The Easiest $3K/Day Business Nobody Is Talking About⏐Ep. #280
47m 53s
Saraya and her husband were struggling financially after a car accident during her pregnancy led to lost income. With her husband working multiple low-paying jobs and rarely home, Saraya sought a side hustle. She discovered custom photo magnets, invested in a $700 manual machine, and launched a home-based business. The venture quickly took off, generating over $1,000 in profit in the first month. By selling at local markets and offering services at weddings—where couples pay a fee for guests to receive free custom magnets—the business grew substantially. Saraya also developed and now sells her own line of reliable magnet machines. Within about two years, the company achieved monthly revenues as high as $233,000, with strong profit margins, particularly from weddings, where costs are low relative to the fees charged. The story highlights rapid growth from a simple, low-cost idea driven by necessity and community engagement.
August, we did 233,000. Holy cow. This month, 104,000. Last year, 1.63 million. Holy cow. Yeah, it was the first full year. Yeah, it was pretty crazy. And that's just online. So we do weddings, we do markets. OK, can I recap? Yeah. You went from really broke to pretty broke and never seeing your husband. Yes. While pregnant with your first child and sick and in a car accident. And you just started thinking about side hustles. Oh, I was like, what could I do on the side from home that could just bring in like an extra couple hundred dollars a month? Meet Saraya. What makes Saraya special? Well, her and her 24-year-old husband were broke. She was pregnant. Her husband was stalking shelves and training to become an electrician. And she said, enough. We are not making enough money. We're broke. And I never see my husband. I want to start a business. So with under $1,000, she started a business that was doing over 100,000 a month within six months. This is a new industry, incredible story, something that anyone could start. Definitely a banger. Please enjoy. I was in school for Cosmetology. And I was actually a manager at an apartment complex. And my husband had a pretty good job on base. And we both decided we wanted to take a turn and go different directions in our careers. My husband started an electrical program, which, when you start in the electrical industry, you start really low. So I think he was at $14 an hour starting out. And I was pregnant with my daughter. At about 23 weeks, we were in a pretty serious car accident. And I had to stop working. And my husband had a $14 an hour job. And so my husband actually picked up a second job working nights. And he was gone. We never saw him. When my daughter was born, he had a few days off. Went back to work. And then it was just like, he never got to see her. We never got to see him. And after about a year of that, it was like, this has got to change. I'm just trying to get a sense of the timeline. What year was this? And what was the other job that he had? Yeah. So my daughter was born in 2023. And this was 2024. He was willing to keep working. But it just wasn't what we wanted. So it's actually really unusual. But I quit his second job. Oh, I got to hear this. He got home. He'd get home at like 1130 at night. And so a family member was actually his boss. And I told this family member, I was like, he's done. I'm going to figure out something else. But it's just we need him. His health matters too. He needs to be home. And so he got home at like 1131 night. And I was like, that was your last shift. And he was just like-- Congratulations. What? It's like, how are we going to-- What was the job? It was just at a local grocery store, shop, stock, and shelves. And so he didn't like it. He would much rather be home. But it was kind of from that moment on, as it can. And you'd find a job. I was super sick the year after my daughter was born. And that's why I wasn't working up until then. But I was like, I could find something I could do from home. And so I started looking into things. And I made a goal of the beginning of the year to print more pictures. Because I'm definitely the person who will take 1,000 pictures. And then I never go back and look at them. And I was like, I'd love to look back on those memories more. But I don't want to cover my walls and picture frames. And so I was like, what could I do on the side from home that could just bring in like an extra couple of $100 a month, maybe $200 a month? And so I started looking at things that would match my goals. And I was like, I wonder what I can do picture-wise. So I just started googling, looking for different ways to put pictures in your home to display them. It's kind of unusual. And I came across the magnets. And I found a machine that made them. And I was like, well, if I buy this, then maybe I can turn this into a little psychic. And so I did that. And it just blew up in my face. - In a good way? - In a great way. So in a way that I didn't need to get another job. And so that first month, I think I made a little over $1,000. Not that that's a crazy amount, but like to us, that was a lot. That was probably-- - Was that profit or revenue? - Profit. - Wow. - Yeah, yeah. And so in this business, actually, the profit margin is very high. For our smallest magnets, it's like 91%. So it's pretty up there. So we just started. I started finding new ways to sell them. Just 'cause getting started was a little tricky. You know, you can't just start selling online and expect people to visit your store. So I had the idea to do some markets. So we went to some markets and everybody in the community loved them. And so we just kind of grew from there. So-- - Okay. Can I recap? - Yep. - All right. So you're newly married, pregnant, you're sick, your husband's working a job, making $14 an hour. It's not enough. He gets a job stocking shelves. He's basically working all the time. It's not sustainable, but it's necessary to pay the bills, right? - Yeah. - But you kind of still feel broke. - Yes. - While pregnant with your first child and sick and in a car accident. - Yes. - Okay. So at that point, our daughter had been born. She was almost a year at that point when I started the business, but yes. - Okay. - And you just started thinking about side hustles in like the picture industry because you just, you personally love that, is that right? - Yeah, it was a goal of mine to print more pictures. And so when I was trying to fulfill this goal, I came upon a business idea. And it allowed me to actually stay home with my daughter, which was a job I was seeking. I didn't want to put her in daycare 'cause it's so expensive and I want to be there with her. And so it's just like a win-win on all ends. - Yeah. So what gave you the idea to do magnets? And if I'm understanding this correctly, let me pull up your website real quick so we can see what we're talking about. - Yeah. - What did your website? - It's memory magnets co.com. - Did you see like an Instagram reel or something of a magnet or like how did this idea come to you? - So I actually Googled it first, just looking for different ways to display photos. And I just came across like these photo magnets that were being sold like on Etsy or something. And I was like, I wonder how I could make these. Like I want these, but I probably can't afford to buy all of these, but what can I do to make these and then also sell them. And so then I started researching the different machines that produce these kinds of magnets. And we put it on a credit card and went from there. - How much was the machine? - When I bought it, it was a very cheap machine. It was $700. But when we started going to events, it was funny because we'd sell magnets, but it was so surprising the amount of people who asked to buy my machine. They're like, where can I get this? I want this. I want to do what you're doing. And so that's kind of what started the other side of our business is like, well, if people want the machine, I'm happy to share. But the thing is that machine that I had in the beginning was not reliable, it was super frustrating, especially at live events when they wouldn't come out right and we'd have to re-print the picture. So that's where I kind of started digging, finding manufacturers, working with them to produce something that I myself expect to know machine and what I would want in a machine. And so now we have our own brand of machines that we can rely on. So to say, but yeah, that's kind of how that started as well. When you found this first machine, was it just on Amazon? Did you go look on like Ali Baba and Ali Express? Yep, it was Ali Express. We were just so desperate to get as cheap as possible, which in the beginning, it might work for some people. You just have to fight through all of the wasted material and whatnot. But it worked. I mean, it worked for the time being. Yeah, not really like commercially. It worked kind of for your own use case. And then you went to the market and you realized, "Okay, at scale, this is just not the machine for us." Yes, yeah. And it adds up like with wasted material, it just added up. I was wasting so much material and I was like, "This is costing me money." Like, you know, everyone wasted, I mean, although they're cheap to make, it just kept adding up. So. Yeah. So is this like an electric machine? Do you plug it in or is it all manual and you're just like pulling a lever down? Yep, all manual. Okay. Yeah. And are they all all manual or just the first one you got? All we have is manual. Take a actually sells an automatic machine, which I just barely got a couple months ago. They look like this. Oh, cool. Yeah. Our production has just been out of the looazu. And so it's like, I can't make every magnet by hand. So something like that is like $12,000. Wow. And so I definitely wouldn't start there, especially if, you know, when your orders are here and there, or, you know, you have the time, you can spend a couple hours a day making them and whatnot. So. Yeah. How much has social media impacted your ability to grow and market this business? I would say a lot. Social media, it's trial and error. Like, when I first started, I was like, why am I making an account for my business? This is going to get nowhere. But it definitely does help your reach a lot. I would say it's definitely doable without social media, though, especially like what really got us going was getting out in the community and doing markets. And then even the weddings, then people, if you have a social media account, they will follow you. And then they'll be reminded of your product every time they see that. And so we have so many repeat buyers from markets or from weddings. And so I would say it's definitely something a smart vision would do, but it's not necessary to get sales. Yeah. Was there a big unlock that you had in your short form video journey, like a style of video or something that really changed the game for you? No, I just played with a lot of different things. Consistency and testing things. Consistency, for sure. Yeah, consistency can be really hard. I think we do a lot of different kinds of videos, but a lot of just showing us making the product is probably what we do most. I think people just like to see the process. But yeah, I think they all do pretty well, but definitely consistency is like the main thing when it gets harder, when it gets slow. That's the one thing that I think sets you apart from other businesses is consistency. If you are willing to outwork your competitor, you will succeed. If you keep going where a lot of people burn out is real, and then they just stop. But when you get to the point of burnout, you need to give yourself a break, then you just got to keep on going. So I think that's what really sets different businesses apart, especially in this industry. So. So I have a bunch of other like kind of logistical questions, but how long ago was that first month then where you made a thousand dollars profit? That was May, May to June of 2024. Okay, so almost two years ago, and between all of your business lines, your machines and your magnets, what are you making per month now in both revenue and profit? I would say average. So last year we did 1.63 million. Holy cow. I'm not even sure how much we brought in that way, just because we don't do it through the website. But like you can do weddings from anywhere from $1,200 to $3,000, depending on where you're located. And there it's what two, three hours, maybe a four hour reception. It's so much fun too. Like it's it's a dream job for sure. But yeah, that's what we did last year. That was revenue profit. But we probably did about 600,000. Wow. Okay, so like 40% margins, 30 to 40% net profit margins, that's incredible. I would imagine that you're a new age. You're not even two years old yet. Are your months kind of lumpy? Do you have like big months and smaller months, but overall you're growing or? Yeah, so I would definitely say it's seasonal for sure. So warmer months where markets are prevalent and things like that, I think we do better. This month we did 104,000 in revenue. Holy cow. But all let's see, I think it was. As in February? Yes, that was February. So in the shortest month, in the worst time of year, off season, you did over 100,000 in profit or sorry, in revenue. Yeah, we did. Wow. I'll show you, I think it was September or August being August. We did 233,000 in revenue. So in August? Yeah, that was August. Holy cow. And that was like your best month ever, I imagine? Yeah, I think so. So 15 months after launching, you did over a quarter million in revenue in one month and about 30 to 40% of that being profit. Yeah. Wow. Good for you. Thank you. I have a stuff I want to ask, we're not done here yet. Like, you have a lot to be proud of. Like, that is incredible. Your backs were up against the wall. You quit your husband's job. I've never even heard that sentence before. I quit my job. But it works. I could see my wife doing the same thing. I used to make $14 an hour at the county jail working midnight. Wow. It was miserable. She didn't have to quit for me. I quit for my stealth. That's good. Okay. Wow. All right. So that's incredible. So with a wedding, how is someone making, you know, $1,300 to $3,000 at a two to four hour wedding reception? Like, are they bringing a machine and like stamping pictures for free? Like, it's for free for the guests, but the wedding pays them. Yes. And anybody could do it however they wanted, but how we structure it is. So the couple basically pays, pays us and then the magnets are free. So we will typically ask about how many magnets are you wanting? Per couple per person and then we'll kind of gauge how many magnets they want. Based on that, we charge a bulk rate. Yeah. So the more the magnets, the cheaper they are. And then we also charge like an hourly rate for like per person. We typically do a bit higher at like $50 an hour. Some people just give a flat rate fee, you know, we're going to it's $2,500 for four hours. And this includes setup backdrop, all the labor, the drive time. And there are just so many factors that go into it. So it's kind of a personal preference, but like mileage can make a huge difference, you know, depending on where you're at, travel time for how many people and things like that. But we just did one wedding, we quoted, it was, I think it was three hours. It was about 40 minutes away from our house. We quoted them $2,000. And it was just me, my mom and dad, my husband. And we basically set up a big backdrop. They chose which one. One of us would take the picture and send it to us. We found a better way to do it now. And so that's kind of how we went about it. But there, I mean, if you look at in the wedding industry, vendor fees for unique, special, you know, different things, they're pretty pricey. So, but people are willing to pay it, especially because it's like their one day, you know. So really, it just depends where you're at, how much you want to do it for, but people are willing to pay the price for something that's like this. So. It's a price insensitive event. Like people go into weddings knowing like, I'm going to be broke after this. Oh, flowers, 3000 done, videographer, 9000, whatever. I've never bought that before. I'll never buy it again. I have no idea what an average price is for that. Like, I've budgeted $X,000 for this. And that's what I'm going to spend. Yes. So for the wedding, you just did. Now, this is a real example, not hypothetical, $2,000 for people total. You, your husband and your parents, is that right? Yeah. And what was, what would you say your hard costs were on that and hard costs being photo paper? And is that it? Your hard costs? I mean, you have the fixed cost of the machine. So I'm not counting that, but what were your hard costs on that? Yeah. So we have magnet supplies. So like I said, it's about 35 cents of magnet. And that includes the cost of the paper, the ink, the metal, mylar, all of the different materials there. So we, I think we made 300 magnets. So. Hunter bucks. Yeah. Wow. Plus gas. Next for five bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really, that was, that was about it. So if that were for employees, I know you said you're charging like 50 bucks per employee, but what are you paying? Like 25 an hour, 20 an hour, something like that? Yeah. And my parents just wanted to come help. Sure. They were like, don't pay me, but if you were having employees, were, and this is where it was tricky. This was a huge learning curve for somebody who was learning something that hadn't been done yet. Nobody had made magnets on the spot before that I know of. And so this was something that we just had to figure out on our own. And that was really tricky, just because, you know, sending pictures via text and then downloading them, putting them in a template, printing them, waiting for the printer to print. It just was a long process. And so we actually were almost done with a software that actually allows people to just scan a QR code, upload their photo, crop it themselves, how they want, and then automatically goes into a template. So with something like this, you really only need one person. You know, if they're taking the photos and they're uploading them and you just hit print and make them. So maybe two people have somebody printing and somebody making, but yeah, I mean, we have high school kids that hope with markets and we pay them $15 an hour. Wow. So it just kind of varies. It depends on what technique you're using and kind of relays how many people you'll need. So version 2.0 of this is going to look like probably one person at a table with the machine and a printer and some photo paper and a QR code and a MacBook, right? And so the wedding attendee, they take a picture, they scan a QR code, they upload it to you or your employee, you print it, you stamp it, you hand it to them for free, right? Exactly. Right. Now, for what you just did, let's say you were paying them 25 bucks an hour each. How long were you all there for? Three hours. Okay. So that's $100 an hour in cost. So $300 in labor, $100 in materials. That's $400. That's an 80% net profit margin, even at $2,000, which is probably kind of on the lower side, I would imagine. That's incredible. The only thing I like you clearly don't need any help, but if I were you trying to price this out, I always try to simplify pricing as much as possible because a, like customers want to know what it's going to cost. Like friction between what the final bill is going to be is bad. And so if I were you, I would just charge this like their other vendors are charging, which is by head. Yeah. And just say like 100 people, you know, it's give or take, but we'll say it's 100. It's going to be, you know, 20 bucks ahead, 30 bucks ahead. And that way you can go work out all the logistics of how many people you need, how many materials. You know that if it's 100 people, I'm just making this up. They're each going to ask for two magnets on average. Like the chance of each asking for 10 magnets on average is like close to zero. And even if they did your margins would go to like 80 to 70%, you still run. So I would just bake all that in and say either it's like we're 3000 per wedding or, you know, we're 20 bucks per year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this is something even for like, so for people who are super broke like us, we don't have a computer when we started. And so even now with 2.0, you can do all of this through your phone. If you have a printer in a phone, you can do it. So. Well. I hope it can be a little bit easier. Um, it's 1000% doable. That's how we did it for probably the first eight months. So yeah. With this wedding system, it, there's no like special camera or anything like you have the printer, you have the machine, you have the paper, they're just taking pictures with their phones and uploading it. And it could be a picture of them of the bride. The group doesn't matter. Like if they want it printed, you print it, right? Yeah. Exactly. Are there any like logistical constraints as in like it needs to be vertical or horizontal or you want to like center the face or do you just work with whatever you get? So when we were, when we crop the photos, we'll just center them just to make it easy. We have two sizes. We have a square and a rectangle size. So we've only ever done square, which just makes it easy. So however they send it, it should fit. But now with them cropping their photo, it's like they can make it exactly how they want it and we just print it. Oh, so they do that with the software when they scan it then. Yep. Yeah. So they'll just scan it. You are code select the photo. It'll prompt them to crop it. They'll crop it and hit submit. And then it comes straight over to our computer, uploaded in the template ready to print. What type of a printer do you use? So we use an Epson ET8500. They're a little bit more expensive. You can find them on sale frequently for like $550. But really any inkjet printer will do. Like as long as you're happy with the quality, this is definitely. The high end quality that you do not have to start out with. So. Yeah. So inkjet plus photo paper and you're good to go. Yeah. How did you find these wedding customers? Was it just friends and family, social media, or are you doing like a outbound campaigns to find them? Yes. That's a great question. So it's funny because before I even got my equipment, I was talking to my parents and I was like, I would love to do this at weddings. But nobody would want this at a wedding. Like how would we even find that? And so that idea I just threw out the window is like, we'll go to markets. So it was my second market ever. We had some customers come. They probably bought 40 magnets. They just kept coming back with more pictures. Sorry. What are you selling for at the market? Like what is that in revenue? 40 magnets. They sell them in nine packs for $25. So they spent. It was about $225. Wow. So they just kept coming back throughout the whole market. And at the end of the market, I was cleaning up and they walked up to me. They were like, we have a question for you. And I was like, OK, we're getting married in a couple of months. Would you ever consider being a vendor at our wedding? And I was just like, dream come true. So we did the one wedding. We obviously did a lot of just recording on our phones. We posted it on social media that this was something that we did and we'd love to do it again. And that's just when people started reaching out to us. Oh, and Saraya, I know we're going to get to this in a minute. But from what I understand, you grew a lot of your business through content. And I just want to give a quick plug to this little community I have called plans of grandeur, which is linked in the description below. We've got about a thousand people in there working on going viral, growing a brand, growing an audience, all with dozens of hours worth of training that I made. It's basically everything I've ever done to grow from zero to five million followers within two years. OK, sorry. Keep going. We've had people just email us that haven't seen those rails just saying, hey, I'm getting married. Would you do this at a wedding? Really the outreach, we haven't really done any outreach other than posting about it once or twice. It really all comes from people coming to us about it. So I know there are quite a few people now that do there's like the wedding. It's like, I don't know what they're called. You go to it if you're a bride and there's all these vendors and you can find different people for your wedding. And so that's a great way. Like a wedding expo or something? An expo. Yes. I've heard quite a few people have had success going to expose things like that. But for us, we just people have just reached out. So yeah, now I have to know what you said to them when they asked that are you in the camp of like, I don't know, I have to figure that out. Or was like, yeah, we can do weddings or is it somewhere in between? Oh, I was so ecstatic. I was like, absolutely. We'd love to do your wedding. And so they got my contact info that emailed me that night and that night we kind of started through a numbers around playing with it. And the first wedding I did, I think we quoted on 1400 just because I mean, it was the first wedding we'd ever done. It was going to be kind of a trial and they were happy to pay it. So yeah. Well, it makes so much sense that this would work at weddings. Like it's honestly kind of shocking that this hasn't already been a thing at weddings. I think it's safe to say like you kind of invented this micro industry of, you know, magnets at weddings. But it makes so much sense. Like, if I'm a newlywetter, if I'm engaged and I'm at a farmer's market and I see this, it's like, babe, like we could put these on the fridge. Like we're starting a life together. Like, would this be so cool to start a life together with these pictures? Like they're in the perfect stage of life. And the price point is, is right. You know, it's very profitable for you, but it's still approachable to almost anyone. So it just makes sense that they would be a big customer at a market and that they would become your first wedding customer as well. Yeah. And from there, we've done baby showers. We've done parties. We just did a huge baby shower actually at our Hill Air Force Museum for military moms. And it was like 100 moms. And the event had paid for us to come and they had a big backdrop. And so they got their picture and then they could take it home with them. And so that was really cool too. But like this industry is so non restrictive. You could go so many different ways with this. Like, graduation parties, we've had somebody who got a kid from us to the graduation party recently. You know, people have done just all sorts of different things. And so it's kind of cool to see what people come up with and how they're working with them. So. Yeah. What did the Hill Air Force Base event pay and what do like baby showers pay? Yeah. So because it was for a military event, I basically charged them very little. I think we've made $300. Good for you. And we made a hundred magnets. So we still made profit, but it was just something local. But I think somebody could easily charge. It was, it was two hours and then obviously set up and take down. It was just me and my dad. And so you could easily charge $500, you know, for like that. But yeah, I've done a lot of content about wedding businesses, particularly wedding rental businesses. Oh, cool. There are guys out there that they build or they built a wedding arch and they just rent out that arch for couples to get married under for like 400 bucks of wedding. Cool. And they spend like 200 bucks in a lumber to build this thing and they rent the same thing over and over for $400 to 600 bucks, right? Like photo booth rentals at weddings or sharkootary carts at weddings or canoli cards or a pizza guide at sings Italian songs. Like there's so many businesses you could build up just around weddings and just around wedding rentals. And this isn't even rental. This is just like a wedding service. But there's two to two and a half million weddings per year. Wow. And like most of those are going to spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Wow. That's quiet. And so this is just one minor line item on their entire wedding and you being where you are in Utah, like you have one thing for you and one thing against you. Now for you is there's a ton of weddings per capita per capita. There's probably more there, more weddings in person anywhere. But that's per capita in a bigger state. There's more weddings, right? Just fewer per capita. So you have that for you. But what you have against you is that Utahans and I say this as a foreigner are so cheap. We are so cheap. Yes. You know, like I would never say on air how much I spent on my wife's first engagement ring. I would never admit that publicly. Yes. I still married to me. That's all that matters. That's great. I'm cheap too. I get it. I probably butt up against that a lot. And then the other thing you have working against you are copycats, right? I imagine you've seen a lot of copycats locally. So as well as this has worked in Utah, I can see this working even better somewhere else. You know, I think if you can make a business work in Utah, especially off of I-15, you can make it work basically anywhere. Absolutely. And that's the other thing is the reason I even started offering help like this changed my life, the magnet and changed my life. And so it's been so cool. Like I can't tell you how many like single moms, new moms, jobless mom have just reached out to me and they're just like, I'm in a similar position like how I would love to do this. And so it's been so fun and so cool to be able to share exactly how to do the business, what they all need. And the reason I share is because I don't think it will ever be oversaturated. I truly do not believe that. Even here around me, there are a ton of people now that have these kits, but how many weddings, like how many events there's just so much room in this industry for how many people want to be in it. And so the other cool thing is like, well, people reach out from Florida, like from across the country, from other countries that want us to come do their weddings. But like we don't really have the time and way to get all of our equipment there. So we need somebody in Florida doing it. We need multiple people in Florida doing it. We need multiple people in every area doing it to even touch, I think it's a tree. So yeah, I mean, you need multiple people in every city of like 30 plus thousand. Yeah. Right? If you think about it. Yeah. And I'm glad you grasp that because for every person I have on my podcast that's willing to like share the secrets, so to speak. There's another five to ten people that aren't right because they hold their cards close to their chest. They don't get it. But like I could point to a dozen examples of people that have come on here, you know, decorating porches with pumpkins, renting out appliances on Facebook marketplace, building shelves on Facebook marketplace that have just opened their books and showed everything. And then they became like the expert in the field. And it created a lot of copycats, but they were at like the top of it. An interesting thing happened. I posted this video with another guy in Utah about appliance rentals and it went viral. And you open up Facebook marketplace the next day and there's hundreds of listings for appliance rentals. Wow. Yeah. And so people started showing up in the comments saying, I tried to do this. It's oversaturated. And they didn't even try. They just looked at Facebook marketplace and got discouraged and never even posted. And so to like prove them wrong or right, I didn't know yet. I had the owner fly back to Texas and we looked at all the Facebook marketplace pages and all the cities and Dallas, Fort Worth is one of the most saturated. And we did a video on like, is this truly oversaturated and we launched it again here. And it was great. Like we touched it and that's awesome. We went so far as to ask the people that we visited when we dropped off the appliances. We said, like, why did you do this? Like, who rents an appliance? Who rents a washer and dryer? Why did you do this? Did you know this was even a thing? And they were like, no, I searched on Facebook marketplace to buy a washer and dryer. And then I saw a listing for renting and I thought, I might move. It's only 60 bucks a month. I don't want to have to get the tools to do it. It's, you know, insured. If it breaks, you'll fix it. I didn't realize this was a thing. And once I saw the listing, then I reached out. So what interviews like this does is it grows the whole market. So like after this goes live, there will be that much more demand for it because, you know, it's just, it's a rising tide. Yeah. Raising all ship situations. So that's awesome. Yeah. It's just been really cool. And honestly, I love it. Okay. Weddings are big. Magnets are big. Are you still doing markets yourself? Yeah. Yep. We just signed up for our first one this year. We like outdoor markets. We just think, you know, we, well, unless they're really big markets. But yeah, we just signed up for our first one for this year. And I'm excited to get going on them again. Even though we probably don't need to with what we're making, it's just a way to get in the community like we share on, obviously, our social media. We're going to be here. So a lot of other people who do this business will come and see how we do it. Or we have a lot of people that like our magnets and they're like, when's your next market? And so just to kind of keep that relationship with customers who are buying magnets who want to come and see us and, and watch them be made live on the spot. It's just kind of a perk for, for all of us. For me, it's trying to see these people are very last market. I had a lady come in and she gave me the biggest hug and started crying and she's like, you have actually changed my life. And she just told me her story about how she bought a kit and now she's making X amount a month and it's she's able to be home with her kids now. And it was just like this emotional roller coaster of like, this is really helping people. This is really making me a difference in people's lives. And so it's just cool to be able to connect with them in real life from time to time and things like that. So there's a few reason we still do markets, but we still do them. Yeah. They're really fun. I just have this dream. Maybe I'm just too optimistic, but like this dream of a future utopia where it can go back how it was in like the 1800s and before where like we're buying bread from our neighbor, we're buying wheat from our other neighbor, we're buying chickens from the other neighbor. Even though it's like the most inefficient thing in the world, it's so effective at connecting each other. And I think we are getting back there like I bought sourdough from someone on Facebook marketplace. I can order sourdough on the internet with DoorDash or Costco or anywhere, but it's like, I'm supporting a local entrepreneur. And I think we can get back there like there's no reason why there should be a mega corp that sells magnets to everyone. Like there should be 100,000 people selling magnets to each other. Yeah. Like that's the future that I want to see. And I love that you're helping enable that. What does an average day look like at a market? If don't include like any other like machines or educational stuff like if you're just selling magnets, what can someone expect to make it like a four to six hour market? It greatly depends on for one location and to how many people are expected to be there. I've made anywhere like the least I've made at a market was probably like $150 and the most I've made was over 3,000 and that was in all day market. But so I mean, it kind of just depends really. Like if you sign up for a market, it costs $20 and it's on the side of the road. You might not get as many sales as you would if it was an established market where there's advertising and things like that. So it widely varies for sure. And what's an average booth fee for the markets you go to average would be anywhere from I would say they are pretty widely ranged as well. I would say 50 to 300 is what I do. Well, it's not bad. The ones that I pay $300 for are the ones that I make the most at, you know, after you take away the expenses. Yeah. Just because the traffic is so much more so it's almost like an expensive booth fee is a signal that it's a market you want to be at. Right. Yeah. Not always the case, but I would say most of the time. So you made $3,000 in revenue just from selling magnets at one market, like an eight hour or 10 hour market. Yeah. And that was actually a two day market. So that was two days. Mm hmm. Still, I mean, you may have had help, but that's something you could do yourself, right? Yeah, especially with, with the new software. Without the software, I tried once to do it myself and it was so stressful, I would never do it again. So what do you got to line up people and they're trying to pay, they're trying to order? Exactly. Yes. So the software, they pay through the software, they do everything through the software. You just make it. Okay. So for the two day market, how many hours per day was it? I think it was 10 to 8, so 10 hour market. 10 hours. So 20 hours total. Did you have help? I did. Yes. I had two high school girls and one other lady. So yeah, I was paying the high school girls $12 an hour and the other lady, I think I paid her $20 an hour. Okay. So let's say 50 bucks an hour in labor for 20 hours. That's what, a thousand, a thousand dollars and then your costs were probably 10, 10 percent. So you know, $300. So call it $1,500, your booth fee, 300. So your net profit on that was like 13, $1,400, almost 50 percent. Probably. Yeah. That's crazy. So to you, that's, that's like 75 bucks an hour. Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. I mean, and now looking back on it, like if we would have had the, like something, the software, I definitely could have done it myself and then all of those costs go away. So yeah, it just, it just depends on how you're doing it. So. And so nowadays when you go to a market, it's like, you're going to make some money on the magnets, but you'll, you'll hopefully make a lot more on the machines, right? I actually don't take anything like that to market. It's like just do. Interesting. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. So generating leads and stuff for higher ticket stuff at the markets? Yeah. Yep. We always take business cards and that is actually a huge way to get revenue is handing your business cards at markets because people will pass your booth and they will think it's so interesting and they want your product, but they're in a rush. They don't have the time to stop and scan it and then wait for you to make it. Typically, they'll go shopping and come back to get it when it's done, but sometimes they just don't have that time or they don't have time to look through their photos or they want to take the time to choose the photos. So they'll take the card and then every single time after a market for like the next five days, we just see all of these orders coming in and we notice that they're from around the location of where we did that market. So people, people do come back. They do remember. Yeah. Do you do any sort of ad or marketing on the back of your magnets? Yeah. I will show you one. So they have these kind of these like words on the side. This is just our website, but we changed it to have like our name, our website, our social media handle, and then our business name. So that's kind of how we do that. Are you able to print on the magnetic part if you would want one or two? I don't think so. I've seen people put stickers on like they'll do a business sticker and then they'll stick it to the back of the magnet. So the magnet still sticks, but there's a sticker on it. So I've seen people do that before, but I don't know that there's a way to print on the magnet. So there is something. There it is. Eufimic. Eufymic.com. There's this new type of printer and this, they don't know who I am. There's not an ad that can print anything on anything. Wow. I'm like mentoring some guys at church that are, they just bought one and they're going to like be like customizing their friends, water bottles and their track t-shirts and stuff like that. You can print them. You can print on curves surfaces, like you could print stuff as long as 30 feet. So I'm just picturing like what the interaction would look like if someone had your magnet on their fridge at home and they had friends over and they saw it and they're like, oh this is cute and they pick it up. The first thing they do is going to be to turn it over in their hands, right? Yeah. Like how? And if you had a QR code that didn't interfere with the magnetization at all, I have to think that like a double digit percentage of people would scan that. Yeah. And that's actually, we do that on a separate magnet with each order. So this one hasn't been pressed yet, but this is our logo with the QR code inside it. So each order comes with a magnet. Oh, it's cool. Granted, some people might throw it away instead of putting it on their fridge. So it's probably a lot safer. But my only thing would be once for businesses that aren't doing as high scale as us might be great. For us when we're making thousands of magnets of art, I just like, I can't see the time would just, you know, if that makes sense, like the time to do it. But I think it's a great idea. I think you should use like a tracking link. You can use a tiny URL for this. You can basically take your normal URL and put it through a tracking link and then make a QR code out of the tracking link. So if I were you, I would do like a 100 or 1000 magnet test. I would print the same QR code with the same tracking link beforehand, like before a market or a wedding. And then you've already done the work beforehand and you can slap all those on there. And then just over the preceding month, like just sees anyone scanning it whatsoever. That's a great idea. At least you know, you know, and if so, like that could be transformative to your business. For sure. That's a great idea. Things. When you're selling the machines, is there any recurring aspect of your business? Are you like, are you selling them the printer paper or anything else with just the machine one time? So we sell them the machine and then we also sell refill supplies. So anytime they need more supplies for magnets, they'll come back. So that has been nice. We don't make a ton on it, but it's there for convenience. But yeah, and we've actually been testing paper to do our own paper line. It's just, I'm so picky and it has been kind of like none of them have lived up to what I want. So we're not there quite yet, but yeah, that's something we've looked into. Yeah. So what are your margins like on the machine? They're probably set and done about 30%. That's awesome. Yeah. And it's a higher price point. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they do pretty well. I find it so interesting how much opportunity there is simply to like buy things from manufacturer or to import things from China and to resell them. And I've done that for almost two decades of my career. And the number one question I get is like, why don't people just buy those from China? I want to buy themselfs. I get it for cheaper. And it's like, because that's friction, that's confusion. Like they don't trust it. They don't know it. Like is there a return policy? Is there warranty? What if it breaks? Like people, myself included, even though I do it as a consumer, I'm willing to pay a surplus to get something from an American just because I feel like there's going to be more support there. Yes. Yeah. And that's something we've kind of, we've maybe lost money on it, but it's something that I take a lot of pride in. We have like a lifetime warranty on all of our kids. So it's like. Like if their machine needs to be replaced, we'll pay to replace it. But and we might lose some money on it. No, like we'd rather have customers that, you know, they trust us and they have a good product than to not, you know, then in that case they could maybe go buy it from anywhere else. But yeah, just definitely the support, especially around the business aspect has been huge for a lot of people I think. Yeah. That's awesome. So how many months did it take you to go from zero to your first $10,000 a month and then how many months to your first $100,000 a month in revenue, not profit? Just like altogether. Like when was your first $10,000 a month? Okay. Yeah. Right. How far into your journey? It was July July of 2024. So like two months, two or three months? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Wow. And then what about your first 100 plus $100,000 a month? It was November of 2024. We did 100,500. We just barely. Yeah. That's amazing. So like six months. So like two or three months to your first $10,000 and six months to your first $100,000 a month. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's incredible. What is your husband doing? Is he still doing the electrical path or is he with you now? Yeah. He is. He's in his last semester of school for his last license. And he actually has loved it, but it's a lot. It's been a lot to run a business and have a toddler at home and get everything done that I have to do. So I put her in daycare two days a week and that's been nice, but it's like, we don't see him. He, you know, he's at school and then he or he's at work and then he's at school. So we see him on the weekends and we're just excited for that to change. So we're looking forward to maybe hiring somebody to come and make magnets for us. So we have some free time to do our things. That's amazing. So yeah. If you don't mind me asking, how old are you in your husband? We're 27. That's amazing. So the big golden question is if someone wanted to start a business doing what you do, specifically like making and selling magnets, either online or at markets or at weddings, etc. What advice would you give them? How could they copy you? It's easy. I would say just do it. The biggest thing for me, it was scary because I'm like, do we have the money to do this? Do I know what I'm doing? No and no. You just have to jump in and then you learn as you go. The cool thing though is like there's such a good community now around this that like Facebook groups and even just social media accounts that are so willing to help with things when you run into it. But it's so easy and it's just like you just need to start and then you'll just take off running. But starting is the hardest part. It's just you just need to jump in. Yeah, agree. What's next for your business? Like what are your big goals? What do you look forward to? Yeah, so something that like I said, I've taken a lot of pride on just like being willing to share and helping people. It's just gotten to the point where there's so many people that reach out every day and with little questions and I'm kind of to the point I can't, I don't have the time to respond to everybody and help everybody. So right now we're working on a course that goes over literally everything. So like we already have a Shopify course for people who don't know how to build a Shopify website. We already have like a live events course on how to do live events, but something that I think people are struggling with now is like, how do you even start a business? How do you get an EIN? How do you even get going on that end of things? And then how do I grow? Like how are you making sales? How are you doing these things? So we're working on just like an overall course that walks through literally every aspect we've gone through in this business and how to do it. And so I'm hopeful that that will help people not only start but like be successful in the industry if that makes sense. So that's a big one that we're working on and then we're making more sizes of machines which is fun and trying to, we've like we just recently released a new product that instead of a magnet, it's like a resticable backing. So it stick to any surface and it's resticable up to like 20 times and you can even like wash it and restick it. So just like new products like that, like we're working on a around machine now that does like pins and does like bottle openers that can do like, you know, just different products like that. So just always thinking of new products that the machines can make and then we're just kind of going from there with the course and the new products. That's kind of where we're at right now. That's amazing. Well, can people reach out to you if they have questions? Absolutely. Yeah. Where's the best place to find you? Instagram probably or email. Amazing. Well, Sarah, you're incredible. Thank you for sharing your story. Well, thank you. You've inspired a lot of people today. Well, thanks. I appreciate it. All right. Would you think, please share it with a friend and we'll see you next time on the corner office.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Saraya and her husband faced financial hardship after a car accident during her pregnancy forced her to stop working, leaving them reliant on his low-wage job and a second night job that kept him away from the family.
To generate extra income from home, Saraya researched photo display ideas, discovered custom photo magnets, and started a business with a $700 manual machine, initially making over $1,000 in profit in her first month.
The business expanded rapidly through local markets and wedding events, evolving to include selling reliable, self-branded magnet machines. It achieved significant revenue, with one month reaching $233,000, and maintains high profit margins, especially from wedding services where couples pay a flat fee for guests to receive free custom magnets.
Summary:
Saraya and her husband were struggling financially after a car accident during her pregnancy led to lost income. With her husband working multiple low-paying jobs and rarely home, Saraya sought a side hustle. She discovered custom photo magnets, invested in a $700 manual machine, and launched a home-based business.
The venture quickly took off, generating over $1,000 in profit in the first month. By selling at local markets and offering services at weddings—where couples pay a fee for guests to receive free custom magnets—the business grew substantially. Saraya also developed and now sells her own line of reliable magnet machines.
Within about two years, the company achieved monthly revenues as high as $233,000, with strong profit margins, particularly from weddings, where costs are low relative to the fees charged. The story highlights rapid growth from a simple, low-cost idea driven by necessity and community engagement.
FAQs
Saraya started a business making custom photo magnets with an initial investment of under $1,000, using a $700 machine purchased from Ali Express.
In its first full year, the business generated $1.63 million in revenue with approximately $600,000 in profit, reflecting a net profit margin of around 30-40%.
The business earns revenue through online sales, local markets, weddings, and selling their own branded magnet machines, with weddings typically charging $1,200 to $3,000 per event.
For weddings, the couple pays a flat fee or hourly rate, and guests receive free magnets. Costs include materials (about $0.35 per magnet) and labor, with high profit margins—e.g., a $2,000 wedding might cost only $400 in expenses.
Social media helped expand reach and engagement, though initial growth came from community markets and weddings. Consistency in posting, especially videos showing the product-making process, was key to success.
Saraya upgraded from a manual, unreliable machine to developing their own branded machines and is creating software to streamline photo uploads and printing, reducing labor and increasing efficiency.
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