How a Simple Idea Turned Into a $50k a Month Side Hustle

Lou Rice was breastfeeding her son Archie one night time when catastrophe struck—she dropped her Kindle on his head!

Whereas that have was upsetting for each of them in the intervening time, it sparked an thought for Lou and her husband Ben to create an answer.

Ben common a silicone strap with staples to connect Lou’s Kindle to her hand and forestall any future dropping incidents.

Lou examined it out over the subsequent month and completely cherished having the grip and safety of the strap for comfy one-handed studying throughout these lengthy middle-of-the-night feeds.

With that, strapsicle.com was born—a aspect hustle now producing over $50k a month promoting progressive Kindle straps. Not solely that, however Strapsicle is on tempo for its first-ever 6-figure month after lately going viral on TikTok and Instagram.

Tune in to Episode 589 of The Aspect Hustle Present to be taught:

• How an accident sparked a profitable product thought
• Why micro-influencers have been key for visibility
• How you can engineer a profitable Amazon launch
• How she’s defending the model and planning for the long run

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Getting Began with Manufacturing

After constructive preliminary testing, Ben and Lou explored whether or not there have been any comparable merchandise in the marketplace and located only a few rivals. The merchandise they did discover have been slightly unappealing.

As Lou defined, “They’d like little steel claws, or they’re very industrial-looking, and nothing form of smooth and classy like our straps are.”

This gave them confidence {that a} smooth, fashionable silicone strap customized molded to suit Kindle gadgets could possibly be a profitable product.

Fortunately, that they had an current manufacturing contact in China by a good friend to supply prototypes and in the end fulfill stock orders.

It took 2-3 rounds of forwards and backwards with the manufacturing facility to good the design, dimensions, rigidity, and sizing of the very first Strapsicle strap.

As soon as the ultimate manufacturing pattern was authorized, Lou created a fundamental on-line survey and distributed it by Fb family and friends. With a pattern dimension of fifty respondents, the suggestions gave Lou assurance they have been fixing an actual buyer drawback given the passion expressed by current Kindle house owners.

With this validation fueling their intrinsic need to develop an answer for Lou’s preliminary dropping problem, they determined to maneuver ahead and place a minimal order amount of 500 items for about $2,000 together with transport charges. 

Giving Away Product to Kindle Lovers

After the primary cargo of stock arrived, Lou and Ben discovered themselves paralyzed on really launching for months. The overthinking entice many entrepreneurs fall sufferer to!

However after listening to a podcast that gave her inspiration, Strapsicle formally launched on-line by making a gift of product without cost! These individuals solely paid the transport prices, and so they have been solely requested to offer suggestions in regards to the strap.

This method allowed Lou and Ben to start constructing neighborhood and begin a dialogue with actual clients utilizing Strapsicle on their Kindles. Plus, it enabled gathering user-generated content material and evaluations to assist subsequent advertising efforts.

Lou unfold the phrase on-line primarily by Facebook communities like feminine entrepreneurs teams and native neighborhood teams. She additionally made posts on LinkedIn and her private Instagram account, yielding virtually 100 gross sales within the first month.

BookTok and Micro-Influencer Advertising

By no means one to face nonetheless, Lou quickly stumbled upon BookTok – an engaged subculture on TikTok obsessive about studying and raving about their favourite books. It didn’t take lengthy for Lou to understand BookTok contributors have been a really perfect goal market given their affinity for Kindles as effectively.

Lou determined to experiment with a micro-influencer affiliate marketing technique. This concerned looking out related Kindle hashtags like #Kindle and key phrases to search out nano and micro-influencers on TikTok and Instagram with small however focused followings between 2,000-3,000 followers.

She reached out plenty of micro-influencers, provided them free samples to strive, and offered low cost codes they might share with their followers to drive gross sales.

The micro-influencer content material not solely spreads model consciousness but additionally creates extra user-generated content material for Lou to repurpose on Strapsicle’s personal social channels. She continues nurturing relationships together with her influencers by sending new merchandise and conserving in fixed contact as they drive increasingly visitors and gross sales.

This micro-influencer technique mixed with the preliminary free giveaway enabled Strapsicle to achieve important natural traction in simply its first 3 months in enterprise.

Launching on Amazon and Driving Exterior Visitors

Lou and Ben began promoting on Amazon utilizing FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) to ease order achievement and distribution, particularly inside the US market.

They knew the ability of Amazon but additionally understood the significance of driving exterior visitors to the listings. So Lou applied referral bonus hyperlinks and internet affiliate marketing by a number of channels again to the Amazon product pages.

She continues reaching out to micro-influencers on TikTok and Instagram that cater to the Kindle area of interest. By offering them Amazon low cost codes as a substitute of codes for Strapsicle, any ensuing gross sales nonetheless credit score the influencer whereas permitting the shopper a seamless Amazon purchasing expertise.

This ongoing effort supplies the important exterior visibility to assist Strapsicle’s merchandise rank greater in Amazon search outcomes. And the excessive placement then permits extra natural gross sales.

Defending the Enterprise

Rising a enterprise based mostly totally on Amazon does include dangers, akin to rivals releasing an identical Kindle strap. To guard Strapsicle as a lot as attainable, Lou took measures like:

• Registering for Amazon Model Registry to personal her product listings
• Trademark
• Design patent

She additionally makes use of packages like Amazon Vine when attainable to incentivize extra rankings and evaluations. Whereas the specter of copycats nonetheless looms, specializing in neighborhood and model differentiation helps mitigate this.

Hitting $50k+ a Month with Explosive Development

Flash ahead to at present, and Strapsicle is flying excessive at over $50,000 a month in gross sales between Strapsicle.com and Amazon. Lou credit constant effort delivering micro-influencer seed content material and large distribution of affiliated hyperlinks driving exterior visitors to Amazon product pages.

The crowning achievement to this point has been a single viral TikTok video that generated over 2 million views.

@themarysarge

I really like this kindle accent over a pop socket! Tremendous cozy, removeable and is available in tons of colours #kindleaccessories #kindleaccessory #kindlemusthaves #kindlereader #strapsiclekindlestrap

♬ Sunshine – WIRA

Mixed with a “The 9 Best Kindle Accessories to Shop on Amazon Under $35” PR roundup Cosmopolitan printed together with Strapsicle, the widespread publicity pushed Lou’s aspect hustle over $100k in gross sales its first month topping six figures.

Now Strapsicle has grow to be a gift-giving mainstay through the vacation rush. This completely dietary supplements their core buyer base because of a easy however intelligent product fixing an missed reader drawback.

Errors and Surprises

Regardless of breakout early success, Lou is fast to confess they’ve been figuring issues out as they go. From pricing adjustments to get the optimum value-based buyer conversions to sizing mixups that led to damaging evaluations, they’ve endured their fair proportion of classes about promoting on Amazon.

One laborious lesson got here from a manufacturing facility high quality management problem that had their producer sending the fallacious sized items to Amazon warehouses. It wasn’t caught initially, main confused clients to complain about ill-fitting straps.

Lou used the chance to personally reply with considerate feedback, ship replacements from their Shopify-fulfilled stock, and in the end change disillusioned 1-star evaluations into delighted 5-star raves.

This consideration to particular person buyer care reminds Lou that Strapsicle isn’t simply one other faceless company entity. As a bootstrapping startup and household ardour venture self-funded from her company wage, each sale counts.

Lou additionally started receiving suggestions that the versatile silicone strap design helped readers affected by arthritis, Parkinson’s, and nerve harm comfortably maintain Kindle gadgets and alternate options from Kobo that usually slipped from their grasp.

Phrase unfold and a girl with cerebral palsy even wrote to Lou and stated, “You’ve modified my life.” Whereas Lou initially got down to resolve a easy drawback for exhausted dad and mom like herself, this discovery added a higher sense of objective and refinement to the model’s imaginative and prescient. 

What’s Subsequent for Strapsicle?

Trying forward, Lou plans to proceed aggressively increasing consciousness of Strapsicle amongst as many Kindle house owners globally as attainable. She needs to cement Strapsicle because the #1 model and top-of-mind answer for comfy and safe one-handed studying.

This evokes Lou’s “whys” even additional—the imaginative and prescient for Strapsicle to reinforce the studying expertise regardless of an individual’s bodily state of affairs.

It doesn’t matter what challenges or surprises come subsequent, Lou feels grateful for the neighborhood she’s constructed and the testimonials of how a lot Strapsicle merchandise positively affect individuals’s lives. By consistency and nurturing relationships, each with companions and clients, Lou is assured Strapsicle will proceed its upwards trajectory.

Strapsicle proves that generally a easy thought can flip right into a thriving aspect hustle and past. So get on the market and hold chasing inspiration when it strikes! You by no means know what aspect hustle may simply change your life.

Lou’s #1 Tip for Aspect Hustle Nation

“Simply hold going.”

Episode Hyperlinks