Veteran Turns Sweet Compulsion Into Obsessive Candy Hustle

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

[Music]

Oh, hey, what's up, welcome. Welcome to a new week. Welcome to a new month here on "Saddestle School." And welcome as well, perhaps to one of our most obscure stories yet. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Today, I'm gonna tell you about the OCD Candy Company, which is not a joke.

In fact, one of their challenges is convincing people. It's not a joke. Now, this OCD Candy Company is founded by an Air Force veteran of 30 years who struggles with OCD, which is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And I'll speak more about that in a moment. Now, when she gets out of the service, she wants to make some money.

And like I often encourage our listeners, the way she does it is by focusing on something that's important to her, yet also connected to a broader community. Now, in this case, it is the convergence of candy and OCD. So with her permission, we're calling it Veteran Turns Sweet Compulsion into Obsessive Candy Hustle. And listen, if you are worried that your focus is too narrow, if you think, oh man, maybe I need to like widen it up and like serve more people, well, compare it to this story and see if you still feel that way. As I said, perhaps one of our most obscure stories yet.

So stay tuned, I'll tell you all about it. [Music]

Ellen LaGuatin worked in the military for 30 years. Throughout her service, she held many positions, including maintaining F-16 fighter jets, as well as being responsible for computer and radio maintenance. She loved her work, but retirement must come for us all, or at least all of us in the military. And a few years ago, Ellen's retirement was approaching.

She knew that her retired life would be a lot easier if she could produce a little side income, something to supplement the thrift savings plans she'd earned through her service. But beyond that, she loved the idea of working for herself, being her own boss, and maybe even sleeping in a little for the first time in decades. Ellen had already come up with her side hustle idea a few years earlier. It was based on a love of candy, a candy crush, you could say. At work, she kept a candy jar on her desk and she had to have that candy arranged in a certain way.

Otherwise, she couldn't eat it. What appeared as a peculiar quirk to many people was actually a severe condition to her. That's because Ellen has OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, a mental illness that affects 2.2 million Americans, and lots of other people around the world as well, of course. It's characterized by having unwanted and repetitive thoughts, urges, or images that won't go away. The classic example you're probably familiar with is someone washing their hands over and over again, despite them already being clean.

OCD manifests in different ways, and for Ellen, she has an urge to count. And she also has particular urges about eating. So with candy, for instance, something she loves, her brain just won't let her enjoy it unless it is laid out and organized in a very specific way. That's why she arranges her candy in a jar layered by color and size. Now, believe it or not, this type of issue affects a lot of people with OCD.

Early on, Ellen's coworkers would mix up her candy jar, not realizing how negative the consequences could be. Gradually, they learned this was a real problem for her, so they made efforts not to disrupt the jar. But one day, when Ellen was away from her desk, a new colleague took some candy, unintentionally rearranging the whole jar. When she returned to her desk, the OCD took over. She spent the whole afternoon rearranging the candy jar using her specific counts and OCD traits.

She wasn't able to leave for the day until it was done. By the whole time she did this task, Ellen was thinking, I know this is unusual for some people, but I'm not the only person who eats their candy this way. I know I'm not. There should be an OCD candy company for people like me. Well, be careful what you wish for.

The idea stuck in Ellen's head like Taffy. Fast forward a bit, and her retirement is now coming up, but she wasn't sour patch about it. In fact, she was looking forward to trying something new. Several years had gone by since she first had that idea, and Ellen had spent much of her weekends in that time working on her concept for a candy brand for OCD sufferers. She spent time designing the packaging and labels, thinking about branding.

She would pack lollipops in nice, neat lines of matching colors and sizes, so that anyone else living with OCD could enjoy candy without being bothered by its disorganization. The whole idea became somewhat of a therapy for her. Since her OCD manifests itself by counting things, one of the things she enjoys the most about making candy is that she can count it in a productive way. When the opportunity arrived for Ellen to open a small storefront, she went for it. In this store, she would stock lollipops, sweets, books and accessories, as well as her especially OCD-packed candy.

Now, the total cost for setting everything up was just over $6,000. This cost included her initial candy products, a deposit and rent, as well as packaging for the original batches. Over time, Ellen noticed that the candy in her store seemed to be the best seller, so she decided to double down and transition into a full-on candy shop called the OCD Candy Company. Now, pay attention to this. Ellen actually received some negative feedback about the name, and she considered calling it the Organized Candy Company instead, but decided against it.

Some people may be offended, but many others will visit the store because of the name, and Ellen is happy with that trade-off. This would be just like your childhood candy store, but with a twist. In addition to stocking your typical candy and traditional favorites, Ellen would also provide this specialist candy for people with OCD. It is a highly specialized business idea, to be sure, but did it work? Well, in her own words, Ellen was never expecting to get rich from this side hustle.

That wasn't the goal. The nature of retail also means that her profits fluctuate a lot. There's some really great days where she might sell hundreds of dollars worth of candy, and then some really bad days where she might sell nothing. Still, the store has given her a smooth transition from full-time work to part-time retirement, and on average, she makes about $1,700 a month in profit. She keeps a close eye on her monthly expenses because, well, it's true, she is highly organized.

For Ellen, the side income is great, but the real reward has been able to help other OCD sufferers. One of the things she noticed a few months after launching was parents, teachers, and carers of autistic children coming to buy her candy. After speaking with many of them, she decided to take a portion of each sale and donate it to charities for children with autism. The people in her target market return again and again. When they come into the store with these requests, they aren't laughed at, judged, or looked down on.

Ellen understands them, and through her candy company, she helps them. So, what's next? Well, she may be retired, but that doesn't mean Ellen is standing still. She knows her product is highly specialized, and she wants to reach more people. So for that, she also knows she needs to improve her website and add more of an online store.

That could drive sales from all over the country and perhaps beyond. This retired side hustler didn't let obsessive compulsive disorder get in her way. Like her candy itself, the side hustle helps bring a little order in a world full of chaos. [Music]

Well, how about that? As I said, pretty specialized, fairly obscure, but you can clearly see, or at least I was able to clearly see as I worked through the episode, did some research and all that, how she is serving the specialized population.

And by the way, if it wasn't clear in the story, her store is primarily offline. She's in the Tacoma, Washington area, so if you happen to be near there and want to check it out, go and take a look. I realize I forgot to mention this specific location in the episode, but on her website, she's got this explanation, like front and center, that says our goal is to be fun for everyone and to make things easier for people that like to eat their candy in a specific way. The OCD candy company was not created as a joke product, nor is it our intention to make fun of individuals that suffer from OCD or other anxiety disorders. So again, her intent, and mine as well with the episode, is if this is a real business, she's actually helping people.

And as someone who has struggled with that diagnosed condition, she is in a good place of understanding language, you know, vocabulary, references. In other words, what is important to other people who think the same way she does? Now also, as mentioned, she wants to do more online. And I think that would be great because then she's gonna be able to reach so many more people. Right now she has kind of a placeholder website and it's not bad, but it's not really a website that most people are gonna go and shop.

So imagine if she had a more upgraded website and people anywhere could make purchases, I just think this could be really big. So Ellen, thank you for letting us share your story with our community and do keep us posted on the website and your other online plans. It would be great to come back in a few months and say, okay, where is she now? Also a general tip for anyone, I noticed this on the website and I'm gonna say as well that I'm not immune to this problem, but the tip is to be careful about dated references on your website, especially on any pages that are meant to be static, like pages that people are going to go to at any time. If it's a blog post, it's probably okay because they're gonna be new blog posts.

But I noticed on one of her main pages, she says OCD Candy Company hopes your 2015 is as sweet as our candy. So obviously that needs to be updated. And like I said, I've suffered from this myself because I've gone back in different parts of my website and I look and I'm like, how did I forget about this for three years? So it happens, but it's just something that you should probably think about while you're actually writing the copy for your pages, not so much just going back to look all the time. But if you can write that copy to be more evergreen in the first place, then you won't have to worry about it as much going forward.

So just a small tip from me there, but I hope you enjoyed Ellen's story. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/702 or to be precise and orderly, 702. Thank you so much for listening. I hope your week is starting well, or if you're binge listening later, I hope you're enjoying your binge.

Much more is on the way, including a brand new episode tomorrow. Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau, and this is Side Hustle School. [Music]