This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Do you remember cotton candy? That delicious, though not so nutritious, sugary concoction that you may have had at the fairground, or perhaps at, I don't know, some carnival, or perhaps a farmer's market, or wherever you had cotton candy. If the thought of cotton candy produces nostalgia, you might be shocked to know that it's not actually made with all natural ingredients. Sad but true, it's not organic at all. At least not until a mobile app developer in New York City decides to change that.
Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Today's story is about that app developer who gets nostalgic, falls in love with fluff, and then teams up with a friend to create an all-natural cotton candy brand. They explore several different ways of making money, all of which I'll tell you about, and they do it all without going into debt or quitting their day jobs. That story is on the way right after this thank-you to our sponsor.
Alicia Vemawalla isn't new to the world of side hustling. Not only is she a full-time mobile app developer for a New York City agency, but she also has a successful YouTube channel and a published children's book. Her latest project, however, is more colorful and more flavorful than all the rest. At the end of 2015, Alicia was hanging out with her friend and fellow YouTube side hustler Margaret when the two started playing with a toy cotton candy maker Margaret had received for Christmas. It didn't take long for them to come up with a new idea, all-natural cotton candy catering.
The rest of the holiday went by, but neither Alicia nor Margaret could get the idea out of their head. As soon as January slowed down, they started experimenting with flavors. They began by ordering some sample materials online. Pure herbal extracts, or herbal extracts for some of our listeners, plant-based colors and specialty sugars. It quickly became clear that while it would be cheaper to use artificial flavoring, using the natural stuff led to a much higher quality product.
Plus, as a bonus, you wouldn't die when you ate it. The cotton candy they made had a crisp and clear flavor. This light and fluffy texture made eating it like taking a bite out of the sky. And just a couple of months into their initial research phase, Alicia and Margaret had their first four flavors—mint, citrus, lavender, and rose. Then came the phone call.
A close friend had access to an incredible opportunity—the Juilliard annual alumni benefit. This was it. This was their chance to test their flavors, see if people actually liked them, and get their name out there for the first time. Oh, and the name they chose? Not Your Average Cotton.
Alicia quickly began working on the logistics. According to New York State law, cotton candy qualifies for the home processing extension, which means they could create their sugar blends at home. However, to do the catering, they still had to register Not Your Average Cotton and get a Liability Insurance Policy, a Temporary New York City Food License, and a New York City Food Protection Certificate. Fulfilling these requirements and purchasing the supplies cost about $800. A couple weeks before the event, Alicia also purchased a commercial cotton candy machine that would create one cone every two minutes, bringing their total startup cost to just over a grand.
They really wanted their first appearance to be a smash, so they invited a bunch of friends over for a glitter party to help decorate each of the 100 cones for attendees of the benefit. They used edible gold specks to capture a feeling of whimsy and elegance at the same time. The evening of the Juilliard event arrived. Alicia and Margaret were thrilled and terrified. To their relief, it was a big success.
The alumni loved their cotton candy because of the high-quality flavors and sense of nostalgia, and kids of the alumni loved it because, well, sugar. The demand was there, their all-natural recipe was unique, so what would they do next? The answer came while Alicia was walking around Tribeca and saw a sign for Lavender Hot Chocolate. She went in, tried it, loved it, and left. That night she emailed the owner and described how much she enjoyed the drink, and of course she mentioned that she, too, had a creative Lavender product.
Thanks to that cold email, Mason jar cotton candy will soon be on that store's shelves. The fluff in a jar idea was a way to develop more long-term partnerships, but it's also been a challenge. Let's not sugarcoat it. Cotton candy is a delicate confection, and as such, it doesn't really have much of a shelf life. Supplying partners with fresh fluff is a sadly inefficient process.
Or at least it was at first, they kept working on it trying to figure out a secret, and in the meantime they added more pop-up services to their calendar. Last year they went to the New York City Dessert Goals Festival, which by the way Dessert Goals was featured inside of School episode 284. After that, they debuted Cotton Cocktails, which is fluff served over wine or champagne. Several weddings and corporate events later, the partnerships were starting to pile up, but Alicia and Margaret weren't finished innovating. The problem of packaging and shelf life continued to disturb them.
They wanted to be able to expand their e-commerce operation and partner with more retail stores. So they figured it out. The secret was to enlist the help of a company that knew more about chemistry and packaging than they did. And that company also happened to be a co-packer. Alicia is thrilled to finally have fluff that can last for months and is excited to begin shipping nationally this year.
And if you live in Brooklyn, you can now order Not Your Average Cotton on Postmates. In the days to come, Alicia and Margaret are looking at opening up their own storefront in New York City. They are also using a service called Pop Shop to find opportunities for short-term pop-up stores. Despite several equipment upgrades, event and regulatory fees, and all those all-natural ingredients, Not Your Average Cotton is profitable and remains debt-free. Launching a modern-day food product that plays on nostalgia is hardly taking candy from a baby, but the sweet reward is worth it.
So in this story, we looked at three different business models. Alicia and Margaret have been up and running for less than two years, I believe, but in that time, they've explored several different options for getting their product out and making money. The first path they pursued was catering, starting with that Juilliard event and then doing weddings, corporate engagements, and so on. And all the while that was happening, at least after the first one or two, they started thinking about packaging for retail sale. Either in existing stores or possibly their own storefront one day.
At first, they had that problem of figuring out how to pack it so it could remain fresh for weeks and months. But as they asked around and did more research, they were able to solve it. And then the third business model or the third path is selling online directly, pursuing e-commerce, taking that packaging, and then selling direct to people who purchased it from the internet. Of these three paths, I suspect that if they can nail down that packing challenge, get it to where it's even more efficient, and really focus on online sales, I bet it's going to go a long way. However, since Cotton Candy is this kind of nostalgia-producing experience, it's probably also smart that they're still doing pop-up shops, still going out to do some events to get the word out.
I would imagine that a lot of their online orders are going to come from people who have seen them at an event or went to their pop-up shop or their own storefront at some point. So three different paths. And often when you start a project like this, there is more than one way to make money. In the long term, you'll probably need to focus a bit, but in the beginning, it's totally fine to just spread out and say, let's try this for a while, and then if that doesn't work, let's try something else. Or while we're pursuing one of the strategies, while we're trying to figure out how to package our product, we'll continue doing events so we can refine our recipes, reach more people, build our social media following, and so on.
So I will be interested in seeing what happens with not your average Cotton, great name by the way. And of course, you are most welcome to follow them as well. We'll include links to their website and Instagram on the show notes page. I'll also link up that service called Pop Shop, where you can find short-term pop-up opportunities as well as anything else mentioned in the episode. Those show notes are online at sidehustleschool.com/534.
That's episode 534. We are still going strong. Don't forget, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Thank you for tuning in today. I hope you'll join me again tomorrow.
My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
