This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Let's talk about bow ties. That's right, bow ties are a thing. We featured them before on the show, today they are back with a different guy making them and a different approach to selling them. In this case, it's a Canadian hospital employee slash power lifter who decides he needs something else to do in his limited free time. In that limited free time, he figures out how to make bow ties, he figures out how to make money from them, and then he prepares to move on.
Wait, is that right? Welcome to Side Hustle School, my name is Chris Guillebeau, and this story has an interesting conclusion. I kind of gave away part of it there, but especially if you have ever found yourself doing something that is working just fine, but you'd rather do something different, and you might wanna pay attention to this one. And the good news is that should be pretty easy to do since you're already listening. I'm gonna say a quick thank you to our sponsor, they allow the show to be completely free to you, and then I'll tell you all about this elegant bow tie biz.
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Kobe M. Ponsa is a man of many talents. He works in a hospital as an operating room attendant. He's also a competitive power lifter with a kinesiology degree, and in his spare time, he trains firefighters. His previous side hustle was working as a personal trainer.
He'd helped to pay off his college tuition with the income from his clients, but he wanted a little extra money to feel comfortable. Plus, personal training was taking a toll. He felt he spent more time traveling between clients than actually making money working. To put it simply, he wanted something different. Kobe had long toyed with the idea of starting another business.
An active member of his community in Brampton, Ontario, Kobe wanted to inspire younger people in the area. He also felt drawn to explore his creative side and make products to sell. But what would he sell? To come up with ideas, he looked at what made him unique. He explored the parts of his life he enjoyed, which also helped him stand out from others.
And he found the answer right under his collar. Kobe had always been fashion conscious, and he loved to wear bow ties. He thought they were a great way to express individuality. Everyone expects you to rock up to a business meeting or a formal event wearing a normal Windsor knotted necktie. And Kobe got a kick out of wearing something different.
So he decided he would center his side hustle on making and selling these bow ties, but there was just one problem. He didn't know how to make them. To overcome this hurdle, Kobe went to a little-known website that contained all kinds of secrets, just waiting to be uncovered. That website was called Google. He searched for Seamstress in Brampton, Ontario and found there was a nonprofit that gave free lessons on how to sew fabric accessories, including bow ties.
Jackpot. Over the course of the next two weeks, Kobe spent four hours in intensive bow tie training, and he began bouncing the idea for his side hustle off the teachers. In this workshop, Kobe learned two things. The first is that bow ties aren't terribly time consuming to make, taking between 20 to 45 minutes, depending on the fabric or style. And the second is that ties are cost effective to make, with the average tie costing him just $5.
These findings helped Kobe confirm this was an idea worth pursuing, and he invested just $250 in getting it off the ground. He spent this startup money on only the essentials. His largest investment was a sewing machine. Whatever was left over, he spent on fabrics and packaging for the new bow ties. He gave his business the name Net Couture.
The majority of Net Couture's ties are made up from a traditional Ghanaian fabric called Kente, which he sources from Ghana and local Ghanaian fabric stores. The Kente fabric is bold and beautiful, woven from vibrant African cloth containing bright greens, reds, and yellows. These make the ties look unique and ensure they stand out from any other bow tie on the market. And I'm sure it is a competitive bow tie circuit. But Kobe also taught himself how to make bow ties from wood, leather, and even crocodile leather for the fashionista who just wants to wear something even more unique.
To begin selling the ties, Kobe set up shop at a local market. He displayed a handful of his ties at a booth and much to his delight, found that he didn't need to do too much to sell them, at least when people came by. The uniqueness of the ties attracted customers and he sold most of his initial stock in just one day. Let's talk about some money stuff. Kobe sets the prices of bow ties based on the material and the time it takes to create them.
For a Kente fabric tie, you could expect to pay around $50. That's right, 50 bucks a bow tie. And for a more elaborate tie, like the ones made from wood, prices go up to $80, which for a $5 investment to create the tie is a pretty good profit margin, right? $5, $50, $5, $80. Over the next year, Kobe continued to sell his ties at farmer's markets, craft shops, and pop-up stores around Ontario.
But as time went on, he needed to find a way to scale his business. He wanted to keep making the ties but didn't want to sit behind a booth all day and sell them. He also felt the extra time would open up another side of his business, creating custom ties, which he couldn't do while sitting behind that booth on the weekend. So he decided to take his business online. He bought the domain name netcoutour.ca and hosted his website through Squarespace.
Social media, mainly Instagram, has helped to play to the visual aspect of the ties and Kobe shared lots of images of them along with a behind the scenes look at the process of making them. He also did some influencer marketing, where he would find people with a larger audience and then pay them a small fee to get featured on their profile. This brought a lot of people to follow his accounts and some even purchased his products. The extra reach helped the custom order side of his business to take off. Using a contact form on his website, people would request a specific tie for an upcoming event and Kobe would so then ship it to them.
The prices were set on a customer by customer basis, depending on what they needed. With the sales on both sides of his business, Kobe has made a total of $25,000 since he first started his hustle. Some months the profits have been in the $2,000 range and other times they've been less, but much of the work is seasonal. So he doesn't panic in the low income months. Looking to the future, pay attention.
Kobe is planning to slow down net couture's production and move on to other ventures. He started a podcast to help inspire young people to start their business, which he calls the Purposeful Story Podcast. And on that show, he shares the successes and insights of his fellow entrepreneurs. Whatever happens next, Kobe can say he's mastered a new skill, he's found a way to make it viable, and also should he ever need to make bow ties at any other point in his life, he'll know exactly what to do. Okay, lots to take away here.
I was just taking a little peek at his website, netcouture.ca, which is just kind of a minor critique. I would say not everyone knows how to spell the word couture. It is C-O-U-T-U-R-E. So with a word like that in your website, it could be like having a name like Chris Guillebeau, which for a decade now has been my main blog and portfolio site, chrisguillebeau.com. And guess how many people can spell Guillebeau?
Not that many, it is a challenge. Still, aside from that minor comment, the site looks really great. All of this welcome message he has where he says, we advocate for individuality, so be creative. We can custom design and create the tie you desire tailored to your liking. So really fun business, but as you may have heard in the conclusion, he's actually planning to slow it down and move on to other stuff.
Why would you slow down something that's working? Why would you stop something that has made $25,000? Well, listen, I often say a side hustle is not forever, and here's a great example. You do it for as long as it works for you. It's often harder to let go of something that is working, but you don't want to do anymore, or you've just kind of changed your interests, or now you want to do something different, that's normal.
It's often harder to let go in a situation like that than when the project just isn't working at all. But letting go is powerful. He has acquired these skills. These skills are gonna serve him in whatever he does next. Just earlier today, before I recorded this, I was going through my email.
I had a message from a small business owner, like a full-time small business owner, and he was closing up shop after several years of owning a martial arts studio. And the email was interesting because it sounded like a very normal life transition, but he felt kind of bad about it. Like he felt like in some ways it was a failure, even though the martial arts studio had been a success for a number of years. Again, it's okay, things don't have to work forever. And here's one more thing about this.
Before I sign off, if you can solve the problem that's in front of you now, you will feel better. You don't have to figure out what your lifelong business or your lifelong career is going to be. If you don't know what it is, that's okay. In fact, the way you're probably gonna figure it out eventually is by doing different things. So what you should do is look and say, okay, what is the problem that's in front of me now?
What is the problem? What is the opportunity that's in front of me now? I should solve that problem or pursue that opportunity. And when you do that, that's what's gonna make you feel better. So if you find yourself feeling discontented or dissatisfied just with this urge to live life differently, like so many of our listeners do, well, again, what is in front of you?
What is the problem? What is the opportunity? I will leave you with that today. And by the way, for those who are listening in real time, it is the 4th of July in the United States, or actually it's the 4th of July everywhere, but just wanted to mention it is Independence Day in the US. So wherever you are, ask yourself, hey, what are you doing for your independence?
What are you doing for yourself? How are you creating freedom in your life? Even if you have a job, even if you're working for somebody else, like so many of our listeners, I still believe you should carve out something for yourself. And perhaps that something is a side hustle. Just a suggestion.
Don't forget, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. And today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/550. That is for episode 550. Until we meet again, I'll be cheering on your independence plan. Once again, this is Chris Guillebeau, that difficult name, and this is Side Hustle School.
