Month: July 2022

James Wilkinson and India Henderson are a husband-wife duo who are the co-founders of their side hustle, Blank Space Coach.  Lots of people have side hustles, but India & James’ side hustle has a twist:  their business is intended to help other people establish and grow their own side hustles.

They started this business after India had successfully grown her own home daycare business.  She has also had a creative side business for a while.  James, India says, is the “numbers guy,” because he has an MBA and also has worked in the financial services industry.  The two of them decided to take their shared learnings to help other entrepreneurs. They joined The Savvy Entrepreneur recently to share the story of Blank Space Coach.

Blank Space offers online courses for a modest fee, and also coaching and consulting services.  They describe coaching as a 50/50 partnership, where Blank Space provides guidance, but the client does most of the leg work. The consulting offering is envisioned as 90/10, where Blank Space provides guidance but also does most of the work.

The two of them are likeable and play off each other in the interview.  It’s clear they are still experimenting with their offerings and their marketing — consulting and coaching are notoriously difficult to get started in and keep viable over the long term.  But it’s also clear they are having a lot of fun in the process, and that the process of building Blank Space Coach is helping them learn more about each other.

The interview has lots of ideas and thoughts for setting up a new consulting business, especially one that is a side hustle, and one that features a husband-wife duo.

Click on the arrow to listen to our interview, or go here to read the transcript.

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Why are jar and bottle lids sometimes so darned hard to get open?  Brandon Bach is on a mission to make jars easier to open, especially for the elderly and disable.

He's the CEO of Consumer Convenience Technologies, a company founded by his father and a friend of his father's, and they have developed and are marketing the EEASY Lid which makes opening jars much easier.  Brandon says it's the first real innovation in jar lids in over 75 years.

Not only does the EEASY Lid make jars of all kids much easier to open, it's made from aluminum — not steel — and so is lighter and easily recyclable, and will help many elderly and people with disabilities who struggle to open certain food & beverage containers.

So why isn't the food & beverage industry pounding down the door to get the EEASY Lid on their containers?  It turns out there are several reasons.  First, the food & beverage industry is complicated because there are several players in the production and supply chain, and the decision-maker differs, depending on the product.  Second, it's hard for the industry to change — the food & beverage industry is hardly the only market segment highly resistant to change, something many entrepreneurs struggle with.

Brandon shares how the company has successfully worked through numerous challenges in design, manufacturing, and sales & marketing, and offers some advice to other entrepreneurs.

Click on the arrow to listen, and be on the lookout for an EEASY Lid on items in stores near you!

 

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Denise Brown took her caregiving experience and turned it into a business — one that trains other caregivers to turn their own experiences into a business.  Graduates of The Caregiving Years Training Academy have turned the business of caregiving into careers in speaking, coaching mentoring, leading support groups, and many other things.

The business of caregiving is set to increase, because the need for caregivers is increasing.  This is due to our aging population, growing health risks and healthcare disparity, as well as the ongoing shortage of healthcare workers of all types.

And those caregivers will need help and support as well, leading to lots of business opportunities.  There are and will continue to be plenty of opportunities to create valuable businesses, but also provide meaningful help and support to others.

Denise shares with The Savvy Entrepreneur some of the many challenges of being a caregiver, as well as the challenges of being an entrepreneur.  Hers is a meaningful and heartfelt startup journey.

Click on the arrow to listen, or go here if you'd prefer to read a transcript of the interview.

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Huan Xia is on a quest to provide better plant-based foods.

Her company, LusOasis, makes and sells a variety of gluten-free, keto-friendly pancake mixes. And her latest venture, Alchemeat, produces a plant-based meat substitute that — unlike what's currently on the market — mimics the texture of real meat.

Her journey hasn't been easy. She came to the U.S. as an immigrant with only two suitcases and a smattering of English. But her drive and focus helped her succeed in big corporate America first, and now is helping her in her journey as an entrepreneur.  And it turns out that being an immigrant has some advantages when it comes to entrepreneurship.

How did she do all this? You need to “unleash yourself,” she says.

We talk about what this means, and ways you, too, can “unleash yourself!'

Listen to her inspiring story on The Savvy Entrepreneur Show! Click on the arrow to listen to the interview, or go here if you'd rather read a transcript!

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Professor Mukila Maitha from Harper College in Palatine, Illinois talks with The Savvy Entrepreneur about the many business opportunities that drones will offer.  Harper is one of a small number of colleges & universities with a drone certificate program.

Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, have been around for a few decades and were used mostly in military operations.  Today's drones come in a huge range of sizes, and their uses in commercial applications are limited only by people's imaginations.

The most popular uses for drones today are in photography, real estate, and monitoring.  Soon, however, they will be used commonly for deliveries of all sorts.  In Singapore, they are even being tested to carry people — look out, Uber & Lyft!

Mukila & I chat about some of the many, many current and future business opportunities that drones present.  And many of these are suited to small businesses.  Drone business opportunities including building and repairing drones, as well as programming them.  And most needed of all are people to create the concepts for using drones, and people to translate the data from the drones into useful graphics or other presentations.

The people, Mukila says, who can straddle 2 different areas of expertise, such as environmental monitoring and drone programming, or photography and real estate, will have many drone business opportunities.

But as you listen to Mukila start to envision our drone future, you will start to realize drone business opportunities are everywhere, and present lots of opportunities to people with interest and skills (or willingness to learn those skills).

Click on the arrow to get a glimpse of our drone-filled future, or go here if you'd rather read a transcript of our interview.

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