May 7, 2018 • 40 mins
FYI!!! Carla Marie is no longer the host of a morning show in Seattle but she is still supporting small businesses in every way possible. She’s even started her own small business with her radio cohost and best friend, Anthony. All of the links below will help you stay up to date!
Follow Carla Marie on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/thecarlamarie/
Watch Carla Marie and Anthony’s Show on Twitch
twitch.tv/carlamarieandanthony
Sign up for The Carla Marie and Anthony Show newsletter to stay up to date:
https://view.flodesk.com/pages/5f516ae62c60490027b9ec20
Email Carla Marie
SideHustlersPodcast@gmail.com
Text Carla Marie and Anthony:
201-305-0894
Follow Carla Marie and Anthony on Instagram
http://instagram.com/carlamarieandanthony
Subscribe to Carla Marie and Anthony on YouTube:
YouTube.com/CarlaMarieAnthony
Follow Carla Marie and Anthony on Facebook
http://facebook.com/carlamarieandanthony
Email Carla Marie and Anthony
CarlaMarieandAnthony@gmail.com
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
For a lot of people. You know, why are you when?
Do you know what you want to do? And this
is something you want to do and do it. I'm
a hustle side side hustle. Do it. I'm a hustle
a sod sid hustl do it. I'm a hustle side
sid hustlow. I'm a hustle side us slow. I'm a
hustle side side hustle. Come on ask about me, yo yo.
(00:23):
It's the Side Hustless podcast. We call the Yes Yes, Yes.
It is another edition of my Side Hustlers podcast. I'm
Carla Marie, which you probably know if you found this
at this point. Um. Today, I am hanging out with
Megan Juan. Hello, Megan, Hi. And by hanging out I
mean she is on the other side of the country
(00:44):
and I am in the studio in Seattle. Where are
you right now? I'm in New York City. We've been
in touch for a little under a year now, right. Yeah,
obviously I've never met, never seen each other, but Megan
created and this is going to sound so strange when
I say it at first, but we're gonn to learn
a whole lot more about it. A pill box and
not your grandma's pill boxes. That your slogan, because it
(01:05):
should be. Honestly, it should be, because whenever someone describes
this pillbox to someone else, that's what they inevitably wind
up saying. It's not your grandmother's pill box. So the
name of your company is Portant Polish, and if you
want to look at what we're talking about right now,
it's port and Polish co dot com. By the way,
your Instagram though super cute. Thank you so much. I
appreciate that it is curated very well and it's like
(01:29):
one of those things you look at and just like
Instagram goals, So good job. That's also Portant Polish if
you want to check it out. So I guess the
question we should start with is why pill boxes? Yeah,
that's what most people ask. So actually, a couple of
years ago, I was packing for a trip for the
(01:49):
weekend and I had all my pills with me. I
was taking birth control, I had vitamin supplements, prescription medication.
I think I was taking like fish oil and vitamin
D and all that. And as I was packing for
the weekend and getting all these pills together, I was like,
this is, you know, ridiculous. I need some sort of
better way to carry these. And then when I went
to the store to get a pill box, they were
(02:10):
just I mean, if you've ever seen a typical pillbox,
they are just so ugly. They're the living world. They're bulky,
they're like clear, they have those like obnoxious blue letters
for every day of the week on them. Yes, it's
almost like they want to punish you for taking a medication, right.
They just assume that nobody, you know, taking medication is
(02:31):
going to care what they look like, which is really silly. Well,
because we equate people taking medication as old people who
leave them on their counter, when exactly there are young
people that care about their health. And do you have
to take either medication or vitamins. I mean, I'm in
the same boat as you. All those vitamins you listed
are all the vitamins I'm taking and more. I might
need to add a second pill box at this point,
(02:52):
so you know, I and a lot of people could
take pills my goal. And the thing that I did
not understand is why no one was making a pill
box that you could take out in public and feel
good about, you know, especially I feel like in the
last couple of years they there have been this amazing
kind of reimagining of wellness type products. That's something you
can be proud of, whether it's you know, a cute
(03:14):
water bottle, whether it's yeah, yeah, whether it's bottle exactly exactly.
And I was I had said to my husband kind of,
you know, jokingly, I was like, I don't know why
no one has made a pillbox that you could just
you know, take out and leave on the table a
brunch with your friends, or you could leave on your
desk at work and not be embarified. He had said
(03:36):
back to me, you know, well why don't you make one?
And that was yeah, And that was kind of the beginning.
So what was the first step for doing this? Like, okay,
your husband says that, are you like, okay, I can
actually do this? How do I physically? Because hold on
time out. What was your job at the time? So
I was working in digital media? Okay, digital media? Are
(03:58):
you still doing that? Know? So we had, you know,
he had said to me, well, why don't you do that?
So at the time I was working full time and
digital media. Um, you know, which anyone who has worked
in any sort of media capacity knows as a very
kind of demanding job. You know, there's a lot going on.
So for the next year I had kind of gone
(04:19):
through this ideation stage where I was, you know, thinking
about what would this box look like, what problems do
I want to solve, you know, and kind of chugging along.
And then last April I was laid off, and you know,
there was this moment where I was looking at next
steps and I thought, I can either start applying, you know,
(04:40):
at other places and I can find a new job,
or I can just really give this a go and
I can give it my all and I can try
to make this work and you know, see how it goes.
So I decided I'm really going to give this a shot.
I thought, you know, if there's one time in my
life that I'm going to have the ability to really
try to make this work, it's now. And I didn't
(05:02):
want to not give it a go and spend the
rest of my life thinking we'll shoot, you know what
if I had just really tried. So that was a yes.
So now what we're exactly two years later, You've got
the company off the ground. You're selling is it three
different colors? Five different colors? Five? Okay, wait, wait, let
(05:23):
me see if I get them. Oh, I got it
navy black, light, pink, gray and white. Yes, exact. Damn,
so I have navy. I love it. It is sleek,
it's I'm gonna I have one in front of me
right now. So the packaging that you do, and I
want to get more into obviously how it all started
and what you did, but the final product right now,
it's incredible. So when you open it, like it's just,
(05:44):
oh my god, I want to open my new cute pillbox,
like I'm excited to unwrap everything, like I'm unwrapping one
right now. I love it so much. And then you
open it and it's this sleek little thing and it's
it's smooth, and you're right, it's so simple, but it's
super exciting, and I'm like, oh, I want to take
my pills now. I can't wait to take it out
and and show everyone my cool new pillbox. Like whoever
(06:05):
thought I'd say that? I mean that, that's honestly exactly.
The point is I just wanted something. You feel like again,
when you have a cute water bottle, or would you
have a great new sports bra, you just are excited
and you just you feel good about that aspect of wellness.
And you know, whether you're a healthy person trying to
be healthier or a sick person trying to get healthy,
(06:27):
no one wants to be embarrassed or feel, you know,
awkward about taking their pills because that's something you know,
that's neutral or something you should be proud of. Oh. Absolutely,
But when you got laid off and you said, Okay,
I'm gonna do this, what the heck did you do first? Oh? God? So,
I mean, I honestly, I knew nothing about plastics manufacturing.
(06:50):
I mean, this was completely completely new to me. The
first stage really was figuring out, you know, what do
I want this pillbox to look like? What what problems
do I want it to solve? And like you had mentioned,
these old pill boxes, they're bulky, they don't they're not portable,
which is silly because a lot of people take their
pills everywhere, whether they're traveling or you know, yeah it's
a breakfast or whatever. So once I had kind of
(07:12):
stched out what I wanted this pill box to look like,
the next step was literally how do I manufacture a
plastic product? Which I knew about as much as I
assume you do. So I had to kind of learn
from scratch about I mean really pleptics manufacturing. I honestly,
it sounds so silly. I was googling. I've spent most
(07:35):
of my days googling, like, how do you manufacture plastic?
What type of plastics you need to store pills in?
You know, how does want to even create a box
like that? You know? And what wound up happening is
I kind of learned from the ground up, and there
was a lot of mistakes and stumbling and there was
probably a lot of lost time from getting you know,
(07:57):
down one direction and realizing that wasn't to work and
you know, down another. So what we really did is
kind of tapped into our network, which I think it
has been one of the greatest lessons for me, is
to try to tap into as many friends and family
and friends of family, etcetera, etcetera that you know we have.
That's why we network, you know, you really do. Because
(08:21):
it wound up my husband's family knew someone that owned
a factory that created exactly these yeah, these custom plastics,
and we had found a couple of factories, but the
minimum mortar quantity was like thirty thousands, which is just insane.
Especially you know, when you're starting out. So being able
(08:42):
to kind of work our network and find someone who
knew us was great because we were able to negotiate
that down and get a minimum mortar quantity. I think
our first run was maybe five thousand, which was obviously
quite a bit more doable. Yeah, yeah, I mean we're
on our third run now. So one of the biggest
lessons for us has been kind of figuring out how
(09:03):
to work inventory, because you know, I do not have
a background in inventory, like I was mentioning. My background
is all in writing and media. So it's been interesting
for me to learn that as these products sell, you know,
they don't sell on a straight diagonal line. It's really
a belt. You know, It's slow in the beginning, and
then it really does shoot up. So being able to
(09:26):
manage our inventory has been kind of a learning process
for me. As we grow quickly, we're trying to learn
how fast these now sell. That's insane, though it's it's amazing.
I mean I think sometimes I see pictures that people
have tagged of these pill boxes and I can't wrap
my head around the fact that this, you know, was
(09:46):
my baby that a couple of years ago I was,
you know, sitting on my computer with literally Microsoft like paint,
trying to draw out what I think I wanted this
to look like. And now people own it. They actually
own this physical product that I made, which is really great.
It's a really good Well congratulations on that, because that's incredible.
You know, everyone's got this cool idea of what they
(10:08):
want to make. Very few people actually make it and
then actually sell it and then get to be where
you are now. So yeah, it's not anything. It's funny
you say that because I in the beginning when we
when you know it was first kicking around this idea
of a pill box. I had thought, you know, wow,
I am the smartest woman in the world. No one's
(10:28):
ever thought of this idea before, like, wow, a pill
box for you know, younger people. And then the more
I got into the actual manufacturing and importing and you know,
all of this, I realized I'm not the first person
to have come up with this idea. I'm just the
first person who's been able to grind and grind and
(10:50):
grind to make it happen. That makes a difference when
you can there you go exactly there. You know, it's
it was a really eye opening experience to kind of
take an idea from idea to creation. You know, it's hard.
It's a lot easier to have a great idea, but
once you're in the thick of it and you're waking
(11:12):
up every day and you're trying to learn about you know,
international import law, that's when you're like, this is a
lot harder than you know, getting happened a good idea, Well,
how did you? How do you market it? How do
you because you're obviously not spending advertising money, you know,
on on radio or TV or magazine, So what has
been your way to market this pillbox? In the beginning,
(11:35):
it was obviously a lot of family and friends and
then word of mouth, which was great. In the beginning,
I was doing a lot of social media marketing. So
I was on Instagram and I you know, like I mentioned,
I was just grinding away. I was trying to post
and search for influencers, and I commented on every post
from every commented. Yes, that's how I found you, as
(11:58):
I had commented. No, I think I commented on your
friends Instagram and then you had seen it. Oh my god,
probably because I'm yeah. So I was, you know, commenting
and trying to make these connections with bloggers and influencers
and try to get in front of as many eyes
as I could. And it was a really slow process.
(12:20):
You know. We would connect with one blogger who would
be like, you know what, send me your product. If
I like it, you know, then I'll post about it.
And we started out, you know, influencers who had maybe
a thousand followers, and then maybe ten thousand followers, and
then fifty thousand followers, and then it is really it
has had a kind of cumulative snowball effect where we
(12:43):
had smaller bloggers, which led to larger bloggers, which led
to Real Simple magazine, which led to buzz Feed, which
led to the Washington Post. Slow. Yeah, it's just really
slow kind of snowball. But for us, it was really
just a ton of grind ding away. You know, was
no more glamorous than that, really, but really that's what
(13:05):
you have to do. I mean, it's very rare that
someone starts to come in company and is like, all right,
I'm gonna go spend ad dollars in radio and TV,
and you have to do the organic type of advertising.
It is the best type of advertising, word of mouth.
I mean, that's what social media is at this point.
It's word of mouth. It's just a different way. So
that's the smartest thing you could have done. So I
(13:26):
was talking about how much I loved your packaging for
the pill box, Like, I didn't just get a pill
box and a random envelope. I had an experience when
I opened it. It It was this tiny little box. It
had a portant policy sticker on the outside, and then
I opened that and then it's wrapped in this cute
little tissue also with another sticker, and it's got your
business card in there. So in another card explaining about
(13:47):
the pill box, tell me why was it so cute
for me to open it? I So, I am just
a huge sucker for packaging and marketing, and you know,
I love pretty things. That's just my jam. And my
favorite thing in the world is when I order something
and opening it up is a little experience. You know,
(14:08):
I don't think it's as fun to get something the
mail and it comes in, you know, a dusty plastic
bag that you know, it doesn't really feel like yeah,
like an event. And again, the whole idea behind the
pill boxes to be able to make people feel good
about taking their pills. And I think with any consumer
product that you're marketing and selling, you want that excited
(14:31):
feeling to start when they place their order, like when
you're there on your website. You want to get them excited.
You want them to be excited that it shift and
they're waiting for it, and you want them to be
excited when it comes in the mail and they get
to open it. It It should be a bit more than
just you know, opening a plastic sleeve. So that kind
of goes to show you it's great to have this idea,
(14:51):
but you not only have to create the idea, but
you really have to go above and beyond you kind
of really you have to sell it to people even
after they bought it, because now, not only do I
have this cute little pill box, but I had an
experience with it, and I love it. I want to
tell my friends about it. I gave it to my
mom for Mother's Day last year, and she's in her
sixties and she's like, oh my god, I'm obsessed. Like
(15:12):
she thinks that's the cutest thing, and she loves it.
I don't think it's just for young women. Have you
been noticing that older women are shopping it? Too. Yeah.
I mean, it's it's funny because in the beginning, I
had this idea of what I wanted this pill box
to me, which is, I want this to be a
wellness successory for you know, urban millennial women who are
going to stick it in their clutch and take it
(15:33):
to brunch with them. And that was my idea because
that was how I planned to use it. And we
had done some focus group testing in the beginning. And
when I say focus group testing, it was literally me
creating a form and sending it to fifty of my
most patient and kind family and friends because I wanted
their feedback about what they thought about this idea. That
(15:54):
is so important. I don't think I've talked to any
single person so far who has said anything about reaching
out to people, asking them questions before kind of diving in.
That is like invaluable advice right there. You've got this
focus group of people in your life, do what you did,
make a form, send it out to them, and go
from there. That's amazing, Thank you. Yeah, I mean it
(16:14):
was really interesting because I didn't want to create this
product and then try to, you know, retroactively push these
assets into it based on who I thought was going
to be buying it, so to be able to talk
to people at first, you know, and I asked questions
like how many pills a day do you take? Because
I had this idea of what the size I wanted
(16:37):
it to be was. But if that didn't really pan out,
then it didn't make sense for me to try to
force people to buy what I thought my ideal product
was going to be. My initial idea was it was
going to be for urban millennial women who you know,
we're going to throw it in their clutch and take
it to brunch, because that's how I planned on using it.
And as we've been selling more and more, it's been
(16:59):
interesting to see how the consumer base that I thought
was going to buy it has branched off into these
kind of different buckets and it's very interesting. There's you know,
obviously what I just described, who I kind of thought
would be the target market, but there's also, like I
mentioned before, there's healthy people who want to get healthier.
(17:19):
There's you know, and in that bucket kind of includes
you know, the people going a hot yoga and drinking
their green juice and taking their supplements. You know, there's
that kind of group there's this amazing group of people
with chronic illnesses. We have so many people contact us
who have cancer or they have you know, they have
these chronic diseases where they need to take a lot
of pills, and that has been really rewarding kind of
(17:42):
subgroup to see that this is you know, made a
difference for Yeah. I mean, going back to the whole
look of it. Imagine, you know, you're going through that
you have this awful disease illness, and you at least
get a little glimmer of something nice that you own.
You're not having this awful experience of opening this clunky, clear,
ugly colored pill box. You have something cute and granted
(18:03):
that's not gonna change anything, but it may uplift your
mood a little bit. Yeah, and I think, you know,
we've heard back from a lot of people who have
chronic illnesses and who have these pill box and it
has been just so rewarding to hear from these people
who say, you know, I'm in the hospital or you know,
I've talked to several people who have had organ transplants
(18:26):
and they say, this is a small bit of getting
to feel normal, getting to feel like a regular person.
Because you shouldn't have to carry around a pill box
that makes you feel like it's a medical device. You know,
that's not fair. It's like one more thing on top
of everything they have to deal with, and being able
to carry around a pill box that they can feel
(18:49):
good about is just a small, I don't know, a
small step toward feeling like a normal person. And that's
been really really rewarding to hear you've taken something that
we've all kind of just taken for in it, I guess,
and made it something that we're excited about and something
cute and chee and instagram able really and that's what
you've done. And that's such a smart way of thinking.
(19:11):
But do you think that if you hadn't been laid off,
even if you had the idea, you could have done
this while working? I think I think I could have.
I think it would have been a much longer road.
Being able to dedicate eight hours a day really helped
kind of push over that hump where I was stuck
(19:34):
a bit between this is my idea and this is
turning it into a reality. And you know that is
not at all to say that if you have a
full time job, you can't also pour your heart and
soul into whatever, you know, you think your side hustle
is going to be. It's just that it really helped
it move quite a bit faster writing on it too.
(19:55):
At that point it was like it fails, I'm also
at work tomorrow. No. Yeah, I was like, if it fails,
I am in a heap of trouble. So, you know,
for me, that was the push that I needed. And
you know, if six months had gone by and I had,
you know, given it my all and I thought, you know,
like maybe this isn't a great idea that I thought
it was going to, that would have been a different story.
(20:16):
But I really thought it was a great idea. I
did from the beginning. I thought this is a really
fantastic idea and I want to see it through and
I didn't want to regret it. So it just seemed
very it seemed like serendipity that I, you know, got
laid off when I did at this kind of key
juncture where it was either do I continue on in
(20:37):
digital media, this you know, job that I like and
kind of have this on the back burner until if
and when I'm able to dedicate more to it, or do.
I just kind of roll the dice and go for
it and give it my all and really see if
I can make it work. It's funny when you were
saying that about I really believed in my idea. I
had flashbacks to talking to Tatum in the first episode
(20:57):
about This Is magazine and then talking to you Adriana
from a Little Words project. They bolted the same thing, like,
I know this was a good idea. I I knew
it now I just needed to do it. So it's
cool kind of hearing the three of you really have
that that fire. That's like, I know I like this,
I know other people are gonna like it. Now I
just have to do it. And believing in yourself it's
(21:18):
clearly a huge part of launching a side hustle. Yes
it is. It is a huge part. But obviously you
believe in yourself. Was there anyone along the way you
don't have to name them specifically, who doubted you, who
didn't support you, who told you were crazy? I mean
we've all had them. Was there most type of people? Oh? Yeah,
of course there definitely was. I mean when you say
(21:38):
to someone, you know, I'm not going to get another job,
I'm going to make pillboxes. That's what a big that's
a big statement. And you know there were people certainly
who were like, why would anyone on earth pay for
a pill box? That's insane. You can just get a
clear one, you know, for a couple dollars and who
(22:01):
cares if it's ugly. And you know, you can either
take that and internalize and start to doubt yourself and think, well,
you know, it is kind of a silly idea, why
would someone do that? You know, I might not actually
have this great idea, or you can say, you know,
you're probably not our target market. That's totally that's a
totally valid thing to say, is that you know, some
(22:25):
people will think this is silly, and those people will
think it's silly, but those are not the people that
I'm trying to reach. The people I'm trying to reach
are the ones like myself and me that will pay
like you, that will pay money for something that looks
good and makes them feel good. And that's you know
the difference between people who buy cute water bottles or
(22:46):
nice nightclasses or great sunscreen exactly what's that makes them
feel amazing? Well, and speaking at price, my thow It's
not like you're spending sixty dollars on a pillbox. It's fifteen, right, Yeah,
I mean, and it's still pretty awesome. Plus it's got
a mirror inside, which is like, yeah, I have never
never been sad that I had an extra mirror lying around.
(23:07):
And I will tell you I take that thing out
probably four times a day just for the mirror itself.
So have you ever been out and taken it out,
looked at the mirror, opened it, and had someone say, oh,
that's so cute. It's actually very funny. A lot of
people all take that out and we'll think it's a
compact and have been like, that's a pill box, and like,
it is a pill box. And let me tell you
(23:27):
someth thinking you want to port and polish code. Good good,
But yeah, I mean, the great thing is it really
it doesn't look like a typical pill box. I know
you're in New York City, so there's billions of people
all over the place. But have you ever been out
and seen someone with one? Oh? Gosh, you know, I haven't.
I would probably die of happiness. It will happen, I
(23:50):
can't imagine yet. I would be the happiest woman in
the world. I mean, every time I see it tagged
on Instagram, I am extremely happy. When we were in
Real Simple, I bought like six copies. It's incredible though.
It's so cool. And last week in our podcast, I
talked to Ronnie and he mentioned something like, you know,
(24:11):
no one at this point is really inventing anything brand new.
We're kind of just making things better. Things we've always had.
You're just kind of making them better. And you've done that,
and you've really like capitalized on this whole world that
no one was really thinking about. And it's so smart
on you, I guess, and your husband for giving you
(24:31):
the little extra push. Yeah, I mean it really Once
I realized that there was this problem, it was crazy
to me that no one had thought to redo a
pill box. I mean, and I think it just takes
someone looking at a problem that they themselves want to
(24:53):
fix to get it fixed. I mean. The reason I
created this pill box and have spent the last two
years of my life, you know, with this as my career,
it's because I wanted to own it. I created it
because I wanted to own it so badly. And then
I assumed that other people did well, well, they do
have you Have you at any point thought, Okay, what's next?
(25:16):
Like what else can I do? Can I add more? Think?
Can I make other things cool? Or are you just
good with this for now? I have thought of ways
that I can make this pill box better. We've actually
been contacted by a lot of people who have chronic
illnesses who say, you know, I love this, but I
take pills multiple times a day. Would you ever make
one with an a MPM divider, which I think is
(25:37):
absolutely brilliant, and which is I take customer service and
I do all of our social media. And it's really
been eye opening to me to have those conversations with people,
because if you're not listening to the people who are
buying your product, and you're missing out on, you know,
some really valuable insights, because sometimes when you're you know,
in the trenches with this product day and in day out,
(25:59):
it's really value all to have someone who can look
at what you're making and say this is great, and
another thing you could do is this, So I think, yeah,
I think that's kind of the next step. But honestly,
there are so many of these daily little problems that
I think no one has thought to reimagining because it
(26:21):
didn't affect them necessarily, and it didn't necessarily affect I
think anyone in their sphere, you know, just having I
just had a baby a couple of months ago, and
even just having a baby has been incredible to me
because there's these like little hiccups during the day that
you're like, why has no one thought too x y Z.
And I think, like you said, no one's really inventing
(26:43):
a lot of new things. You know, there's no more
automobile that's going to be creative, but there's these daily
things that no one has thought to really make better.
And I think this reimagining of daily consumer products, and
you it with a lot of amazing companies that I love,
like Quip with the spermattresses, or Warby Parker like Quip, Yeah,
(27:07):
Quips genius, we love them. Oh my goodness. It's I
think it's a really cool and exciting time for anyone
who's ever looked at a silly part of their life
and thought, why has no one ever dot dot dot? Well,
I know you've got my wheels turning, which means everyone
else listening is like, what can I do? What am
I gonna? I'm like I'm looking around the room right now,
(27:28):
like what can I do? It's cool though. It really
does get people Okay, what can I do in my life?
Or maybe there's something that they hate their job and
now you just trigger them to think of something else
they can do. It's it's really cool and that's why
I love talking to people like you. Um but you
mentioned that you do customer service, you do all of it,
you do social media. Do you have anyone working for
(27:49):
you at all? I have found it does not make
sense for me to invest my time and effort into
things that other people can do better. So I am
a big fan of finding people who can do things
better than I can and utilizing that and you know,
making my life easier. For example, we've had help, We've
(28:09):
had outside help with people who help us with pr Instagram,
for example, is a is a big one for me.
I am not a photographer, and I struggled a lot
in the beginning because I wanted to create a brand look.
I wanted this to be an aspirational kind of lifestyle product,
(28:30):
and it was really difficult for me because I'm not
a photographer. So instead of struggling and spending hours trying
to become mediocre at something I was not that great at.
I found a better solution, which was, there are these
amazing companies online that will just take stock photos that
(28:51):
you can then put your product into what I know
insider secret here, guys, if you were struggling with your Instagram,
it was a life change job. Now I'm going through
looking at everything. It probably saved me I don't even
know ten fifteen hours a week and money to to
(29:11):
hire a photographer at that point. And money. I mean,
it's just if there's anything that you can have someone
else do that's better than you are, do it. Thank you.
I am like an absolute fan of this. Can you
tell us the name of the companies that you use
for this? Should I be saying this is I don't know, Stully,
(29:33):
I don't know, should I? I mean it will help
other side hustlers, but that's that's true, will help up
these side hustlers. And me and I googled, god, probably
a year ago at this point stock Instagram photography. Wow. Yes,
I mean it got to the point I was like,
why am I turning my wheels and trying to come
(29:56):
up with these amazing photographers where they're what there are
people that are doing that much better than I am.
And there are a ton of really great companies out
there who can sell you either images like one by
one or I do a monthly subscription to a stock
photo kind of box almost that will send you thirty images.
(30:18):
They're already curated. They look amazing together, which is a
huge part of creating a great Instagram brand is to
not have you know, these random one off images, but
to have images are working a really well together. And
the great and brilliant thing is that some of the
images are flat lays, so that if you know basic photoshop,
you can take a flat leg of your product and
(30:40):
then just overlay it until their existing stock Instagram stock photos.
I didn't even know you could do that. There you go.
I know it's amazing and I didn't know what either.
When I found out, I was like, shout it from
the hilltops. Everyone has to know that there is a
better way to do this. It might not be Instagram
for everyone. It might be maybe you're terrible at writing
(31:02):
blog posts, like, don't spend your time and effort doing
something that you know you're spending your time doing something better.
Just hire someone to write a blog for you, or
if it's building a website, or if it's doing being
in fulfillment. If your time could be better spent doing
something else, then do it. You only have twenty four
hours in a day. You should not be spending it
on something that you know is you can have someone
(31:24):
else do well. You bring up a good point. It's
like investment verse learning. Yes, you you know you learned
a lot. You learned all about the plastic world and
all of that and manufacturing, but it comes to a
point where you cannot literally learn everything. I mean, you
can try, and it's great to know all of it.
It's not that you don't know how to take pictures.
You just thought, Okay, it's better for me to invest
(31:45):
your than it is for me to waste my time,
and I probably won't do as good as a job
as this person. So clearly you're saying it's important to
invest when you're doing this exactly, it's important to know
what your strengths are and to put your time and
effort against that. For me, I put a lot of
my time and effort into interacting with our customers, which
I think is really important because we have grown so
(32:08):
much on word of mouth, it's really a necessity to
have someone who can to and answer emails personally and
get feedback from their customers. I can do that really well.
I'm good at writing. I do our blogs. I'm great
at our website. Those are all things that I can
handle really well. And big picture things, you know, and
PR outreach and marketing. But when it comes to things
(32:30):
like coding, when it comes to photography, yeah, even when
it comes to you know, contracts and sales and importing,
that's something that it's not worth me investing when I
can have someone else do it smart. It's really so
when you're talking about PR, when you sent over to me,
you have this form. It's important polish and it's kind
(32:51):
of everything bullets about the company? Is that something your
PR company worked on for you? That is something I did?
You did this did I did it myself? You know?
It's funny. This one sheet that I created has gotten
more use than probably anything I have done for the
company or maybe we'll ever do for the company again.
(33:13):
It has been so helpful because when you have an
opportunity that arises, you have to take it as quickly
as possible and being able if someone reaches out and
says I'm interested in your brand, I want to work
with you. To be able to have a one sheet
that has all of your information on it and all
of your bullet points, and to have lifestyle and product
(33:34):
photos ready is invaluable. I mean, I have a folder
with our one sheet with all of our best lifestyle
photos and with all of our product photos just ready.
So if anyone ever says, hey, I want to include
you in this we're going to print or I'm going
live in an hour, I can say, no worries and
(33:56):
I can send it straight over, you know, And being
on this end of the you have no idea how
often that does happen anyone listening where we reach out
to companies or however, it's like, can you send me
everything within twenty minutes, We're going on the air with it.
It's crazy that really does happen. But it's so funny
you bring up the one sheet, and this is something
so important. I'm surprised not one single person has talked
about this yet that that I've talked to. So many
(34:19):
people will come to either myself or myself and Anthony
as a show and say, hey, do you have a
one sheet on you or a one sheet on the show,
and half the time we're like, but just look at
my Instagram. No, but you're so so right. Whatever your
brand is, whether it's you, your Instagram account, or your pillbox,
you should one sheet. It's is it a resume? I'm
(34:40):
assuming for your product? Really is the best way to
describe it. It really is, especially for a product like
hours that you know, one of our major selling points
is that this is a lifestyle accessory. We are selling
this as something that fits into your life. So I
don't want someone I want to be able to tell
all that story. I don't want someone to try to
(35:02):
intuit that story from looking at the website, in the
Instagram and the product. I want to be able to
come out and get in front of that and say
this is the product, this is what it means, this
is who it's for, and be able to tell that
story in my own words first, which is why something
like a one sheet is invaluable. You're protecting your brand
(35:23):
at that point exactly. You're controlling what people know, the
information they have, and how they perceive it. It's all
in your hands, which a lot of people don't know
the importance of They don't realize what could happen if
you just say, here's a picture or here's my website.
But being able to kind of control your what it does,
what it doesn't do, you know. I mean, in this case,
(35:44):
we know what it does and what it doesn't do,
but in most case, in most cases, we don't. So
it's super super important to control your brand. I think
we all can take a lot of a lot from
that whole situation that you just talked about. Yeah, I mean,
especially when you were selling a physical product, it is
so important to have a brand behind it. You know,
if you're selling if you're a photographer, or if you
(36:08):
you know, are a small business owner, you know, a
you own a brick and mortar store, that's one thing.
But if you have a physical product, you need to
be able to differentiate yourself from anyone else who might
also be able to create that physical product. If someone
if someone came out tomorrow and said, look, I literally
made this exact same pillbox. I want to be able
(36:30):
to have a brand to stand behind the product itself.
What is an app that you can recommend to everyone
or just an app that you use. It doesn't have
to be Hey, everyone to download this an app that
you use that you love other than Instagram. Oh that's tough.
You know. An app that I use a lot is
our analytics, the analytics for our website, because it's so
(36:53):
interesting sometimes, you know, I have notifications on my phone
when we get sales, and sometimes I will be somewhere
and see these orders just come pouring in. And it's
really great to be able to quickly go to our
analytics and say where is this traffic coming from? Because
if I miss that opportunity, if I miss seeing where
(37:15):
that traffic is coming from, that I can't then leverage that.
And exactly, if I can see that there's a blog
that's getting a lot of play, that's you know, we're
getting a lot of clickthroughs from some blog, then I
can then contact them and say, hey, I saw your blog.
This looks amazing. G mind if I post this on
our Instagram and then I can make sure that we
(37:37):
have traffic coming through that blog from our Instagram as well.
Whereas if I'm not keeping an eye on that and
I'm just looking back and saying, O, hey, cool, Tuesday,
we had a ton of sales and I'm you know,
missing now. But I'm a great opportunity. What do you
use for your analytics? Like? How does that? I don't
even know that world? Yeah, so I use Google analyt it.
(38:00):
It is a bear to set up. It is not
the most user friendly, but once you have it set up,
it's kind of a set it and forget it. Where
you can look and there's literally just one page that
says where your traffic is coming from, which is what
I use the most, and it will give you click
through links so you can quickly say, oh, this blog
is sending me the most traffic today, let me click through,
(38:22):
let me see exactly what they say and where. And
you know, there's a bunch of other functionality that I'm
sure other people use in different ways, but that's my
number one is being able to see where the traffic
is coming from. That's really important to me. One thing
that we have not talked about. I don't know how
where did you get the name important polish from? Okay,
(38:42):
So I'm a writer. That has been my entire career
up until being a pillbox maker. So I sat in
a coffee shop one day and I filled pages and
pages with all the adjectives and nouns and verb I
could think of that related to what I thought this
(39:03):
pillbox was all about. So I thought of a bunch
of different words for, you know, keeping something safe, like
I was thinking, oh, like an overhead compartment in an
airplane that keeps things safe, you know. Or I was
trying to think, what's another word for something that looks good,
like fancy or glamorous, so exactly. So I wrote this
(39:25):
whole list of words. And so I came to my
husband and I'm bouncing ideas often, and I'm like, I'm
thinking port and polish, you know, polish meaning looking really
good and port as in, you know, a port is
where you keep boats to keep them, you know, kind
of safe from storm. Yeah. And he's like, oh, but
also port could be short for portable, and we're looking
(39:48):
at each other. I was like, oh, that's way better. Yeah,
really much better than port. I was like, for portable
is actually much more accessible of an idea than a boat.
Port so important polish. I love it. Do you still
have the original note that you were seting? Sitting there?
Frame itt frame it. It's it's funny because I looked
(40:10):
back at it years later and it's just straight gibberish.
I mean, some of the ideas are cute, but then
there's just like trunk. I don't know how I thought
it was going to use trunk or pill trunk. Here's
your pill trunk pill trunk. I don't know how I
thought it was going to use that, but I wanted
to make sure I remembered it clearly. Absolutely okay. So
if people want to find you and shop the pill boxes,
(40:32):
check them out. It's port and Polish co dot com.
Would love for you to be able to support Megan,
her husband, and her baby in any way possible. Also
on Instagram, it's Portant Polished dot com. Thank you Megan
so much for taking time out of your insanely busy day.
I know it's not easy running a company and having
a newborn, so thank you very much. Thank you for
(40:52):
having me
For a lot of people. You know, why are you when?
Do you know what you want to do? And this
is something you want to do and do it. I'm
a hustle side side hustle. Do it. I'm a hustle
a sod sid hustl do it. I'm a hustle side
sid hustlow. I'm a hustle side us slow. I'm a
hustle side side hustle. Come on ask about me, yo yo.
(00:23):
It's the Side Hustless podcast. We call the Yes Yes, Yes.
It is another edition of my Side Hustlers podcast. I'm
Carla Marie, which you probably know if you found this
at this point. Um. Today, I am hanging out with
Megan Juan. Hello, Megan, Hi. And by hanging out I
mean she is on the other side of the country
(00:44):
and I am in the studio in Seattle. Where are
you right now? I'm in New York City. We've been
in touch for a little under a year now, right. Yeah,
obviously I've never met, never seen each other, but Megan
created and this is going to sound so strange when
I say it at first, but we're gonn to learn
a whole lot more about it. A pill box and
not your grandma's pill boxes. That your slogan, because it
(01:05):
should be. Honestly, it should be, because whenever someone describes
this pillbox to someone else, that's what they inevitably wind
up saying. It's not your grandmother's pill box. So the
name of your company is Portant Polish, and if you
want to look at what we're talking about right now,
it's port and Polish co dot com. By the way,
your Instagram though super cute. Thank you so much. I
appreciate that it is curated very well and it's like
(01:29):
one of those things you look at and just like
Instagram goals, So good job. That's also Portant Polish if
you want to check it out. So I guess the
question we should start with is why pill boxes? Yeah,
that's what most people ask. So actually, a couple of
years ago, I was packing for a trip for the
(01:49):
weekend and I had all my pills with me. I
was taking birth control, I had vitamin supplements, prescription medication.
I think I was taking like fish oil and vitamin
D and all that. And as I was packing for
the weekend and getting all these pills together, I was like,
this is, you know, ridiculous. I need some sort of
better way to carry these. And then when I went
to the store to get a pill box, they were
(02:10):
just I mean, if you've ever seen a typical pillbox,
they are just so ugly. They're the living world. They're bulky,
they're like clear, they have those like obnoxious blue letters
for every day of the week on them. Yes, it's
almost like they want to punish you for taking a medication, right.
They just assume that nobody, you know, taking medication is
(02:31):
going to care what they look like, which is really silly. Well,
because we equate people taking medication as old people who
leave them on their counter, when exactly there are young
people that care about their health. And do you have
to take either medication or vitamins. I mean, I'm in
the same boat as you. All those vitamins you listed
are all the vitamins I'm taking and more. I might
need to add a second pill box at this point,
(02:52):
so you know, I and a lot of people could
take pills my goal. And the thing that I did
not understand is why no one was making a pill
box that you could take out in public and feel
good about, you know, especially I feel like in the
last couple of years they there have been this amazing
kind of reimagining of wellness type products. That's something you
can be proud of, whether it's you know, a cute
(03:14):
water bottle, whether it's yeah, yeah, whether it's bottle exactly exactly.
And I was I had said to my husband kind of,
you know, jokingly, I was like, I don't know why
no one has made a pillbox that you could just
you know, take out and leave on the table a
brunch with your friends, or you could leave on your
desk at work and not be embarified. He had said
(03:36):
back to me, you know, well why don't you make one?
And that was yeah, And that was kind of the beginning.
So what was the first step for doing this? Like, okay,
your husband says that, are you like, okay, I can
actually do this? How do I physically? Because hold on
time out. What was your job at the time? So
I was working in digital media? Okay, digital media? Are
(03:58):
you still doing that? Know? So we had, you know,
he had said to me, well, why don't you do that?
So at the time I was working full time and
digital media. Um, you know, which anyone who has worked
in any sort of media capacity knows as a very
kind of demanding job. You know, there's a lot going on.
So for the next year I had kind of gone
(04:19):
through this ideation stage where I was, you know, thinking
about what would this box look like, what problems do
I want to solve, you know, and kind of chugging along.
And then last April I was laid off, and you know,
there was this moment where I was looking at next
steps and I thought, I can either start applying, you know,
(04:40):
at other places and I can find a new job,
or I can just really give this a go and
I can give it my all and I can try
to make this work and you know, see how it goes.
So I decided I'm really going to give this a shot.
I thought, you know, if there's one time in my
life that I'm going to have the ability to really
try to make this work, it's now. And I didn't
(05:02):
want to not give it a go and spend the
rest of my life thinking we'll shoot, you know what
if I had just really tried. So that was a yes.
So now what we're exactly two years later, You've got
the company off the ground. You're selling is it three
different colors? Five different colors? Five? Okay, wait, wait, let
(05:23):
me see if I get them. Oh, I got it
navy black, light, pink, gray and white. Yes, exact. Damn,
so I have navy. I love it. It is sleek,
it's I'm gonna I have one in front of me
right now. So the packaging that you do, and I
want to get more into obviously how it all started
and what you did, but the final product right now,
it's incredible. So when you open it, like it's just,
(05:44):
oh my god, I want to open my new cute pillbox,
like I'm excited to unwrap everything, like I'm unwrapping one
right now. I love it so much. And then you
open it and it's this sleek little thing and it's
it's smooth, and you're right, it's so simple, but it's
super exciting, and I'm like, oh, I want to take
my pills now. I can't wait to take it out
and and show everyone my cool new pillbox. Like whoever
(06:05):
thought I'd say that? I mean that, that's honestly exactly.
The point is I just wanted something. You feel like again,
when you have a cute water bottle, or would you
have a great new sports bra, you just are excited
and you just you feel good about that aspect of wellness.
And you know, whether you're a healthy person trying to
be healthier or a sick person trying to get healthy,
(06:27):
no one wants to be embarrassed or feel, you know,
awkward about taking their pills because that's something you know,
that's neutral or something you should be proud of. Oh. Absolutely,
But when you got laid off and you said, Okay,
I'm gonna do this, what the heck did you do first? Oh? God? So,
I mean, I honestly, I knew nothing about plastics manufacturing.
(06:50):
I mean, this was completely completely new to me. The
first stage really was figuring out, you know, what do
I want this pillbox to look like? What what problems
do I want it to solve? And like you had mentioned,
these old pill boxes, they're bulky, they don't they're not portable,
which is silly because a lot of people take their
pills everywhere, whether they're traveling or you know, yeah it's
a breakfast or whatever. So once I had kind of
(07:12):
stched out what I wanted this pill box to look like,
the next step was literally how do I manufacture a
plastic product? Which I knew about as much as I
assume you do. So I had to kind of learn
from scratch about I mean really pleptics manufacturing. I honestly,
it sounds so silly. I was googling. I've spent most
(07:35):
of my days googling, like, how do you manufacture plastic?
What type of plastics you need to store pills in?
You know, how does want to even create a box
like that? You know? And what wound up happening is
I kind of learned from the ground up, and there
was a lot of mistakes and stumbling and there was
probably a lot of lost time from getting you know,
(07:57):
down one direction and realizing that wasn't to work and
you know, down another. So what we really did is
kind of tapped into our network, which I think it
has been one of the greatest lessons for me, is
to try to tap into as many friends and family
and friends of family, etcetera, etcetera that you know we have.
That's why we network, you know, you really do. Because
(08:21):
it wound up my husband's family knew someone that owned
a factory that created exactly these yeah, these custom plastics,
and we had found a couple of factories, but the
minimum mortar quantity was like thirty thousands, which is just insane.
Especially you know, when you're starting out. So being able
(08:42):
to kind of work our network and find someone who
knew us was great because we were able to negotiate
that down and get a minimum mortar quantity. I think
our first run was maybe five thousand, which was obviously
quite a bit more doable. Yeah, yeah, I mean we're
on our third run now. So one of the biggest
lessons for us has been kind of figuring out how
(09:03):
to work inventory, because you know, I do not have
a background in inventory, like I was mentioning. My background
is all in writing and media. So it's been interesting
for me to learn that as these products sell, you know,
they don't sell on a straight diagonal line. It's really
a belt. You know, It's slow in the beginning, and
then it really does shoot up. So being able to
(09:26):
manage our inventory has been kind of a learning process
for me. As we grow quickly, we're trying to learn
how fast these now sell. That's insane, though it's it's amazing.
I mean I think sometimes I see pictures that people
have tagged of these pill boxes and I can't wrap
my head around the fact that this, you know, was
(09:46):
my baby that a couple of years ago I was,
you know, sitting on my computer with literally Microsoft like paint,
trying to draw out what I think I wanted this
to look like. And now people own it. They actually
own this physical product that I made, which is really great.
It's a really good Well congratulations on that, because that's incredible.
You know, everyone's got this cool idea of what they
(10:08):
want to make. Very few people actually make it and
then actually sell it and then get to be where
you are now. So yeah, it's not anything. It's funny
you say that because I in the beginning when we
when you know it was first kicking around this idea
of a pill box. I had thought, you know, wow,
I am the smartest woman in the world. No one's
(10:28):
ever thought of this idea before, like, wow, a pill
box for you know, younger people. And then the more
I got into the actual manufacturing and importing and you know,
all of this, I realized I'm not the first person
to have come up with this idea. I'm just the
first person who's been able to grind and grind and
(10:50):
grind to make it happen. That makes a difference when
you can there you go exactly there. You know, it's
it was a really eye opening experience to kind of
take an idea from idea to creation. You know, it's hard.
It's a lot easier to have a great idea, but
once you're in the thick of it and you're waking
(11:12):
up every day and you're trying to learn about you know,
international import law, that's when you're like, this is a
lot harder than you know, getting happened a good idea, Well,
how did you? How do you market it? How do
you because you're obviously not spending advertising money, you know,
on on radio or TV or magazine, So what has
been your way to market this pillbox? In the beginning,
(11:35):
it was obviously a lot of family and friends and
then word of mouth, which was great. In the beginning,
I was doing a lot of social media marketing. So
I was on Instagram and I you know, like I mentioned,
I was just grinding away. I was trying to post
and search for influencers, and I commented on every post
from every commented. Yes, that's how I found you, as
(11:58):
I had commented. No, I think I commented on your
friends Instagram and then you had seen it. Oh my god,
probably because I'm yeah. So I was, you know, commenting
and trying to make these connections with bloggers and influencers
and try to get in front of as many eyes
as I could. And it was a really slow process.
(12:20):
You know. We would connect with one blogger who would
be like, you know what, send me your product. If
I like it, you know, then I'll post about it.
And we started out, you know, influencers who had maybe
a thousand followers, and then maybe ten thousand followers, and
then fifty thousand followers, and then it is really it
has had a kind of cumulative snowball effect where we
(12:43):
had smaller bloggers, which led to larger bloggers, which led
to Real Simple magazine, which led to buzz Feed, which
led to the Washington Post. Slow. Yeah, it's just really
slow kind of snowball. But for us, it was really
just a ton of grind ding away. You know, was
no more glamorous than that, really, but really that's what
(13:05):
you have to do. I mean, it's very rare that
someone starts to come in company and is like, all right,
I'm gonna go spend ad dollars in radio and TV,
and you have to do the organic type of advertising.
It is the best type of advertising, word of mouth.
I mean, that's what social media is at this point.
It's word of mouth. It's just a different way. So
that's the smartest thing you could have done. So I
(13:26):
was talking about how much I loved your packaging for
the pill box, Like, I didn't just get a pill
box and a random envelope. I had an experience when
I opened it. It It was this tiny little box. It
had a portant policy sticker on the outside, and then
I opened that and then it's wrapped in this cute
little tissue also with another sticker, and it's got your
business card in there. So in another card explaining about
(13:47):
the pill box, tell me why was it so cute
for me to open it? I So, I am just
a huge sucker for packaging and marketing, and you know,
I love pretty things. That's just my jam. And my
favorite thing in the world is when I order something
and opening it up is a little experience. You know,
(14:08):
I don't think it's as fun to get something the
mail and it comes in, you know, a dusty plastic
bag that you know, it doesn't really feel like yeah,
like an event. And again, the whole idea behind the
pill boxes to be able to make people feel good
about taking their pills. And I think with any consumer
product that you're marketing and selling, you want that excited
(14:31):
feeling to start when they place their order, like when
you're there on your website. You want to get them excited.
You want them to be excited that it shift and
they're waiting for it, and you want them to be
excited when it comes in the mail and they get
to open it. It It should be a bit more than
just you know, opening a plastic sleeve. So that kind
of goes to show you it's great to have this idea,
(14:51):
but you not only have to create the idea, but
you really have to go above and beyond you kind
of really you have to sell it to people even
after they bought it, because now, not only do I
have this cute little pill box, but I had an
experience with it, and I love it. I want to
tell my friends about it. I gave it to my
mom for Mother's Day last year, and she's in her
sixties and she's like, oh my god, I'm obsessed. Like
(15:12):
she thinks that's the cutest thing, and she loves it.
I don't think it's just for young women. Have you
been noticing that older women are shopping it? Too. Yeah.
I mean, it's it's funny because in the beginning, I
had this idea of what I wanted this pill box
to me, which is, I want this to be a
wellness successory for you know, urban millennial women who are
going to stick it in their clutch and take it
(15:33):
to brunch with them. And that was my idea because
that was how I planned to use it. And we
had done some focus group testing in the beginning. And
when I say focus group testing, it was literally me
creating a form and sending it to fifty of my
most patient and kind family and friends because I wanted
their feedback about what they thought about this idea. That
(15:54):
is so important. I don't think I've talked to any
single person so far who has said anything about reaching
out to people, asking them questions before kind of diving in.
That is like invaluable advice right there. You've got this
focus group of people in your life, do what you did,
make a form, send it out to them, and go
from there. That's amazing, Thank you. Yeah, I mean it
(16:14):
was really interesting because I didn't want to create this
product and then try to, you know, retroactively push these
assets into it based on who I thought was going
to be buying it, so to be able to talk
to people at first, you know, and I asked questions
like how many pills a day do you take? Because
I had this idea of what the size I wanted
(16:37):
it to be was. But if that didn't really pan out,
then it didn't make sense for me to try to
force people to buy what I thought my ideal product
was going to be. My initial idea was it was
going to be for urban millennial women who you know,
we're going to throw it in their clutch and take
it to brunch, because that's how I planned on using it.
And as we've been selling more and more, it's been
(16:59):
interesting to see how the consumer base that I thought
was going to buy it has branched off into these
kind of different buckets and it's very interesting. There's you know,
obviously what I just described, who I kind of thought
would be the target market, but there's also, like I
mentioned before, there's healthy people who want to get healthier.
(17:19):
There's you know, and in that bucket kind of includes
you know, the people going a hot yoga and drinking
their green juice and taking their supplements. You know, there's
that kind of group there's this amazing group of people
with chronic illnesses. We have so many people contact us
who have cancer or they have you know, they have
these chronic diseases where they need to take a lot
of pills, and that has been really rewarding kind of
(17:42):
subgroup to see that this is you know, made a
difference for Yeah. I mean, going back to the whole
look of it. Imagine, you know, you're going through that
you have this awful disease illness, and you at least
get a little glimmer of something nice that you own.
You're not having this awful experience of opening this clunky, clear,
ugly colored pill box. You have something cute and granted
(18:03):
that's not gonna change anything, but it may uplift your
mood a little bit. Yeah, and I think, you know,
we've heard back from a lot of people who have
chronic illnesses and who have these pill box and it
has been just so rewarding to hear from these people
who say, you know, I'm in the hospital or you know,
I've talked to several people who have had organ transplants
(18:26):
and they say, this is a small bit of getting
to feel normal, getting to feel like a regular person.
Because you shouldn't have to carry around a pill box
that makes you feel like it's a medical device. You know,
that's not fair. It's like one more thing on top
of everything they have to deal with, and being able
to carry around a pill box that they can feel
(18:49):
good about is just a small, I don't know, a
small step toward feeling like a normal person. And that's
been really really rewarding to hear you've taken something that
we've all kind of just taken for in it, I guess,
and made it something that we're excited about and something
cute and chee and instagram able really and that's what
you've done. And that's such a smart way of thinking.
(19:11):
But do you think that if you hadn't been laid off,
even if you had the idea, you could have done
this while working? I think I think I could have.
I think it would have been a much longer road.
Being able to dedicate eight hours a day really helped
kind of push over that hump where I was stuck
(19:34):
a bit between this is my idea and this is
turning it into a reality. And you know that is
not at all to say that if you have a
full time job, you can't also pour your heart and
soul into whatever, you know, you think your side hustle
is going to be. It's just that it really helped
it move quite a bit faster writing on it too.
(19:55):
At that point it was like it fails, I'm also
at work tomorrow. No. Yeah, I was like, if it fails,
I am in a heap of trouble. So, you know,
for me, that was the push that I needed. And
you know, if six months had gone by and I had,
you know, given it my all and I thought, you know,
like maybe this isn't a great idea that I thought
it was going to, that would have been a different story.
(20:16):
But I really thought it was a great idea. I
did from the beginning. I thought this is a really
fantastic idea and I want to see it through and
I didn't want to regret it. So it just seemed
very it seemed like serendipity that I, you know, got
laid off when I did at this kind of key
juncture where it was either do I continue on in
(20:37):
digital media, this you know, job that I like and
kind of have this on the back burner until if
and when I'm able to dedicate more to it, or do.
I just kind of roll the dice and go for
it and give it my all and really see if
I can make it work. It's funny when you were
saying that about I really believed in my idea. I
had flashbacks to talking to Tatum in the first episode
(20:57):
about This Is magazine and then talking to you Adriana
from a Little Words project. They bolted the same thing, like,
I know this was a good idea. I I knew
it now I just needed to do it. So it's
cool kind of hearing the three of you really have
that that fire. That's like, I know I like this,
I know other people are gonna like it. Now I
just have to do it. And believing in yourself it's
(21:18):
clearly a huge part of launching a side hustle. Yes
it is. It is a huge part. But obviously you
believe in yourself. Was there anyone along the way you
don't have to name them specifically, who doubted you, who
didn't support you, who told you were crazy? I mean
we've all had them. Was there most type of people? Oh? Yeah,
of course there definitely was. I mean when you say
(21:38):
to someone, you know, I'm not going to get another job,
I'm going to make pillboxes. That's what a big that's
a big statement. And you know there were people certainly
who were like, why would anyone on earth pay for
a pill box? That's insane. You can just get a
clear one, you know, for a couple dollars and who
(22:01):
cares if it's ugly. And you know, you can either
take that and internalize and start to doubt yourself and think, well,
you know, it is kind of a silly idea, why
would someone do that? You know, I might not actually
have this great idea, or you can say, you know,
you're probably not our target market. That's totally that's a
totally valid thing to say, is that you know, some
(22:25):
people will think this is silly, and those people will
think it's silly, but those are not the people that
I'm trying to reach. The people I'm trying to reach
are the ones like myself and me that will pay
like you, that will pay money for something that looks
good and makes them feel good. And that's you know
the difference between people who buy cute water bottles or
(22:46):
nice nightclasses or great sunscreen exactly what's that makes them
feel amazing? Well, and speaking at price, my thow It's
not like you're spending sixty dollars on a pillbox. It's fifteen, right, Yeah,
I mean, and it's still pretty awesome. Plus it's got
a mirror inside, which is like, yeah, I have never
never been sad that I had an extra mirror lying around.
(23:07):
And I will tell you I take that thing out
probably four times a day just for the mirror itself.
So have you ever been out and taken it out,
looked at the mirror, opened it, and had someone say, oh,
that's so cute. It's actually very funny. A lot of
people all take that out and we'll think it's a
compact and have been like, that's a pill box, and like,
it is a pill box. And let me tell you
(23:27):
someth thinking you want to port and polish code. Good good,
But yeah, I mean, the great thing is it really
it doesn't look like a typical pill box. I know
you're in New York City, so there's billions of people
all over the place. But have you ever been out
and seen someone with one? Oh? Gosh, you know, I haven't.
I would probably die of happiness. It will happen, I
(23:50):
can't imagine yet. I would be the happiest woman in
the world. I mean, every time I see it tagged
on Instagram, I am extremely happy. When we were in
Real Simple, I bought like six copies. It's incredible though.
It's so cool. And last week in our podcast, I
talked to Ronnie and he mentioned something like, you know,
(24:11):
no one at this point is really inventing anything brand new.
We're kind of just making things better. Things we've always had.
You're just kind of making them better. And you've done that,
and you've really like capitalized on this whole world that
no one was really thinking about. And it's so smart
on you, I guess, and your husband for giving you
(24:31):
the little extra push. Yeah, I mean it really Once
I realized that there was this problem, it was crazy
to me that no one had thought to redo a
pill box. I mean, and I think it just takes
someone looking at a problem that they themselves want to
(24:53):
fix to get it fixed. I mean. The reason I
created this pill box and have spent the last two
years of my life, you know, with this as my career,
it's because I wanted to own it. I created it
because I wanted to own it so badly. And then
I assumed that other people did well, well, they do
have you Have you at any point thought, Okay, what's next?
(25:16):
Like what else can I do? Can I add more? Think?
Can I make other things cool? Or are you just
good with this for now? I have thought of ways
that I can make this pill box better. We've actually
been contacted by a lot of people who have chronic
illnesses who say, you know, I love this, but I
take pills multiple times a day. Would you ever make
one with an a MPM divider, which I think is
(25:37):
absolutely brilliant, and which is I take customer service and
I do all of our social media. And it's really
been eye opening to me to have those conversations with people,
because if you're not listening to the people who are
buying your product, and you're missing out on, you know,
some really valuable insights, because sometimes when you're you know,
in the trenches with this product day and in day out,
(25:59):
it's really value all to have someone who can look
at what you're making and say this is great, and
another thing you could do is this, So I think, yeah,
I think that's kind of the next step. But honestly,
there are so many of these daily little problems that
I think no one has thought to reimagining because it
(26:21):
didn't affect them necessarily, and it didn't necessarily affect I
think anyone in their sphere, you know, just having I
just had a baby a couple of months ago, and
even just having a baby has been incredible to me
because there's these like little hiccups during the day that
you're like, why has no one thought too x y Z.
And I think, like you said, no one's really inventing
(26:43):
a lot of new things. You know, there's no more
automobile that's going to be creative, but there's these daily
things that no one has thought to really make better.
And I think this reimagining of daily consumer products, and
you it with a lot of amazing companies that I love,
like Quip with the spermattresses, or Warby Parker like Quip, Yeah,
(27:07):
Quips genius, we love them. Oh my goodness. It's I
think it's a really cool and exciting time for anyone
who's ever looked at a silly part of their life
and thought, why has no one ever dot dot dot? Well,
I know you've got my wheels turning, which means everyone
else listening is like, what can I do? What am
I gonna? I'm like I'm looking around the room right now,
(27:28):
like what can I do? It's cool though. It really
does get people Okay, what can I do in my life?
Or maybe there's something that they hate their job and
now you just trigger them to think of something else
they can do. It's it's really cool and that's why
I love talking to people like you. Um but you
mentioned that you do customer service, you do all of it,
you do social media. Do you have anyone working for
(27:49):
you at all? I have found it does not make
sense for me to invest my time and effort into
things that other people can do better. So I am
a big fan of finding people who can do things
better than I can and utilizing that and you know,
making my life easier. For example, we've had help, We've
(28:09):
had outside help with people who help us with pr Instagram,
for example, is a is a big one for me.
I am not a photographer, and I struggled a lot
in the beginning because I wanted to create a brand look.
I wanted this to be an aspirational kind of lifestyle product,
(28:30):
and it was really difficult for me because I'm not
a photographer. So instead of struggling and spending hours trying
to become mediocre at something I was not that great at.
I found a better solution, which was, there are these
amazing companies online that will just take stock photos that
(28:51):
you can then put your product into what I know
insider secret here, guys, if you were struggling with your Instagram,
it was a life change job. Now I'm going through
looking at everything. It probably saved me I don't even
know ten fifteen hours a week and money to to
(29:11):
hire a photographer at that point. And money. I mean,
it's just if there's anything that you can have someone
else do that's better than you are, do it. Thank you.
I am like an absolute fan of this. Can you
tell us the name of the companies that you use
for this? Should I be saying this is I don't know, Stully,
(29:33):
I don't know, should I? I mean it will help
other side hustlers, but that's that's true, will help up
these side hustlers. And me and I googled, god, probably
a year ago at this point stock Instagram photography. Wow. Yes,
I mean it got to the point I was like,
why am I turning my wheels and trying to come
(29:56):
up with these amazing photographers where they're what there are
people that are doing that much better than I am.
And there are a ton of really great companies out
there who can sell you either images like one by
one or I do a monthly subscription to a stock
photo kind of box almost that will send you thirty images.
(30:18):
They're already curated. They look amazing together, which is a
huge part of creating a great Instagram brand is to
not have you know, these random one off images, but
to have images are working a really well together. And
the great and brilliant thing is that some of the
images are flat lays, so that if you know basic photoshop,
you can take a flat leg of your product and
(30:40):
then just overlay it until their existing stock Instagram stock photos.
I didn't even know you could do that. There you go.
I know it's amazing and I didn't know what either.
When I found out, I was like, shout it from
the hilltops. Everyone has to know that there is a
better way to do this. It might not be Instagram
for everyone. It might be maybe you're terrible at writing
(31:02):
blog posts, like, don't spend your time and effort doing
something that you know you're spending your time doing something better.
Just hire someone to write a blog for you, or
if it's building a website, or if it's doing being
in fulfillment. If your time could be better spent doing
something else, then do it. You only have twenty four
hours in a day. You should not be spending it
on something that you know is you can have someone
(31:24):
else do well. You bring up a good point. It's
like investment verse learning. Yes, you you know you learned
a lot. You learned all about the plastic world and
all of that and manufacturing, but it comes to a
point where you cannot literally learn everything. I mean, you
can try, and it's great to know all of it.
It's not that you don't know how to take pictures.
You just thought, Okay, it's better for me to invest
(31:45):
your than it is for me to waste my time,
and I probably won't do as good as a job
as this person. So clearly you're saying it's important to
invest when you're doing this exactly, it's important to know
what your strengths are and to put your time and
effort against that. For me, I put a lot of
my time and effort into interacting with our customers, which
I think is really important because we have grown so
(32:08):
much on word of mouth, it's really a necessity to
have someone who can to and answer emails personally and
get feedback from their customers. I can do that really well.
I'm good at writing. I do our blogs. I'm great
at our website. Those are all things that I can
handle really well. And big picture things, you know, and
PR outreach and marketing. But when it comes to things
(32:30):
like coding, when it comes to photography, yeah, even when
it comes to you know, contracts and sales and importing,
that's something that it's not worth me investing when I
can have someone else do it smart. It's really so
when you're talking about PR, when you sent over to me,
you have this form. It's important polish and it's kind
(32:51):
of everything bullets about the company? Is that something your
PR company worked on for you? That is something I did?
You did this did I did it myself? You know?
It's funny. This one sheet that I created has gotten
more use than probably anything I have done for the
company or maybe we'll ever do for the company again.
(33:13):
It has been so helpful because when you have an
opportunity that arises, you have to take it as quickly
as possible and being able if someone reaches out and
says I'm interested in your brand, I want to work
with you. To be able to have a one sheet
that has all of your information on it and all
of your bullet points, and to have lifestyle and product
(33:34):
photos ready is invaluable. I mean, I have a folder
with our one sheet with all of our best lifestyle
photos and with all of our product photos just ready.
So if anyone ever says, hey, I want to include
you in this we're going to print or I'm going
live in an hour, I can say, no worries and
(33:56):
I can send it straight over, you know, And being
on this end of the you have no idea how
often that does happen anyone listening where we reach out
to companies or however, it's like, can you send me
everything within twenty minutes, We're going on the air with it.
It's crazy that really does happen. But it's so funny
you bring up the one sheet, and this is something
so important. I'm surprised not one single person has talked
about this yet that that I've talked to. So many
(34:19):
people will come to either myself or myself and Anthony
as a show and say, hey, do you have a
one sheet on you or a one sheet on the show,
and half the time we're like, but just look at
my Instagram. No, but you're so so right. Whatever your
brand is, whether it's you, your Instagram account, or your pillbox,
you should one sheet. It's is it a resume? I'm
(34:40):
assuming for your product? Really is the best way to
describe it. It really is, especially for a product like
hours that you know, one of our major selling points
is that this is a lifestyle accessory. We are selling
this as something that fits into your life. So I
don't want someone I want to be able to tell
all that story. I don't want someone to try to
(35:02):
intuit that story from looking at the website, in the
Instagram and the product. I want to be able to
come out and get in front of that and say
this is the product, this is what it means, this
is who it's for, and be able to tell that
story in my own words first, which is why something
like a one sheet is invaluable. You're protecting your brand
(35:23):
at that point exactly. You're controlling what people know, the
information they have, and how they perceive it. It's all
in your hands, which a lot of people don't know
the importance of They don't realize what could happen if
you just say, here's a picture or here's my website.
But being able to kind of control your what it does,
what it doesn't do, you know. I mean, in this case,
(35:44):
we know what it does and what it doesn't do,
but in most case, in most cases, we don't. So
it's super super important to control your brand. I think
we all can take a lot of a lot from
that whole situation that you just talked about. Yeah, I mean,
especially when you were selling a physical product, it is
so important to have a brand behind it. You know,
if you're selling if you're a photographer, or if you
(36:08):
you know, are a small business owner, you know, a
you own a brick and mortar store, that's one thing.
But if you have a physical product, you need to
be able to differentiate yourself from anyone else who might
also be able to create that physical product. If someone
if someone came out tomorrow and said, look, I literally
made this exact same pillbox. I want to be able
(36:30):
to have a brand to stand behind the product itself.
What is an app that you can recommend to everyone
or just an app that you use. It doesn't have
to be Hey, everyone to download this an app that
you use that you love other than Instagram. Oh that's tough.
You know. An app that I use a lot is
our analytics, the analytics for our website, because it's so
(36:53):
interesting sometimes, you know, I have notifications on my phone
when we get sales, and sometimes I will be somewhere
and see these orders just come pouring in. And it's
really great to be able to quickly go to our
analytics and say where is this traffic coming from? Because
if I miss that opportunity, if I miss seeing where
(37:15):
that traffic is coming from, that I can't then leverage that.
And exactly, if I can see that there's a blog
that's getting a lot of play, that's you know, we're
getting a lot of clickthroughs from some blog, then I
can then contact them and say, hey, I saw your blog.
This looks amazing. G mind if I post this on
our Instagram and then I can make sure that we
(37:37):
have traffic coming through that blog from our Instagram as well.
Whereas if I'm not keeping an eye on that and
I'm just looking back and saying, O, hey, cool, Tuesday,
we had a ton of sales and I'm you know,
missing now. But I'm a great opportunity. What do you
use for your analytics? Like? How does that? I don't
even know that world? Yeah, so I use Google analyt it.
(38:00):
It is a bear to set up. It is not
the most user friendly, but once you have it set up,
it's kind of a set it and forget it. Where
you can look and there's literally just one page that
says where your traffic is coming from, which is what
I use the most, and it will give you click
through links so you can quickly say, oh, this blog
is sending me the most traffic today, let me click through,
(38:22):
let me see exactly what they say and where. And
you know, there's a bunch of other functionality that I'm
sure other people use in different ways, but that's my
number one is being able to see where the traffic
is coming from. That's really important to me. One thing
that we have not talked about. I don't know how
where did you get the name important polish from? Okay,
(38:42):
So I'm a writer. That has been my entire career
up until being a pillbox maker. So I sat in
a coffee shop one day and I filled pages and
pages with all the adjectives and nouns and verb I
could think of that related to what I thought this
(39:03):
pillbox was all about. So I thought of a bunch
of different words for, you know, keeping something safe, like
I was thinking, oh, like an overhead compartment in an
airplane that keeps things safe, you know. Or I was
trying to think, what's another word for something that looks good,
like fancy or glamorous, so exactly. So I wrote this
(39:25):
whole list of words. And so I came to my
husband and I'm bouncing ideas often, and I'm like, I'm
thinking port and polish, you know, polish meaning looking really
good and port as in, you know, a port is
where you keep boats to keep them, you know, kind
of safe from storm. Yeah. And he's like, oh, but
also port could be short for portable, and we're looking
(39:48):
at each other. I was like, oh, that's way better. Yeah,
really much better than port. I was like, for portable
is actually much more accessible of an idea than a boat.
Port so important polish. I love it. Do you still
have the original note that you were seting? Sitting there?
Frame itt frame it. It's it's funny because I looked
(40:10):
back at it years later and it's just straight gibberish.
I mean, some of the ideas are cute, but then
there's just like trunk. I don't know how I thought
it was going to use trunk or pill trunk. Here's
your pill trunk pill trunk. I don't know how I
thought it was going to use that, but I wanted
to make sure I remembered it clearly. Absolutely okay. So
if people want to find you and shop the pill boxes,
(40:32):
check them out. It's port and Polish co dot com.
Would love for you to be able to support Megan,
her husband, and her baby in any way possible. Also
on Instagram, it's Portant Polished dot com. Thank you Megan
so much for taking time out of your insanely busy day.
I know it's not easy running a company and having
a newborn, so thank you very much. Thank you for
(40:52):
having me
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.