Welcome to Ghost Business 👻 Your weekly (mostly) Tuesday email, where we turn $1 into thousands building these weird but simple side hustles

Sleepy time

Zzzz… This year I had one health goal. A single one. It wasn’t to lose weight, or eat better, or talk to a therapist about my side hustle addictions.

My SINGLE health goal for 2024 is to Master My Sleep.

Huh?

Fun fact about me, I have insomnia. Real bad. Some of you are right there with me. This has lead me to a rigorous night time routine. Lemme break mine down for you:

1. Nighttime supplements (I do Magnesium L-Threonate and Apigenin

2. Nighttime attire (XXL loose cotton t-shirt)

3. Perforated blanket (I get real hot)

4. Temp at 65 degrees

5. Fan for white noise

6. No screens past 8p

7. No food past 6p

8. Read 1 page min

9. Sleepy time lotion (deep sleep body cocoon by thisworks)

Yes, I actually do this every. single. night.

But there is one thing that took that made all the difference. ONE THING that made the sleep score hit the 90s consistently.

And that was my wife’s (highly researched) custom made night time tea.

She’s a data scientist and everything needs to be highly researched, tested and measured to the dot. She was determined to find a solution for my insomnia and never have I ever had such great sleep and such vivid dreams (and it turns a cool bleu color)

So that got me thinking…

How much would it cost to create custom nighttime teas and how much could we make selling (actual) dreams?

p.s. she’s sent some to a few friends and if you want to try her tea, go here

The MVP (Getting your first customer)

Dreams 4 sale… This is the fun part. You get to make and try out teas on your friends and family to develop that sweet sweet customer feedback. Turns out you can try almost unlimited types of high quality tea combinations for less than a couple hundred bucks 💰

Also, looks like we’re not the only ones with this problem. Search volume for “sleepy tea” is steadily up and to the right for the past 5 years. Likely due to more screen time for folks.

Once we nail down a couple tea leaf combinations, we can share them with friends and family to help get the word out.

I would also start exploring neighborhood Facebook groups (of course 🙄) and marketplace to start getting first sales in before learning about shipping. Like I’ve mentioned in previous emails, always start with a story (kinda like this in this email) instead of just peddling your wares.

After you get more feedback from strangers on not only the quality of the tea but the packaging and pricing. We’ll be off to the races to get our next 100 customers.

This should cost us per tea package:

• ~$2 tea/herbs

• ~$2 jar/packaging/labels

• $4 total

Depending on your market, you can probably sell these for $10-$15/ tea jar. Meaning a $6-$11 profit per order 😳 

• Square for accepting my customer payments

• Build all my sites no code on Dorik

• I write this newsletter and earn money on Beehiiv 

Getting Your Next 100 Customers

Tea peddlin’… You’ve got your recipe down, your packaging is tight, your pricing hits just right. So what are you waiting for? Start shipping! 🚀 

Well first lets get some customers.

I’d start with micro-influencers. Anyone that you can find in the sleep/wellness space in your area.

These guys are easy to find. Just check out your local:

• spa

• yoga studio

• juice bars

• health markets

instagram and they’ll probably have a handful of influencers they use that you can reach out to.

I’d offer them ~1 months supply of tea for posting a couple time. Everything is negotiable but this is a solid start. Have them direct to your shopping page to order the goods.

Landing 100 orders this way, could land you between $600-$900 in profit and be well on your way to a lucrative side hustle you can operate from home!

(I’d also look into offering subscription models to get that occurring revenue 📈)

Viability:

1 [building spaceships] 🚀 to 5 [easy peasy] 😊 

Reading the tea leaves… Start by asking yourself a couple of questions: do you like tea? do you like to talk about tea? do you like money? If you can say yes to all 3 of these, this might be worth pulling the trigger on!

This can be extended to other types of teas, morning/energy teas, colorful teas, etc. Tea trade is one of the oldest in the books. Might as well give it a shot! 🤷‍♂️

(As usual each business will have it’s own setbacks, and it’s all about the execution and consistency rather than just having the idea)

It’s a great day to be great!

Love, Mike 👋