The Full Funnel of a Side Hustle w/ Ryan Garrow

UX Marketing

on the podcast today, I've got Ryan Garrow with us who is going to help us determine our side hustle, talk about goals, figure out that whole stage. So this is going to be really valuable, especially if you're just getting started and looking for some advice before we get too much into it.

Ryan, how are you doing today?

Have him do an awesome Blake. I'm excited to be here.

Ryan just started his own podcast that we'll get to at the end as well. So we're, we're going to learn a lot here. I want to get some quick context on you before we dive into the technical subject matter of side hustling. So if you could just run, walk us through really briefly the story of your career from how you got started to where you got or how you, how you got to where you are now.

Okay. I don't think our podcast is long enough to cover all of it, but we'll touch on some high points. I've, been in the digital marketing space for about a decade, was CEO of a company that got acquired. I'm now working with the company that acquired us. And so my focus is primarily in the eCommerce space.

most of my days advising businesses on how they can grow their e-commerce, what they can do in strategically. well how they can compete better. But I also have five businesses with my wife outside of that. So I do have the side hustle game going where I have a brand selling direct to consumer. I also have a wholesale division on that.

My wife has a retail store that also sells online. I have a wine and beer retailer. I have a marketing company that tests new products into markets. And then we have a, an investment organization for e-commerce technology. So I am literally all over the place.

I have so many questions, but I, I can't dive in just yet cause I have one more contextual question I ask everybody there. So I'm curious what you would say is your professional superpower.

Strategy. Seeing where something can or can't work.

I love it. I can already tell. We're going to get along great. You're so, so simple. Direct, straight forward. It's going to be fantastic. My first question, because I do this every bit as much for me to learn as for the audience to learn so. You've mentioned you've already got several side hustles, especially some e-commerce stuff.

I'm really curious. First off, we can go into how you get the ideas for that, but then I also want to bring up, before I forget, how do you actually get the system in place to like get, somebody to manufacture it if you need that or how, like how do you build those relationships as well? So let's tackle the idea first, then we can get into the more technical side.

for me, the ideas are generally easy. And the problem for me is, is refining. And figuring out which ones are bad and which ones may have potential. so my wife is usually my best filter. She, she shoots down most of my ideas and tells me they're dumb. And so that's my step one. Like, all right, what do you think of this?

Oh, I think it's bad. Okay, let's maybe table that and I'll try to refine that. But I usually, when I'm advising, cause we have 800 employees here, I'm advising on a lot of side hustles internally for people under 30 but what I like to tell people too is if you're going to make a side hustle work, you've got to be passionate about it or have some interest.

Otherwise it's just going to become another job or a grind and you're not going to keep going and pushing when you're not making money. Cause most side hustles in the eCommerce space. You're grinding now and hoping for pay late, or whether you're working to become an influencer or whether you're working to set up an econ business for success and to scale and pay for generations of wealth type thing.

So I think passionate interest is one of the biggest things I would filter an idea through. And then I think secondary below that is. What kind of con connections do you have or what kind of opportunities do you have to meet people or who is in your sphere that can help you with this? all of my side hustles.

I have partners on purpose. number one, it's, it's more fun to work with people,

but also there's a lot of skills that I don't have. I know I've run a lot of businesses. I've failed at a lot of businesses. I've succeeded. but what I've learned through that is there is no scenario in which I'm going to be able to do.

Everything perfectly or to the best that this business deserves. And so I recommend from most side also people, outside of becoming your own influencer. Even that could use some other people helping each other become better influencers and bouncing ideas off each other. But if you're gonna start an econ business, have somebody else that wants to get excited about this product with you and do it with you, it's, it's way more enjoyable to win together.

Then all by yourself.

Plus the accountability factor.

Yeah, exactly. It's too easy. You know, if you're 25 trying to side hustle and your friends want to go out for beers, and really you do need to develop a little bit of work on your site. You've got somebody sitting there saying, Hey, you're accountable. You said you were gonna do this by this date.

Do it. And with it all by yourself, it's too easy to push things off in your side. Hustle lags and never makes anything.

Oh, I would love to do just like a thought exercise then. So let's say I came up with an idea for an eCommerce product. it's a, it's a litter mat, a special litter mat. Let's go with that. And I have this idea, I think it's going to be really cool, but I have no idea of anybody in my network that can help me out to actually make the thing.

So I'm pretty confident I can set up a store and sell it, maybe even market it. Okay. How did that, like how have you worked with the distribution side of things? Cause I know that's getting a little bit off topic, but at the same time, I know there are a lot of people that have these technical questions.

They feel confident setting up a Shopify or something simple like that. But actually getting the product made is a whole different story.

Well, step one, if we're going to do a litter mat, you better have a cat. Cause if you don't have something to experiment with and see the results and even have some photography that you can do with your own cat, at least have that. after that, my next step would be honestly going into pet stores and researching who's making one, going online and searching, seeing if there's anybody locally.

That is in the space. Maybe it's maybe instead of the mat. If somebody's making litter boxes locally and I can be like, Hey, I'd love to partner with you because if you've got the box, maybe you know people making mats or you can help me. It would stop. I would go around and ask dumb questions. I do so many.

Dumb question, asking sessions where I'm like, I really don't know. Let's just call somebody and see if they'll help. And people respond really well. They love helping people by default. That's my, I think most people do. And so I go on, I'm like, Hey, I don't know what I'm doing here. do you have any advice?

Where can you direct me? And I'll just kind of follow rabbit trails and finding out, Oh, this guy's got a similar product and he's making it in China, in this factory. He introduced me, I sent an email. Great. There's something there.

that, yeah, that's, that's super helpful because that, that side of things is a little bit murky for a lot of people. It's not talked about as much. The sexy thing to talk about is how to set up your Shopify store or how to market your eCommerce product, but the entire thing in the middle, that's the most crucial actually building the product and distributing it totally gets lost.

I think that that's super helpful. But let's get back on track. I, I geared this off in a tangent a little bit there for, for selfish reasons. I'm just curious. I'm curious, like at the beginning, if we have some ideas now, how do you actually narrow it down to choose the right one? And I guess a sub question of that is, do you think you actually have to be passionate about your product, or does it just have to be adjacent to something you care about?

I don't necessarily think it has to be the biggest passion for you. I mean, one of my businesses, I sell organic fertilizer. Guess what? I've never had houseplants before. This

not your number one.

Your life doesn't revolve around fertilizer.

It does not. I have a partner who in loves plants in the business and he created, came up with a formula and my skill set is we were, I was marketing it and getting it into the market. but we aligned while that somebody had that in mind was just like, Hey, I'm going to go figure this one was specifically set up to test out Amazon cause I didn't know what I was doing on Amazon.

So I was like, forget it. I'm just going to jump a business on there and see what happens. so, but I think passion can help, especially cause I'm at a place where I don't need the money. if my side hustles drag along for years and don't make anything. My life's not gonna change. If they make a hundred grand, it doesn't change my life.

So I'm going a little bit different spot as far as my side hustles go. if you need somebody to make money, then I suggest passion. outside of that, just. Also enjoy the process. I am passionate about business and I think that gives me an advantage and side hustles that I just, whether it works or fails, I'm learning constantly.

And that's probably what allows me to do so many various unrelated side hustles. But I'm odd that way. And so I don't recommend a lot of people do what I do cause it's weird. but I say, you know, as you're looking at it and you're filtering ideas. Understanding what the market could potentially look like for that product or that group of products.

it's, you don't want to jump into bloody shark infested waters for that specific product. If you don't have a very unique strategy or something that's going to help you really stand out, that's going to blow this open for you.

Well, I'd love to dive into that before we go any further because I think that's, that's a huge thing that would be a determining factor is if you feel like you have something unique, but how do you narrow it down? Like. In, in your experience so far, when you've had these ideas, how do you take a general idea and actually help it become something that either doesn't exist yet or that is infinitely better than what does exist?

How do you get to that point? Cause that can be tough.

It can't be. So let me, let's take one of my side houses is a wine and beer retailer. we're not focusing much on it right now. Because it's the way we made it a unique enough, just required too much time for where we're at at this point in life. It's so, it's just kind of on the side there, but sewing wine and beer.

All right, everybody does. You can go to S you go to your supermarket and get that. No, there's no advantage necessarily of just opportunistically being able to sell beer and wine in your location, and so we went into it. We're like, all right, we're going to sell beer and wine at a discount fee, primarily focusing on wine because I'm interested in wine.

We've tested growing wine grapes, all kinds of things, but I was like, all right. I think people want to save money on wine and be able to get kind of a subscription model, but have some variety. It was somewhat unique in the marketplace, started doing it. And it turns out in the place I'm in in Portland, Oregon, where wine is more of a big deal than other places in the country.

People weren't, they didn't care about saving a dollar a bottle. cause the millennials that maybe were interested in saving that money weren't into wine enough that they would just go to Safeway and buy a bottle. They didn't need a case. We learned that it was more of a experience. So we have a giant event space on our farm that we live on and people want to come in and experience something unique that they can brag to their friends about.

And so that's how we took that wine and beer retainer said, Hey, we're going to have really cool events with some really cool food or a wine tasting, buy glasses. So Rito is a client of mine and Rito came in and did this big glass tasting where you could taste the same wine in different shapes of glasses.

That's not being done on the market at scale. And so I was able to do that and draw a lot of people in. It became popular. And now it's well known in Portland that Hey, you can go out to this farm and taste wine and different, wine glasses and understand the shape of the glass makes it so it's taking a spin and somehow making it unique, not just doing what else is out there.

So you have to have some market research and if you're gonna sell Nike shoes, there's a lot of those. Everybody's selling them out there, starting from scratch, just putting a website up. Chances of selling Nike shoes, online is going to be very low. there's something potential, but you've got to have a very small niche.

Like, Hey, we're only gonna sell, trail running shoes in the color purple, and we're going to do Nike, Adidas, and Brooks, and we're going to be the best, you know, purple shoe salespeople and be the experts in and online and have a lot of content. I think that's where most people setting up e-commerce side hustles fail.

They can throw up a Shopify site, get product here, but just put them on there. But then they are, they're like, okay, well how do I get SEO? How do we get stuff out there? It's like, well, you, this is where you're grinding and you are putting out a lot of content and writing. It's for the, for the search engines.

You're going to go find influencers on Instagram, invest in sending them a pair of shoes that they can wear and, and talk about how great the experience was with you and your site and your products.

Sorry. Yeah, I got, I got us off track a little bit there. So now bring you back to choosing the side hustle, which also is difficult in its own way, but. I guess can continue on with that thought. Just one. If I had like three ideas, I've got the litter mat, I've got a clothing line that I'm thinking about, and then I've got tee shirts with mountainscapes on them.

Like if those were my three ideas, how do I determine what's likely the best one to go with? Do you have a certain criteria for what a successful side hustle looks like? Preemptively, like you can kind of guess what's going to succeed.

Yeah. My default is how easy is this for somebody else to do, but can they duplicate this? If I'm going to do mountainscapes on a tee shirt

there anybody can screen print t-shirts. That part is like, and so that one, unless you're just super passionate about mountainscapes and you just enjoy it, whether or not you make money.

Do it. but I would say, all right, that one, Bob next door can do that just as good as me. Maybe even not as good, but it, my good enough is not going to be something that's going to stand out in the marketplace. if you can create a clothing line, great. understand the market for clothing lines.

There are PR, I would say, I'm going to make a, probably random guess, but probably 30 to 40% of all Shopify sites. There's a million of them are clothing related. There are so many clothing sites out there that I get conversations constantly. Skincare, beauty, and clothing. It seemed to be the easiest side.

Hustle is set up and they are. All over the place. and so unless you really do have that passion, I would say that's just, there's so many specific things, unless you, again, again, it comes down to passion and being able to pick a really specific niche that a, there is a small subset group of people that are really in love with this type of clothing and there's not a, a supplier or a retailer out there for that go for that.

Otherwise, I would say, Hey, you've got a litter mat that is unique. You just need to figure out production, but you think there's nothing else on the market like it, and it won't be. Difficult for somebody else to like, Hey, what, how do I do this? That usually ends up becoming the long, best, longterm potential for creating a legitimate business.

And when I look at side hustles, I'm looking at which ones could grow into something big, if I'm willing to put in the time and energy now to try to make it work. if you need now money, the litter box one is probably, or the litter mat is probably something that's gonna take a while to get up off the ground and producing money.

In your experience as well with a side hustle like this, for example, if I were to just do the the easier one, so like the tee shirt printing that anybody could do. Just throwing it at like ad money at that. Is that going to actually be effective if I get my targeting right and things like that. Is that something that is actually worthwhile if I'm looking for money in the short term, like let's say that I'm trying to use that as a way to fund my actual side hustle, which is going to be the longterm litter map play.

Is that actually an effective strategy or am I just going to be wasting money.

Generally you're going to be wasting money, but I think there are some opportunities maybe on the social side of things. If you can find a subset group of people, based on their interests or other pages that are following that you think you, they are going to be really likely to buy your mountain scape t-shirts,

then I would test some very low bid.

Kind of top of funnel stuff, like can I possibly get people to come to my site and look at this? And then I would also start leveraging micro influencers. Like, okay, can I send a tee shirt to somebody that seems to really love mountainscapes, like they've tooken a lot of photography. Maybe I go to them and say, Hey, I'd love to put your photography on a tee shirt.

I'll give you a couple and then I'll give you 10% of the profit or what. However, that works from an affiliate standpoint, like I would try to network and grow socially. Other than just saying I'm going to print t-shirts, put an ad account up on Google ads and Microsoft ads and expect I'm going to spend a dollar and get $10 in profit.

Cause that's probably not going to happen because people may or may not be searching for mountain scape t-shirts. So you're almost trying to create demand that you can own.

Yeah. And that that can be tough. And that's, that's the temptation. Like, well, we'll come up with ideas and we've got the side hustle we want to do. But the research that goes into it, preliminarily, you mentioned that your super power is strategy. So I'm guessing this is like where your bread and butter, right?

When you've got the idea you've chosen. Some different options that could be viable. Then you've...