How To Start A Side Hustle While Still Working Full Time #FreedomFastLane

You don't have your side hustle that's killing it yet, but you're happy where you are in the job that you've got. You're not in a hurry to get divorced from them, but you would like an open relationship where you're dating something on the side. Is that fair?

That is very fair. That's a very fair assessment.

Build a business, invest the profits. I'm Ryan Daniel Moran, and this is is Freedom Fast Lane.

What up, fool? Welcome to the show. It's capitalism dot com. And today we're talking with a capitalist named Chase. Chase and I have a really cool story. We actually have the same personal trainer back in Cleveland, Ohio. Shout out to Nathaniel Decker, who listens to the show. He put us in touch because they had a weird rendezvous and they both discussed, discovered that Chase listened to me, and Nathaniel was my trainer in Ohio. He's one of the reasons why I have such enormous shoulders and biceps. He is greater than I. Anyway, I interviewed Chase here on the show who works in Cleveland, and he works for a company called Boylan Bottling. I hope that's right. And Boylan is a private equity group that buys businesses and turns them around, and they do it specifically in retail and physical distribution. So what's interesting about this conversation is that Chase is really happy in his job and he's making a really good living, and he loves the people he works with and he likes the companies that he works with, and he's got entrepreneurial tendencies and would like to do something on the side. So when you've got enough money coming in and you've got a really great skill set at a company you love, but you still have an itch that you want to scratch, how do you break out of the golden handcuffs and pursue something else without leaving your job? That opened up a really interesting conversation, and I'm going to give you a brief summary. What I did with Chase was I helped him identify what his core skill set is, and then I helped him identify where that core skill set was, would make a meaningful impact in someone else's life. That means that you've got a clear customer or client base that you can target. Then we looked at a couple options of how Chase could bring that to the world, make money, and help a lot of people. And then we looked at how he could get started getting clients and customers. So by the end of this, we really had a plan that he could start implementing today to start something on the side without making his employers upset, without leaving his job, and without having to Worry about coming across as slimy or skeezy or worrying about short term results that might get him in trouble. So if you are working a full time job or if you've got golden handcuffs and you're wanting to start something new, this is gonna be a game changer for you. So let's do.

Chase. Fellow Clevelander. How's it going, my friend? Welcome to the show.

Doing well, Ryan, how are you?

I'm doing great, man. I've been looking forward to chatting with you. Why don't you catch everyone who, you know, hasn't. Isn't one of us up to speed on your business and what you're up to and where you're trying to go?

Yeah, man. So to keep it short, currently I've spent the last seven years working with the Boil and Bottling company and kind of the Boiling Bottling family of brands. That includes drinking bottling right now.

I'm drinking the diet Black Cherry right now.

Hell yes. Glad you like it. So it's Boiling Bottling, that's Heritage, which is our premium cocktail mixers. That's Mash, which is a lightly carbonated sparkling fruit drink. And that's actually even Jolt Cola. Additionally, we've taken on day to day operations at Detour Bar, which is kind of a legacy protein bar brand. And I'm kind of working through a bit of a rebrand on that right now. So, yeah, that's what I've been doing. Ended up here through a kind of weird twist and turns of of events. Had a couple startups right out of school, ended up struggling and my family's been in cpg. My father still owns a distribution company back in Pittsburgh. He had a relationship with Boylan and said, hey, why don't you go do this? I said, yeah, I'll do this to get me through to my next startup. Ended up loving it so much. Ended up loving the folks I work with so much that goes. Here I am seven years later. So, you know, in addition to kind of running the day to day sales and distribution facets of our of our portfolio brands, we've made some investments, some strategic investments in some other emerging brands. So I work with some of those, some of those founders and leadership teams that are kind of helping advise them on what they're doing from a sales and distribution perspective. So I like to think that I'm really good at putting product on shelves. So.

So you've got a background in having entrepreneurial tendencies. You work at Boylan right now and you've been looking for your next thing but you're happy where you are. Is that a fair summary?

That is absolutely accurate.

Cool. And where would you like to go next?

So, you know, over the last couple years, you know, working for the family I work for and the organization I work for, I've been very fortunate that, you know, a lot of exposure to some other brands and, you know, brands that are. Whether they're seeking capital or just kind of shooting the shit at shows, I've really found that I love just talking to startup brands and startup brand entrepreneurs. I've kind of seen through the transition of a few different brands that we manage. I've seen a lot of the different phases of the business, and I just love working with folks that are passionate about their product and where they want to go. You know, I'm a firm believer that really good products can never become great brands, just kind of through lack of experience and knowledge. This is. It's a tough business. Putting products on the shelves of major retailers is not easy. So, you know, I'm really just passionate about working with those folks and seeing them succeed.

And so is it fair to say I'm just going off a vibe here that, you know, you are in the dating mode of looking for your next opportunity?

That's very, very safe assumption.

I am.

Yeah, that's right.

So you're not in a hurry. You're not looking to get married. You're just kind of dating. You don't have. You don't have your side hustle that's killing it yet. But you're happy where you are in the job that you've got. You're not in a hurry to get divorced from them, but you would like an open relationship where you're dating something on the side. Is that fair?

That is very fair. I. That's a very fair assessment. I. I'm very fortunate. I'm very grateful for the. The organization I work for and the people. And I've learned a lot. I'm exposed to a lot of great things that, you know, I otherwise probably wouldn't be able to. To see and experience. And I'm well compensated. So I'm in an interesting position where I'm not in a hurry to run away. I'm not running from anything. I'm here to play the long game.

So I've got a few questions for you. This is gonna be fun, Chase. So first things first. What do you think you're better at than anyone else that you know?

I think I'm better at building distribution systems for an omnichannel retail Presence.

Okay. If I were to make that sound much dumber for the idiots like me, that means working with brands who are trying a lot of different things. And you're good at opening up new places where they can take sales and.

Pulling it all together.

So.

The way that you get into a club store ultimately has impact on the way that you get to a grocery store, so on and so forth, and how those all kind of pull together from not just a pricing strategy, but a distribution model and a distribution network.

And are you specifically well connected in the food and beverage space?

That's all I know.

Okay, great.

I know what I know and I know what I don't. And that's all I'm interested in doing. Throughout my life, I've had earlier life, I've had a lot of tendencies to kind of try different things and do different things. I've really decided that this is really what I'm best at and just to go deep on what I'm. What I'm great at.

So there are two types of entrepreneurs, Chase. There are starters and there are operators. There's people who come up with new ideas and get really excited about the new ideas and craft the product. And then there are people who run the business. Some people would call them integrators and creatives. Which one are you? Are you a starter or an operator?

I'm definitely an operator.

I don't have the creative vision to come up with a new brand idea. That's really not what I do. You know, I make the. You've probably heard it said before, I'm the dirt. I don't love the clouds. I'm not the guy that's going to help you design the most pretty package. Right. I'm not going to do that for you. I'm not going to. I live in the dirt. It's the nitty, it's the gritty. But it's what I'm great at, right? And it's. I think there's a lot of folks, there's kind of a. I joke about it a lot lately. There's a culture that I think is really starting to boil up in this food and beverage space that I don't necessarily love. And there's a lot of founder syndrome going on. And a lot of folks just can't get down to the dirt. And they don't realize that this is a dirty, gritty business. Oh, yeah. A lot of meetings. And it's. It's a tough space to live in. And that's where I succeed, is in that Dirt.

Okay, so first of all, I'm the clouds. I'm so in the clouds. I love the clouds. So I'm speaking to you like you're my ideal partner, which means you're going to want to find someone like me to work with if you want to grow something on the side and build something that you're operating. And there's really two routes that you can go from there, and that's you can either go find someone who has a really exciting idea that makes you lay in bed at night, because you can see all of the pieces coming together of how you're gonna distribute this product. So you go find a founder, that's one option, and build the brand. That's you starting your own entrepreneurial thing. And then the other route is for you to leverage your skillset and have more of a service based business, which is you work with other food and beverage companies to open up new areas of distribution and piece it all together. So the people who have food and beverage companies who are doing a million dollars in sales in a bunch of different ways go to you and you open up new areas of distribution for them and you either take a fee or an equity piece or something like that. Do either of those strike your fancy?

Yeah, I really do think that I'm far more interested in that service based idea. Right, great. I think that, and I love the idea that you mentioned $1 million businesses. That's really a sweet spot. That's where you have, I think, a passionate entrepreneur. And I would really just like to build kind of a community of those guys and really support them for the long run. I think that's where real innovation is going to come from in food and beverage. And again, my expertise is really in building that distribution system. But I've seen it all. It's the pricing models, it's the item setups, it's, you know, in store marketing opportunities. So I think there's a lot I can do there for, you know, what I would call like the farmer's market brand. Right. The guy you see, well, you're a Clevelander. There's a great little kombucha brand here I see at my place every Saturday. He's got a great product, one of the best kombuchas I've ever tasted. And it's unfortunate because I don't think he has the experience or the knowledge to really get it to where it could go. So again, you know, I think there's just so many great products that will never become good brands because they don't really understand the commercialization process. They don't really understand, you know, how to, how to make a real impact at a national level with whether it's regional, local, independent retailers or food service operators, whatever it may be.

It makes.

A ton of sense. So you get excited about helping that founder who already has some, some leverage, already has some momentum and, and upping their distribution to a point where you can charge a fee or you can take equity in their company. Is that a fair summary?

Yeah, I think that's a fair summary and I think that's, like I said, I think that's really the long game. I think there's a lot of things I could do for different sized operators. Right. Maybe, you know, weekend Kombucha guy's not quite ready for a rev share because he's not quite ready to get into Kroger or a real retainer fee or a broker fee. And you know, this food and beverage space is filled with brokers. And I'd say if there's any goal of mine, it's to kind of flip that model on its head. These are guys that are just taking a percentage of sales. You know, sometimes they're helping grow it, sometimes they're just skimming a percentage of sales. And I think it's kind of an antiquated and a bit of a broken model. So I think I want to be very delicate in how I frame that up. And I really want to be a partner for long term success with any of these brands. I talk to whether, whether there is a, you know, a coaching or a consulting fee or retainer of some sort attached or if it's just, you know, shooting the shit and helping them come up with a strategy. Yeah, be sustainable.

So, you know, we started this conversation where you were not really sure with what your side, you wanted your hot, your side hustle to be or your next thing to do. And we're starting to hone in on where your real core competency is that you can build a business around. And we're already starting talking about how we could leverage that skill set to where you might have upside in that company. So where my brain goes next is if you're as good as you think you are at doing what you do, then there's gonna be other bottlenecks that happen. When you go to kombucha guy, it's funny, I have a listener that goes by Kombucha Dave. So shout out to Kombucha Dave. So if you partner with Kombucha guy here, he's eventually gonna need funding because he's growing too fast to keep up with supply. So if you go out and you have connections with investors as well, or if you go out and you partner with the guy who knows Amazon really well now, all of a sudden you've got even more leverage on incubating this kind of business. So that's one where my brain starts to go. The next place where my brain starts to go is if you want to start getting clients and position yourself in the authority position rather than being the guy going up to Kombucha guy going, I can help this. Give me a piece of your company. Is I would be talking about distribution and how to work with distribution companies and how to get your foot in the door in retail. And I would be doing that on LinkedIn and I would be putting content on a semi regular basis of you just sharing how to open up retail stores, tell stories about. I know this guy, I call him the Kombucha guy. Cause he has the best kombucha in the world. Here's why he's stuck. And just speak to that person on LinkedIn and watch what happens. That would be how I recommend that you start kind of planting some seeds.

Great.

How does that strike you?

I think that sounds. I think that sounds great. I have a lot of opportunities to create content, I think. And one of the things I was thinking was, yeah, I certainly need to do a better job of talking about it. I live in it. And again, sometimes maybe the dirt gets the best of me. My nose is down. Building brands constantly and I'm talking about it. It's very tactical that I sometimes struggle to pull myself out to maybe take the opportunity to create some content around it. I think that's something I could certainly work on.

So yeah, and I think there's a little bit of romanticism or resistance, the idea of creating content, when really you just need to be thinking about who is that ideal person that you might partner with and speak to the challenges that they're facing on their journey. Because you know what Kombucha guy is struggling with? He's got this great product, but he doesn't know how to get more customers and more exposure. You've got this. He's got a lot of passion, so he's doing a lot of things that are a waste of his time. And he has no idea how to make connections to Kroger or Whole Foods. And here you are with those buyers in your cell phone. You know, all those people like you've got the magic. You've got the magic dust. So if you simply talk about the magic dust and talk about the challenges that kombucha guy is struggling with, you will see people start to respond to wanting what you've got.

Sure.

Do you have an idea of how you would like to work with clients? Meaning what you'd like to charge or.

Yeah, like I said, I think there's a couple different. There's a couple different brand scenarios out there for In a couple different solutions kind of based on what that brand's dealing with and where they're at in their business. For kombucha guy, honestly, I think, you know, in the immediate, he needs a couple, you know, simple tips and tricks to. To get to a certain scale, to where it makes sense to. To really engage on a more. On a more kind of a intense level, you know, And I don't know, does that. Does that manifest itself in the way of like an info product or a guide or something like that? You know, for that really small guy that's just, you know, slinging, like I said, slinging kombucha on a Saturday at the local farmer's market, what he needs is, I think, a lot different than what, you know, the guy that's been doing two or three million dollars in a regional grocery chain for the last three years and has kind of hit a roadblock. There's a whole different. There's a whole different need there. So. So I've been kind of thinking about the idea of, like, do I build a community? And they can start to. As a community, there's just some free resources and just kind of a place to really kind of foster Collaboration.

Is kind of phase one for maybe it's somebody that doesn't even have a real product yet. It's not commercialized.

Is that the easiest solution for kind of the most basic brand need? And then kind of working into like a couple guides and info products? And again, like I said earlier, Ryan, honest to God, I'm not trying to get rich here. I'm really trying to play the long game. And if I can help a couple really cool brands along the way and make really meaningful impact with one or two, and I become their guy, and somehow I end up with a piece of a pie of a company that becomes, you know, a real acquisition, that's great.

Well, the reality is if you do that, you get rich. So.

Right.

Let's not say you're not trying to get rich. We are trying to get rich. We're just trying to do it in a right way. That feels good for all parties involved.

Yeah, I don't think I need to. I don't need to gouge each brand. I don't feel like that's. That's the best way. I think it's really creating a lot of trust and loyalty and hoping to find the right brand that has the ability to scale, and that's the one I really want to partner with. Long.

Yeah. So. So there's. There's the sweet spot right there. And I'm going on a hunch here, but my guess is that by putting together a course or a guide or a community, the ultimate goal is to go get more of those sweet spot clients. Is that right?

Exactly. Yeah. I think, like.

Well, hold on. You should. You should skip that step then skip the guides and the info courses and go right for the ideal clients. You can accomplish the same aim of getting the ideal people by having a podcast and a LinkedIn group.

Okay.

And it all be free. You'll get more of your ideal clients that way, and here's why. If you put your attention on developing the guide and the course and the funnel and the flow, you can do that and do fine, but it's not what you really want. What you really want is, is to get people prepared to work with you so that you've got a piece of a company that you can really knock it out of the park for. Exactly. We can strip out the middle part. Just strip out the two years you will spend optimizing a funnel to get people ready to work with you. And just go give that content and interview those people on your podcast and send them over to a LinkedIn group where they're interacting with each other and you're the kingmaker. You're in charge. And that puts you at the position where you can have your kind of pick of the litter and be choosy about who you work with. And that's gonna allow you to have one of these clients that are really in your sweet spot in 30 to 90 days rather than two to three years.

Understood. That makes a lot of sense.

How does that feel?

No, I like it. I like it a lot because you're right. I don't want to be in the info products business. Like, my goal is to. Yeah, if I can help a couple small brands along the way, that's great. But, yeah, my ultimate goal is to find and partner with a handful of really impactful brands that really have a huge opportunity.

Yeah, that's right. Well, where would you like to go from here?

Well, I think to your Point I need to kind of actionables for me or to figure out how I'm going to start to build out this LinkedIn group.

And start to formulate a plan to launch a podcast where we start to talk to some of these folks.

If it were me, I would make a list of five episodes that you could record this weekend. And the first one is going to be your backstory and your skill set. And then the second one is going to be how to blank, how to get your foot in the door with retailers, how to.

Meet the buyers at retail chains, how to scale or something like that.

Right.

That's episode two. Episode three is the story about this guy, you know, who sells kombucha at the farmer's market and what you would do differently if he would just let you go full throttle on his business. And how you wish that kombucha guy was just willing to let you help him because you know that you would do this and this and this. And what that's doing is it's programming the people who are listening to go, if I were to work with Chase, that's what he would do for me. So that's episode three. Episode four is an interview with the people you work for at Boylan. How they acquire brands, how they started getting these.

Products into these different stores, how they really grew the business after they acquired them, what their plan is, how they raised it, how they funded it. Episode five is how you plan to turn around the Detour protein brand. Just what the plan is. Here's how we got it, here's what we plan to do with it. And then episode six, you start taking someone from your network, Right? And now we've got the snowball rolling. But you could go do those five episodes in one day this weekend if you wanted to. Keep it real light, keep it real easy, and do what's fun. And then like 12 weeks in, you open up the LinkedIn group. So we don't need to have the whole thing figured out, but we just need to start getting some momentum so that when the time is right, you can turn on the switch of wherever you want to go, because there's no pressure for it to do anything magical right now. You can just have fun with it for a while, right?

Yeah. And I think that's the interesting piece, and that's kind of what I've been challenged with the most. I think is like, again, I'm not looking to leave my job. I'm not looking to escape my job. I don't want anybody to think I'm pulling bandwidth and attention from my job. I love what I do, and I think these actually work well together in the sense that, like, by being exposed more brands, could it become potential deal flow for my employer? Yeah, potentially. Is it exposing me to new strategies and new thought processes that I could then kind of build on our current holdings with? Probably. So I think that's where my biggest struggle has been, is, like, how do I do this without kind of insulting my employer and letting them think that, like, what the hell are you doing? You're planning your escape? Because that's not the case at all.

Yeah. So my guess is they don't do any content marketing right now, correct?

No, not in this sense.

Yeah. So you go to them and you say, hey, there's a couple opportunities that I want to pursue that I think will open up some new opportunities for Boylan and maybe give us some more deal flow. And if not, if I'm totally wrong, it's fine. I kind of want to do this on the side because I think it would be really fun for both of us. I'd like to start a podcast about the food and beverage industry. I'd like to start a podcast about getting into retail stores and. And improving distribution lines. And I want to do it for two reasons. One, I met this guy at the farmer's market. I just call him Kombucha guy. And I think he'd really benefit from learning from some of the things that we do here at Boylan. And number two, I just suspect that if we start talking about some of this stuff, we're going to get more deal flow here. And I just wanted to let you know that this is something that I want to do. I'm not leaving. I think, actually this will be really good for both of us. It's just something that I wanted to do for fun.

I think that's perfect.

And then when you start getting some clients, you go to them like, hey, somebody offered to pay me three grand a month to advise them on distribution. I don't want you to think that there's any threat of me leaving. There's not. I'm really happy here. But it was really hard to say no to that money, to do a couple calls and introduce a couple people, Right?

No, I think that's perfect. That's been my biggest struggle, I think.

Yeah. What you're saying is you don't want to. You don't want to spook your employer because you don't want to leave?

No, I don't want to risk jeopardizing what is a phenomenal and mutually beneficial relationship at all. So I really just hope to kind of continue to foster that. My hope is that what I do here with this side Hustle, or. Or New Girlfriend, if we want to call it, I hope that that really kind of helps helps in what I do.

In my day to day.

Weird question. How old is your employer? How old is the owner?

It's a very weird question because we're actually an institution at its core. So. Okay, that's a hard one to answer.

Okay, so where I was going there was if it was. If you have an old. If you're not making any content and is an old food and beverage business, you could position it as a legacy thing. Like, hey, there's a lot of information and talent at this company and no one's sharing it with the world. And I think we're doing ourselves a disservice by not opening up and helping more brands. And I think we'll end up getting deal flow from this. But I just am going to start a podcast where I share some of the things that we know here, interview some of the people that we've met through everything that we do. I just want to share it with the world. Yeah, something like that. Go ahead.

I think my family's business, right. I mean, to this day, my father still operates, you know, you want to talk about in the Dirt? He owns a company that literally takes boxes and food and beverage products and they ship them and put them on the shelves of. Of retailers in a. In a pretty big geography. And I think, like, that opens up another network and an interesting perspective too, for, you know, just additional content and podcast opportunities.

Dude, I'm really excited for you. I'm really excited for you.

I think there's a lot of cool stuff we can do here. And like I said, you know, it's about playing a long game. And I think if I give, give, give, give, give. When the opportunity is right and the opportunity presents itself to really get in and partner with the right brands, I think I'll have. Everything will be ready.

So my recommendation would be to make, you know, I just gave you five podcast episodes that you could do pretty easily. I'm. I. My recommendation to you is to record those over the next week and just get it live and start talking about it with text posts on LinkedIn, respond to every comment, every message that comes in, and just drive people to that content via text posts and video posts on LinkedIn. That's all. That's the only promotion you gotta do. People like me are gonna see it and love it and share it. So you've got an influential listener group, and that's all the marketing you need to do. Just share it. Record them in your phone, pop them onto itunes, talk about it on LinkedIn, and that's your opening move. And I would keep it, man, I've literally got butterflies in my stomach right now, and that's a good sign. So I would. I would just do podcast and LinkedIn and I can. I can see this growing really, really quickly.

That's fantastic.

I'm excited for you, dude.

I've got some great notes. I really appreciate the help.

All right, Chase, well, we're rooting for you. Is there any place that we could follow you where. Where would listeners find you on LinkedIn?

Chase slepk chaseslepic.com and I'm Chase Slepk on all socials.

All right, cool. We'll be looking for you, bud.

Awesome. Thanks so much, Ryan.

You bet.

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