Mindful Moms Make $70,000 on Family Affirmation Cards

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

Hello, and welcome to a brand new week. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. So much is going on in my little world, and I assume you're pretty busy too, because I make this show for busy people. Over here I've got the World Domination Summit coming up in just over a week.

We've got all kinds of people coming to town. If you haven't heard of WDS, go and check it out at worlddominationsummit.com. And today as we kick off the week, I've got an affirming story for you as well. This is the story of Mindful Moms, two moms who are best friends living in Canada. They make $70,000 on family affirmation cards.

They've actually made that amount in a fairly short period of time after a bit of planning, and I think they're on track to make much more than that. They describe their project as not your typical affirmation cards, which some of our listeners may not be aware that there are affirmation cards at all. But whether you are or not, you might be interested in how they earn more than $20,000 from a Kickstarter campaign, as well as a challenge they had where they actually lost $20,000 by investing in the wrong marketing agency. In every story, I always try to share how the person got their idea, how they made it happen, what happened along the way, what were the outcomes, what was especially awesome about it, and perhaps what was difficult about it, because not everything is always amazing and starting a side hustle, but usually the end result is, or usually the process is leading to something good. All right, so get your affirmation on, stay tuned, this story is coming right up.

Anna Lozano is no stranger to side hustles. Her family immigrated from Poland to Canada, and when she was growing up, Anna had the quintessential lemonade stand. Then as she got older, she began working odds and ends jobs to get extra cash. She even sold Polish sausages, no doubt drawing on her extensive knowledge of their origin. In November 2016, Anna and her best friend, Lindy Sued, discovered the power of I Am affirmations.

I Am affirmations are statements that remind the person saying them of positive and empowering qualities that they have. Some examples could be I am loved, I am enough, or I am strong. The two women say that stating them changed how they felt, and they became more comfortable while also feeling more at peace. As a side note, I'm a bit of a high-strung type A personality, so personally my affirmations are things like I am ready for more coffee, I am ordering a vodka soda, or when I'm driving, which I try not to do very often because I don't like to drive, I am asking you to get out of my way. But perhaps I could learn something from this story, so back to that.

Okay, Anna and Lindy were mothers, and they wondered what effect these affirmations could have on their children. Not the vodka soda, more of the I Am Enough kind. To the best of their knowledge, there weren't any affirmation cards that focused on families. So they decided to create Love Powered Co., and their first product would be the Love Powered Littles Fox Set. They started working to launch a Kickstarter campaign.

As I said, they had this idea in November 2016, but it wasn't until August 2017 that the Kickstarter was ready to go. It's important to remember that a good crowdfunding campaign can take time. They did a professional photo shoot, they did some Facebook ads to build their mailing list, and they utilized a Kickstarter boosting service called Green Inbox, which of course I'm going to link up in the show notes. Not only that, but they also released a teaser video 30 days before the Kickstarter launched to help spread the word. This careful and thoughtful preparation produced some strong results.

Within the first 24 hours of launching, they had reached their goal of raising more than $10,000. It ended up with more than double that amount, a little under $22,000. After connecting with a graphic designer, illustrator, and videographer to bring their vision to life, they released that Love Powered Littles Fox Set, which contains 22 powers on cards. Parents can go through the cards with their children and encourage them to find their own power. Among those 22 are mindfulness, authenticity, and confidence.

Love Powered Co hopes to not only foster empowerment in children, but also encourage connections between parents and their kids through discussion of the cards. As it turns out, their successful Kickstarter would also parallel their profits. So just from January to May of this year, Love Empowered Co has earned more than $70,000. They're getting ready to release new collections for teens and women, and they're hoping to earn up to $300,000 before the end of the year. Right now, most of their sales come from their website, but they've also connected with 22 boutiques, yoga studios, and mindfulness centers in the US and Canada.

They're also fulfilling 20 more wholesale requests over the summer. Now, of course, as always, not everything has been perfect. One challenge they had was that in the early months, they hired a marketing agency. They thought this agency was going to work wonders for them, but in their words, they sold us a golden ticket and unfortunately didn't deliver. In the end, they decided to consider it a loss of $20,000.

Obviously, no small loss, but of course, they've made much more than that. So they're treating it as a learning experience and focusing more on marketing directly to their own customers. So just by identifying one of their own needs and then taking initiative to release it into the world, they've created a successful side hustle. Just repeat after me, I am hustling, I am making money, or perhaps I am ready to get to work. So did you know you could make $70,000 on affirmation cards, or potentially six figures, maybe even multiple six figures, if their projections hold up?

It seems it is true, but how do you do it? Because there are in fact a lot of different affirmation cards out there, and plus you don't even need a card to make an affirmation, right? So I took a peek at their Kickstarter page and I thought it was really smart how they have this big section that says, "How are we different?" And they have really focused on the message of how their love-powered littles are not your typical affirmation cards, they go deeper, there are 22 powers to affirm the greatness within your littles and you. So this is the kind of language that not everyone's going to connect with, but the people who are their target market, it will connect with, which is always important. In this whole section, it kind of goes on and on, we've got the 22 powers.

We're focused on the power of connection, conscious awareness. There are some examples and feelings, and then last but not least, they talk about the aesthetic. You see these cards are adorable and we're certain that you and your kids are going to find it hard to wait to get your hands on them. So I like this because it is clearly a wellness product, it is a luxury product in the sense that it's not needed. As I said, there are other ways to feel good about yourself, but because they really know the people they're trying to serve, they speak their language, if you look at their Instagram account as well, the visuals follow a really specific and consistent style.

It reminds me of some larger wellness brands like Lululemon or Core Power Yoga, or the apps that you can get on your phone for meditation, like Headspace or Calm. So to go back to where we started, can you be successful making and selling something like affirmation cards? Well, yes you can, and that success can include financial profit, which is a good thing. It is what I look at every day on the show in different ways, and I'm glad you could join me for this one. Congratulations to Anna and Lindy.

We're going to link up their products and that social media on our show notes page. That page is at sidehustleschool.com/534, it's for episode 534. Be sure you're subscribed to the podcast, do me a favor and tell your friends about it as well. And don't forget, of course, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. My name is Chris Guillebeau, wishing you well, and this is The Sidusle School.