Nomad Artisan Company

[00:00:00] Sanjay Parekh: Welcome to the Side Hustle to Small Business Podcast, powered by Hiscox. I’m your host, Sanjay Parekh. Throughout my career I’ve had side hustles, some of which turned into real businesses, but first and foremost: I’m a serial technology entrepreneur.

In the creator space, we hear plenty of advice on how to hustle harder and why you can “sleep when you’re dead.” On this show, we ask new questions in hopes of getting new answers.

Questions like: How can small businesses work smarter? How do you achieve balance between work and family? How can we redefine success in our businesses so that we don’t burn out after year three?

Every week, I sit down with business founders at various stages of their side hustle to small business journey. These entrepreneurs are pushing the envelope while keeping their values. Keep listening for conversation, context, and camaraderie.

[00:00:54] Mary Nakaya and Melissa Porras met at church in Los Angeles. While Mary had an art background as a college professor, Melissa was just excited to play with clay on Mary’s pottery wheel. As the two developed a friendship, they also started dreaming of a ceramic-focused jewelry business. Nomad Artisan Company was launched six months later. Since then, Mary and Melissa have grown their jewelry business by going to door to door to LA boutiques and growing their social media presence. They’ve navigated working as a remote team long before the pandemic forced us all to do so. Oh, and did I mention, they’re also moms? Melissa and Mary are filled to the brim with encouragement, funny stories, and sage advice. Keep listening; the entrepreneurs who founded Nomad Artisan Company have a lot to share.

[00:01:36] Mary, Melissa, I'm super excited to have you all on the podcast. Thanks for coming on.

[00:01:41] Mary Nakaya: Hey, thanks for having us.

[00:01:42] Melissa Porras: Yeah, thank you.

[00:01:43] Sanjay Parekh: So first I'd love to hear about each one of your backgrounds. Where you're from, what you did before. And then we'll start talking about how you guys met and then the company you guys formed. Mary, do you want to start?

[00:01:55] Mary Nakaya: Sure. So I grew up in Southern Utah on a cattle ranch. So I live in Miami now. It's similar — okay, it's very different. And I went to art school at a local community college about 45 minutes. I taught for several years in high school education, in summers, I teach college, I teach art.

[00:02:14] And then I had a dream of owning a ranch on Highway 89 and I was saving money for that, but I realized that I wanted to continue my art education. So, I jumped in my truck. I went down to Los Angeles. I got accepted into Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and then that's where I got to LA and that's where I met my husband. We've been married eight years now. So now we have two kids and we have one on the way due in a week and a half.

[00:02:44] Sanjay Parekh: Congratulations!

[00:02:45] Mary Nakaya: Thank you. Thank you. So that's a little bit about my background.

[00:02:48] Sanjay Parekh: And up until there, had you done anything entrepreneurial? Had you started anything as side hustles or anything?

[00:02:54] Mary Nakaya: Okay. So, my family has a cattle ranch, and they also have a greenhouse business. And so, I kind of grew up in this business-oriented thing. And when I was teaching high school, I'm like, oh I have these really cool ideas on the side, I want to do something. So I actually pulled it out.

[00:03:11] You're going to laugh. When I was a little girl I loved these little doll diaper bags. So, I decided I was going to make, I was going to sell these in the summer when I wasn't teaching. So, I made a ton of these, and I would go to craft shows and I'd sell these little doll diaper bags. They’re for little girls to put like their diapers in and their bottles in, so I had that. There was a company that I also, I like their makeup and I won't say their name. They drive pink cars though, back in the day. And I wanted to do it so I could get like half off on their makeup, but also maybe make some money on the side, but I never did much with that. So, I'm pretty much just bought my own makeup. So that was my entrepreneurial events was my doll diaper bags in the summers, but I only did that one summer cause they were a flop.

[00:03:59] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Yeah. But I'm sure you learned a lot from that, so that's fascinating. I'm sure we'll get to that. Melissa, what about you? And your background.

[00:04:07] Melissa Porras: No, yeah. So I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. And I really grew up with parents who are entrepreneurs. My dad now, and mom now own a candy factory, but I grew up with it at like ground zero. We started in swap meets in Santa Fe Springs. They went to farmer's markets. Farmer's markets turned into a retail store and when they wanted to expand, they moved here to Salt Lake to manufacture the product.

[00:04:42] So I always was around that energy and it didn't start with this big thing. I just saw how gradually, how hard it was, how difficult it was, and it's funny cause I always said I would never own my own business because I saw how hard it was with my parents.

[00:05:02] But I think naturally, I've always wanted to do something. I remember when I was young, I would buy chocolate bars at the 99-cent store. They would sell three for a dollar. And I was always hungry, like during school and I remember thinking, you know what, I bet you, if I buy these chocolate bars — and it was like candies, chips whatever – I was like, if I buy these and I bring them to school, people will buy them, and they did. And I did get caught a few times. The teacher caught me and she's like, you know, you're not allowed to, it has to be a fundraiser.

[00:05:45] Mary Nakaya: I didn't know this, that's hilarious.

[00:05:48] Melissa Porras: Yeah, it was actually my favorite thing to do, because first of all, I always had food on me, but also I was making some money on the side with it.

[00:06:00] Sanjay Parekh: I have to tell you this is a very funny story because I did the same thing. I would do the arbitrage. I would go to the convenience store, buy candy bars and sell them at lunch.

[00:06:12] And that was to pay for my comic book addiction and to buy comic books. A lot of which I still have to this day, by the way. But this story of candy bar arbitrage in school is a very prevalent story. If you talk to probably a hundred entrepreneurs there is a high percentage of them that will tell you that, yes, this is where I got my start.

[00:06:33] I would buy candy bars and sell them to my classmates at school. So it's very funny that you say this because I've heard this story over and over again and I've lived it myself. So that's an awesome start. Tell me, so you two were both in LA? How did you guys meet? How did you guys first get to know each other?

[00:06:55] Melissa Porras: Yeah, so we actually met through church and I had overheard that Mary had a ceramic wheel in her garage and a kiln. And I got really excited because I did ceramics for a few years in school. And I absolutely loved it. And so I just went over to her and I said, "Hey, can I come over and play with clay with you, and stuff?"

[00:07:25] Because I just really loved it and that's when we really got to know each other. I didn't know she taught ceramics in school. I did know she was an art teacher, but I didn't know specifically that she had taught ceramics for a while.

[00:07:40] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. So, you guys started playing with clay and then how long was it after that, before you decided, hey let's do this as a business? Let's like start a side hustle and see if we can make a go of this.

[00:07:52] Mary Nakaya: I'd say probably a month into it. I had been, the few months prior to that, just having some ideas of maybe I would sell ceramic pottery to greenhouse operations, like my parents' greenhouse operations or I was thinking, okay, I can make stuff. So I made a bunch of stuff for them. It was a flop. I'm like, maybe I could do jewelry. I tried that on Etsy because some friends were now on Etsy and that was a flop. And I had been really stressed because I was doing illustrations for a book company and they were stressing me out.

[00:08:21] And so I was like, I don't want to have, you know this this type of stress on me, I'd rather have something else that I'm not so stressed. So the illustration of fine art can be my passion, but then I can make money in other ways. So, I was tinkering around with these ideas and then I met Melissa and it just felt right. And I believe in a higher source, I was driving one day and God was like, you need to ask Melissa to be your business partner.

[00:08:47] And I'm like, dude, that's crazy. That's weird. She’ll probably think I'm nuts, because we had never talked business. We had never talked about, because we were just one person would be on the wheel while the other person was hand building stuff making earrings or whatnot. And just for ourselves and we had never talked business at all.

[00:09:04] And so I'm like well this is weird. And so I was worried to ask her and I asked her. It's like a weird marriage proposal, you're going to have someone going in business with you. And Melissa said yes. And Melissa, I think you can say from your end that you had said before that you would never do a business because your parents, you'd seen what your parents went through, right?

[00:09:59] Melissa Porras: Yeah, and businesses in general. I think so many times we see the final product and we're like, oh my goodness, look at success. But growing up with it, you just see all the highs and the lows and the highest can be so high and the lows can just kick you in your gut.

[00:09:44] And so it was something that really scared me, but for whatever reason, when Mary asked me it was almost, I probably should have thought about it a little bit more than I actually did, but it was just like the instinct of yes. And I think it was because I also trusted — I was working with her and I saw her craft and everything.

[00:10:06] And so I was just like, yeah, let's do it.

[00:10:10] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. It's an interesting thing that you say there that I think you're exactly right. In media, a lot of times there's these stories about companies and they only show the shiny ending, right? The happy, shiny ending. Unless it's something that's gone wildly wrong and there's lawsuits and things like that, and then they talk about that.

[00:10:28] But other than that, they only talk about the shiny endings on companies and they don't talk about all of the heartache and trouble and sleepless nights and worrying about making payroll and all of those things that go along the way. And I think it's important for us as entrepreneurs to talk about those things, because I think people should understand what goes into that.

[00:10:48] So let's talk about those early days then when you decided, okay, we're going to do this as a real gig, a side hustle business thing. How did you get started? Neither one of you had started a company before this, right? This was the first time.

[00:11:04] Mary Nakaya: In the summers, I would teach college art courses where I was a private contractor and I would go to colleges and I say, hey, I want to teach for you. So I had my own business license for that, but that was just something that was affiliated with teaching. So never a product-based business. So, this was very, very new for both of us.

[00:11:22] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. So then in the first kind of launching how did you figure out what you should make and who you were going to sell it to? Like, how did you get those pieces to fit together?

[00:11:32] Mary Nakaya: What I remember, because this five years ago, Melissa, ‘cause this is the start of our fifth year in business?

[00:11:39] We decided we would take six months and we would get everything all figured out our collections, our photography. Figuring out how to do our own website, how to do licenses in Los Angeles. So, we had the six month timeframe. We're going to launch in January, coming in 2018.

[00:11:56] So we did a branding kit and Melissa had that idea. So, we went to Pinterest and we grabbed 12 pictures of what we wanted our company to feel and look like, and then we printed those out just on regular paper and we took them with us on photoshoots. So that way we can start building up images for our website and also the feel of our company.

[00:12:15] And Melissa, do you want to go from there?

[00:12:17] Melissa Porras: Yeah, and I would say that we also just, we weren't afraid to ask for help from friends that are entrepreneurs. We got a lot of help from some friends of ours that own their own business, and we also just, weren't afraid to YouTube a lot of things and figure out things ourselves.

[00:12:41] So like our photography, our models are our friends or family. We never saw this as just a hobby or a craft or something that we were going to do. We knew that we wanted this business and we wanted to, from the get-go, have a foundation of what we want people to see, like what our business would feel like or what it would look like.

[00:13:11] We made it a very, we made it a priority to have a clear vision of what it is that we wanted. And then we just went for it full force. I mean, it wasn't perfect. But we did it the best that we could.

[00:13:28] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. So you guys took six months to get everything in place and launch.

[00:13:35] Now looking back at it five years later, do you feel like that was the right move? Do you think you should have done it differently? Like in retrospect, how do you feel now?

[00:13:48] Melissa Porras: Yeah, I think it worked really well. I just wish I personally, was a little bit more fearless in what I like in what we did.

[00:14:00] I think Mary is very good at that. She's just like, let's go, we can do it, yes. And sometimes I'm very hesitant. I'm like no, we got to have A through Z first lined up and then we can move forward, and she would be like, yeah, but you know what? We've got this, let's do it. I think that's what helped me, which is good about a partnership.

[00:14:23] Sometimes, she would help me get the courage and we would just go to boutiques and be like, "What is it that you look for?" before we even had products to show them. We went to boutiques and said, “What is it that you look for? What are the price points you look for? How does wholesale work?"

[00:14:43] And this is normally, maybe you would think oh, that's embarrassing. Or why would I go to a store and ask all these questions? I should have the answers if I want to be giving them a service. But I thought it was brilliant because it just really helped us.

[00:15:00] We weren't afraid to ask, or I should say Mary wasn't afraid to ask. And I was right behind her, you know, asking with her.

[00:15:06] Mary Nakaya: Well, mind you, I was still nervous. I remember we were in LA going to one of the first boutiques we were in and I was stuttering. Treehouse. And I was stuttering, and it's funny because Melissa was also going out to ask and we realized that we hit the same boutique. So they probably think we're weird.

[00:15:31] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. So that was one early mistake is that you didn't divide and conquer. You just kept conquering the same places over and over again. But hey, at least that way if they gave you different answers, you knew there was something up. If they gave you the same answers, then you knew those were the answers.

[00:15:49] So maybe that was a smart move on your part. What other kind of, like looking back at it now, were there mistakes that you feel like you made that now looking back at it you feel you would do it differently now knowing everything that you know? Mary?

[00:16:03] Mary Nakaya: I think we would have launched sooner than the six months because we didn't realize that I would be moving very quickly to Miami.

[00:16:11] And we only had four months together, Melissa, when we launched the company? Of her and I being back and forth with each other, and I feel like if we would've known, we would've done it a couple months sooner.

[00:16:25] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So, you two have been basically a remote company then for almost the entire time, well before the pandemic you've been on both coasts. That's fascinating.

[00:16:37] Melissa Porras: We did it before it was cool.

[00:16:39] Sanjay Parekh: And what's interesting is that compared to a lot of companies that are doing remote work they're all kind of digital knowledge work. Y'all have an actual physical product. So that makes remote work different and harder in some ways. Like how have you dealt with that aspect of it?

[00:16:58] Mary Nakaya: So in the beginning I was the only one with the kiln, and then when I moved. I had brought the kiln with me. So, what I would do is I would make everything in the kiln and ship it to Melissa. And then Melissa was gluing and then adhering and making all the findings for the pieces and then shipping. Because when we invested in our company, we said, we didn't want to we wanted to make it so that we were, we're adding to the family income, that we could one day move out of our tiny apartments in LA, help our husbands to be able to make mortgage payments. We invested $254 each in our company.

[00:17:30] Sanjay Parekh: Okay, wait a minute. I’ve got to stop you there and ask you a question. That's such a random amount, $254. $508 total. Why $508?

[00:17:40] Mary Nakaya: I think it's because we used to go Downtown LA and we'd buy our sterling silver findings. And so we're like, okay, keep track of your receipts, keep track of your receipts.

[00:17:50] And then we totaled them all up along with the clay that we had bought. We were okay, this is it. This is all we're putting in. That was it, right Melissa? Am I right on? I don't even remember why.

[00:18:01] Sanjay Parekh: And it was $508 worth.

[00:18:06] Mary Nakaya: And it's funny, real quick, I think we also deducted we took out like when Melissa was coming to hang out on weekends for the ceramics before we started a business, she had to pay $10 a time, or something for $8 a time, and don't worry, Melissa, you don't have to pay that. Those five times you came.

[00:18:25] Melissa Porras: Yeah, I think I made it.

[00:18:30] Sanjay Parekh: So, you I think this is an important story for listeners too, cause a lot of people look at companies like yours and other companies and see how big they've grown and it's hard to understand like how much money does it actually take to start some of these things? Cause everybody thinks like it's, oh, it's probably $50,000, a hundred thousand dollars.

[00:18:50] No, it's $508. Which it's don't get me wrong. It's still a lot of money. It's not like a small amount of money, but it's a lot more accessible than $10,000 or $50,000. I appreciate the fact that you all shared that and hopefully that helps people realize that they can do it themselves.

[00:19:10] Adam Walker: Support for this podcast comes from Hiscox, committed to helping small businesses protect their dreams since 1901 quotes and information on customized insurance for specific risks are [email protected]. Hiscox, the business insurance experts.

[00:19:27] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. So, as you start growing here and you've gone to these boutiques, and you've talked to them and — what we call it a lot of times is customer discovery. You ask them, what do you need? And then you made the thing that they needed. So, you were able to hit a few boutiques like that, I'm sure.

[00:19:43] But how did you start growing your list of places that stock your products? Like how did you get access to them? How did they find out about you? Did anybody come to you or did you have to go to everybody?

[00:19:54] Melissa Porras: Thankfully with social media we have so many platforms that we can use to grow. And so we, in the beginning, really relied on Instagram, or had an expectation I should say. And we also did a lot of art fairs in Los Angeles. So, there, a lot of people, I would say, is where they started to find us more. Nowadays, it seems like it's so easy to grow on Instagram and this and that, but it's actually very hard.

[00:20:27] And so I think in the beginning, that's one of the mistakes too, is that we just had this expectation that it would just happen. And we didn't realize how difficult it was to slowly make it happen. But we were really fortunate to, again, put ourselves out there. I went to a garage sale once that a pretty well-known interior designer was doing.

[00:20:51] And I just had this feeling that I had to go back and gift her something. And I called Mary, and Mary's like, yeah let's do it. And so, I think I either picked her up or she picked me up and we went back to the garage sale, and we went up to the interior designer and she was really sweet right on the spot, just opened her gift on her story.

[00:21:17] And that gave us our first little jump, and it also gave us, I think, our first little confidence, build up confidence and saw the power of Instagram and I would say that's how we just started seeing what worked, what didn't and It evolved and because that's changed very much like our outlook on that is not exactly how it was maybe back then.

[00:21:46] But yeah, it's been a slow and steady growth. I wouldn't say oh, we have it all figured out. But we have found different platforms where either people have found us, or we also do a lot of cold contacting still the old fashioned way, but now just through social media for boutiques and stuff.

[00:22:10] Mary Nakaya: And I do want to say, for those that are listening out there, that Melissa and I, when we started the business, we thought, okay, we're going to get 10,000 followers in the first six months. And we realized that it's not easy. And also, we've realized that numbers mean nothing on your social media platforms.

[00:22:26] Like you can have 2000 followers and still be doing really well financially because you have other avenues, like we have retail, we have wholesale. we have friends that love our product. They go, and they talk to boutiques for us in different states. So that's what one thing is be careful of looking at numbers on social media.

[00:22:44] Cause it doesn't give true. We think that you have to have a lot of people in order to make money, but you don't. So like right now we're at like 5,000 followers.

[00:22:56] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, that's great advice. Okay. So, Instagram is a tool you all use to connect with people and create a fan base.

[00:23:07] What other tools do you use in the business? Maybe tools that other people don't see, but internal tools and things that really help you manage the business well. And maybe there's different tools that, that both of you use. Mary, I'll start with you. Is there something that you use that helps you manage and deal with the business?

[00:23:24] Mary Nakaya: So, we use Squarespace where we can build our own website so that we're not going through anyone to build our website, and it's nice that there's these types of platforms that you can build your own website on, and you can have total control over it. We also have ShipStation that we use. We also have Hiscox Business to cover our butt if something happens, which we think is important.

[00:23:43] And we started doing Hiscox at very beginning when we started doing some of the craft fairs because they asked us. Like Spring at the Silos in Magnolia and Celebration in Waco, Texas. They asked us to have that type of liability and we're like we should do it, so those tools have, that was a plug for Hiscox, thank you.

[00:24:02] But those tools are really good for us because like day to day, we need to make sure that when, if liability happens, we don't want the liability to come back on us and our houses be taken or different things. And so, we need to have a coverage. Like I said listen, I, from the very beginning, we always thought of this as a business.

[00:24:21] And we make sure that we keep our numbers low for our expenses because we're still a lean machine. We're still plugging away. It's our hustle. We're moms foremost is what we do, and so then, like on the side, we're doing this business and it's actually like a full-time job mom and a full-time job business.

[00:24:43] And we have to learn how to try to shift back and forth. We also use Fare, we're starting on Fare.com and that's a wholesale platform. We also have a wholesale page on our website that people can log in and buy wholesale from us. So we're trying to diversify, finding different people in different ways, but those are some of the ways that we're working right now that helps us day to day.

[00:25:05] Sanjay Parekh: What about you, Melissa? Is there any tool that Mary didn't mention that you're like, oh, we should mention this and people will like using it?

[00:25:11] Melissa Porras: No, honestly I think she did really well at just all the things. But overall, I think it being just us two right now, and every once in a while, just having some help. I think just consistency and the time that goes into it. Those are numbers that you don't typically get to see on paper.

[00:25:32] And it's just one of those things where I think knowing that what you put in is typically what you get out. Maybe not in the beginning, especially as an entrepreneur, you could be putting in all this time and you see the numbers at the end of the day and it can be very discouraging, but if you're consistent with what you're putting in, eventually, it's going to pay off.

[00:25:58] Mary Nakaya: Can I say one more thing real quick? It’s for those people that are starting out a business, a website is $30 a month.

[00:26:06] Okay, which is awesome. It has all the financials built into it. Squarespace is 30 bucks a month, ShipStation is nine bucks a month. It's feasible. And they do take a cut, Squarespace, from your sales, but it's very minimal. But you don't need a lot to get started per month for what you're paying for your backend.

[00:26:26] Cause like we don't have a brick-and-mortar shop. If we had a brick-and-mortar shop, you'd have to have that rent. So we're a lean machine, we're like $120 a month is what we have to like factor in. And after that, like what a blessing, that's all we have right now. We have our expenses of our kiln and of our electricity of where we're living.

[00:26:45] Comparatively anyone could start a business that like, oh, okay. If I sell $40 worth of product, I can cover my ShipStation and my Squarespace.

[00:26:53] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. It sounds like you could start this business with $508 is what I'd say. That's just me. That's just me guessing. Okay. Last question for y'all.

[00:27:03] If somebody is teetering on the edge of wanting to do something like starting a side hustle, but they have that fear or whatever. What advice would you to give to them about just going ahead and doing it? Melissa, we'll start with you.

[00:27:19] Melissa Porras: For one, I think sometimes we think, this is already being done or whatever. But I think there's, even with jewelry, if we were to say, oh there's already earrings out there, we would have never done it. There's room for everyone in in this space. And also I think it's so important for us to just get out of our own way. I think we're the ones that typically kind of get very flustered with ourselves or, and don't have always a business partner to help push you or help motivate you. Just know that it's totally doable. But you will never know if you don't start. And there's always that, "what if" in the back of your mind. So, it's better to try and fail, whatever you think that failure might be,

Than to not try it all. Because if you don't try, you're never going to get there either way. I think I heard — I don't remember what the quote was — but it was like, why not go for your dream, if you don't go for it, it's just going stay. But it's not, it's never going to come true.

[00:28:35] If it's there if you don't go for it, like what's the point, kind of thing.

[00:28:39] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, no, that's great advice. I think a lot of people don't, they overestimate the downside of trying and failing. And under underestimate the upside and the upside doesn't even have to be success.

[00:28:51] Like you say. It could just be learning stuff and it makes you a better individual at the end of it. So that's great advice. I appreciate that. What about you, Mary? What advice would you give somebody that's teetering on the edge and thinking about starting something?

[00:29:05] Mary Nakaya: Yeah, I think why not just go for it, right?

[00:29:07] Like the road to success, you're going to have bumps and hiccups, just start. I used to tell my high school students. You look at who was the greatest like baseball player of all time? It was Babe Ruth. But who was the greatest strikeout king of all time? It was Babe Ruth.

[00:29:25] You're going to have failures and hiccups along the way. Like Michael Jordan, didn't always make his three points,. his two point shots. Like I think this get out there and begin. And that's where successes is, and successes at money, successes getting in the chair and doing what you love.

[00:29:39] And like what Melissa said, there's always room in the market for another artist and a craftsman or a businessman or another business. Because you have your own voice and it's important for the world to hear that. And maybe it doesn't go how you want it to go but like you said, you're learning, you're growing, you're on that pathway.

[00:29:56] And for us, for me and Melissa, success is we get to be creative and be at home and be moms, like for me, I found like when I moved to Miami, I didn't have friends or family here and it gave me a focus. And maybe that's what your business is, it gives you a focus. And one of the nice things about a focus is when it does make money it is always a perk. But you have to remember be true to you.

[00:30:18] Don't look at other companies, don't look left, don't look right. Be true to who you are as a creative and an individual.

[00:30:26] Sanjay Parekh: Fabulous advice. Appreciate the time Melissa and Mary and listeners. If you're looking for ceramic earrings and then also other ceramic stuff, Nomad Artisan Company.

[00:30:38] It's not just earrings. It's a bunch of stuff, jewelry. Check them out. Buy their stuff. It's great stuff. I'm going to actually be looking at some of that stuff for my wife and daughter, so there you go.

[00:30:50] Mary Nakaya: And if we have inspired you to be creative or just to start, or to be bold or confident, than we have done our job, that's one of our logos, and we hope that we've inspired you today.

[00:31:00] Sanjay Parekh: So go start a side hustle and make it a small business today. Thanks a lot. Y'all.

[00:34:15] Sanjay Parekh: Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business Podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligent insurance solutions, visit hiscox.com.

And, if you have a story that you want to hear on this podcast, please visit Hiscox.com/shareyourstory.

I’m your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find me on Twitter at @sanjay or on my website at sanjayparekh.com.