← The Side Hustle Show
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- [00:00]
A
Look, adulting can be a challenge, but there is an easy button for at least one item on your to do list. Our partner PolicyGenius makes finding and buying life insurance simple to make sure your loved ones have a financial safety net in case something happens to you. With Policygenius you can find life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for a million dollars in coverage. It's an easy way to protect the people you love and feel good about the future. How it works is policygenius lets you compare quotes from America's top insurers, complete with coverage amounts, prices and terms all in just a few clicks. No games, no guesswork. And with thousands of five star reviews on Google and trustpilot from customers who found the best policy fit for their needs, policygenius is the country's leading online insurance marketplace. Secure your family's future with Policygenius. Head to Policygenius.com to compare free life insurance quotes free from top companies and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com and now onto the show. This 15 year old is running $100,000 business on the side. From school, on the side, from sports, on the side from just regular teenage stuff. Stick around in this one to hear his process for coming up with the idea how he made his first sales and the growth in marketing tactics have helped him scale to hundreds of orders a day. From. From cooltowel.co.uk Harrison Knott. Welcome to the side hustle show.
- [01:27]
B
Well, Nick, first of all, thank you for having me on and I'm really excited to share, you know, my, my top tips for everyone.
- [01:33]
A
Yeah, I'm, I'm excited for this one as well. I believe you're the youngest guest in the 12 year history of the show. We probably started when you were a toddler.
- [01:43]
B
I was three years old. Yeah, I was three years old.
- [01:45]
A
Yeah. That's exciting in its own. So a cool towel is a, you know, a cooling neck towel inspired by getting hot and sweaty playing squash as a kid.
- [01:55]
B
Yep.
- [01:55]
A
So you just wrapped up your third summer of this business started when you're 13. It's kind of nuts too. But can you give us a sense of how this summer went for you?
- [02:04]
B
Yep. So this summer I'm projected to £100,000 in revenue, which is about, in dollars, about $130,000.
- [02:11]
A
Yeah.
- [02:11]
B
Obviously that is revenue disclaimer. That's not profit. To be transparent, there's lots of hidden costs involved. Everyone sees that big figure and thinks I'm making loads of but actually, I find more value in the skills I've learned and the knowledge I've learned along the way.
- [02:24]
A
Yeah, you gotta be eking out some profit on that kind of sales volume, though.
- [02:28]
B
Yeah, I'm probably sitting at around 20 profit, which is just good. But it's all reinvested. It's all back into business.
- [02:34]
A
Yeah, that's fantastic. You know, to have that kind of experience under your belt. Totally. All right, so where does this idea come from? It seems like almost kind of a commodity product where people would go on Amazon and say, okay, I heard of this thing. Like, I'm not very brand loyal when it comes to this thing. I don't know of any brands that are making this. So it's just like whatever comes up and has decent reviews. So what inspires you to say, you know what, I'm gonna take a swing at this?
- [02:56]
B
Yeah. So I love playing sport and going to the gym. That's sort of my passion. And three years ago, I decided that I. I'm sick and tired of being hot and sweaty and uncomfortable. And essentially, I went onto Google and I searched up, you know, like, cooling towel, you know, like, ways to cool down. And turns out, aircon's expensive. Yeah, fans don't really work that well. They just push the hot air around. And the cooling towel wasn't really a thing three years ago. It was around, but it wasn't. There was no big brand selling it. So I thought, you know, there is a gap in the market for this.
- [03:28]
A
Okay.
- [03:29]
B
I got my grandma to come round, and she bought her sewing machine with her, and we got a microfiber towel. And with this microfiber towel, we sewed it together around an ice pack. We made the first ever cool towel prototype on day one.
- [03:42]
A
Okay.
- [03:43]
B
And that was sort of the beginning. That was when I thought, okay, well, this prototype didn't work. But actually, I know that there is a future for this. So I went on Alibaba.com and I found a manufacturer willing to produce and supply the cool towels and bought 50 units and just scaled it from there. That's the story of how it originated.
- [04:00]
A
Okay. So if they were willing to do a relatively small initial order run. Because sometimes when you go to Alibaba, it's like, yeah, we want 500 units. A thousand units. And you're like, well, now that's. That's a lot of upfront inventory costs for an idea that maybe not quite proven out yet. Maybe other people are selling them. So there's some level of validation, but it's like, well, I don't know if they're going to buy it from me.
- [04:21]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I did have to sort of negotiate my way down with that. And I think because I've used the platform before and I had experience with negotiating with suppliers and also, like, I think they knew that I was trustworthy and I wasn't just going to buy 50, you know, I think they knew long term that I was going to buy more. And obviously I have.
- [04:38]
A
Okay, so step one sounds like personal pain point. I'm hot, it's uncomfortable. Like, what solutions are out there? Okay, here's something that I believe that could solve the problem. Step two, go find manufacturers of people who are making something similar. Ish. Did you have any modifications for this initial order or was it just like, yeah, just throw my own brand on here, the Cool towel brand, and we'll see if we can sell those or what else went into that initial production run.
- [05:03]
B
The biggest part for me with the first initial batch was the branding. I think that is, you know, one of the most important things about the product because at the end of the day there are similar products out there. But for the Cool Towel to sell, it needs to show what it does and how to use it and all the information on it on the bottle. And I think that's something I put a lot of time into at the start, you know, like developing the brand and making sure it was perfect because then it sort of gave me that clear pathway to sort of scaling up. Because I think if you have bad packaging, if you have bad branding and people won't value your product and, and you'll get, you know, you'll get returns, you'll get bad reviews. I think it's just, it makes it more premium. It means I can set it for more money and make more money.
- [05:40]
A
Were you hiring out that design or 13 years old, were you doing it yourself? This cool little like polar bear with a guy?
- [05:46]
B
I did it myself. Yeah. Well, this isn't the original packaging. This is, this is updated. But the original one I did myself. I think the main thing for me with Cool Tau is it wasn't the first business I started. My first business was at 8 years old. I was reselling on ebay and other platforms and essentially eight years old. I'm not joking either. I've got proof.
- [06:05]
A
Sure. At eight years old. I love it. I got a nine year old. I gotta make him listen to this episode.
- [06:11]
B
I think I've always just liked the idea of like, it was never money for me really. The reason Why I started it was because I liked the idea of being successful and almost like becoming my best self. But I also enjoyed the process, solving the problems. I enjoyed starting a new business. I enjoyed learning about how to grow as a person and as an entrepreneur. I think that's the main thing for me. And I think a lot of people when they start businesses is they. They give up after the first hurdle. You know, like, they get one problem and they just give up. The key to my success was. Was resil. Kept going through all the. Because I started 13 businesses, and I think out of the 13, 10 of them were failures, really, and four of them are successful. But the nine that were failed took so you know, so much of my time, so much of my effort, so much of my money, you know, and. And it all failed. I think most people, after losing all that and spending all that time, would just give up. But from that, I've gained so much knowledge and so many skills I can apply into the next business and keep growing.
- [07:04]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So you're 13 years old. You're lobbing emails off to China to find a manufacturer. Through Alib, you get these 50 units landed. Do you remember the production costs for those first 50?
- [07:15]
B
It was about three pounds per unit. So it was 50 units.
- [07:19]
A
Yeah. Okay, that's helpful to know. Got it. Okay, so you get these landed out of your spare bedroom or the garage or something.
- [07:25]
B
Yep.
- [07:25]
A
Well, now I got to sell them. So what happens next to try and move these units?
- [07:29]
B
So again, from previous businesses that I've done, I've learned skills like web development, you know, creating video campaigns and, you know, learning about social media itself. And I think I applied all them skills. I spent. Spent months developing the brand, but essentially I. I created a website on Shopify.
- [07:47]
A
Okay.
- [07:48]
B
And I then developed video ads and I post them organically and also utilized UGC content eventually, because I didn't have the. The capital to spend on paid ads. The organic definitely paid off because it was profitable, much more profitable than it is now. The only difference is, obviously paid ads is. Is predictable, you know, that you're gonna make money, whereas organic is. Is hit or miss. You know, you can't guarantee anything with organic, if that makes sense.
- [08:09]
A
Gotcha. Was the organic content under your own handle? Was it under a cool towel, like, new handle?
- [08:16]
B
It was under a cool towel handle. I think the original videos are actually deleted now just because they weren't the best, but they did well. They got, you know, a good million views.
- [08:24]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [08:25]
B
But content, I've got on there now is, you know, they've all got a really good amount of views. I think they're averaging like 500,000 with paid. But they're also all the ones I've got on now are UGC ads. I only really do UGC right Now for that TikTok account and I think that's been really helpful for me to grow because, you know, the people that are making content are experts. You know, they know, they know how to sell products and they. And they have all the equipment and the skills necessary.
- [08:50]
A
Got it, got it. Yeah. Well, I'd love to get into the UGC or the user generated content in a little bit, but sounds like you throw up the Shopify store and you start to create these own video ads about the product. Do you remember which one or two like the format or structure that popped off and got to a million views and I imagine helped move those initial units.
- [09:09]
B
Yeah, I think it was, it was videos that I did that had trending sounds. It was almost like a drop shipping type of. If you've seen all them drop shipping videos on. On TikTok where it's like just the product. So I had like just the product. It was a good hook. It was a controversial hook. I think some of them, we was targeting their pain point. So obviously for me it was overheating and it was like. And some of them about menopause, some of them were about, you know, at the gym, some of them were about all sorts of stuff. You know, I had lots of different pathways. I was trying to go down to see what performed the best.
- [09:39]
A
Okay.
- [09:40]
B
And at the end of the day it was trial and error. Like there was no, there was no set in stone video scripts that worked.
- [09:46]
A
Okay. Yeah. Do you have a sense of the volume of these little videos that you made? It could, you know, 5, 10, 20. Like, what's reasonable to say, okay, this is either gonna work or this is not working?
- [10:00]
B
I think I posted about 50 videos before my first one properly blew up. I mean, I think the first, the like the 15th video did well. We got like, you know, 30,000, 50,000 views. But then I think the 30 40th type zone was where it did really well.
- [10:17]
A
Okay. The reason I ask is it's helpful to know where it's like, oh, I posted five things and I've kind of exhausted my creativity and it didn't make any sales. So I was like, well, I guess this is a not going to work.
- [10:27]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [10:28]
A
It's like, no, no. I take 30, 40, 50 swings and keep iterating on the. And it's interesting, you say, oh, I need to, I need to find a controversial hook. And I'm like, well what's controversial about a little cooling neck towel? You got to make it, make it applicable and like try and find some angle.
- [10:42]
B
One thing I did do in 2023 especially is I, I looked at similar, not cooling towels, but similar. So it was drop shipping ads. I was looking at and seeing the viral, the outliers, the ones that have done really well and then taking them and sort of putting that idea and not copying it, but putting my own spin on it. Yeah, I think that's what I did because I. Obviously you say about, you know, your, my creative mind and I couldn't develop, you know, two videos a day doing it all by myself. I had to go to other people who have done well already and it's the, you know, the, the proof of concepts already there.
- [11:15]
A
Okay, is it all Shopify at this point on the cooltown.co.uk site or is it set up a TikTok shop in parallel?
- [11:25]
B
So at the start it was Shopify but then after about a month I went to TikTok shop. So throughout the end of 2023 and the whole of 2024, I was only on TikTok shop.
- [11:35]
A
Oh, okay.
- [11:36]
B
Because it was doing incredibly well. I think the conversion rate was like, like numbers that I have never seen on Shopify before. It was just, I think because the platform was new, it was pushing my videos out further.
- [11:47]
A
Okay.
- [11:48]
B
And also it's got a bigger platform for businesses. I think like it's got a built in affiliate system that really helped me grow and it also, I think the fact that users don't have to go off the app is also really good. So they know they don't have to go to a separate website. They're always on TikTok. I think that's good.
- [12:06]
A
Yeah. Maybe there's something in the algorithm where TikTok wants to keep people on the app or maybe they make a cut of every sale.
- [12:13]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think TikTok shop is great. It's definitely got its big benefits. But the only thing I would say is it's also got its not so good, you know, aspects. I've had a lot of issues with it. You can go into detail if you want me to about the not so.
- [12:26]
A
Good, like fraudulent orders or like what, what kind of issues?
- [12:29]
B
Yes. Well, the first 50 odds I ever got. So this is the story. So when I first got that viral video that did really well, organically. I remember waking up running into my parents bedroom and like going, oh, my goodness, I've just sold 50 orders.
- [12:42]
A
Yeah.
- [12:42]
B
You know, I've just got. I just sold 50. All that. It was the whole stock, you know, everything that I bought in the first batch.
- [12:47]
A
Right.
- [12:47]
B
And it was literally like, it was my first time properly that I've. I've done side hustles in the past and I've done like, you know, small businesses, but that was the first time that I thought, I can really scale this. I can really take this to the next level. And obviously it took a lot of time to do that, but in the moment, it was amazing.
- [13:02]
A
Sure.
- [13:02]
B
Long story short, I sent out the orders for the first time via like, it was called second class shipping, we call it in the uk.
- [13:08]
A
Okay.
- [13:09]
B
But essentially they didn't have a tracking number. All of them didn't have a tracking number. And I thought that that'll be okay. But TikTok Shop did not like that. And even though I had proof from every single buyer that the order has been delivered, they didn't pay me a penny. So all of that time, you know, all that money spent on the product, I had to pay a TikTok Shop fee even though I didn't get any money back. So it was a big loss on the first one.
- [13:31]
A
Oh, my gosh. Okay. They were like, we require you to send it some method that can be tracked.
- [13:37]
B
Correct. Yes. I mean, it was in the small print, but it was just a mistake.
- [13:40]
A
Oh, yeah. Brutal. Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry.
- [13:43]
B
Yeah. I mean, I had lots of things like that and that was all my capital gone. You know, that was a big moment again. A lot of people would have given up then.
- [13:50]
A
Yeah. I was gonna. I was gonna plow that into more inventory. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So what happens after that?
- [13:56]
B
I think the main thing there in that moment was I learned that the proof of concept was there. I know that, you know, there is a demand for this. It can work.
- [14:03]
A
Yeah. Well, you got kind of a narrow selling season and now if you gotta go back to your manufacturer and it's gonna be another four to six weeks to get the inventory to you. It's like, I gotta. I need it now. You know, I got. I gotta get it here now.
- [14:18]
B
That is definitely one of the big issues I had was one cash flow, because it takes, especially when you start off on TikTok Shop, it takes, I think it was two months for. From the order place to you getting the, you know, the money in to Your account.
- [14:32]
A
Oh, sure, sure. Okay.
- [14:34]
B
So. And then I also had to then take that money and then spend it on product. So basically I had no money for half the summer. And that was my big issue. I had no cash bas.
- [14:43]
A
And this is across any type of physical product, E commerce, where even if you find something that hits, okay, it was a big initial order quantity. Okay, I got it landed. Now I'm either almost practically giving the units away. This is the traditional Amazon model to get reviews and build sales momentum to try and climb in the ranks and hopefully make some organic sales, or I'm running paid ads to try and, you know, boost up the conversions and everything else. And it's like. And then whatever you made, if there was any margin left, now you gotta plow it back into more inventory, sometimes for years. Like, go. This cycle goes on. So I can. I can relate to that.
- [15:17]
B
Yeah, that is exactly what happened, really. So for the whole of 2023, and I would say half of 2024, it was just recycling. Just literally like trying to build up their capital but then waiting again. And then I then got into paid ads in mid 2024 and that's when, yes, I started to scale up a lot more. I had months where I was selling 500, 600 cool towels. You know, that was big for that time.
- [15:42]
A
Yeah.
- [15:43]
B
But then obviously my margins were significantly cut down because I was selling the product for £8 and okay, I was spending £5 on ads alone. I was choosing quantity over actually making money. It was stupid, really. Now I think, now I look back on it, it was stupid because I just wanted to see what I'm ordered. I wanted. I wanted to see the success, you know, that was just a schoolboy error of me, I think.
- [16:05]
A
Yeah. How much volume can we push? Sure. But meanwhile, you got to correct.
- [16:10]
B
Yeah, it was like, how far can I take it?
- [16:12]
A
Okay, that's interesting. Have you been able to get the cost of acquisition down this summer?
- [16:18]
B
Yeah, this definitely 2025. Yes. TikTok have released this new thing called GMV Max. It's essentially what it does is it runs ad campaigns for you via AI. And essentially it just means you don't have to know anything about ads to run them. But what you do need now is a lot more creatives, you need a lot more people and you need to make a lot more content to do well on it and to get your CPI down.
- [16:42]
A
Okay, got it. More with Harrison in just a moment, including how he thinks about the per sale profitability of each cool towel and his large scale User generated content campaign coming up right after this with our partner Mint Mobile. You can get the wireless coverage and speed you're used to, but for way less money. I think that's a win we could all use right about now and you can keep your same phone number. Plus, for a limited time, Mint Mobile is offering side hustle show listeners three months of unlimited premium wireless service for just 15 bucks a month. All Mint plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. I've been a customer since 2019 and haven't looked back this year. Skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.comsidehustle that's mintmobile.comsidehustleen upfront payment of $45 required equivalent to $15 per month limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. You know, when you're shopping online and you see that little purple shop pay button at checkout, that's a sign that the store you're on is one of the millions of businesses powered by our partner Shopify. Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your business. For starters, you don't even have to start from scratch. They've got hundreds of beautiful ready to go, proven to convert templates that you can adapt to your brand's style without needing to know how to code. You can tackle all your most important tasks in one place, from managing your inventory to tracking payments to analytics and more. Plus, Shopify helps you make sales with built in marketing and email tools to go out and find new customers and keep the ones you've got. If you want to see less carts being abandoned, it's time to head over to Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com side hustle. Go to shopify.com sidehustle shopify.com side hustle okay, is now a good time to talk about how you think about the the unit economics of this where it's like okay, well the initial Production run was 3 pounds per towel, but now we're ordering way more at a time so that production cost goes down and we could sell them for $8. We could sell multiples, you know, and give customers a discount. Talk to me about how you think about the margins on like a per sale basis.
- [19:24]
B
When I first started I was buying them in about £3 and I was selling them for about £8. Obviously there are lots of hidden costs with that. So TikTok take a 10% fee in the UK now I have to pay 20% income tax. Then I have to spend a set amount on, on the ad spend. If it's not organic.
- [19:40]
A
Yeah.
- [19:40]
B
I then may have to spend 20% on affiliates because they get a commission for every sale they get. I've got subscriptions to software that I use. I've got lots, lots of stuff, you know, that I think that's people need to know about starting the business is the numbers look amazing but when you really deep dive into it. I'm making money, but don't get me wrong, I'm making money, I'm grateful to be where I am, but.
- [20:00]
A
Yeah, but it's thin. There's not a lot of wiggle room there.
- [20:04]
B
Correct. Yeah. I think I have improved that over time. So as I develop my brand, I've started, I now charge 10 pounds per unit instead of eight.
- [20:12]
A
Okay.
- [20:12]
B
So I've increased the price a bit. I now get charged 20% VAT. So that's almost taken off.
- [20:16]
A
Sure.
- [20:17]
B
I've obviously lowered my, my CPO down, I've lowered my ad costs down. So. Yeah, and also my product costs. So it goes both ways.
- [20:24]
A
Okay. So the advantage of the ad spend is, well, I can drive steady, steady sales at a somewhat predictable cost per acquisition versus just trying to hit the next viral spike on the organic side. Am I hearing, am I kind of understanding that correctly?
- [20:39]
B
Yeah, pretty much.
- [20:40]
A
Okay, how did you go about recruiting affiliates or user generated content creators for this or those? Kind of. One and the same.
- [20:49]
B
So TikTok shop has a built in platform for affiliates and for creators. So in 2024 what I did was I. Well, first of all I was manually going through the list of, I don't know what it was like 10,000 creators and I was manually pasting in each message, sending off each message. I was spending hours on this and I was getting like, you know, people were replying to me and I was sending out free samples. But it was slow, it was very slow and there was definitely a lack of creators on the platform at that time. But now in 2025 I use a subscription based software to basically automatically send out messages for me to creators that are doing well, which is obviously much better.
- [21:27]
A
All right, what, what tool is that?
- [21:29]
B
It's called Reacher Reach AI.
- [21:31]
A
Oh, okay, got it.
- [21:33]
B
It's a good software. Well, I think it's only good if you have an established brand. Really? Because I don't think I could have done it from the start just because to get them affiliates to accept, you need to have proof of concept with your product. You need to have sales, you know.
- [21:43]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there a, an opening pitch where say I'll send you a free towel or do you have to lead with I'll give you £500 or do you have to lead? Well, you can earn 20% commissions on all this. What's the initial conversation look like?
- [21:57]
B
So I filtered on the platform. I said only message people that have over £100 gross merchandise value. So essentially what that means is I only message people who have sold £100 worth of product in the last 30 days. I said it very low barrier for me because my product's so cheap to get out. I actually would rather go quantity over quality. I'd rather just get loads of people making videos and if one goes bang, it's easy, you know, I'd rather do that than, than choose specific creators. And also just because I'm doing a commission based idea.
- [22:27]
A
Okay.
- [22:28]
B
And a couple of retainers as well. I'll go into that in a minute. But essentially I didn't have to pay people to make videos, I had to give them free samples and a commission.
- [22:35]
A
Okay. Yeah, it's all performance based. Hey look, if you drive sales, you're going to make money, I'm going to make money, everybody's happy. And it all cost you. Was the cost of the product to get in their hands correct? Were you focusing only on UK creators too? Is it? Or is it like this? This is worldwide.
- [22:49]
B
Yeah. So this is the thing. So cool. Tell for 2023, 2024 and basically all of 2025 has been UK only.
- [22:58]
A
Okay.
- [22:59]
B
Mainly because TikTok Shop does not allow me, allow me to sell internationally. That's one big issue I've got with it. But it's definitely, definitely got its downside to that because the UK weather is extremely seasonal. So I've probably got a four month window of relatively hot weather. Then it goes to rain and cold and winter. So I'm almost out of time really. And that's why I have plans in the future is definitely to expand internationally. But do you want me to read out the cold message I sent out to the creators?
- [23:26]
A
Oh yeah, yeah, go ahead.
- [23:27]
B
I said, hey, creator name. So I basically extracted the creator's name from it and I said, I hope you're well. I'm reaching out from Cool Towel, a trademarked family owned brand with over 11,000 sales on TikTok shop and hundreds of five star reviews, we built a movement around cooling towels, helping athletes, parents, menopausal women, pet owners and outdoor workers beat the the heat naturally. No batteries, no chemicals, just science that works. You wet it, wring it out and snap it to feel cooler in seconds. What makes us different? We're not just a drop shipping store. We donate to charity, reinvested creators and care about actually making a difference. We already have proven video formulas shared with affiliates that drive thousands in commissions. And if your content performs, we will boost it with paid ads and offer retainers for long term deals. You don't have 20% commission and we'd love to send you out a free sample so you can try out first. Let me know if you're interested by requesting a sample and I'd be happy to answer any questions and get you involved. Best regards, Harrison Founder Cool Tail. That was, that was the message I sent out.
- [24:25]
A
Yeah, that sounds great.
- [24:27]
B
And that, that had a pretty good response rate I think for you know, cold messaging.
- [24:31]
A
Yeah. Did you pay any attention to follower account on those creator accounts that you're reaching out to or is like that? That's pretty irrelevant.
- [24:38]
B
When I was manually doing it I did, but I actually realized that followers on, especially on TikTok don't really matter because you know, someone with 2 million followers can get the same amount of views as someone with 50,000 and someone with 50,000 get the same people with 100. It all depends on the quality of the video.
- [24:52]
A
Yeah, no, that's good. Do you have a sense of how many free cool tales you sent out to creators, to influencers to try and cast this really wide net, this body of content you're trying to build up.
- [25:04]
B
Probably sent around 800, maybe a thousand free samples out. A lot of them, a lot of them haven't got any sales back. You know, a lot of them were even people who didn't make a video at all. You know, I'm not saying everyone was successful, but I mean I've had some cases where they've done £15,000 in revenue just from one video. Like some of them have been ridiculously good and it's really been successful.
- [25:24]
A
Yeah, that seems to be the name of the game. It's almost playing like micro venture capitalists where it's like I'm going to plant a bunch of seeds and I know most of them aren't going to grow, most of them aren't going to do anything. But the one or two that do they're going to wipe out all the losses, all the costs of doing everything else and, and make a. Make a ton of sales.
- [25:43]
B
Yeah.
- [25:44]
A
Okay, so we mentioned Shopify, we mentioned the Reacher app to kind of automate some of this outreach process. Anything else on the tools and tech side that is helping run this business?
- [25:55]
B
I use a lot of Canva. Yeah, Anything to do with design you can do on Canva. It's ridiculous. Yeah, I use a lot of chatgpt. This is a big one. Yeah, I use a lot of AI totally just to help me. I mainly use it for a customer service. So I have an AI bot to do some of the customer service and if it doesn't respond in time, if there's a big issue, it then goes to me. But I also use ChatGPT for. If I have to do anything that needs a lot of time, I chuck it into ChatGPT and see if it can do it for me. But if it can't, obviously I would do it myself. But, yeah, it's a big, big one for me.
- [26:25]
A
Do you have a recent example of a ChatGPT use case like that, for example?
- [26:29]
B
I'd say, like, help me set out a layout for my website for a cooling towel and here's the information for it. Make sure it's X, Y and Z and make sure it fits the theme that I'm going for. And I. Basically, just. The main thing for me with AI is to. Is to give it a good foundation. You know, you can't just say a couple words. For me, it's got to be a good foundation to get the output you want. You have to give a good input.
- [26:55]
A
Right.
- [26:55]
B
Fiverr is another one. If I ever need to outsource something, I will. I occasionally go to Fiverr if I really can't do it myself, but most of the time I do tend to try and do it myself just because I feel like it's good. Especially for me. Like, I like to learn new skills and learn how to do it myself, just so it's sustainable, because I don't want to keep outsourcing on the site.
- [27:14]
A
It looks like you're doing all you can to improve the average order value. It's like, well, the shipping is more or less the same if I'm sending one of these out or if I'm sending two, three, four, five of these out. Yeah, it looks like you're kind of encouraging multiple orders. Hey, buy one for the whole family kind of a thing. Anything else you found effective in increasing that cart size?
- [27:35]
B
Well, for the Drop shipping stores I was running. I'd like to upsell as well if possible and I'd like to also try and only use products that drive repeat purchases. So obviously coolto isn't a big one, but at the end of the day the towel will eventually get smelly and you know, it's like cloves, you know, you want to eventually get a new one which is good for me obviously because it means reoccurring income and the average order price of a customer does increase, you know, value of a customer.
- [28:04]
A
Yeah, it's not something that people are going to subscribe to, especially on their first order. Like hey, I'll send you one every three months. Like yeah, probably not.
- [28:11]
B
I agree. Well, for my plan in the future I'm going to start creating new products and I'm going to try and upsell them. I'm going to do like cooling headbands, cooling pet products, you know, different colors, different packaging. You know, there's lots of different pathways I'm going down and essentially I'm trying to increase the cart value. You know, that's the main thing.
- [28:29]
A
Got it. Okay. Underneath the cool towel umbrella we could have other cooling related products. Yeah. Expand more and more, add more skus to the inventory here.
- [28:38]
B
Correct.
- [28:39]
A
Talk to me about the logistics side of this. So after the first well we shipped these out second rate or second class mail and that was a mistake. And so what's the fulfill side look like? You're still fulfilling orders yourself. I think I saw a video of you know, hiring a bunch of teammates and friends to come pack and label and do all this stuff. But what's, what's that side of it?
- [29:00]
B
This is like the big question I get asked is why don't you go to a 3 PL, a third party fulfillment, so a warehouse to do it for you. And the main thing for me is one, I enjoy packing them. I like the process. It's quite satisfying, you know, seeing all the orders go out the door. Two, people like a tangible business. People like the fact that you know, they can see it, it's real, it's not just some big corporation. Three, I can make content out of it and that will then lead to more sales. And yeah, so with the, with the orders, either do it myself and if it's a big day, it's all for my bedroom here. Behind me I've got, over there I've got boxes and boxes of cool towels. It's in my bedroom.
- [29:35]
A
Yeah.
- [29:36]
B
If it's a big day, if it's a really hot Day. I've got loads of ads running and I've got. My biggest day, I think was about 25, 000 pounds in revenue this year, which was like, it sold me out, you know, it was just like ridiculous.
- [29:47]
A
Which would be what, like 1500 or 2000 individual towels?
- [29:51]
B
Yeah, yeah, it's something around 2000. Yeah.
- [29:53]
A
Oh, my gosh. That's like so much packing and shipping and licking and stamping and labeling.
- [29:59]
B
Yeah. So I bought around 10 of my school friends. I paid them all, you know, a good wage. I got my family around. Literally everyone was here. I didn't do it for that day, but a couple of the days, if it got that big, I would then also utilize my dad's warehouse space. He runs his own bespoke furniture business.
- [30:15]
A
Oh, okay. So there's, there's some storage. This is in the family. We have some extra space. Okay.
- [30:20]
B
Yeah, I did have the option of renting it out, but one, I want to lower my overhead cost as much as possible. And also, like, I enjoy having it here, you know, it's not a burden to me. I enjoy it.
- [30:30]
A
Okay, so packing and doing the shipping yourself Again, margins are pretty thin. So having a 3 PL, you don't have to raise prices or do you know something else to cover their fulfillment cost space. And you don't get any content out of it because they're somebody else is doing the work. More with Harrison in just a moment, including the risk of running out of inventory and some of the unexpected benefits of racking up millions of views on these videos coming up right after this. I'm excited to partner with OpenPhone for this episode. OpenPhone is the number one business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communication for both calls and texts, all in one easy to use centralized hub. But before OpenPhone was sponsoring podcasts, they took a more guerrilla marketing approach.
- [31:12]
C
You probably don't remember this. This is, this is a while back, but when we just started OpenPhone, one of the ways that we got our first customers is through Facebook groups. And I joined a bunch of Facebook groups, including yours. Thank you for not kicking me out, but I posted a couple of times and I actually remember seeing there were some of your listeners and folks in your community interested in solving the problem we solve, which is not using your personal phone number for work. And those posts got us some of our first customers. So thank you. It's a full circle moment.
- [31:45]
A
Oh, that's super fun. Very cool. That's Darina, the co founder of Openphone. And sure enough, her posts are still there. Openphone is offering side hustle show listeners 20% off your first six months at openphone.com Sidehustle that's o p e n p dash h o n e openphone.com Sidehustlez and if you have existing numbers with another service, Openphone will port them over at no extra charge. Years ago, this is probably 2009, I'm sitting in this conference in Santa Barbara and the presenter asks this question. Are you working on your business or are you working in your business? I saw myself as this full time entrepreneur, but it was this moment of clarity that no, I was still very much working in the business day to day. So when I got back home, that's when I made my first full time hire. It was the first in a long series and an ongoing series of steps in trying to take control by being okay of letting go of certain tasks. Now when you find yourself in that position of needing to hire like yesterday, you need our sponsor, Indeed. Plus Indeed's sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast. There's no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts, and you only pay for results. That's why for my next hire, I'm using Indeed side Hustle show listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com Sidehustleshow just go to Indeed.com SidehustlesHow right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Sidehustleshow terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. So what happens when you have this viral hit and it's 2,000 orders in a day, Something nuts. And you're like, well, I only have a thousand units in stock. Like what happens to the stuff where it's like, oh, we physically can't fulfill this because we don't have it.
- [33:40]
B
So this is actually a really good question because this happened to me essentially I oversold massively. I was a bit stupid really. So I got the sales. So the order was coming from my manufacturer and it said it was expected to be here in about three days or four days. But long story short, it got stuck in customs. So it got stuck, you know, at the airport. It was.
- [34:00]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [34:01]
B
And all the orders just were sitting there. You know, I had all the orders on the computer, but I couldn't fill them because I didn't have any stock. Yeah, I completely sold out. So it was about, I think it was about 2, 000 orders over the course of like two weeks that they're stuck in customs. So I was like, okay, this is really bad.
- [34:18]
A
Yeah.
- [34:18]
B
And I emailed Tick Tock. I tried to sort it out. I tried to say, you know, can you, can you try and help me? Can you? Basically, on Tick Tock, after a certain amount of time, it will cancel the orders and I'll just lose all the money. And that's what happened. I lost 2,000 orders and that was all. I still had to pay affiliate commission. I'm pretty sure I still had to pay ad spend. That's the main cost that I lost. It was about. So in total, I reckon I lost £10,000 in a week, which was a big, big loss.
- [34:43]
A
Yeah.
- [34:43]
B
And I do think I did manage to recover some of that because I, I used this platform, reacher, to send out messages to the buyers that have orders have been automatically canceled. And I said, hey, so sorry about this. You know, the stock got stuck in customs, which was a bit awkward, but I sent a nice message and I think I got, you know, a few sales back, which is good, but pretty broke even, which wasn't great.
- [35:06]
A
Yeah, yeah. That's so frustrating. It was kind of this impulse buy price point where it's like, oh, you see the video? Sure. I'll. I'll take a chance at that for 10 or 15 pounds to get a couple. And then it's like. But then if it doesn't show up immediately, it's like, well, do I really need this in my life anymore? Or it's like it gets canceled.
- [35:24]
B
And it also really hurt my brand as well because lots of people wrote negative reviews and it hurt the brand. Yeah. Not just money.
- [35:31]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of different pieces to juggle and try and forecast because you don't know when the next viral thing is going to hit. Like, I don't need to order 5,000 units if I don't think I'm going to sell 5,000 units and have all that cash tied up sitting in the warehouse. It's like, there's a lot of moving parts here. So aside from the initial shipping mistake, anything else you would do differently starting this thing over?
- [35:51]
B
At first, I advertised the brand. I didn't use my face. I only used the logo and the product. I think if I use my personal brand from earlier, maybe I would have done a little bit better, but I'm definitely doing that now. You know, I think personal branding is now, especially in 2025, it's something that is so, so strong and there's so much potential in that and that's definitely Something definitely something I want to keep going with and keep expanding.
- [36:18]
A
You think that's a response to just everything being AI generated? It's like, no, I want to, I want to buy from Harrison. I want to buy from an actual person.
- [36:26]
B
Yeah, I do. I really think that. Yeah, I think a lot of my sales have been because people like to support real businesses and ones that, you know, aren't just AI. Here.
- [36:36]
A
You've got lots of great press. It was a Yahoo article that I initially found about you is like, well, this is a really inspiring story. Any other big surprises that have happened as a result?
- [36:45]
B
Yes, this is a big one. So literally about two months ago, from the personal brand videos that I made, like packaging orders and telling my story, that was where it all started. On the Harrison not TikTok account.
- [36:57]
A
Yeah.
- [36:57]
B
And essentially I went, I went viral on there. I got like multiple videos with like 4 million views just because people like, like the fact that it was a teenager, not just like, you know, gaming. And from that one I got sales. Two, I developed a personal brand. Although it's still quite small, it's still, you know, better than nothing. Three, I got quite a few opportunities and people email me. Like just like yourself, you emailed me. But I also had lots of different people really. I had a guy called Alex who like owns a big company and he was like, if you ever need any help or mentorship, I can, I can do that for you free of charge, you know, so opportunities really. And the main one that I got from these personal brand videos was an email from Alibaba and they said, we are doing a co create event in Vegas and Las Vegas and London.
- [37:45]
A
Okay.
- [37:45]
B
And essentially we want you at both of them and it would be all costs paid, you know, and we want you to create promotional videos and basically it was like a brand deal and I've never had that before. That was like that. I'm literally going to Vegas in, in four days, five days, I'm going to. Going off to Vegas.
- [38:01]
A
Wow.
- [38:01]
B
You know, paid by them. So that was really, really, really cool, I think. And yeah, that was a cool experience. So networking as well.
- [38:09]
A
That's really cool. Yeah. You never know who's out there watching.
- [38:12]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [38:13]
A
I thought school was starting next week, but no, you're going to Vegas.
- [38:16]
B
Yeah. So school starts on the 2nd of September, but I'm off to Vegas. Yeah, I've got permission by the school to have a tour.
- [38:25]
A
School can wait. I got business to attend to.
- [38:27]
B
I focus on school a lot as well as businesses as well as squash in the gym. Yeah, I just like to be busy all the time, really. With the personal brand thing.
- [38:35]
A
Yeah. Well, it's really cool. I think this is probably going to be the rule for our kids on social media is like, you don't, you don't need to be on here unless you're making money. You don't need to be on here unless you're building something. If you're a creator rather than just a consumer.
- [38:48]
B
Yeah, I think social media is good. I think, you know, it's great to relax, but then I think people overuse it. I think it's good in moderation. I use it in moderation. You know, I don't, I don't use. Watch too much of it, but I do watch it. You know, it's. It's entertaining, you know. And I also think you can also learn from videos. Some, most. Some of the time, you know, there's educational videos out there.
- [39:08]
A
Yeah.
- [39:08]
B
Also from the personal brand videos that went viral. The main thing was I, like I said I developed networking, you know, with people like yourself. You know, there are lots of people that messaged me saying, you know, like, I'm X, Y and Z and I like what you're doing. You know, if you ever need to help, if you ever need any advice, if you do you want to do this X opportunity of me. And one of them was a company called pause.com and essentially we're in the process of developing a partnership to create a dog calling towel. And they're quite a big company. So. So like, you know, there's lots of opportunities you can get from posting social media videos. You know, there's. I think that's one big thing. It doesn't have to be about business either. It could be about anything. The passion.
- [39:45]
A
Yeah. So we're expanding the product line. We've got the different colors, different use cases. Dog. The dog product line. We've got this Alibaba event, all expenses paid. We've got school coming up. What else is on the horizon for you?
- [40:00]
B
International sales. This is one big thing for me. So I've got friends in America. That's one. You know, I definitely want to get out to the States and maybe even like, you know, hot countries in. In Africa and in other. Basically, I want to get around the world. I want to get cool tell around the world. Whether that's through three pl or whether that's through like, like networking. So I've had quite a few people from like a loads of different countries saying we'd love to host your product out here and dispatch it, you know, around our country.
- [40:28]
A
It's a brief selling window. Are you doing Amazon at all? I should have asked earlier.
- [40:33]
B
I am on Amazon. I get probably like one or two sales a day maximum. I think that's because really I don't know enough about the platform just yet. I think I can utilize it a lot more but I basically just create a listing and let it run. Like I didn't, I didn't, you know, do anything to it. So it's just, it's just running.
- [40:50]
A
Got it, got it. Yeah, we talked to another e commerce entrepreneur earlier this summer and he was like, yeah, I have the listing up there because I think people just have a certain level of comfort with Amazon. Yes, they heard about this through my own marketing but for whatever reason they're like, I don't want to check out on this guy's individual store, but I will go out and seek it out directly on Amazon.
- [41:12]
B
That's what I found. I looked at Google's like search results and especially when I was only on TikTok shop, lots of people saw the product, loved it and didn't, just didn't trust TikTok shop at that, at that point in time. And I think I lost a lot of sales just because I wasn't on the website nor, nor Amazon so.
- [41:27]
A
Got it.
- [41:27]
B
That was definitely a big one. But regarding my plans for the future, I'd also like to get a bit more into wholesaling and like potentially even retail. I'd like to sell to big sports shops or sell to hotels. You know, there's so many different pathways that I can go down and I've got big plans. I need to make a lot of decisions really I think. But yeah, that's, that's the goal.
- [41:48]
A
Well, I'm excited to see where it goes. I imagine probably do a follow up at some point and see kind of a. Where are they now with, with what happened with Cool Tao?
- [41:57]
B
That'd be amazing. Yeah, yeah. I mean it might not even be cool to. I'm also looking to develop my personal brand and just not only develop the Cool Tao name, but also develop my name just because it's so, it's so powerful, especially in 2025. And it just means that I can keep creating businesses and have that audience that trusts me, you know. And I think in the future I'd like to help people create businesses. I'd like to help people, you know, learn about, about entrepreneurship. Whether that's, you know, side hustles, whether that's E Commerce. Like I'm doing anything, really. I'd like to just develop a social media page that helps people well, very good.
- [42:30]
A
We'll link that up. Give him a follow Harrison Knott on TikTok and again, cooltowel.co.uk and really appreciate you stopping by. This has been great, taking some lumps along the way, but overall, lots of cool lessons learned and some success from selling these things on TikTok at Shopify.
- [42:47]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [42:48]
A
Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side Hustle Nation.
- [42:53]
B
For me it would be don't give up, stay resilient. If it was easy, then everyone would do it because you know, the pathway won't be. Won't be smooth, it'll be bumpy and there'll be so many mistakes you have to get over and so many errors and so many problems. But just enjoy the process and learn from your mistakes. That's what I'd say.
- [43:09]
A
Yeah, I like that one. That's a line we use quite a bit. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. So keep at it. Couple takeaways from me before we wrap. Number one, like on the surface, simple business. Buy low, sell high. You know, buy the product cheap, sell it for more, make your margin. But there's some complexities in the shipping and fulfillment, in the timing of cash flow, in the marketing and on that marketing side, the importance of branding and being able to drive your own traffic, especially for something that might be considered somewhat commoditized. Like, okay, I'll just go with the cheapest ones. Like, but no, if I found the cool towel video and that's specifically the one that I'm after. Click, click, click. And now I'm checked out on your store page. I didn't have time. I didn't even think about shopping the competition right. So you kind of command premium prices or higher prices than you would if you're just like a generic competitor on Amazon. So those were a couple things that stood out to me. Your listener bonus for this week is my list of 25 eCommerce Niche ideas to get your creative juices flowing. If you've been inspired by this chat with Harrison, you can download that for free at the Show Notes for this episode and just follow the Show Notes link in the episode description. It'll get you right over there. Big thanks to Harrison for sharing his insight and big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. Sidehustlenation.com deals is where to go to find all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. To fire off that text message to that young person in your life who might be inspired by Harrison's story. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show, Asalan.