21 year old starts $5M/yr stuffed animal biz, $240K/yr pet spa, a simple 'relaunch' 50x'd revenue!

Hey starters - happy Thursday!

This week, we feature 4 amazing stories + 28 businesses you can start with less than $1K

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#1: Tyler started a $5M/year stuffed animal care package business at 21 yrs old:

Tyler started SendAFriend - an ecommerce brand that sells stuffed animal care packages.

• Side hustle turned into $5M/year in revenue
• Started the business with just $2K
• Solo-founder at 21 years old

​His secret? Retargeting. He's grown his email list to 500,000 subscribers and generates 25% of revenue through quirky email flows and campaigns:

Examples of Tyler's email flows and promotional campaigns.

Tyler's story is amazing - I urge you to read it here.

Pat @ Starter Story: Want to see more successful teens & college students launching successful businesses? We put together a full list (with examples) here!

#2: This solo-female founder started a $240K/year pet spa:

Olivia started Pawsitivity Pet Spa - a luxury dog grooming business.

Six years ago, she started the business $6K and is now profitable, generating $240K/year with three employees.

Her secret? Word of mouth. 90% of new customers come as a result of existing customers. 

Check out Olivia's story here!

Pat @ Starter Story: Want to check out the best pet business ideas to start in 2020? We put together the full list (with examples) here!

#3: Elise bought a dying candle business for $3K and grew it to $168K/year:

We just caught up with Elise, founder of Coco & Bubbles 

A few years ago, she bought the business for $3K and is now doing $168K/year with zero employees.

Her secret? A simple re-launch. She used the previous owners existing email list and had over $2K in orders within one day.

Check out Elise's full story here!

#4: This former school teacher started a 6-figure wedding photography business:

We just caught up with Steven from SvenStudios - a wedding photographer based out of Australia. 

He left his teaching gig to become a full-time photographer, and is now covering 30 weddings/year and generating over $100K annually.

His main growth hack is SEO and gives us his formula for success:

• Content: Stay on top of google trends & blog once every three days
• Technical SEO: Master the basics and learn how google really see's you
• Backlinks: Audit bad backlinks + find websites that get you powerful backlinks.

SvenStudio's traffic as a result of SEO practices

Check out Steven's detailed interview here!

Pat @ Starter Story: Want to learn the easy tricks to optimize your SEO? Founder David Pagatto simplifies the fundamentals of SEO here!

#5: 28 Businesses You Can Start For Less Than $1,000

Starting a business is tough, always. But money doesn't have to be a big obstacle.

We've put together a list of 28 businesses that believe it or not started with less than $1,000 of funding.

Check out the full list here!

#6: Are you ready to boost your revenue?

I want to give a shoutout to our long-time sponsor Klaviyo.

Using Klaviyo will open up a massive, untapped sales channel and bring you closer to your customers!

I'm a huge fan of the product (I use it for Starter Story and love the segmentation/drip features). I've also been able to collect so many emails using their website form integration - my list growing over 3k/month now 😲

Here are just some of the impressive businesses we've interviewed that use Klaviyo for email marketing and are raving about the product - all great interviews you should check out as well!

• Brumate ($1.1M/mo at 23 years old)
• Sheets & Giggles ($76k/mo in just 6 months)
• Beardbrand ($100k+/mo - 1.5M YouTube subscribers)
• Abs Protein Pancakes ($25k/mo passive income business)
• Xero Shoes ($460k/mo - featured on Shark Tank)
• The Longhairs ($30k/mo)
• Framed Tweets ($25k/mo)

Level up your email marketing with 👉 Klaviyo!

(And thank you for your support 🙏)

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Thanks for reading! See you next week.

- Pat Walls, Founder @ Starter Story

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