$6.3M/year selling hygiene products, $2.6M/year fragrance biz, $2.8M/year wearable music device

Hey starters - happy Thursday!

This week, we feature 4 amazing stories + the 8 tips you need to write emails faster.

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#1: Ollie launched a honeymoon registry side hustle with under $1K:

Ollie started Hitchd - a simple way for couples to fund their honeymoon adventures!

With just under $1K to start, they successfully launched their business and are now doing $36K/year in revenue.

What's worked? Changing their pricing model - They moved to a one-time-payment model in order to survive the pandemic, which has been a game-changer for cash flow.

Snapshot of how Hitchd works

Check out Ollie's full story here!

Pat @ Starter Story: Want to check out more wedding-related business ideas? We put together a full list for you here!

#2: Florian launched a $2.8M/year addictive device for musicians:

We just caught up with Florian with Soundbrenner - a "booming" music technology company.

They built their prototype in 24 hours with an old Nokia flip phone and a 3D printer.

Here's what their current operation looks like:

• $2.8M/year in revenue w/ 17 employees
• Raised $1.6M on Indiegogo
• Products available in 1,000 music stores in 40 countries
• To date, sold over 100,000 devices

​Check out Florian's full story here!

#3: PANDEMIC BUSINESS: Jonathan's hygiene business doubled sales by 200x this year:

Jonathan started The Hygiene Company - innovative hygiene products and solutions for businesses and universities.

He started the business back in 1992, but everything took off this year due to the pandemic and sales increased by 200x.

He's now doing $6.3M/year with just six employees.

Search trends for cleaning products within the last 12 months

Check out Jonathan's full story here!

Pat @ Starter Story: Interested in starting a cleaning business? We put together a full guide that explains everything you need to know here!

#4: This married couple built a $2.6M/year personal care and fragrance business:

We just followed up with Danielle Vincent - founder of Outlaw.

We first met Danielle back in 2018 when she started the business with less than $20 and was making $276K/year.

Let's take a look at how the business is doing now:

• On track for 4M this year in revenue
• 13 employees
• 320% growth from 2019 to date
• Just raised $1.5M (deets on this below)

Her growth secret? Joining the LAUNCH accelerator - she was able to get her pitch in front of hundreds of investors in just 12 weeks and reach their $1.5M goal!

Danielle's follow-up is amazing - I urge you to read it here!

Pat @ Starter Story: Want to learn how to run a successful crowdfunding campaign? These 8 companies share their tips here!

#5: 8 tips for writing emails faster:

If you run a business or handle a lot of email at your job, then you probably have an inbox piling up every single day.

You can’t stop doing email, but you can do a few things that will help you do email faster.

We put together 8 tips for writing emails faster 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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