Animation Producer Brings Culinary Characters to Life

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

[Music]

Hello, my friends. What's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. This is your host, Chris Guillebeau. I love today's story.

It's about a voiceover actor and animation producer who brings a series of culinary characters to life in the form of kitchen utensils. It's all inspired by an encounter with a 90-year-old woman who happens to be blind, yet, as you'll hear, is also very capable. This story serves as a model illustration of the Side Hustle model as applied to making a physical product. The voiceover actor has to learn about CAD drawings, manufacturing, distribution, crowdfunding, all kinds of stuff, and it's not easy. In fact, you could say this is a two-year overnight success.

But I do think there's a viable path here. So if you're out there and you want to create a physical product, you're just curious about the process, as long as you're willing to work, well, I would suggest you let this be your guide. Animation producer brings culinary characters to life coming up after this message from our sponsor. [Music]

As 2016 began, professional voiceover artist, writer, and producer, Marci Heit, felt that something was missing in her career. Based in Los Angeles, her work was successful and often appeared on television, radio, and in video games.

But she realized she wanted to build something for herself, so she decided to produce her own animated show. Owning her content would allow her to take control of her career while also showing off her skills to casting directors and executives who hire voice actors. It would be a win-win. Marci began developing her own ideas in between her other jobs. While volunteering at a local puppet show, she befriended Elda, a 90-year-old blind woman who was full of life.

Elda inspired the audience with stories and talked about letting nothing stop her, including losing her eyesight 20 years earlier. Well, to be fair, losing her eyesight did stop Elda from driving. She thought that wasn't a great idea. So Marci would give her rides home and they soon became good friends. Marci was inspired by Elda, especially once she learned she was still baking and doing it all alone.

Elda had learned enough braille to label her spices, and she put a mark on her oven at 350 degrees. So as Elda put it, she could continue to whip up whatever she so desired. The inspiration wasn't just personal. Marci realized she had also found the inspiration for her next project. She created a concept called QD Foodie, an animated show about a young blind girl who loves making things with food in her watermelon-shaped treehouse.

The title character, Quinn Daisy, not only shares Elda's vision issues, but more importantly is infused with ingenuity and a vibrant spirit. As part of development, Marci illustrated some kitchen tools that the characters would use as props in the series. Each tool looked like food. There was an eggplant-shaped whisk, a carrot mixing spoon, and a set of artichoke measuring cups. When she was done, she liked the animated tools so much, she wanted them in her real kitchen.

And why not? That day, QD Foodie became QD Foodie Kitchen Tools, with a new goal of actually making the utensils that she had first designed for a show. Marci was determined to create something that would get kids, and kids at heart, engaged and excited in the kitchen. Shaped like food, her new tools would be colorful, durable, and inclusive. They'd basically be squishy, real-life versions of their animated inspiration.

And most of all, they would be fun. But first she had to figure out how to actually produce a product. So Marci went online and spent several hours researching. She learned that she would need a CAD designer, and that's where her startup costs began. Marci says that she spent about $30,000, but stresses that this was over a period of what would be two years of development.

She didn't have that much money available up front, and had to invest little by little with each paycheck she received. With the first check, she paid the CAD designer for the molds, which got her going. Then she needed someone to make the product, so she went back to Google. She soon found ThomasNet, an online platform that connected her with potential manufacturers around the world. When she contacted suppliers, she told them what she wanted to make, and was also up front about her lack of experience and limited budget.

Marci believes her honesty helped, and that many manufacturers were generous with their time and free advice. She estimates that their insights and the hours they spent saved her tens of thousands of dollars, not to mention many months of effort. Over the next year, she continued to refine the product and also launched social media campaigns to build her audience. She continued to work on QT Foodie in between her other voiceover jobs, and her friends took to calling the project her newborn baby. Through an opportunity from the U.S. Small Business

Administration, Marci got the opportunity to pitch to executives from the home shopping network. And she was excited, because in the world of consumer products, selling on HSN is a huge opportunity. The channel reaches 96 million homes and has turned obscure projects and entrepreneurs into multi-millionaires many times over. It was big. Thousands of people try to get on HSN every year, and most never get the opportunity.

Marci was convinced she would. Put a lot of work into preparing for the pitch. It went well, and she received positive feedback from the executives, but in the end, her project was not selected. Rather than be sad or look at it as a failure, Marci took it as a learning experience. She says that pitching HSN helped her refine her presentation and idea, and it also compelled her to get physical samples in hand.

This gave her a tangible product to show to potential partners. Over the following year, Marci continued to develop the brand and build her audience, all while continuing to work her other jobs. In May 2018, she launched a Kickstarter campaign. Using social media and her contacts, she raised about $50,000. This was important because not only did it serve as another proof of concept, it also gave her the critical money that she needed to produce the product molds required for large-scale production runs.

Like a proud mother, Marci shipped the first orders of Cutie Foodie kitchen tools just in time for Christmas 2018. The products were just as she had envisioned. Fun, colorful, and inclusive, with sensory-friendly handles and braille on the measuring pieces. Since then, her sales have continued to grow. She now sells direct to consumers through her website, and the product will be available on Amazon soon.

The project generates several thousand dollars a month, and she's actually growing the brand through media features, including one in the New York Times. Marci hopes to make Cutie Foodie her sole focus in the near future, but for now, she devotes every free minute to growing the project. She also plans to resume work on her animated series, The Original Idea, and she's working on several retail partnerships. It's been a long journey, but worth the effort. If Marci has her way, Cutie Foodie and Cutie Foodie kitchen tools will be an inspiring force for generations of kids.

[Music]

So, as I said, I love this project. I also think it is a model illustration of the Cytosol model itself as applied to making a physical product. So what do I mean by that? Well, consider the different phases of Marci's project. Okay, so first of all, she gets the inspiration.

She has the initial vision. And then as she pursues that vision, it changes a bit, right? She still has that idea to do the animated show, but she discovers, hey, these characters that I've designed, these kitchen utensils would actually be really good kitchen utensils, not just animated images. So you've got the vision, then the vision changes. It evolves as you go, which is very normal.

And then she's like, okay, I got a research. How does this actually work? How do I make a product? So she does some research, learns about the CAD design, talks to manufacturers, figures out how to go from prototype to large scale production, et cetera. She begins funding the project with her own money, $30,000 over the course of two years.

So it's not like she's writing one check. She's investing month by month with the income from her day job. But then of course, when it comes time to actually do that large scale production run, she's gonna need more money. So she's been building the campaign, building the following through social media for what is it like a year and a half at this point? Then she does the crowdfunding campaign, $50,000.

From there, she's working on distribution, the whole home shopping network thing that didn't work out, but allowed her to have the samples, allowed her to connect with other retail partners, et cetera. And now it's out in the world and she's working on marketing, right? So vision, research, funding, manufacturing, crowdfunding, distribution, and marketing. So again, it's not easy. I'm not gonna tell you it's easy to do this and it's actually a lot of work, but there is a replicable path.

There is a path you can see, okay, here are the different phases, the different stages that I have to go through to make this happen. And of course, to make it happen on the side without quitting her job, or actually in her case without quitting her jobs 'cause she has multiple jobs. So I'm excited to go check out the Cutie Foodie kitchen tools myself. Maybe you'll wanna see them as well. We'll include links on the show notes page as always.

That page is at sidehustleschool.com/936. Go take a look. And of course, remember, inspiration is good. Inspiration with action is so much better. Thanks so much for listening.

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

From the Onward Project.