British Family Sells Political Tea Towels

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

[Music]

Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Every day I'm bringing you stories of real life people who are creating freedom for themselves through the form of an income generating project. Now today let's talk about a values based product business. This is an interesting one.

In this story, a British family goes against the grain by starting a side hustle about politics that radically changes their lives and their kitchens. Their product is tea towels with political messages on them. Now this particular business has progressive beliefs, but here on Side Hustle School, we look at things through the approach of analyzing a business. So if you're out there and you're like, well, my politics are different. The thing is the same lessons apply.

They really do. It's all about identity and signaling. It's all about community, belonging, putting forth a message that other people identify with and so on. There is a lot of money to be made in speaking your truth. So we'll look at all of that.

Also, what is the right ratio of time spent on administration versus product development versus marketing? I'll give you my answer, which is a little different from theirs. I'll give you their answer and mine as well. But I'm also in a different business. So you'll get two answers to that question and you can decide which is better for you.

Or you might have your own answer that is entirely different and that is also okay. So British family sells political tea towels. Story is coming up in just 30 seconds. Stay tuned. [Music]

When you're going to a dinner party, there are traditionally three main table topics to avoid.

Politics, religion and money. So what happens when you take those topics and use them to create a tea towel based business with your family? Well, for Luke, Pierce and his mom and dad, it created radical change. It all started at the kitchen table when Luke and his parents were having dinner. Luke's mom, Bea, had recently lost her own mother, Pat, to cancer.

Pat was a teacher, feminist and socialist who spent her life living her values rather than preaching them. After she passed, Bea wanted to find a birthday present for Pat's surviving partner, David, that embodied all that Pat stood for. Tea towels or dish towels, as we sometimes call them in the US, are very popular in the UK. So Bea thought it would be fun to get David a tea towel with a political message on it that embodied Pat and added a little inspiration to the kitchen. That evening, Bea had dinner with her husband, Tim, and son, Luke.

She told them she'd spent an hour searching on Google, but hadn't found the right product. Luke looked at his mom and said, "All right, so why don't you create your own?" Neither Bea, Tim, nor Luke had experience running their own business, but figured if they combined their skills, they could figure it out. At the time, Luke was a mid-level manager for the Metro system in London, so he took on the role of operations and marketing. Tim was a designer and took on the role of, well, you guessed it, design, and Bea spent her time searching for a local manufacturer who could print some test products for them. Together, the three of them came up with 10 designs to start.

They found a manufacturer in the UK who agreed to print 100 of each design. They started with names and quotes from well-known change leaders like Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. At the time, screen printing was the rage, so digital printing and ordering smaller quantities was not an option. They had to go big or throw in the tea towel. They took a chance and radical tea towels was officially activated.

They invested about 3,000 pounds or $3,600 in the process. When their shipments arrived, they were excited and believed they had something new and different to offer the market. Luke and his dad had created a website to list the products and they began referring family and friends to it. They also began averaging about one to two orders per week. Their big break came after being featured in the "What You Like" column in the "Guardians" popular weekend magazine.

Luke asked a friend to submit a write-up about radical tea towels and how unique the concept is. Several weeks later, that write-up had been featured and they received 70 orders in one day and then another 70 the next. Those orders were pouring in like a hot Earl Grey. That's when they knew they were onto something bigger than just what they had dreamed up at the kitchen table. After that, Luke began engaging in Facebook ads.

Facebook is a social discovery platform and their tea towels stood out since many people use the platform to discuss politics. Orders continued to pour in and over time, Luke started to feel the pull to leave his corporate job. So he channeled some of the brave activists featured on the towels and took the plunge. At the time, he was bringing in about $4,500 a month from his piece of the towel and his belief in their mission was greater than his security at his job. That was in 2014 and radical tea towels has continued to grow since then.

In 2016, they took another risk and launched their products in the US. They had received a lot of requests from Americans asking for them. So Luke jumped on a plane and flew to Philadelphia. He wanted to find a warehouse and get feedback on potential new designs. They ended up with designs that featured historical figures who fought the cause of freedom and equality.

Figures like Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Muhammad Ali and more. They found a warehouse for product distribution and began expanding their marketing. Since coming to the US, sales have tripled. They were able to hire additional marketing and PR support. Last year, they hit the 500,000 pound mark, it's about $650,000 and profited $43,000 after paying their own salaries as well as their staffs.

They've also increased their product selection to include aprons, tote bags and more. This year, they're on track to hitting the seven figure mark and will be expanding to other markets like Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Luke's advice is to trust your intuition and don't be afraid to take risks and ignore the naysayers. When they started, people told them business and politics don't mix and don't work with your parents. And especially, you'll never make any money selling details.

Others said they had to outsource production to China and not make them in the UK. They went against all that advice and trusted their vision. Luke also recommends to start with the minimum necessary to prove the concept, a basic Shopify store, one or two products and just a simple marketing initiative to get your product in front of the right customer. He also suggests you spend 10% of your time on administration, 20% on product development and 70% on marketing and getting the word out. He also says, have fun because their project has been a lot of fun.

Radical T-Tiles is on the right track to expand into a full fledged international brand, one that educates customers on history, highlights empowering shape shifters and also dries the dishes. [Music]

All right, what an interesting business. So again, it's all about identity. It is all about identity, belonging, community and signaling. People often give these T-Tiles as gifts to others who share their values, other people and their family.

Maybe sometimes they give them to people in the family who don't share their values. That's also an expression of identity, essentially. This episode reminds me of a story we did long ago, Stacey Powers, episode 124, hand-stamped feminist jewelry earns $25,000 side income. So in that episode and that story, which you could read about in the book or here on the podcast, she's designing this jewelry that has progressive beliefs, statements, feminist values, et cetera on it. So all about creating the sense of community, about saying like, hey, this is how I identify, this is something that I want to express.

Now their ratio, let's talk about this ratio of product development versus marketing versus administration. In this story, Luke is saying, spend 10% of your time on admin, 20% on product development and 70% on marketing and getting the word out. I think, oh, first of all, I love the 10% on admin. I think that is good to basically minimize that. For me, I'm kind of in the content development business.

Okay, I know a lot of our listeners are as well. If you're trying to be a writer or a podcast or a blogger or make YouTube videos, there could be lots of other expressions of that. If you're trying to create content, I think you want to spend more than 20% of your time doing that. And I have always tried to go for this rough 50/50 ratio. It's very rough, as I said, not precise at all.

But my goal is that 50% of the time, I'm doing the work, 50% of the time, I am either writing or working on now a script for the show or otherwise creating something. And the other half of the time, which again is loose, is spent doing everything else, which includes marketing and includes connecting. I think I've also kind of put administration in that category. So however you look at it, I think roughly half and half between the time you're making something and the time you're talking about it or trying to get people to pay attention to it or whatever else. But still a good principle here because the point is marketing is important.

And it is important to spend time getting the word out and trying to find your ideal customers. And because Luke and his family were willing to do both of those things, now they're on track to having this, what is almost a million dollar business. All right, lots of different things we could talk about there, but I think you get the point. And I hope you enjoyed this story. I love hearing what people out there are doing, all kinds of creative approaches.

And yes, you can go against the grain. You can ignore people's well-meaning yet flawed advice just as they did. So take that with you today. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Our show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/956.

Come and check out these radical tea towels and do come back tomorrow. Be sure you're subscribed because much more is coming up. Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau and this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the "Onward Project."