A young girl got caught walking back to her bedroom with a huge container of laundry detergent in tow.
“Where are you going with THAT?” asked her father.
“To make slime…I am going to sell it on Instagram” she said.
Her father, who was simply at a loss how to respond, stood there.
The young girl interpreted this non-verbal response as a request for more info.
“I’m making slime…..it’s made out of laundry detergent, Elmer's glue, and water. I make videos showing off my different slimes….Smaug’s Treasure (a gold slime), Unicorn Munch (a slime made with rainbow beads)...and I post them on my Instagram account. I’ve made three sales so far...they're kind of a thing.”
Her father, still at a loss for words, just said “Ok...”
Selling through Instagram was a challenge for the young girl. She couldn’t sell her slimes directly and had to ask for her customers to mail her cash.
She needed a better solution. She needed a website.
The young girl did some research regarding website building applications and found a builder that she thought would work. It seemed easy enough to use, offered e-commerce, and she could link it to her Instagram account.
The website took several weeks to build followed by another couple of weeks figuring out how to set up the e-commerce and link it to a domain. When she had a question, she chatted with support. Did they know that she was 12?
The day the young girl’s website went live she posted across her social media accounts, asking her friends to share the news. Hundreds of connections led to thousands of views. The young girl was excited!
Even with the views, sales were slow. Potential customers had trouble navigating the site. The young girl listened and made changes. It will come she knew (she hoped!).
She just needed to stay focused and to keep on listening and improving.
One day traffic to her site jumped by thousands! It turned out that a member of a boy band she had started following a year ago, when they were new and obscure, gave her a shoutout on Twitter with a link to her website. He had been thankful for the early support and wanted to return the favor.
Sales spiked as customers intuitively navigated her site. More sales brought more customer reviews which led to more sales! Working by hand, the young girl could not produce enough slime so she re-invested some of her profits into buying a Kitchen Aid mixer. She then “hired” one of her siblings to handle production. Business was good.
The young girl continued to develop and grow her business over the next several years. There were many ups and downs. She faced challenges and learned how to overcome obstacles. She learned about taking smart risks and the value of relationships. She felt the sting of bad reviews and what what it felt like to get stiffed by a customer. Her business taught her many things, but most importantly it taught her to never stop listening and learning...to always improve.
I hope that we all can learn something from the young girl. I know I have.
Connect with me: Austin Meyermann