How She Was In a position To Go away Her Finance Job After Incomes $76,000 With Her Aspect Hustle
Ruta Drungilaite is the proprietor of A Twist of Date, a enterprise that helps {couples} discover new and enjoyable date evening concepts with digital choices. She shares with us how she was capable of earn sufficient to depart her finance job and what she did to get 5000 orders from 80 completely different nations!
1. Are you able to inform us somewhat about your self and what impressed you to start out your small business?
I’m Ruta, the proprietor and founding father of A Twist Of Date, serving to {couples} to combine up their date nights from the standard Netflix on the couch routine. I labored in Finance for 7 years, since graduating college, and began this enterprise as a ‘side-project’ whereas nonetheless at my 9-5.
The concept for A Twist Of Date got here to me again in one of many Covid lockdowns in 2021. We stay in London, so we’re normally spoilt for selection of enjoyable issues to do. My fiance and I’ve completed all of it: hidden jazz golf equipment, secret cocktail bars, underground performs, wine and cheese tastings, comedy nights, horrible histories boat tour, escape room – fashion outside meals maze, indoor mountaineering, quirky artwork installations, driving vary and lots of extra.
Nonetheless, with lockdown all these decisions have been taken away. In consequence, my fiance was discovering it arduous to give you distinctive date concepts, whereas my very own creativity was solely propelled by it. It dawned on me that there should be different individuals on the market for whom developing with artistic date concepts at residence (not only a film and dinner) can be a battle. So I began to consider how I may clear up that downside for {couples}.
2. Are you able to describe the preliminary steps you took to launch your small business?
My first thought was to create date evening bins delivered to you, which might have all the things set and deliberate for a romantic night at residence. I’ve launched cocktail making bins on the first of February 2022 in time for Valentine’s day, adopted by pottery workshop bins afterward. The bins included playlists, all of the instruments to make cocktails/pottery creations, deep dialog starters and different actions designed to deepen the connection along with your accomplice.
{Couples} cherished these bins and I had plenty of good suggestions, however making the bins by hand has been extraordinarily labour intensive, revenue margins have been razor skinny/non-existent and the amount of gross sales was not as excessive as I had initially hoped for. In the end, the date field thought was not a scalable or financially viable one for me to proceed.
6 months into my enterprise, I began promoting a PDF of 110 date thought playing cards, which {couples} may obtain immediately and print out at residence. As this concept went nicely, I pivoted my enterprise away from bodily date evening bins towards digital merchandise, increasing my vary with romantic board video games, chilly case recordsdata, escape rooms, dialog starters and extra. That’s when my enterprise began to essentially take off and I knew I used to be onto one thing.
Quick ahead to 2024, I’ve stop my 9-5 in Finance, after receiving over 5,000 orders from 80 completely different nations, giving me reassurance that my thought solves a common downside for {couples}.
3. How do your digital choices improve date nights in comparison with extra conventional strategies?
Many {couples} have busy life and demanding jobs, which makes it arduous to make time for planning date nights that aren’t simply reserving a restaurant or flicking on one other film.
I take away the ache of planning considerate and distinctive actions, as my digital merchandise are primarily near ‘zero-effort’ to arrange. {Couples} can obtain and print my date nights and have a number of hours of enjoyable actions at their fingertips in minutes.
4. What platforms or instruments do you employ in your small business?
I take advantage of plenty of completely different instruments, however the principle ones are:
- Shopify for my web site
- Capcut for modifying all of the movies
- Canva for creating digital merchandise
- Instagram and TikTok for advertising and marketing
5. Are you able to describe your advertising and marketing technique and the best channel you employ to advertise your small business?
My core advertising and marketing instruments that drive the vast majority of my gross sales are TikTok and Instagram, the place I create natural worthwhile content material for my viewers ({couples} in long run relationships/married {couples}). I present worth by sharing numerous distinctive date concepts which are usually in a roundabout way associated to the merchandise I promote. This fashion, I place myself as a ‘go-to’ particular person for date concepts, which builds belief and credibility with my viewers.
6. How do you entice and retain prospects in a distinct segment market like date evening planning?
My saveable/shareable content material on social media performs a ‘high of the funnel’ function, attracting {couples} to comply with my web page, discover out extra about my model and the superior date nights I create, main many to subsequently buy my merchandise. I supply a ‘100% happiness assure’ to my prospects and all the time go the additional mile to make sure every particular person has a 5 star expertise with my model, which performs a key function in getting repeat prospects.
7. What are some challenges you might have confronted with your small business and the way did you overcome them?
Constructing my first enterprise has in all probability been the toughest factor I’ve completed in my life and essentially the most rewarding one too. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster of a journey with numerous challenges. Listed here are a few of the most important ones:
- 1. First product not being viable: As talked about above, my first thought of bodily date evening bins was primarily loss making and never financially viable/scalable. Even at present, our cabinets are crammed with a whole lot of mini alcohol bottles from the cocktail bins I used to promote! I may have given up at this level, however I made a decision to experiment and pivot, which has led me to digital date evening merchandise I promote at present, with 5,000+ orders throughout 80 completely different nations.
2. Information hole. More often than not I didn’t know what I used to be doing, however I used to be prepared to study and persevere. I didn’t have a giant price range to start out with, so I’ve completed all the things myself e.g. coding my web site by looking for solutions on YouTube, clumsily utilizing Adobe Illustrator to design my brand, writing privateness coverage, Ts&Cs and different authorized documentation for my web site, creating and designing all of the merchandise with none expertise with Canva, studying to make TikToks and develop on social media, by no means having even used TikTok earlier than. All through my journey, I’ve all the time tried to embrace the mindset of “I don’t know how to do that, however I’m positive I can study”.
3. Making an attempt to construct the enterprise with a full time job. There’s no magic or secret right here – balancing my demanding day job and a enterprise has been very powerful. I attempted to work on my enterprise as a lot as I may on the evenings and weekends, however after a full day of ‘firefighting’ at my day job, I did usually really feel emotionally and bodily depleted, so it wasn’t all the time doable to work on my enterprise as a lot as I’d have favored to. I’ve needed to settle for that I solely have a lot power and time and for this enterprise is to be sustainable, I needed to prioritize my well being, psychological well being and general wellbeing, although it meant that issues are transferring slower than I’d have favored to within the brief time period.I needed to be cautious to look at and spot any indicators of my psychological well being taking a toll on account of overworking and prioritize taking relaxation in addition to doing issues that deliver me power and pleasure. My strategy was prioritising consistency of motion – attempting to do no less than somewhat bit every single day to construct and develop my enterprise.
8. How lengthy did it take you to see constant month-to-month income?
Within the first 6 months of launching my enterprise, my whole income was lower than £3k. 7 months in I’ve had my ‘Flirty Cube’ printable board sport go viral on TikTok, which introduced in over £700 in simply 3 days, which is once I knew I used to be onto one thing and began to see extra development from leveraging natural social media to drive gross sales.
As my gross sales have been largely pushed my movies going viral, the revenue ranges assorted considerably from month to month e.g. 7k one month and solely £1k one other. I’m nonetheless engaged on diversifying my advertising and marketing methods and income streams to attain extra consistency in income e.g. using e-mail advertising and marketing, growing my presence throughout different social media platforms, engaged on paid model partnerships.
9. When did you notice you would stop your job and go all in with the enterprise?
I’ve had 5,000+ orders from 80 completely different nations and made round £60k in gross sales earlier than quitting my company 9-5, which reassured me that my thought solves a common downside for {couples} all the world over. With the enterprise idea verified, I felt that I may make this enterprise work, if I devoted my full consideration to it.
I’ve constructed up my private financial savings to maintain myself for no less than the following 12 months, after which I’m hoping to be driving sufficient income to pay myself a wage that’s much like the one I had with my job in Finance. Leaving my well-paid job in Finance is the largest threat I’ve ever taken, however I completely love the enterprise I’ve constructed and imagine that with consistency, self-discipline and a development mindset I’ll be capable to make it work.
10. What recommendation would you give to different aspiring entrepreneurs seeking to begin a enterprise?
Discover a ache level. There’s a good e book referred to as ‘Competing in opposition to luck’ by Clayton M Christensen, which I like to recommend for each aspiring entrepreneur to find out about figuring out and fixing actual issues.
Validate your thought. Each entrepreneur thinks their thought is improbable, however the one technique to confirm it’s to see if anybody is prepared to pay for it and if it may be worthwhile. In the event you’re seeking to stop your company job for a facet hustle, I believe it’s important to show your idea earlier than you do.
Prioritise motion over perfection. Study to be comfy with releasing your concepts into the market and testing them earlier than they’re excellent. The extra messy/scrappy motion you are taking, the faster you’ll get the suggestions you want and be capable to study from it. No level engaged on perfecting your product for years simply to seek out out nobody desires it.
Do one thing you’re actually desirous about. Ask your self whether or not the thought you select for your small business is one thing you actually care about. In the event you do, the setbacks and disappointments that you just’ll encounter alongside the best way will probably be price persevering via.
Embrace the expansion mindset. It’s simple to fall into the sufferer mentality, blame the circumstances and really feel sorry for your self, when issues don’t go to plan, nevertheless it received’t serve you nicely. Take possession of the failures and concentrate on what you possibly can study from them. Domesticate the mindset of curiosity and limitless studying.
Keep true to your values. We see the stereotypical high-flying entrepreneur going with no sleep for weeks, working all hours of the day and having no time for social life or relationships. Whereas this would possibly work for some, I’m a giant believer of deliberately defining what ‘success’ means to you personally and consciously selecting ‘the worth you’re prepared to pay’ within the completely different facets of your life to get there, as a result of I believe you are able to do something, however not all the things. I do know my well being, and relationships with household, buddies and fiance all the time come first and I’m not prepared to ‘drop the ball’ on these facets of my life, even when it means my enterprise would possibly develop slower.
11. The place can we discover you, as we’re all followers of you now?!
Web site: https://atwistofdate.co.uk/
Instagram: @atwistofdate
TikTok: @atwistofdate
Thanks a lot Ruta for sharing all of this with us! You shared some actually nice stuff!
Make sure that to take a look at A Twist Of Date to seek out extra data.