The side hustle...

hmmm coloured crack... Can I buy some for my friend. He has a hobby woodwork resin.

 

Service. Media production

 

If only I wasn't so useless.

 

I seriously doubt you are! Everyone has their "thing".

 

It'd actually probably work for that - it's basically a resin for your nails

 

@Jess Peletier did you complete any specific course or just had the idea about the product? I think "online" is the way to go nowadays, location-independent, happy days.

 

Can side hustle be another (second) job or it jas to be a business?

 

Can be whatever? My skillset lends it to be a second job for me....but honestly it would be great if I could do something a bit more passive. I reckon @Jess Peletier is onto something buy selling goods.

 

It was kind of weird - a fully formed business just downloaded itself into my head. So I did it. .
The product idea came from a hobby and I could see that the product was hugely popular in the US but non-existent in Australia - in NOV last year one of the US giants started marketing over here, so I know I was on the right track

I did buy a course but only half way though - I need more online courses like a hole in the head. I just go back and cherry pick anything I need to learn.

 

We can make it quite passive, especially if we use a 3PL for fulfillment. Right now we're hand crafting most of our product and also hand filling but that won't be forever. (Or it will, but that's what employees are for!)

 

So I thought I'd give a small update on my side hustle, which is selling things, predominantly lithium iron phosphate batteries.
While it's yet to be seen if this business is going to survive even this year, I've placed my biggest orders in the past month by far.

I spent around $40k ordering custom-made batteries from China.

I'm figuring worst case I can sell them with a $10k loss, plus I will have worked for nothing.
It is a risk, but it's not THAT big a risk.
Kind of the same as investing, weight up the risk and potential benefit against each other and then see how likely each scenario is.
The batteries I'm ordering are as follows:

1) 50x custom 12V 200Ah 4WD/Camper battery with a whole bunch of connectors (2x 50A Anderson connectors, 45W USB C, 18W USB A, cigarette lighter) built-in. Plus it comes with a 250A BMS with bluetooth and quality cells all in a stainless steel case. ~$730 each, target sales price $1200

2) A set of custom batteries for a big quad bike. $4000, already sold (money in my account) for $6700.

3) I ordered these a few weeks ago, so I didn't really include them. 3x different prototypes of hybrid starter batteries that combine a lithium iron phosphate battery with a bunch of supercapacitors. The supercapacitors start the car, the battery recharges the caps.
That one has the highest risk of failure, but I also only put a bit over $1,000 into it.

I think that the hardest part of it is to make sure you're actually getting what you want. I'm in constant contact with the manufacturers and even specify things like cabling size, as I know it will be skimped on otherwise (good thing it's something related to my day job).

The thing I'm struggling with most is the sales part, the website, getting good ads and converting leads into sales. All of this kind of soft skills stuff is something that doesn't come to me all that naturally. I've tried Fiverr, but the results weren't overwhelming and I can't really afford to pay anyone yet, so I'll just plod along and do the best I can. I did think that I could perhaps get a final year marketing student in their uni break and offer them a certain percentage profit share, but I'm not sure whether I'll do that.

 

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I read way more about these things than I should, and spend way too much time looking at various solutions. I'd be interested in buying one of these bad boys, any chance of a Property Chat discount

Cheers,
Inertia

 

Good work, but have you allowed for import costs?

 

These batteries, while expensive, are cheaper than they used to be, so there is definitely an increasing market. Can easily ship Australia wide - which isn’t always possible with other types of batteries.

If you continue with this, consider getting different/smaller sizes which are more commonly used.

For example most caravans have physical space for 2 x 100ah batts. Can’t always
replace with 1 x 200ah battery as it’s a different footprint.

22ah size is good for golf buggies (electric push along ones).

50ah size suitable for mobility scooters and ride-on golf buggies.

Good luck.

 

If I ever start a newsletter, I'll make sure you're my number 1 subscriber!
I'll let you know about the battery, but we're probably 2 months away. The prototype still has to be built, any teething issues (I'm sure there'll be a couple) ironed out, then the rest built, inspected and tested by a third party, before being shipped to Australia.

Thanks, yes, I learnt that lesson the hard way when ordering my first shipment of pumps. Definitely my worst product to date, I ordered 104 pumps, so far I've sold 4. But you live and learn and I only spent $6k or so on them all up.
Not looking forward to tax time, that's for sure!

Thanks for the suggestions!
What I'm trying to do is get some differentiation in that my batteries are of higher quality (quality BMS and quality cells, at least by Chinese standards) as well as having some other advantages over other batteries (such as bluetooth and connectors). I feel, and perhaps I'm wrong, that the benefit of this diminishes as you move into lower price points, especially since the ratio of my cost vs the cost of the cheapest product on the market would increase a lot. With my 200Ah battery I'm a bit over 30% above the price of the cheapest nastiest 12V 200Ah LiFePO4 battery you can find but offer significant benefits. For a 50Ah battery, my price might well be twice as much as the cheapest competitior, which might make it less palitable. Plus it will be more work per $.

I'm definitely not saying that I won't look at these markets in the future, but right now, I think this is the right starting point for me.

 

People are definitely prepared to pay for quality. I’m wondering what is the application for the 200ah batteries? Who’s your end-user?

 

If you can, get them branded for your brand/company. The thing to watch is Chinese sellers operating in the Aussie market. Many times their shipping is so low that it makes it very hard to compete.

 

The end user for these are camper vans, caravans, 4WDs that have things like fridges and induction cookers.

An awful lot of them have a battery already, but often lead acid. A 200Ah LiFePO4 is roughly equivalent to a 350Ah lead acid battery in terms of usable capacity and it will last at least three times as long. Plus it's under a third of the weight.
100Ah may be sufficient for many people, but I'll see, if I get a few requests for those, I'll get them in as well.

I will have a look at golf cart batteries as well, ideally I'd work with a golf course that owns a bunch of them. Perhaps even going with the trend of supplying something as a service, rather than as a product, and effectively renting them out, if there's an appetite for that.

Yes thanks, that's true. What works in my favour though is that these weigh 25kg, so it's too expensive to air freight them and sea freighting a single battery is a bit difficult and will take 2 months.