What It's About
A healthy snack subscription service.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
How exactly has Dawna been able to find so much success so early in? Well, it boils down to a few different things: 1) the fact that she grew her audience before actually launching, 2) that initial 15% lifetime discount to her first round of subscribers, and 3) the value that she places on customer feedback. She started sending out a survey each month to get a feel for what her subscribers like and do not like, and this has really helped her create a better box month after month.
Fun Fact
Prelaunch is an excellent strategy to validate your business idea. Many entrepreneurs are using this strategy to test if their business idea has a demand. By running a prelaunch, you get to know whether people are willing to pay for your product before spending the time and money in creating one. For Dawna, it generated traction and helped build a highly targeted audience who are interested in buying her product.
Notes from Chris
Episode 546
By day, Dawna Boone is a Certified Public Accountant who works for a mortgage company in Dallas. And she isn’t just really good at her job—she genuinely enjoys what she does and has no desire to change that. But like many others listening to the show, she wanted something more... something different and fun that could potentially help her to develop new skills. What she wanted was a side hustle. As an avid listener of our show, Dawna was introduced to a multitude of new ideas and interesting business models that she had never really considered on her own. Of all these ideas, she found that she was particularly interested in subscription box-based side hustles. But what would her subscription be? She wasn’t sure. All of that changed in November of 2017 with Ep. 333. It was about a subscription box called My Bariatric Box that was tailored to those who had undergone bariatric bypass surgery. The featured side hustler, Nikki Willmore, having gone through the procedure herself, found that all of the weight she had struggled to get rid of was making a Brittany Spears comeback 13 years later. When she discovered that others like her were also struggling to find solutions to their midday snacking woes, she realized that this was a need that she could fill. While Dawna didn’t really have any direct, personal experience dealing with dietary restrictions, many of her family members did. Her mother and several of her relatives were living with Type-2 Diabetes, so she knew that the struggles were real. With some research under her belt, Dawna knew that at the very least, conditions like Type-2 could be better managed with a proper diet. And at best, it could even be prevented or reversed! But unfortunately, grocery stores are packed with sugar and carb loaded food items as far as the eye can see. And Dawna knew that it was a challenge for many people to find the right kind of foods to eat—even more so for those with heavily restricted diets like her family members with diabetes. When she started putting together the foundation for the service she wanted to offer, she figured that it would be wise to focus on low-sugar and low-carb snacks since those pesky midday cravings end up being the hardest. Dawna’s goal? Providing a healthier, easy-to-grab alternative to the overly processed snacks found in vending machines and office break rooms. And that’s really how the idea for Sugar Smart Box came to fruition. The box was created with diabetics in mind—but would still be great for anyone looking to cut back on their sugar and carb intake. I’m sure by this point you’re asking, “But what’s in the box, Chris? What’s in the box??” Dawna wanted to include a variety of at least seven different salty and sweet snacks with < 5g of sugar and < 9g net carbs per serving—everything from jerky to cakelets! Although she’s still in her first year of Sugar Smart Box, she’s currently bringing in around $5,000 per month in revenue. Now that she’s had a taste of what it’s like to build a side hustle of her very own, Dawna shows no sign of slowing down, and she hopes that changing snacking habits will lead to better health overall for her subscribers. Her current goal is to grow Sugar Smart Box so that it reaches more people. And there might even be some different options in the works since her subscribers have expressed an interest in gluten and nut free options. Whatever changes come down the line for this Texas-based CPA, we have a feeling that she’ll have it in the box—signed, sealed, and delivered!
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Sugar Smart Box: Check your sugar at the door—sign up for Dawna's sugar smart snack box!
- Cratejoy: Dawna ended up using Cratejoy to manage many of the logistics of Sugar Smart Box
- Business Analyst Turns Weight Loss Problem Into $130,000 Solution: A woman who undergoes bariatric weight loss surgery creates a subscription service to deliver monthly supplements and resources
- Quick Research Leads to Meal Planning Subscription Service: Healthy meal planning can be rough. One man is on a mission to help people be more health-conscious with his subscription-based website selling meal prep recipes
- Entrepreneur Reads Tea Leaves to Launch Subscription Hustle: A New York-based consultant brews his need for energy into a tea delivery service that offers customers a chance to discover new tea varieties each month
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Resources
CREATE YOUR ONLINE STORE
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Many Side Hustle School listeners are building sites using Shopify's easy-to-learn platform. Try it free today!
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GET YOUR FIRST 1,000 EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS
Social media is nice, but building an email list is still the single best way to get customers and clients for your hustle. It's not hard to get started—sign up for a 30-day trial and join the list-building challenge! You’ll be up and running in no time.
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