Active “Type 1” Lifestyle Inspires Sticky, Successful Side Hustle

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

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I may have mentioned type one diabetes a couple of times before. It's also known as juvenile onset diabetes. My dad has been diagnosed with it all of his adult life. So that would be all of my life. And I grew up understanding a bit about insulin and blood sugar tests, you know, all that kind of stuff that diabetics have to do.

And it's remarkable how much things have changed and improved in the past couple of decades. There's still no cure for the disease, but it's now much more manageable thanks to advancements in medicine and technology. This is something that used to really affect my dad's life when I was growing up. And of course, you know, lots and lots of other people out there as well. And it still affects people's lives, of course, but now, as I said, in a much more manageable way.

This brings us to today's story. Wanting to help a family member diagnosed with type one diabetes, this serial side hustler invents a sticky solution to a pressing problem. He's now bringing in tens of thousands of dollars a month from it. That story is coming up in a moment. And I also want to give a shout out to my good friend, Em Capito, who is speaking at TEDx Salt Lake City this weekend.

If you're in Salt Lake City, go check it out. If not, the talk will be up online at some point. She is also a therapist, yoga teacher, blogger, and more. And she happens to have type one diabetes as well. So she has a blog called type1rockstar.com.

If you have type one, or if you have a family member with type one, or would just like to learn more about it, go and check it out, type1rockstar.com. All right, now for the story. Coming up in just 30 seconds, active type one lifestyle inspires sticky, successful side hustle. [Music]

Many type one diabetics need to wear glucose monitors in order to keep track of their blood sugar levels throughout the day. This is critical because those levels are impacted by everything they eat and every activity they do.

While necessary and helpful, these monitors can be hard to keep on, especially for people who like to be physically active. Isaac Parkinson's brother was one of those people. After being diagnosed with type one in 2013, he struggled with adjusting to his 24 hour a day monitor. It tended to become detached when he did things like swim, work out at the gym, or even just shower. Diabetes is already tough to manage.

So having to restrict regular activities made life even harder. Furthermore, there is no cure. So dealing with the required equipment is a lifelong endeavor. Wanting to do something to help his brother and other people in the same position, Isaac hit on a sticky idea, adhesive patches that protect the monitors during all sorts of intense activity. In fact, when he started telling people about his idea, he quickly learned that there were more type one diabetics among his family and friends than he realized.

So in 2017, Isaac started SkinGrip, a brand that makes patches to help keep glucose monitors in place. The patches are made of waterproof, non-latex, medical grade adhesive materials that will last more than 10 days, even when the wearer swims, works out, and showers, which was of course just what his brother needed. Isaac recruited testers, in addition to his brother, to try out the SkinGrip products. They provided invaluable feedback that he used to refine and improve his patch. Once he had his final version and the necessary FDA approval, Isaac harnessed the power of social media, including forums and blogs where the type one community meets online.

The community is close and word of mouth is important. Initial customers would talk about the impact SkinGrip had on their lives. The company then found the most respected influencers and sent them sample products. Those influencers were also crucial in SkinGrip's success. Now I mentioned FDA approval.

Anything that requires approval from a government agency means a company has to jump through numerous hoops before its product can hit the market. However, in Isaac's case, he learned that navigating those hoops from the FDA was less of a barrier than the company's first website. It was creating so many problems that he didn't even want customers using it to buy the patches. Instead, he sent people to check out through Amazon, where Prime members could be eligible for free two-day shipping. This also allowed the company to outsource fulfillment, something that saves a lot of work for a fledgling side hustle.

Eventually, Isaac rebuilt his site from the ground up so customers could have a better experience without going through Amazon, a fact which helps to grow their loyalty to SkinGrip. Despite the growing pains, he sensed that when that first sale came in, many more would follow. And he was right, the patches were a hit. Within two years, Isaac's business had begun offering five different products for insulin pumps and glucose monitors used by diabetics. He had started it for just $2,000 and the company is now consistently hitting $23,000 in sales each month.

He regularly gets messages from happy customers and dozens of glowing reviews, thanking him and SkinGrip for helping them carry on with their everyday lives with one less thing to worry about. This wasn't his first side hustle. Isaac had tried flipping liquidated goods on eBay. He had tried making wedding videos and even selling baby toothbrushes. But SkinGrip, it turned out, was the idea that stuck.

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So this is a big market. There's something like 1.25 million people. That's just what I saw online. 1.25 million Americans, at least who have type 1 diabetes. And 40,000 people in the US alone are being diagnosed each year.

So a lot of people out there who have these kinds of needs, a lot of them who want to have an active lifestyle. Either they had an active lifestyle before their diagnosis and they want to maintain it, or their diagnosis has kind of inspired them to take even better care of themselves. And they want to do more active things, but of course they have to wear this monitor, which requires an adjustment process and so on. So whatever you can do to make that process easier to alleviate some of the discomfort, to just make it a more manageable process, I'm not surprised that this is such a big success. So congratulations to Isaac.

In addition to this resource and MCapito, which I mentioned earlier, type1rockstar.com, you may want to check out episode 949 of the podcast. Just about a month or two ago, type 1 diabetes doesn't stop this nomadic blogger. That was about Casey McGinnis from the UK, who had a diagnosis and at first, had to put a pause on her desire to travel the world and then figured out, you know what, there's got to be a way I can do this. And so she went and did exactly that. And now also has a resource blog for other people with this condition.

Friends, listeners, I know that there is a side hustle out there waiting for you. There is something out there you can do to make money, maybe even make the world a better place at the same time, like we're hearing in a lot of these stories. But also even if not, I think just, you know, empowering yourself, economic empowerment, helping yourself get ahead, have more savings, being able to make more choices. That is also a good thing on its own. All right, today's show notes, all right, sidehustleschool.com/992.

Episode 992. Be sure to come back tomorrow because much more is coming up. Thank you so much for listening. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.

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- From the Onward Project.