This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Greetings and hello. Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. For those who are listening in real time, we are approaching the end of the week. I'm also recording this in early March, which means springtime is on the way, at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere.
Whatever season you are in, whatever part of the world you're in, I hope you are on track for your goals. I hope you're doing things that are important to you. I hope you're making some changes in your life, if that's what you need to make. And if you're perfectly satisfied already, that's great, congratulations. No matter your situation, I think it's always good to look back at those goals and say, okay, do I still have those same goals?
Has something changed along the way? And if I still believe in those goals and I'm not on track, what do I need to do to change things up? What steps do I need to take? What active steps do I need to take? Because change doesn't usually just come along passively.
Just something for you to think about there, perhaps take it or leave it. And today's side hustle story is about a New York yoga enthusiast who uses her business school education to start a socially conscious clothing line for kids under six and babies. And one of the platforms she uses to launch this business is called iFundWomen, which is kind of a non-traditional or a niche crowdfunding platform. We've talked many times about Kickstarter and Indiegogo. There's also a whole bunch of others that are usually much smaller, but they're focused on a specific group.
So we'll talk about this one in particular and why she chose to use them instead of going through Kickstarter or one of the bigger ones. So yoga, fair trade, kids clothes coming right up after we say thanks to today's sponsor. [Music]
Jennifer Columbia went to business school because she knew she eventually wanted to work for herself, but she didn't know exactly what that would look like. She continued her full-time job while in school and as if that wasn't enough, she also took on a part-time role with a global health organization. Needless to say, Jennifer's life during business school was intense.
When she finished, she suddenly had a lot of spare time on her hands. So naturally she looked to fill this void. A lot of us with an interest in yoga might've signed up for some more classes, but not Jennifer. She enrolled in a yoga teacher training in the special discipline known as Kundalini. Her intent in doing this was just to learn she had no intention of teaching.
That training proved to be life-changing. Jennifer wanted to work for herself and the yoga training helped remove some mental blocks that were holding her back from launching a business. Three months later, she started Sat Naam Babe. What's that? Well, Sat Naam Babe is a socially-conscious, yoga-inspired clothing line for kids under six and babies.
She wanted other yoga enthusiasts to have a way to transfer its positive, healthy lifestyle onto their kids. In Kundalini yoga, Sat Naam means truth is my identity. Jennifer thought it was a great message to send to kids and their caregivers. In the early stages, she consulted with mom friends and a kid's yoga teacher to develop the vision, look, and feel of the clothing line. That clothing line would include t-shirts, onesies, headbands, and leggings.
In fact, those leggings were made out of recycled plastic bottles. So if you've ever felt guilty about buying bottled water, we'll take comfort in the fact that one day, that bottle may become some kid's yoga pants. Jennifer made her first sale before having inventory or even a website. Her lawyer, who was a friend and supporter, wrote a check for two pairs of pants. When she got that check, she remembers thinking, oh wow, somebody just gave me money, I'd better launch this company.
So what kind of money is needed to start a kid's yoga clothing line? Well, it's not a $100 startup. It cost Jennifer around $15,000 to cover samples, inventory, insurance, and everything else she needed. However, she only invested about $4,000 to $5,000 of her own money. The $10,000 balance of those costs was made up through the crowdfunding platform, iFundWomen.
As you might guess from the name, iFundWomen is for women-led startups and small businesses, including lots of side hustlers. iFundWomen discovered Jennifer and Satnam Babe and they actually reached out to her. Like all crowdfunding sites, they charge a 5% fee to use their platform and also a 3% credit card processing fee. So we asked Jennifer, why did you go with this platform instead of one that might be more well-known, like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, a few others perhaps? She said, well, I wanted to be realistic.
The chances of my campaign going viral on a site like Kickstarter were slim. I didn't think Satnam Babe was a viral idea, but I did know it would be featured on the homepage of iFundWomen. And I also had a feeling it would get more individualized attention since they were a new site. So that's why she did that. And another thing that makes iFundWomen unique is their Pay It Forward model.
Each month they award one of their campaigns a cash prize. She was their winner in March 2017 and won over $400. She was also interviewed and featured on their site after the campaign ended, which brought her additional support. That campaign raised over $10,000 in 40 days. It turned out that was the easy part when it came time to manufacture the clothes and fill the orders, that process proved, well, not as relaxing as child's pose.
Jennifer started with a manufacturer in India who said yes to everything, but then delivered incorrect goods late. It took an on the ground person to fix the problem. Then the screen printer she used told her that he bought t-shirts from a factory in Haiti that paid its workers a fair living wage, but he had no proof or documentation. So that verbal promise didn't inspire much confidence. Manufacturing for clothes in a socially conscious manner was a key value for Jennifer.
She had taken a class in supply chain sustainability during business school, and it opened her eyes to how corrupt the fashion industry can be with poor factory conditions overseas. Naturally, she wanted Satnam Babe to be different. This made manufacturing abroad challenging, and ultimately she decided to do most of her manufacturing with US vendors. That way she could more easily visit those vendors and find certified fair trade vendors in the first place. One of her best resources to find good vendors turned out to be through a friend at a co-working space.
When Jennifer was looking for a New York vendor to sew her leggings, for example, that friend was able to send her a list of contacts to reach out to. In the eight months she was in business in 2017, Jennifer made just under $8,000. At one point she opened an Etsy shop, but is now phasing it out so that most of her orders can come through her own website. Things are looking up for this year. Her proudest moment to date has been getting into Yoga Journal Magazine on their Yogi Must Have list for February 2018.
She's looking to expand her wholesale reach. Satnam Babe is currently sold in a handful of yoga studios, but not any children's clothing stores. So that's something she wants to change. And she also wants to amp up her online marketing efforts. So far so good.
And as she continues to expand the reach of her kid's yoga clothing line, let's hope that when buyers are faced with a decision of who to buy from, they'll say, namaste with Satnam Babe. [Music]
Awesome, congrats to Jennifer, what a fun project. And I wanted to read a little quote from her, had some comments on this. Not really a contrarian opinion, just something to add to it. In our interview with her, she said, I think it's really crucial for anyone with a dream to let go of what society feeds to us as success, such as having a stable, secure job with a certain title or so on.
There can be a lot of concessions to make when you're starting a business. And the reality is that no full-time job is ever truly stable and secure. Sometimes you have to take a big pay cut to be able to launch your company, but it's all about choices. And I've never felt so successful in my life. Success can be defined beyond your paycheck.
Now for much of that, I completely agree. And for the other part, it's not like I disagree. I just want to add something to it. Totally agree about success being defined beyond your paycheck. And also for anyone with a dream, letting go of what society tells you is success.
Like this is a great philosophy for your overall life. You decide for yourself what success looks like, not what somebody else tells you. And in fact, depending on your goals and situations, it may be true that you have to take this big pay cut to launch your company. But our long-time listeners probably know that the side hustle school way is to not necessarily quit your job and take a huge risk and take a big salary cut, but to find a way to do something that you believe in while you're still doing your existing job. And this kind of takes all the pressure off, at least much of it.
It takes away the risk. So you can still have that adventure. You can still have that sense of stepping out and doing something big and bold and following a dream, but hopefully without all of the worries that people feel when they do this for the first time and they don't have a backup plan and they don't have a job or another source of income. I think that's a big part of why the side hustle school message has resonated with so many people because in lots of other places, they hear about how they should quit their job and be an entrepreneur. And the grass is always greener working for yourself.
And that's not the case for a lot of people. A lot of people do pursue a hybrid approach. A lot of people have different goals. And again, this model can accommodate whatever your goals happen to be. Whether it is something full-time or something that could eventually be full-time or just something that you do on the side, like that's totally fine.
So that's my quick little encouragement for you today along with what I mentioned in the beginning about like where you at in terms of your goals. Might come back actually tomorrow in the weekly recap and talk about that a bit more. So I hope you'll join me for that. As always remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. If you'd like to learn a bit more about Sat Naam Babe, come and check out our show notes.
Those are online at sidehustleschool.com/427. Thank you for listening. I'm Shanti. Namaste. This is Chris Guillebeau for "Sidusle School." [Music]
