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What It's About
Bare with us for this sole-ful story.
Business Model
Product
Skills Required
Research & Marketing
Complexity
Medium
Profit Potential
Medium
Words of Wisdom
John has some encouraging words about starting, "doing this has really taught me that you just need to do something, to try it out and give it a run. Whatever it is, just do something, start something, action is everything. The days are going to go by anyway, so why not start!”
Fun Fact
The emergence of the modern running shoe didn’t occur until the latter half of the twentieth century. Before that, barefoot or minimalist running was commonplace among amateur and professional athletes.
Notes from Chris
Episode 1492
John Bergervoet works as an engineer for a medical device company. A few years ago, he was given a standup desk at his office. At first this seemed like a huge win! He’d heard the benefits of standing over sitting all day, and hoped it would help him reach new heights. Unfortunately, the positive stories didn’t match his own experience. What the ergonomic experts and Silicon Valley types don’t talk about is that there’s a serious adjustment period for your feet when going from sitting, to standing for several hours per day. The transition can be sole destroying. John had read that “barefooting” your way to comfort was a long game. It takes some getting used to but the payoff, in the end, would be an ability to stand for hours in complete comfort. John, forever the engineer, looked for ways to speed this up. Specifically, he looked into the inner sole of his new shoes. As expected, due to the barefoot nature of the shoe, it was incredibly thin… and also removable. John thought he could create a new inner sole that could make the transition to barefooted-ness a little more bare-able. He conducted some research on insoles and the companies that manufactured them. Armed with that knowledge, he began making some calls. It turned out that many businesses operating in the space provided free samples. John took advantage of this and soon had a handful of different materials he could use to experiment. He signed up for a sixty day free trial with Shopify and bought a heat press from Craigslist for $150. By mid 2017, he was up and running with the business name, NorthSole. The method of influencer marketing, combined with direct outreach through Facebook, has seen NorthSole grow to a thousand dollar per month side hustle. Which puts John in an exciting position. He knows that to grow things he’ll have to invest more in inventory and try other, more scalable marketing strategies like paid advertising. If his success so far is anything to go by, this next phase of NorthSole is sure to be a shoe-in. Maybe it will even become his sole purpose.MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Find your sole mate and save your soles at John's website, Northsole.co.
- New Zealand Shoe Hustle Sizes Up Profits: A New Zealander brings high quality and fashionable shoes to women who wear larger sizes.
- Marathon Runner Earns Full-Time Income Trying On Shoes: A decade-long “marathon distance” project earns six-figures in affiliate commissions for this patient runner.
- Shoe Designer Runs After $1 Million Challenge: “Why can’t dress shoes look great and perform well at the same time?” This runner and industrial designer was irritated, so he set out to find the sole solution.
Quote of the Day
"Whatever it is, just do something, start something, action is everything. The days are going to go by anyway, so why not start!"
—John Bergervoet #SideHustleSchool
