Side Hustle School by Chris Guillebeau

In today’s story…

For many years, Marcia Wiggins was a stay at home mom with two young kids and a pilot for a husband. In the little spare time she had, she taught aerobics at the local gym.

But as life progressed, things changed for Marcia. Both her kids had grown up and moved away to college, her husband was often away and there’s only so many gym classes someone can go to. She had a lot more time on her hands.

This new found free time stirred something in Marcia, and she was inspired to pick up an old hobby. She began baking delicious treats for friends. More specifically, she started baking Maine Whoopie Pies: a delicious single serve treat of a dollop of cream pressed between two small cakes.

Marcia was always trying to improve on the traditional recipe and create new flavors. As a consequence, her Whoopie Pies were a huge hit. She was constantly receiving requests to bake more. Many of her friends wanted to buy some as gifts for THEIR friends.

It was the latter point that got Marcia’s mind baking. The Whoopies were already a great hobby, but perhaps should could transition them into a new side hustle.

Just like that, fresh out of the oven came her new venture, Cape Whoopies. Her mission was to share the most delicious Maine Whoopie Pies made with the highest quality ingredients with people all over the country.

From day one, Marcia knew that shipping posed a problem. How would she keep the pies looking great and tasting fresh during postage? They would also need to tolerate both hot and cold conditions in transit.

To try and solve this problem, Marcia contacted a packaging expert. Together, they devised a test to ship sample pies across the country to see if they remained intact. The expert recommended the type of packaging required to ship the pies safely.

To receive the tests, Marcia enlisted the help of friends who lived in both cold and hot climates. In return, they’d receive free Cape Whoopie Pies. She placed the pies inside their packages ready for shipping. The consultant provided special thermostats to track the temperature along the way.

The result? Cape Whoopie Pies arrived as if freshly made! Marcia now knew she could successfully sell these across the country and ship them in the mail, without compromising quality.

Next, she needed an online presence so that people could order. She decided to create an online store using Shopify.

Marcia enlisted the help of a local designer to put her site live. Once up and running, she took high quality pictures of her Whoopies, and added several plugins to entice website visitors to buy… and then to gently upsell them.

At first, sales trickled in here and there, mostly from existing customers. In a short time though, they ramped up. It wasn’t long until Marcia was making Whoopies on a daily basis. This became difficult because she was still baking in her home kitchen. A change had to be made.

She decided to buy some commercial grade equipment and bake in her basement, to keep up with demand. In time, the business grew further and that led to Marcia moving Cape Whoopies to a shared kitchen space. It was similar to a shared office space but for chefs and bakers. It was here that she settled into a groove, and the baking continued.

A couple of years in, Marcia was generating a few thousand dollars a month in revenue. That year, she was contacted directly by Amazon to list her Whoopies on their site. She jumped at the chance, and once again, demand increased.

Marcia was pushing the amenities of the shared kitchen to the max. For the fourth time, something had to give!

As luck would have it, a solution was about to present itself. She met a coffee roaster while working out of the shared space. They were both growing fast and, as a consequence, were looking to move to a larger space. Together, they decided to rent a storefront, roasting coffee in the front, and baking delicious whoopie Pies in the back. At more than 5,000 square feet, the space symbolized how much Cape Whoopies planned to grow.

It was the beginning of a match made in heaven, and the next phase of Cape Whoopies could start baking. And like baking a cake, profits began to rise.

The launch of the brick and mortar location caused quite a stir. The grand opening occurred in May 2018, but for months beforehand Marcia was warming up her existing customers to excite them for the launch. She built up hype on social media and in the local press.

The pie had been cast, and all this work resulted in a huge crowd on opening day. The lineup was around the corner and hundreds of customers were exposed to Cape Whoopies for the very first time.

This new exposure led to huge sales, which, believe it or not, haven’t slowed down since. The brick and mortar store, which was never expected to be the main source of income, now makes up nearly 50% of total sales. The remainder of the sales are generated through the Cape Whoopies website as well as Amazon.com and Goldbely.com, an Etsy-like marketplace for designer foods.

That spike means that, in the last year alone Cape Whoopies have doubled their sales volume. They’ve kept up with the rise in demand of pies by tracking what is in highest demand and supplying more of that product.

The business continues to flourish. Marcia bringing in $25,000/month, with a profit margin of around 50%. She’s also gone from scooping and baking all the cakes herself, to having her husband help out, to now having a team of five working together to bring Cape Whoopies Pies to the world.

Listen to today’s episode to learn more…

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Role-Playing Pastor Rolls The Dice On $2800/Month Hustle: Listener success story! This Presbyterian minister turns to his lifelong interest in role-playing games to set up a sustainable second income source.

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,

Resources

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To infinity and beyond,

Chris Guillebeau

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