This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
On the very first page of the $100 startup, I told the story of Michael Hanna. Michael had worked in advertising for nearly two decades when he was suddenly laid off. He spent the next few weeks and then months updating his resume, pounding the pavement, trying to take any job interview he could get, but nothing was coming through. Through an odd series of twists and turns, he ended up starting a small business, which became profitable in the first year. Before the end of the second year, he was earning more than he had in his day job.
In fact, he later said that losing his job was the best thing that ever happened to him. At first, it was scary. It produced all this uncertainty. What am I going to do? How am I going to provide for my family?
But in the end, it ended up leading him to something much better. Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. As we begin a new week, I've got a story today that reminds me of Michael's story. Now, this story is a little bit earlier on in the process, a little earlier phase than Michael is in now.
But in our interview notes, this person used a very similar phrase, "Losing my job was the best thing that ever happened to me." I want to dedicate this episode to anybody out there who is struggling, anybody who has perhaps lost their job. I don't want to suggest that it's easy. I don't want to suggest that I know which path you should take because obviously I don't. But I do hope that the show can support you in some way. I do hope that these ideas can inspire something for you.
Specifically, today's story is about a digital marketer who loses her job and then turns to the kitchen, where she whips up pre-made meals and launches a successful crowdfunding campaign. Let's give a quick shout out to our sponsor. They allow the show to be completely free to you. And then I'll tell you all about what happened. Two years ago, Gillian McGarry was working as a digital marketer and affiliate manager.
She didn't love the job and was often on the lookout for opportunities to make money elsewhere. 10 years ago, she and her brother had launched a website teaching people how to snowboard. While this site, snowprofessor.com, received significant traffic and over 9 million YouTube views, it never made much money. However, Gillian loved the process and had a yearning to try again. Fast forward eight years and she was working that day job when her family received some tragic news.
Her sister-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer. The whole family pulled together to do anything they could to help. For Gillian, that meant making the family precooked meals they could reheat whenever they wanted without having to worry about cooking. Although by her own admission, she was no culinary mastermind, she had developed a knack for creating meals that were easy to produce en masse and still delicious after reheating. She also began exploring the idea of having her own food side hustle while still employed, but at the beginning of 2017, she lost her job.
Don't feel bad for her. She says it was the best thing that could have ever happened. She decided to take her time in savings and invested into creating a side hustle, which now by default became her full-time gig. She called the business "mostly made" and it would provide prepackaged meal kits for people to prepare at home. All they'd have to do was add their favorite vegetables.
Gillian was confident in the concept, but to give the business an initial kick, she turned to Kickstarter. With Kickstarter, anyone can post a concept and backers can pre-purchase the product in exchange for delivery upon completion. Essentially, each customer is investing in the future of the business. Now, while this all sounds great, it's not easy to make Kickstarter work. We've talked in previous episodes about various challenges that people face.
In fact, over 60% of projects fail to receive funding, and of those that do, some never see the light of day due to manufacturing difficulties. But Gillian had an ace up her sleeve, the skills from her previous job as a digital marketer. She knew it wouldn't be enough to post her product on Kickstarter and hope for the best. She had to do some pre-selling, so she created posts on social media and ran an ad campaign on Facebook. People were directed to a landing page where they could enter an email address to express their interest.
The goal was to use those email addresses later on to boost the campaign, turning the people into backers. They'd be invited to put their money where their mouth was, so that they could then put their mouth on some mostly made food. Since products on Kickstarter only receive funding when a campaign goal is met, it's best to set a campaign goal you feel confident in achieving. Gillian's original goal was $26,000, which would have allowed her to create three varieties of mostly made meals. However, after assessing how many people she had on her pre-sell list, she thought that might be a bit optimistic, so she revised the goal down to two flavors and $19,000.
Oh, and those flavors were lasagna and enchiladas. Mmm. Who doesn't like enchiladas? It was now time to set the campaign live on Kickstarter. She emailed her entire network, everyone she knew, telling them how they could support the project.
On top of that, she also emailed bloggers and other influential people in the food space to ask them to consider sharing the page and possibly review the product. All that work led to her campaign being successfully funded with $20,306. Unfortunately, there was very little time to celebrate because raising the money is only the first part of the recipe. To complete the meal, she had to begin production and actually deliver the product to all those people who had funded mostly made. It was time to get cooking.
Launching a food business in the United States is not easy. You're selling things that people could actually eat. The regulations can be different at a local, state, and federal level. That's why Jillian decided to partner with a local copacker, someone who could create and pack the product in their warehouse. This way, Jillian doesn't have to maintain her own certifications.
The copacker handles that, and it's their responsibility to maintain compliances with agencies like the FDA and USDA. Since Jillian partnered with a well-regarded copacker, she was also able to use their certifications to market her products. Instantly, she could say her products were gluten-free, antibiotic-free, and list organic ingredients on her packaging. This was a big win in today's health-conscious market. By February 2018, Jillian had the first batch of mostly-made meals delivered to customers.
All the while she was creating the brand, she had a dream of selling the product in grocery stores. She met with dozens of stores in her local area, starting even before she launched her Kickstarter campaign. One common question she kept getting was, "Do you sell at local farmers' markets?" It took her a while to realize that what they were really asking was, "Do you have an existing customer base?" Unfortunately, the answer to both questions at the time was no. However, the plus side of those rejections was that Jillian made contacts with buyers in the grocery stores, and she held onto those contacts in hopes they'd be more fruitful later. And that's exactly what happened.
After that successful crowdfunding campaign and a series of sales coming directly through her website, she decided to try the local stores again. This time, with existing customers in her crockpot, she was able to convince two local stores to stock her products. Sales were successful, and she transitioned that success to several more stores. Six months later, Mostly Made was in 28 stores, something that Jillian views as integral to her success. Just how much success is that?
Well, the current revenue generated by Mostly Made is $5,500 a month. In the food business, profit margins can be slim, so there's still a ways to go before she can fully replicate her job income. However, Jillian is up for the challenge, and since she never went back to full-time work after losing her last job, she has plenty of time to dedicate to Mostly Made. Launching a successful food business can be difficult, but it seems Jillian has mostly made it. Awesome, congratulations to Jillian.
Great story to kick off our week. I love the concept and the name, Mostly Made. Like I said, profit margins can be tough in this kind of business, so if you've got two different ideas, and one of them is in the food business, and another one is, I don't know, something different that could be a much higher profit margin, you might want to take a look at that something different first. However, if it is your mission, if it is your vision, you're like, "This is what I want to do." Well, that's just the challenge you have to be aware of, something you have to know going into it, which is why, to be truly successful in the food business, especially with something like this, you really do need to create some sense of scale, which is why it was important to her to get into stores. Now she's in 28 of those stores, so it definitely seems like she is well underway to the scale that she needs.
As we are beginning this week, I hope you will identify a goal for yourself. What is it that you're working toward? What is the project that you're going to start? If you're not sure what the project's going to be, well, let's start with some specific goals, or maybe even just some values. Do you want more independence in your life?
Do you want more autonomy? Do you want a different kind of creative project, and maybe one that pays you money? Because that is what Side Hustle School is all about. Whatever it is for you, consider it each day as you listen to the new episodes. Don't forget, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better.
If you want to take a look at the show notes for this episode and learn more about Mostly Made, just come over to sidehustleschool.com/555. How about that? It is the triple five episode, 555. I'll be back tomorrow with 556. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is Side Hustle School.
