Boosa Tech: An Update On My Side Hustle Selling Power Banks
This is a follow up story for Boosa Tech. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published about 5 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
Hello again, Starter Story! It’s great to catch up with your readers after a few years. I’m Chris Reimer, owner of Boosa Tech.
We offer a line of portable phone chargers and power banks that you can take with you on the go. Why would you carry a portable, private power source everywhere you go? Because you have a smartphone and it’s your BFF!
Charge your phone! Have you ever had your battery dip below 10% and you’re nowhere near a wall outlet? Charge up that phone! If you think of how much you rely on your iPhone or Android device and aren’t interested in struggling with a low phone battery, spend as little as $26 and your low battery stress goes away. Our customers take their Boosas with them for a day of errands and on trips around the world. Always be charging your phone!
Build something you want to build! Build something you can be proud of, that you’ll want to work hard on, and have your name attached to.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
Boosa Tech is still a side hustle. However, we’ve grown our business in one important way. We sold several hundred units to a conference of university accountants. We don’t operate in the super-low-cost promotional throwaway tchotchke market. Due to cost, conferences do not always source the highest-quality giveaway items.
This conference wanted to give attendees something they’d appreciate and use for years. We customized each power bank with the logo of the conference’s main sponsor. Our goal now is to identify more conference customers, because selling 400-500 units at a time is superior to selling them one at a time via our website.
We also have many happy repeat customers. They buy a Boosa power bank for themselves, and then they start giving them out as gifts. Now that the business is over four years old, we’re seeing early customers buying Boosa power banks again because their Boosa has stopped working.
If you think of any smartphone you’ve had for a few years, the battery is never better than when it’s new. Over time, all batteries degrade, even the batteries in the amazing iPhone.
We were worried that customers would be irritated when their Boosas weakened or stopped operating altogether, but we haven’t received any complaints. In fact, we’re seeing new purchases from them.
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
Lucky for us, nothing too serious! We had some turnover at our manufacturer, with our key account manager moving on. He was instrumental to our success from day 1, so we were sad to see him go. We’re now working with and getting to know his competent replacement, so we didn’t lose too much.
And that’s a good thing because we’ve been working through a few quality issues. (readers, don’t worry. The power banks are still awesome!) A few of our recent power banks arrived with sticky exteriors. The outer shell of power banks has a rubbery, smooth feel and our customers have commented on how great they are to hold in one’s hand. The sticky ones are not as fun to hold, so we’re working through this.
How are we working through it? As every entrepreneur reading, this can attest, I was pretty livid at first if I’m being honest. But after my standard 24-hour cool-down period, I was able to take a higher level view of the situation and I reminded myself: being an entrepreneur is a mixture of vision, drive, and patience. Never forget to add in the patience! I believe “constructive impatience” is an important driver of entrepreneurial progress, but in this case, breathe.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
This will surprise none of your entrepreneurial readers, but it bears repeating. In order to take this business to the next level, I have to work harder. To build something from scratch, to take a small business to a medium-sized business, the entrepreneur must work while other people are sleeping. Simple as that. I’ve noticed some pushback on “hustle culture,” with some of the criticism pointed at people like Gary Vaynerchuk. I don’t give a shit about Lamborghinis or yachts or anything a crypto bro has to say. Your motivation needs to come from somewhere deeper, and more honest. If you want to grow from zero to small, small to medium, medium to big, or you want to do what many entrepreneurs strive to do and go from zero to big, you have to work hard. Call it whatever you want: hustle, growth hacking, that entrepreneur life, putting your nose to the grindstone, whatever! You don’t have to like any of this, and you don’t have to do it. If you want to work your ass off on your big business idea, sacrificing your waistline or your pursuits or time with family, just make the choice and be honest about it. To me, “hustle” is being honest with yourself and saying, “I’m ready to work an above-average amount of time to build something new.
For me, there’s no glory in it. That’s the part I hate about entrepreneurism the most: we’re like heroes or something. Entrepreneurs are smart people with great ideas, vision, drive, and a near inability to work for others. We’re not heroes, we’re not the alphas of the world. We’re just stubborn, hardworking businesspeople, no better than any salaried worker. I think people will stop bitching about hustle culture when we as entrepreneurs get over ourselves.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
We have a few retail customers, which is awesome because, as I said before if you can sell 10, 20, or 500 units at a time, that’s superior to selling them one at a time. Our issue is that our packaging is not retail-focused. You can’t hang it on retail slatwall, and the outer packaging contains instructions, not a pitch to buy the product. Right now, we’re readying a new product - a fast-charging power bank - and it will come in retail packaging. Then we will work to acquire small, medium, and large retail customers. If we succeed here, it will change Boosa Tech forever.
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
I read the New York Times and any articles I can find on workplace culture, specifically the struggle between Work From Home advocates and their bosses who want them to come back to the office. That struggle fascinates me.
I haven’t read a book in years. Instead, I wrote one! My first book in 2015 was Happywork. My recently completed second book is a college communication textbook I co-wrote with a professor friend. Our “book,” the Rockstar Communication Workbook, is an online-only series of 80+ exercises designed to put comm students in real-world, simulated situations that will test their knowledge, judgment, and patience. The book is now in use at the university my co-author and I work, and we hope to have other universities adopt it. So to answer the question, as a perfectionist author, I read my book over 50 times!
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
You have to get honest. First, be honest with where you want the business to go. It’s OK if you don’t want to build the next tech unicorn. Build something you want to build! Build something you can be proud of, that you’ll want to work hard on, and have your name attached to. Never worry about what others think, except customers. Second, if you want to build anything of value from nothing, you’ll have to work while others are sleeping. This is not hustling culture or whatever bullshit term you want to attach to it. Hard work is hard work, period. You’re not getting this handed to you on a silver platter unless you inherit a business. Building things from scratch is hard work, it takes time, and you have to carve that time out of your day and night. If that means less family, less gym time, less time learning how to cook or walk your dog, or Netflix binging, then decide. I didn’t say, “Give all of that up,” or “Do it! Do it!” You have to decide what you want, and what you’re willing to do to get there. It’s a choice, and be honest with yourself. For Boosa Tech, a company with great promise, I’m not working while others are sleeping. That’s why it hasn’t yet exponentially grown, and I’m OK with that. I have to be honest with myself and say that balance, family, and health are all important to me right now. So here we are.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We’re not hiring at this time, but eventually, we will be hiring freelancers to help with Facebook ads and Google ads. If we grow sales enough, we will switch to 3PL fulfillment and we’ll need a great shipping partner.
Where can we go to learn more?
Check out Boosa Tech and no matter what you do, please take that discount we’re giving you. Most of all, people, you need to #ChargeYourPhone!
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