responsive. My only challenge with them is when I look at the item, custom printed coffee mug, the price per mug is about $1.50, which seems pretty good, but then there's a 2,000 unit minimum order. Now just to put this into some context for you, a 2,000 unit minimum order at $1.50 a unit is still pretty amazing. If we think about how technology and globalization and commerce have evolved over the past couple of decades, that's a $3,000 investment to work directly with a factory in China, get your customized mugs, have them say whatever you want to on them. You can print a logo.
They're gonna ship them direct to your door wherever you are. That's still pretty great. You used to have to order 10,000 units or 20,000 or even more. And of course you didn't have the security of going through this portal where it has all their feedback, it shows their transactions, and it has that trade assurance. So as I said, that's not bad at all, but let's say I'm on an even tighter budget and I don't have $3,000 to spend.
Okay, well, in that case, I'm gonna keep looking because that supplier doesn't work with less than 2,000 pieces. Or I suppose I could actually just reach out to them and say like, hey, I'm interested, but I can only do 500, what would you say? And they may very well turn you down, but at least there's no harm in asking. Or I could just scroll down to another listing. And the one I see now is the Yongkang Stainless Steel Company, also located in mainland China.
They have had 61 transactions in the past six months. They've done more than $350,000 in sales. And they have a 92% response rate. So also pretty great. And then on the left, when I look at the kind of mugs they're making, their mugs are a little bit nicer, so they have a higher cost.
It's $3 a unit, but the minimum order is only 100 units. So now I'm like, wow, if I got the idea to do customized mugs and I don't have $3,000, well, do I have $300? Can I order 100? Well, if so, I'm gonna click that contact supplier button, or I'm gonna chat with them in real time. I'm gonna tell them what I want.
I'm gonna make an account with Alibaba, and then I'm gonna go from there. So the best way to see how to do this is to actually just play with it yourself. Again, we'll link all of this up in the show notes. And I just use the example of mugs. There are thousands of other items that you could source from this directory.
[Music]
And just to give a couple of examples of recent episodes, where people have worked with a supplier on Alibaba or otherwise done something very similar, two of them were this week and one was last week. These are episodes 398, 394, and 390. Now let's actually start with episode 394. That was about this guy who creates these men's overalls that double his sweatpants. Swoveralls, he called them.
Now this wasn't a simple project because he's actually creating something new. So in this example, if I have my numbers correct, he had to order 500 units, 500 of this apparel item, and it costs $16 a unit. So if you add in shipping and design some other costs, he had to pay something like eight to $12,000 to begin that project. Again, if you think about global commerce, it's not a huge amount of money, but still what if you don't have or you don't want to spend eight to $12,000? Well, four episodes later, episode 398, that was about this carpenter in Quebec who designed travel patches.
So he designed these patches, and then of course he has to have them made and printed somewhere. In his case, his first order, it was just $500. I don't recall exactly how many patches he got for his $500, but the point is he was able to get started, actually have inventory for a much smaller amount of money. Then the third example is episode 390. This is a woman who creates a personalized brand of lipstick and other lip products.
Now in her case, she initially set out to manufacture this, but as she went down that road, she realized that's actually pretty complicated, and other companies have been making lipstick for a long time, so what she decided to do was just private label. And this is where she's buying generic lipstick from a supplier and then putting her own brand on it, which she called Sexy Cosmetics. Sexy with a capital C. I don't recall her precise startup cost, but I think it was also pretty low. So three different stories, 390, 394, and 398, of people working with overseas manufacturers or suppliers, but doing it in slightly different ways to accomplish the goals that are important to them.
I know that's a long answer, it actually reminds me that we should probably do a whole extended episode about this topic at some point, but like I said, I also know that there are a lot of people out there wondering about it. So I hope that gives you some good first steps, and of course, we'll link up all the resources on the show notes page. Well, as I said, this week featured everything from Swoveralls to Music Therapy, a TV director who gets paid to find blog post typos, that Canadian carpenter who's selling travel patches, and of course, the electrical engineer who becomes a romance novel cover model. I think that's gonna become one of my go-to examples when I'm doing an interview and someone says, "Well, tell us a story, like give us an example of somebody who goes from one career to another, or who does something for their day job, but then transforms into something different for their side hustle." I think that one is definitely a pretty solid transformation. Of course, we have some other great stories coming up next week.
I was looking at my notes just now, and we have something about artificial wedding flowers. We have something about a freelance writing school, something that features an aerial performer. She's probably a dental hygienist or something by day. I don't know, we'll find out. And of course, so much more.
It is the end of the week, it is the end of the recap, and it is the end of episode 400. But hey, before I sign off, I wanna say thanks to the team that makes this possible. It's not just me, I'm the guy talking to you, but it really does take a village, at least a small village, a small village with a cat. I have been home this week in Portland, Oregon, recording the show at World Domination Headquarters. We then magically transport those audio files to Mexico City and Washington, D.C., where our production is led by A.C. Valdez,
I think he's in Washington, and Sarah Barrett is in Mexico City. Show notes and a million other things are by my assistant, Whitney Karinek. I'll say thanks to Jed Cheng as well, who's working with us in the society, touching base with members, answering questions, and so on. And naturally, the official show cat, Liberia Libby Gillibo, who, whenever the website goes down, well, we don't call her because she's a cat. Not always that helpful, but fun to be around, at least most of the time.
This week featured a number of rejected romance novel episode titles. You guys, I just could not decide what to call that episode. Some of the ones we really thought about but then passed on included, "Married to the Werewolf Navy Seal," "Bagging for Bad Boys," "Give Me Back My Shirt," "Rehab Romance," "I Hate to Want You," and my personal favorite, "Mad, Bad, and Dangerous in Plaid." My friends, I kid you not, those are actual titles for real books. We're gonna put them on the Amazon bestseller list with a side hustle school bump. Go and check them out, give them a five-star review.
And while you're thinking about that, it would be awesome if you could give us a five-star review if you enjoy the show. We're not actually on Amazon, but we are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Radio Public, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm very grateful to our listeners for spreading the word, and I think that's where we'll leave it as we wrap up. Thanks so much to you, the listener. This show is for you, everything that we do is for you.
I want you to have a story, like one of the ones I tell you every day. I want you to be able to figure out how to manufacture your own mugs from China, get them personalized or customized, or whatever it is that you want to do. Maybe it's something totally different. That's why every day on the show, I'm telling different stories, so that if you don't relate to tomorrow's, maybe you can still learn something from it, and then perhaps the next day or the day after that, we'll feature a person or we'll focus on an idea where you say, "That's pretty cool. "Maybe I could do that, "or maybe I could do something like that." I love hearing stories of our listeners taking action, starting projects.
If you're doing something, let me know. I think I forgot to mention the Hustle hotline earlier. That's where our voicemails get recorded. That number is 8449 Hustle, or just 844-948-7853. You can also use your phone to make a voice memo and email it to podcast@sidehustleschool.com.
Whatever's best for you. Mostly, I hope you do something for yourself this week. Think about what's important to you. Ask yourself what you're doing to get closer to that. Are you living by the values you believe in?
If there's something in your way, if there's an obstacle, a challenge, what can you do about it? What's the next step? I'll be back tomorrow. I hope to talk with you then and every day next week with more stories and ideas. Our episodes go online every morning at 601 a.m. Eastern time.
Have a wonderful week. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
