Notes from Chris

Episode 439

Amanda Freick is the Regional Director for a local electrical engineering firm in Tucson, Arizona. As she puts it, she’s a nerd when it comes to electric utilities. Have you ever almost gotten into a car accident because you were staring at the equipment on a power pole? No? Well, Amanda has, more than once.

But word around the office is that Amanda has a new passion these days, and it has nothing to do with electrical engineering. When she gets home and sheds her corporate life at the door, she starts working on her side hustle: customized fitness competition bikinis.

Amanda has always had a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit, which is why she believes that she has been able to find so much success in the corporate world. She just thinks differently than a lot of people in that setting. And she also spends her time outside of her corporate life very differently than her colleagues, because well, she owns a swimwear company. And not just any swimwear company, one that has until recently been focused primarily on fitness competition swimwear.

This can be quite the interesting dinner conversation topic when you work in an industry dominated by middle-aged men. It’s also a rumor starter for those too scared to approach the topic. She once had a customer from her day job say, "Amanda, I hear you own a lingerie company." Not quite, but she supposed it was pretty close.

Amanda started this swimwear business, AmandaLouise Swimwear, after participating in a fitness competition herself for the first time. She ordered a $165 crystal encrusted bikini online, and eagerly awaited its arrival, but when it finally came in, she was not impressed with the quality. She had both a mom and grandma who taught her how to sew, and at the time, she found herself hanging out with some old biddies at the quilt shop once a month. She thought, “Hey, I could totally make this, and more so, I can make it so much better.”

First things first, she realized that she needed a website. Since she had learned a little bit of computer science and coding in college, she decided to go with a Wordpress site and built it all by herself over the course of a day. And from there, she just started accepting orders!

The best part about a side hustle like this is that since all of her orders were custom made, she didn’t really have to buy any materials until someone actually purchased a suit. Her startup costs came out to around a couple hundred dollars of basic materials, and at the end of 2017, she had brought in almost $50,000. These days she keeps more stock on hand simply because she gets more last minute orders, but in the beginning, she never had to make any purchases out of pocket hoping that someone would buy something.

Amanda's story just goes to show you that if you bling it, they will come!

 

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  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• AmandaLouise Swimwear: Get your bling on over on Amanda's website and learn more about the amazing brand she's building!
• Wordpress: Amanda used Wordpress to setup Amanda Louise Swimwear before switching to Squarespace, and here you can learn how to install your own Wordpress site in 5 minutes

SEE ALSO:

• How to Start Your Own Retail Business: If you're interested in starting a side hustle in retail, here are some things that you should consider
• Bikini Model Creates Multi-Million Swimsuit Line: A swimsuit model uses industry connections and social media savvy to launch a high-end shopping site taking on major swimwear companies from the beaches of Miami
• Fashion Buyer Creates Quirky Comfort Craze: Men’s overalls that double as sweatpants: yes, this is a thing—and an experiment to sell them brings in $64,000

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,

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