214 5:10

German Funeral Urns Are Not a Dying Business

Two friends in Germany create a side hustle manufacturing funeral urns that double as personalized works of art.

5:10

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What It's About

Personalized and customizable options set a funeral urn side hustle apart from the rest and results in a lucrative side hustle.

Business Model
Reselling
Skills Required
Logistical Thinking & Power of Observation
Complexity
Medium
Profit Potential
Medium

Words of Wisdom

Once they got their first customer, Daniel and Marco celebrated with two beers each. They then created a list of rewards they’d get for each other if they met specific milestones—sales figures of individual items, website visits, and various financial achievements. Although they reinvest much of the income back into the project, this allows them a series of small celebrations for each goal accomplished.

It's important to celebrate your achievements—no matter how small they may be!

Fun Fact

The moment that has stuck the most with Daniel involved an elderly man who was desperately looking for a personal urn for his lost wife. Disappointed with the impersonal selection at the funeral director and without grandchildren to help him, he found an urn with poppies (the favorite flower of his wife) on their web page. Til then, he had never ordered anything online, so he just gave Daniel a ring and was so moved and relieved that Daniel and his partner could help him. This was definitely one of the best moments they've experienced in this business.

Notes from Chris

Episode 214
Just as weddings are a huge industry, so are funerals and everything associated with dying...which is part of life for approximately 100% of us.

Today’s story comes from Daniel Mack in a town bordering Wales in the UK. Daniel works as a product development manager for a large building material company. His side hustle is selling handcrafted funeral urns to private customers and funeral directors along with his friend, Marco, who’s based in a small town close to Heidelberg, Germany.

To get started, Marco and Daniel sourced some raw materials from a friend of a friend who was a funeral director, and they built a simple web page on Wix. The page did not have an online shop, but it did have a request form and prominently displayed a phone number for people to call and ask questions. After doing some research on the keywords people were searching, they spent about $200 marketing the page using Google Adwords to see if there was any interest. Six months later, they felt it was promising, so they decided to proceed.

The side hustle, Mementi Urns, has now been around for nearly 3 years. They sell an average of 40 urns a month, and are making an average income of $5,000 a month from it.

 

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
  • Mementi Urns: Learn more about David and Marco's unique line of urns on their website
  • Wix: The online website platform that Daniel and Marco used to set up Mementi Urns
  • Keyword Planner: This tool helps you reach the right customers with the right keywords and helps you to better build your SEO and ad campaigns
  • WhatsApp: The messaging app that Daniel and Marco used to communicate with their customers
SEE ALSO: Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,

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Quote of the Day
"We were always looking for opportunities, something to do extra. He was always the creative, artsy person, and I was more the numbers and IT guy. We complement each other perfectly."
—Daniel Mack #SideHustleSchool

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