Rhode Island Mom Has Side Hustle In The Bag

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

[Music]

Hello, what's up? Greetings and welcome. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This show is called Side Hustle School. If you are new every day on the show, every single day, seven days a week, I'm telling a different story of somebody out there who creates an income generating project for themselves.

They're not just working harder. They're not just getting a part-time job. In fact, they usually have a day job. They usually have all kinds of other responsibilities. They're very busy, but they find a way to invest in themselves because they believe in themselves and they want to create more options for themselves.

Oh, and by the way, they usually do this by using the skills they already have without going into debt, without going to business school, without any of that stuff. And most of the time by doing something they enjoy, perhaps solving a problem or addressing a common struggle. And that's what today's story is about. It features a mom of two young kids who encounters one of those common struggles while shopping at the grocery store. She needs to do the shopping, juggle her kids and keep up with her phone, car keys, and other items.

This frustration leads to a journey that leads to an innovative solution that leads to one of those side hustles. You know what they say. If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. That's why moms are some of our best side hustlers. So stay tuned.

Let's say thanks to today's sponsor. They allow the show to be completely free to you. And I'll tell you how she gets your idea and how she makes it happen. [Music]

Kelly Santos, a busy working mom, was frustrated. As any parent can attest to, a trip to the grocery store with two kids in tow can be a chaotic affair.

And it was during one of those trips to the store that Kelly had her aha moment. On this particular shopping trip from hell, that's her description, Kelly hurried to get the shopping done. Her rambunctious toddler, Jake, sat in the grocery cart seat. Her newborn daughter, Brooke, slept peacefully in the car seat carrier. Juggling Brooke, who dangled from Kelly's arm in the car seat while steering the cart full of items and trying to keep Jake entertained, was no small task.

As Kelly tried to carefully navigate the store aisles, she knocked over a display of diet pills when rounding a corner. Bottles upon bottles of pills spilled all over the aisle. And of course, Brooke woke up crying. After this stressful and humiliating experience, Kelly knew that there had to be a better way to shop with her kids. It would really help if she could just find something to increase space for her groceries.

Then she could put the baby's car seat carrier in the shopping cart itself. Kelly searched high and low online, but came up empty-handed. However, one thing was clear. As she researched social media and mom blog posts, her problem was one that other parents shared. So she created cart mama.

What is cart mama, you ask? Kelly describes it as a saddlebag style product. Cart mama is a reusable bag that attaches to the side of any style shopping cart to make more space for your items. And this is no ordinary bag. This durable, large tote has two elastic pockets that can hold 30 plus pounds of goodies.

It's made of washable fabrics, so cart mama is also eco-friendly. And it's not imported from an overseas factory. It's made right in the USA. Kelly's first step was to develop a prototype. She hired a woman experienced in creating toy prototypes who was very knowledgeable in the process.

They made at least 10 different versions of cart mama, each time tweaking the product. Kelly tested the prototypes at various stores and says that she may have even borrowed a shopping cart from Target, which sat in her living room for some time. She also says, sorry, Target, I did eventually return the cart. Her goal was to make sure the support space and usability were perfect. There were two key elements in particular she wanted.

One was a way to carry and store cart mama. So she added Velcro for the ability to roll it up like a yoga mat. Then she added an easy to reach pocket for storing essentials like keys and your phone. Now that she had an actual sample, she wanted to start by producing a small quantity. She took to Google to find small batch manufacturers.

Kelly was pleased to find a few right in her New England backyard. She only had to visit two of these plants to realize she wanted cart mama to be made in the US. She was also honest and upfront with what she was comfortable producing on a small budget. Because of this, the manufacturer was even able to give her ideas to help speed up production, such as reducing the number of patterns and using a non-directional pattern style. He also suggested using a different Velcro to cut costs without sacrificing integrity.

Kelly's first purchase from the manufacturer was for 300 units. When she got her first cart mama sale, it validated her idea that this was a useful product. It gave her the motivation to get cart mama into more people's hands and onto their shopping carts. Because Kelly's professional background is in PR and social media, she doesn't use a lot of paid advertising. She's had success on Instagram and has been featured in several publications, including Yahoo.

But where did Kelly come up with the money to start her cart mama side hustle? Well, it turns out she's not new to the side hustle lifestyle. She previously created and owned a bakery, cafe and lounge. She successfully sold that company in 2015 and then used some of that income to fund her latest business. Cart mama's annual profit for 2017 was $13,000 and it's rapidly growing.

What's next? Well, in the coming months, this innovative product will be available online at select retailers. Kelly is now an approved seller for Walmart. And she says the best experience so far was going to Walmart to pitch buyers at their annual open call. It was inspiring to be surrounded by others who shared a similar passion.

Who knew that a stressful trip to the grocery store could let such a great idea out of the bag? So let's talk about some of the tools that Kelly uses to make this happen. For her website, she uses Squarespace and says she loves it. She appreciates how it's easy, flexible and works well with Stripe to collect payments. What is Stripe?

Well, it is a payment processor that integrates with Squarespace and other platforms to enable you to take payments from customers, which is always good. She also uses MailChimp for customer relationship management and her mailing list. And she handles most of these items herself. She says she likes to have control and take action quickly when changes are necessary. As she was getting up and running, she asked her customers for feedback.

And one of the suggestions was to make two pockets instead of her original three because shoppers are able to fit more items in the bigger spaces. With things like that, she just adjusted as she went along, continuing to improve the product and now she's listing it on Amazon as well. Now, just a quick comment about the branding. I went to take a look at cartmama.com and she has a tagline on this site that I think is just genius. I love it.

The tagline for cartmama is almost like shopping alone, which if you think about it is probably the dream of any mom who has a toddler and a newborn trying to get her grocery shopping done. Like that would be the ultimate fantasy to all of a sudden know that my kids are okay but be able to have some time and go and do my shopping. And I like it so much because obviously this is a product that is going to make that mom's life better but I don't know if it's really gonna seem like shopping alone. I mean, you still have the toddler, you still have the newborn or whatever else it is in your life that you're navigating. So it's not quite true in that way but from a marketing perspective, it's very aspirational.

I would imagine that her target market connects to that very well. So good job, Kelly. And thank you so much for letting us share your story with our listeners. To our listeners, don't forget inspiration is good but inspiration with action is so much better. Thank you for joining me today.

If you would like to learn about Cartmama or any of those tools that I mentioned, our show notes, all right, sidehustleschool.com/576. That is for episode 576. We are kicking off a new week and I am excited to bring you more stories every day. Do make sure you're subscribed, tune in at less than 10 minutes a day. You're always gonna learn something and hear something interesting.

I'll be back once again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]