Juice Bar Owner Gets Weighed Down With Blankets

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

What's up, everybody? Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. On the day that this episode is going out, it is a very special day for me. Today is the official pub date of 100 Side Hustles. I'm so excited about this book, a visual compilation of 100

of the most popular stories from the first year of the podcast. Beautiful photography featuring many of the people whose stories you may have heard, if you listened long ago when we first started up, or whose stories might be completely new to you, but who all represent lots of different ways to make money without quitting your job. Now, I'll probably say more about that as we go, so I don't want to overwhelm you just to say that I'm excited. The book is out. I'm going on to Los Angeles. Last night was the official pre-launch. In Phoenix,

today is the official launch in Los Angeles. You can always find out about that stuff at sidehustleschool.com/tour. All right, let's focus on the episode. Does a business owner need a side hustle? What if you're already working for yourself, you're already an entrepreneur? Well,

I personally think everyone needs one, at least one side hustle. The person I'm going to tell you about has a bunch of them. It's not just about making more money, although that's good too, of course. It's also about diversification, a different creative focus, and maybe, just maybe, fun. Today, the topic we're going to look at is weighted blankets. A Canadian juice bar owner wants

to start a new business, and he goes in search of this heavyweight sleep aid. I actually own a weighted blanket myself. It's a different brand, I think. I've had it for a couple of years, but overall, I'm a fan. I love this concept of weighted blankets. For him, the business is going really,

really well, thanks to his supreme dedication to sourcing the right product in the first place, reaching people through a targeted ad campaign, and then providing fanatical customer service. So he's really hit the trifecta well here. Like I said, business is going super, super well. I'll tell you all about it in this story. So stay tuned. Here's a quick shout out to our sponsor.

Aaron Spivak loved his juice bar business. He had eight of them throughout Toronto, but growing them was a burden. Each location was only really accessible to the people in nearby neighborhoods, which meant if he wanted to keep getting new customers, he'd have to keep opening new brick and mortar stores. But when ecommerce started to pick up steam, Aaron was captivated. He realized he could sell juice and smoothie related products to anyone without needing a physical location. So he built it out by using a WordPress site and learning as he went. And it

worked. His juice brand revitalize slowly grew to have customers all over Canada. Still always one for experimenting, Aaron wanted to try something totally different. A friend of his named Lior kept mentioning an idea he had. That idea was weighted blankets. Lior had seen how helpful a

heavy blanket could be for reducing stress and anxiety and sleeping better. And when they both noticed a successful Kickstarter campaign in early 2017, for a very similar product, they decided to just go for it. Aaron began calling up manufacturers in the blanket and textile spaces. He called five, then 10, then 50. The rejections just kept rolling in. Nobody wanted to manufacture a

really high quality blanket at small quantities. Sales reps kept trying to convince him to go with a lower quality material. But Aaron didn't want a mediocre blanket. He wanted a stellar one, one blanket to weigh down them all. Finally, after nearly 150 calls, Aaron found a partner who was willing to make the blankets. Before he and Lior placed their first order, they wanted to see if

they could get some presales to soften the blow of the initial inventory investment, which was going to be pricey at nearly 90,000 Canadian dollars. They set up a Shopify store with their product, the Hush blanket, listed them at about $200. These blankets aren't cheap, then launched some presale ads on Google. They spent all day together working on logistics, waiting eagerly for that first sale. But it never arrived. The next day, Aaron and Lior kept waiting, but no sales.

Their ads were getting plenty of impressions. Why weren't people clicking and buying? Even though it had only been two days, the lack of a single sale was heartbreaking. But then, at 9 p.m. that night, while Aaron was gathering his stuff to go home, they heard it. Cha-ching! Aaron's Shopify app made the noise they'd been waiting for,

their first sale. They high-fived, spent a few minutes dreaming of the next few days, and parted ways. From there, Hush blankets started receiving multiple sales per day, every day, with a positive cost per click. What do I mean by that phrase, positive cost per click? Well, it just means that they're making more money than they're spending on ads.

And at $200 per blanket, the money was starting to pile up. They let it ride for two full weeks, racking up several thousand dollars in presales, before placing their order with the manufacturer. Finally, in January of 2018, just a few months after they began working on the idea, their first round of inventory was ready for sale. And sales were consistent, a few per day, every day, generating over $10,000 before the end of the month. They'd landed on a much-needed, high-quality product and were doing well in the market, largely because of their success with Google Ads. But they wanted to do even better if they could, so they hired a consultant to audit

their ads and strategy. And what he discovered was the kick in the pants they needed. He looked at the cost of the ads, the money coming in, and the profit margin, and said, "You guys could have spent 10 times this, and probably gotten 10 times the sales." Aaron and Lior shifted their marketing mentality. There would no longer be a set marketing budget. The budget would be unlimited. As long as

their revenue far outgrew their costs, they could spend whatever they wanted on ads. But let's be clear, it wasn't just those ads. The ads got customers coming in, but it was something else that really drove the sale. Incredible, fanatical customer service. From the beginning, they went above and beyond with their customers, ensuring that every sale was more than just a transaction.

It was an experience. They responded to emails quickly and always played the role of guide, rather than pesky salesperson. They hired people to run the live chat 20 hours per day, so visitors could get real human answers to their questions. And some of those people asking questions turned out to be people interested in bulk orders. If their chat service had been run by a bot, which is what they saw some of their competitors doing, someone asking, "Can I order more than one blanket?" would have received a response like, "Sure, would you like two?" But with a human there to respond, they were able to realize that those people were often representatives of retail stores wanting to make big, multi-dozen orders, and the bot probably would have missed many of those opportunities. Just 18 months since launch, Hush Blankets is

already clearing multiple six figures each year in profit. Much of it has been reinvested in the business, and they've also launched a new Hush Ice Blanket, a cooler version of the original blanket for warm weather. Coming soon, a line of bedsheets, pillowcases, pajamas, and perhaps more. And while the money is great, Aaron and Lior are especially proud of their customer reviews. They know that their business is making a difference. People with anxiety are sleeping

better than they have in years. Aaron himself is more of a restless soul. He's now looking for his next big idea. So once again, the trifecta here, the right product, the right audience, and radical customer service. If you get each of those right, you're going to be positioned for a major success just like these guys. If you find yourself struggling at some point, if you're like,

why is it my product selling? Your problem is probably going to relate to one of those areas. So either you haven't actually created the right product, or you're not able to reach the right audience, or you're just not doing a good job, you know, converting that audience, serving that audience well, creating the right kind of trust and empathy that you need for a successful long-term business. So now I'm going to look at one of their hush ice blankets, which sounds like a great idea, because I have a weighted blanket, like I said, which is wonderful during the wintertime. But in the summertime, it's pretty warm. So I love the concept of being able to use this kind of thing

year round. All right, well, I hope you enjoyed this one. As I said, a huge success really represents well the side hustling mentality, even for somebody who is a little bit more established, who has been an entrepreneur for a while, you can always go back and have a side hustle. It's a good thing. It's really good for all kinds of reasons. Alright, our show notes for today are at side

hustle school.com/885. You can check out hush blankets and anything else that I mentioned. And by the way, 100 Side Hustles is out in the world. Go and check it out at your favorite local bookstore, or any online retailer. Thanks so much. I'll be back again tomorrow as I begin my tour

across North America. Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau, and this is Side Hustle School.