I Quit My $35K Job To Grow My Side Hustle - Now It Brings In $141 Million

the moment i knew i was ready to quit my job was whenever i started making more and online sales in a day than i was earning with my paycheck and my corporate job [Music] my name is tori gerbig and i'm the founder and ceo of pink lily in 2014 i walked away from my job making under 40 000 a year and last year on my e-commerce site we brought in over 141 million dollars in revenue [Music] in 2009 i graduated from college right in the middle of her session the only job that i could find was selling insurance and i started out making 25 000 a year after graduating college my husband and i had over 70 000 in student loans plus a mortgage and car loans we were really barely getting by so we decided to start selling on ebay to help supplement our income [Music] we sold things from golf clubs to halloween masks just about anything that we could that we would find going viral on the internet and we could get for wholesale to sell at retail price on ebay i was posting items on there daily and it was a huge increase based on the years prior on ebay so the facebook group really helped catapult the sales and really ignited the fire in this whole business once we launched the facebook group and i went back to work full time after my maternity leave my son was about four months old so i was getting very little sleep at night i would work during the day eight to four thirty come home cook dinner do the fun bedtime routine with him and then head to the facebook page group and post the products paypal invoice and ship products out until about one to two o'clock in the morning so it was very little sleep i was getting around that time [Music] i do remember selling items out of the trunk of my car though on my lunch breaks and asking to leave early here and there for me to go into town to meet people to sell my products [Music] it was time for us to launch this website so we could reach a larger audience and it would also capture sales at any time during the day versus only whenever i was on with the facebook group [Music] it was pretty bad right out of the box but it was an e-commerce store and that's all we needed our goal was to bring in over a hundred thousand dollars in sales in one month so we hit that our fourth month in business and at that time we decided that it would better suit me to focus on growing the business than it would for me to sell insurance so in april of 2014 i decided that it was time for me to walk away and then in july of 2014 my husband left his corporate position as well we did have an emergency fund i think it had around ten thousand dollars in it so we could get by i believe for just a couple months if things were to go wrong i remember our goal for the first year was 50 000 in sales so to hit over 4 million dollars our very first year in business was just phenomenal we were so ecstatic from 2014 to 2015 we grew from 4.1 million dollars in revenue to over 12 million dollars in revenue in 2021 we ended the year with over 141 million dollars in revenue to the site i do love having a retail store and i don't think it's out of the question for the future but it hasn't been the main focus only because online has grown so fast when do we think we'll be back with an sla as far it is not the easiest thing in the world to have a business with your spouse luckily we work very well together and i think it's because we also worked together prior to starting a business we did meet while working at a restaurant in college and we're very familiar with the way that both of us work we both have very hard working personalities and we go very well together because my husband is much more laid back i'm very high strung so we complement each other very well which works for us very well i would say that this year is probably the first year where i can work a little bit less due to us hiring so many directors over the last two years prior to that i was working anywhere from 60 to 70 hours a week my day-to-day changes every single day so i come in and several days a week i have a full calendar of zoom meetings touch bases with the directors and marketing team buying team customer service team one day a week i still go to the buying meetings because i still have a very large input on the product that we carry for the customer and then i also still travel with the photo shoot team occasionally a few times a year as well as the buying team to los angeles to nashville and to markets around the country [Music] leaving corporate america and starting pinkeley was one of the very best decisions i've made in my life cheers drink it has opened up so many opportunities i have gotten to meet amazing women and men throughout the whole country i get to travel i get to spend more time with my kids we are debt free we have the financial freedom to do so many things in life and i honestly just am much happier now that i get to work for myself oh wow does reece look so pretty mommy do you have one like this your head mommy do you have one mommy do you have one like this i do would you should i have it we'll see maybe i didn't grow up in a um a place where i was told that as a female that i could do anything i wanted to it was you know most of my family members were teachers or nurses and and that's what i thought that i had to do so for me to to now be a ceo of an inc 5000 brand that we started and to only be 35 years old that was really something that i i want to instill in my my girls to know that just because your ceo doesn't you know you don't have to be a male you can be a female you can be a female leader in any industry and be very successful [Music]

Channel: CNBC Make It

Views: 3,805,327

Keywords: CNBC Make It, Make It, CNBC, How To Make It, Entrepreneurs, Starting A Small Business, Business Success, Small Businesses, Finance Tips, Career Tips, Work Hacks, Lifehacks, Money Management, Career Management, Managing Business, salary, side hustle, clothing brand, clothes side hustle, fashion job, fashion business, fashion side hustle, Pink Lily

Id: 1KVaoVX-Y0s

Length: 8min 5sec (485 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 30 2022