How to Turn Your Side Hustle into a Full-time Job

At the time, like at the precipice before we were gonna take that jump, the urgency that we felt— I mean, we were in like, let's be real, we were in a little bit of a unique situation. There was a global pandemic and all of a sudden banana bread, the item we sell, was like blowing up. It was deemed the official food of the coronavirus at one point. So we were like, it's now or never. Like, if we're gonna make this banana bread company work We gotta take the plot.

Honestly comical. What are the odds? Low.

In this podcast, we share how we grew a 7-figure food business out of our 2-bedroom apartment in Chicago, all during the height of a global pandemic, and bring in expert entrepreneurs to share their stories and wealth of knowledge in business strategy and innovation. I'm Annie Slobodski.

And I'm Morgan Lerner. Hello everyone! On today's episode, we will be covering how to turn your side hustle into a full-time job. We are so excited for this topic because truly there's nothing better than being your own boss. It took us so long to make our business our full-time job, so hopefully this episode can help you save some time by providing tangible tasks you can do today to get there. So without further ado, let's bite into business, shall we?

We shall.

Okay, this is a pretty important part. It's okay if you don't want your product or service to be a side hustle forever and you want to scale it and make it your full-time job. But there is one step you'll want to take before starting that process, and that is evaluating if the same product you have today can work at scale. For us, the answer was no. Actually, you may be surprised by this fact, but we started our business selling pre-made mini banana bread loaves. So mini loaves we sold to coffee shops, cafes, and juice bars before we ever sold our very first mixes. And when we wanted to scale this, there were a few issues, and we soon realized it wasn't as easy as we thought to scale the product.

Absolutely. So what Morgan's not telling you is that we hand-packaged, hand-wrapped cut out stickers. I mean, to make one loaf literally took about an hour. And then we started selling to coffee shops and juice bars, as she mentioned. Um, so there was a little bit of scalability there, but when we wanted to sell to juice bars and coffee shops that weren't in Michigan where we could drive and drop off those mixes, where we had to ship them, We soon realized just how challenging and expensive shipping a perishable item, right, was, right?

Especially in the COVID environment where there were all those shipping delays, which we couldn't have predicted, but it made it almost virtually impossible to do so even with, you know, the security that it would reach customers okay and not moldy.

100%. So there was a mold factor, and then we decided, okay, just to be safe, let's pay for overnight shipping. Well, then our margins were, uh, maybe breaking even, maybe tiny or negative depending on where that item was going. That business was definitely not built for scale, right?

And it's— I think it's important to mention here, you know, we moved it to our manufacturer. We started, um, for the progression for you guys, at first it was Annie and I making all the loaves, just us. Then we had a baking staff, we moved to a commercial kitchen, we were able to produce more and a bit more efficiently. Then we moved it to our manufacturer. So as a product itself, we could make a lot of it at a quicker pace. What it came down to was the financial piece of it and the actual delivery of it, getting it to customers. All right, both of those things, it wouldn't have been as profitable of a business, and we couldn't effectively deliver the product in the quality we wanted to our customers.

And that's not to say that it's impossible to have a perishable item, right, be a scalable product. We probably could have gotten there at some point, um, but we just felt like there was a better solution for making a scalable product as well as a cheaper one and a safer and easier one.

So it was, it was a good business decision for us.

Absolutely. But let's talk about what we mean when we say scale, right? Um, and when we say scale, we're not saying that you have to sell your product or your service on a national or global level per se. You know, your goals can absolutely vary. What we mean is that you can replicate whatever it is that you're selling for enough people to just be able to support yourself full-time, right?

Exactly. So we could replicate it, but because of the margins, we couldn't necessarily support ourselves full-time doing what we were doing. I think that's a great point. This can vary, of course, between a product and a service. So for example, we love this example of handwoven blankets. So you have an awesome blanket, it is super stylish, people love it, and how you're producing it is all yourself, weaving it one by one, maybe one blanket takes an hour, it's very laborious. So that would be hard to sell to more and more people if you're the only person doing it and you're doing it by hand. Similarly, with a service, take tutoring, and you're the only one doing it. You are tutoring one-on-one, hour-long sessions, make good money, but it's only you and it's only that time you have that you can offer your service. So there are ways to scale these. Both of them are scalable, but not how they're currently being made. So I think this kind of transitions into the operational piece. I think once you have a product that is scalable, So for us, it wasn't our mini breads, it was pivoting to a mix that we could scale better. So once you have a scalable product, then it's about figuring out how to set yourself up for scale operationally.

Yeah. So things that you just touched on to sort of unbundle that, right? We as a product found a manufacturer to make our product. We outsourced that so we could spend the time that we needed to work on making more sales to bring in more revenue versus spending the time making the product. Or for a service, let's say, use a great example, someone who's tutoring, right? Well, maybe, you know, there's only one of you and you're not going to have more time to tutor more kids, but maybe you outsource and hire a videographer and an editor so that you can record yourself giving some— let's say you're tutoring in math— some math lessons. Put that up on YouTube and make money through a different channel. But I think even taking a step back, when Morgan was discussing this example of a handmade blanket that everybody loved, or a tutor who has a business, you know, both of those things clearly had a proof of demand. You know, people wanted to buy that beautiful blanket and people needed those tutoring services, right? So that business worked at that size, maybe as a side hustle, but when you have to scale it, when you have to make pivots to, you know, somebody manufacturing that blanket or putting that video up on YouTube, you still have to evaluate if there's proof of demand there, because you're making a change to your business, right?

I think it all comes back to market testing, which, like you said, you have to do at every stage when you pivot and at each little tweak. So we had the proof of demand with our mini breads. I mean, we sold those for 3 years to coffee shops, cafes, and juice bars around Michigan. People loved them. We refined the product. We did those blind taste tests, so we knew people loved our mini bread, and we had refined that recipe. Even making the switch to mixes, it was the same base, so we knew similar product. It wasn't about the product, it was about the format. Would people like a mix? Would people use it as much? Is there as much demand for this product? We knew mixes were out there, but we didn't know what that looked like for our product. So again, we had to test that. We didn't just put that into our manufacturer and start scaling it without that proof of demand.

It's just, it's so crazy to think, you know, when we decided we were going to make that change, we literally put our base, our dry ingredients, into a mason jar as like a Hail Mary and put them up on our website. And they sold so well that we caught the attention of the news and literally went on Fox 2 Detroit. So we knew, we saw that proof of demand almost immediately because shortly after creating the product, we got a TV opportunity and they were like selling like hotcakes, right?

It was the sales, it was that being approached by them. And we actually got lucky because in some way we weren't making a new product or pivoting from scratch. We already had that base that we knew people loved. So it was really about the occasion and the format of it that we had to test. And we do that today. I mean, we'll make a new flavor and maybe we know something about our customers and we have a guess or hypothesis about what they would enjoy, but we don't know. We have test that. So we are constantly testing. It always comes back to that. So you have to make sure you're doing that at every stage before scaling something. And I think that's a key thing here as well.

A thousand percent. So let's talk about once you have a path to scalability and once you have that proof of demand, whether you had to make a pivot or not, whether your original idea was set up for scale, if you have both of those things, let's talk about when you're able to take the leap from making your side hustle your full-time job.

Right. I think that's a key, 'cause a lot of people ask, how did you know? When did you take the leap? I mean, we'd been doing it for so many years, so that's a very valid question. What changed? How did we know? It comes down to a few things. It's not just one. It was a few things combined. So for us, time was a big thing. We got to the point where we simply could not balance this this business, this quote unquote side hustle with our other jobs. I felt like I couldn't contribute my fullest at the other job and there was so many things I wanted to do on GoNanas and I did not have enough time. I know you felt the same exact way.

I felt the same exact way. I would also say another piece is like there seemed at the time, like at the precipice before we were gonna take that jump, the urgency that we felt. I mean, we were in like, let's be real, we were in a little bit of a unique situation. There was a global pandemic and all of a sudden banana bread, the item we sell, was like blowing up. It was deemed the official food of the coronavirus at one point. So we were like, it's now or never. Like, if we're gonna make this banana bread company work, we gotta take the plunge.

Honestly, comical. What are the odds? Low.

But I think even if, you know, banana bread wasn't the it food at the time, when you're an entrepreneur and you're working on your side hustle, You're going to feel it when it's time. You're going to feel like, I have to do this. I have to put all my energy into this now to make this work.

But it also wasn't just that we were spending so much time and we needed more of it. Banana Bread was blowing up. It was also that we had a clear path to profitability and scalability, so we knew we could support ourselves full-time in the future. It was still a leap. We didn't pay ourselves for the first month, for the first, excuse me, 3 months.

3 months.

So another thing is you have to have enough savings to support yourself until you get there. So we had a path, we had very clear goals and proof of demand, and so knew we could get there. But again, we saved up so that we had a little bit of a window. We could commit to it full-time, scale it, grow it a little bit until that money started coming through.

Yeah. And I would also say like not to look at the negatives, but like you and I had a pretty good idea of how long we were going to do this without being paid, that we knew we could support ourselves in, right? And like almost like a deadline before we would potentially, if it didn't work, need to get other jobs. We weren't like, okay, we're gonna do this and just keep working on it till it's profitable. We had a window of savings that we had to get it there. So that also gives you kind of a nice, a nice kick in the butt.

Exactly. And I think some people are more comfortable with bigger levels of risk and uncertainty, and there was still that, but we had leads, we had things that were in the pipeline that we knew could come to fruition. So we had that there before we fully took the leap as well.

Yeah. I think for you and I especially, like when Nordstrom Rack reached out to us about selling our products, we were like, okay, that's, that's pretty big validity, right?

We were growing at a very fast rate as well, so we had that growth under us. We had that history, even if it was short, to have confidence in the future.

And as all entrepreneurs, like, you have to believe in the product at the end of the day, right? You know, if you don't believe in it, don't leave your job.

Exactly, exactly. It was us, it was the proof of demand, it was all of those things combined. So thank you guys for listening to this episode all about turning your side hustle into a full-time job. I know it quick and to the point. We hope it was helpful giving you those tangible tasks and things you can do. And the great news is, if you test your side hustle and it is in fact scalable, you can replicate it and reach more people, there is demand for it, and you can be profitable over time, you may have a real business on your hands. So buckle up and get ready for what's to come. And that is it for this episode of Bite Into Business. So I hope you all have a wonderful rest rest of your day, and we will catch you guys in 2 weeks to talk about a very interesting topic: combating judgment and perception in the workforce. Annie and I got real deep, real passionate, so it's a good one. Talk to you there.

Bye!

Thank you guys for tuning in. And for our sweet tooth friends out there, if you're like, what is this banana bread? I need to try it. I'm so glad I discovered this podcast. You can find us on the gram at @go_nanas. You'll get all the fun updates, behind the scenes, new flavor updates, all that jazz. And you can also find us online at eatgonanas.com. That's eatgonanas.com. And if you want to try our banana bread for free, we're just starting out, and so we are building our reviews. You can help us grow. It means so much. So if you're on Apple Podcasts, rate and review. Or for Spotify or something that doesn't use reviews, share your favorite part of of the podcast on Facebook and Instagram and tag us, we will see you, we will enter you into this, and we will be picking winners to give away free banana bread every month. So you'll be contacted, we'll be on the lookout, and they just make our day, if anything else. And the link to subscribe to our emails and the podcast itself so you never miss a bite of business will be in our show notes as well, so check those out. There's a lot of good links there, and see you guys next time.

Bye!