So, how do you create a multi-million dollar business starting with only $10,000 without having much of a plan, without doing a lot of research, without even knowing how to use Shopify or basically you had to learn the internet from scratch? Well, we have talked about this a little bit on this podcast, but I finally wanted to do an episode with a very special person, my mother-in-law. So, about 5 years ago, my mother-in-law sat me down. She goes, "Sam, I have this idea for a business. I want to start this pillow company. Can you teach me how to do it?" I gave the most generic advice ever on how to do it, not expecting her to do anything. Turns out she listened and she Googled and found actually significantly better advice. And she built a company that is now making millions a year in revenue. She started it in her early 50s and it's killing it. And after years of just kind of quietly chugging along and building this epic business, I asked my mother-in-law Smithy Sodine to come on the pod and give her story. If you are in your 30s, 40s or 50s and you are thinking about starting a business and you're sort of overthinking, you're not sure what to do or even if you're in your 20s and you want to figure out how to change your life, this is probably the most relatable and I think inspirational episodes that we have ever done. So, it's a very special episode for me for obvious reasons. I love her to death, but I think you guys are going to like it. Check it out.
So, let me set the stage here, Smithy. Okay, do you even listen to the podcast? All right. So, the story is this. Basically, you came over in your early teens as an immigrant. You had some kids and you were a stay at home mom and then the kids grew up and you were like, "Well, I'm not really sure what to do next." And so, you kind of were like trying a bunch of different stuff. I think at one point you got your real estate license and you did something a lot of people want or they think about. They think like, "I want to start something. I want to like do something." and you thought about it for a couple years, I think, and then all of a sudden, we had a conversation and you basically told me what you were going to do. And I wasn't sure if I even believed that you were going to do it, but basically, you were like, I'm going to start a pillow business. You had done zero research. You didn't do any market research. And then all of a sudden, 2 weeks later, you have this online store. And before I know it, you had a bunch of sales. And now, after doing this for 6 years, you've made multiple millions in revenue. I don't know if you want to say what it is or you know you could say the numbers but you built like a seven figure business without any internet experience or any research. We talked about you on the podcast and that was pretty cool and a lot of people have asked and so we have Smithy here who's actually my mother-in-law.
Well, okay, I'll just change a few little bits of information in that summary. So, I came to the US with my family when I was 16 years old. So, it was in 1983. We lived in Miami for a couple of years and then I wind up going to school in New York City. I wanted to be in the fashion industry. Sewing has always been a passion of mine. So I've my grandparents sewed and my mom did. So I learned from them and then I wind up just liking it. It was just a way to express myself, my creativity. I made clothes for myself and then I wanted to go to fashion institute of technology to study fashion. So I wind up being majoring in pattern making. I also had to work full-time and while I was going to school part-time so I never graduated from FIT.
I didn't know you went to FIT. That's pretty cool.
Yes, I went to FIT for about a couple of years, maybe two, three years part-time. I was really close to graduation. Then I got married, had a child, your wife, and decided that I wanted to move out of New York City. So, and we moved to the suburbs, and there was no fashion industry in the suburbs, and I really didn't want to travel back and forth to work in the city. Then I stayed at home. I became a stay-at-home mom for about three or four years. Then I realized, oh wow, I'm raising a child, but I don't have enough information to raise her. What am I going to do? Like when she needs knowledge, how am I going to help her? And so on. I'm like, okay, fine. I'll go to school to become a teacher. So I went to school, major, did a dual major English lit and education. I actually went to school for 10 years while I was raising my kids and act wind up with a master's degree in linguistics. Then it really helped having children but I always sewed or did alterations for my neighbors and they were vests were in style in the 1990s. So I made vest and sold them on on the side. So I was always sewing doing something in that field. So when I started teaching, I thought for a while my husband and I own a business for sure I helped out and then when the business was winding down, I was like, "Oh, I really needed to work to keep working. I was just too young to retire." So I I really brainstorm ideas and then pillows just just kept coming back to me because my friends always asked me to make them for for them. I made them for my sisters. I made them for everybody. So I'm like, "Okay, pillows." You know, it was funny because everyone kept discouraging me. They're saying, "Why would you want to sell pillows? How many pillows can you sell? This is ridiculous. Nobody buys pillows." But I bought a ton of them and made a ton of them. So, I know women like them and people in general like them.
And when you're saying pillows, like when you said pillows, to me, I was thinking like pillows I put my head on at night and go to bed. You're talking about like fancy decorative pillows, like throw pillows.
Okay. Yes, you're right. I should correct that. I made decorative pillows. the couch pillows, the sofa pillows, and also the decorative bed pillows that people used. So, I thought to myself, well, I really don't want to sell millions of pillows. I just wanted to sell enough. And I also wanted to keep myself engaged in something that I was passionate about. I was passionate about working with textile, looking at fabric, shopping for them. I had closets full of them. So, that's what I wind up doing. It was definitely tricky because I knew how to sew and I knew how to shop for the fabric. I had a pretty good eye for interior design. The problem was I had no knowledge of an online business. The technology part was a problem. So, I had I had to really learn a lot in order to open an online store.
For the listener. And Ari, if you want to see this as well, Google. Okay, so Smithy's name is S M I T H E, but she spelled it smithy with a Y. So the word Smith and then a Y. Smithy home couture. You guys got to Google that right now. And if you go to it, you'll see your website, but more importantly, click the Etsy link. And I'm not looking at it now, but I'm going off memory. I think it says that you have sold or you've had 17,000 orders. And those orders could be multiple pillows. And the reviews are like 4.9 out of five stars and it's like three or four or 5,000 reviews. Is that right?
I have very very very good reviews. I think there multiple aspects of the business. There's a consultant side of it where I help people select pillows for their homes. There's another side of it where you actually have to manufacture the pillows. We get an order, I make the pillows, pack and ship to the client. But you also I have customer you know the customer service you have to it's a service to the client. So I really try to maintain a relationship with my clients. I I treat them the way that I want to be treated. So I respond to their questions right away. If there's a they request something that I cannot do, I make sure that it expressed them. Hey, I can do that. So let's try something else. or maybe I might even recommend somewhere else for them to find a product that they're looking for. So customer service is really important to me because I want to be treated well. The the reviews are a reflection of that.
Yeah, they're crazy high. And right now, just so so people have context, right now I think you have I don't know how many employees you have, four or five or six. How many do you have?
So I they're really all subcontractors. I use about five to six subcontractors. Yeah.
And you have like a I don't know what you call it, an office, a work space where you have I've been there. And you have these five or six or six.
A work room. And you're just sewing the like I think people It's pretty cool because I think a lot of people listening to this, they're like, "Oh, I'm going to go like find something online and just resell it." You have five or six people in there with sewing machines and you're and and you're sewing them. Like you guys are actually And so like a lot of people brag about made in America, which I love. I love made in America stuff, but you're like making all this in New Jersey. This is just like it's just a crazy how straightforward you made this process and it has worked really really well.
It's very simple. We don't stock pillow covers. We don't stock them. We stock fabrics. So I have about 400 different rolls of fabrics in my workroom. Someone places an order and we make the pillow that day or that week. We ship within 3 to 5 days from the time you order to making it, packing and ship. It's pretty simple. I have a people who help me with the sewing, but I do all the buying. All the creative side is all me. And we also make the answer, the actual what you thinking about the pillows, the stuffing. We also make them there and pack them and and ship. It was so simple to start this business in terms of financial investment. I started it with $10,000 and I've never invested another penny in it.
All right. So, a lot of people watch and listen to this show because they want to hear us just tell them exactly what to do when it comes to starting or growing a business. Now, a lot of people message Sean and I and they say, "All right, I want to start something on the side. Is this a good idea? Is that a good idea?" And again, what they're really just saying is, "Just give me the ideas." Well, my friends, you're in luck. So, my old company, The Hustle, they put together a hundred different side hustle ideas, and they have appropriately called it the side hustle idea database. It's a list of a hundred pretty good ideas, frankly. I went through them. They're awesome. And it gives you how to start them, how to grow them, things like that. Gives you a little bit of inspiration. So, check it out. It's called the side hustle idea database. It's in the description below. You'll see the link. Click it. Check it out. Let me know in the comments what you think. Can I retell the story of how I remember it? And I've probably exaggerated it so many times that I don't know what is the truth or what's an exaggeration. And you could tell me what is true and what's not. So, basically, if I remember correctly, five or six years ago, you drove me to the airport. Sarah and I were still living, I think, in San Francisco or Austin, I don't remember. And I was there by myself on a work trip, and you drove me. I was like, "Why do you want to drive me?" And you're like, "I want to talk to you about something." I was like, "What do you want to talk about?" And you're like, "I want to start this pillow thing, a pillow business. Can you like just like tell me anything you think I should know?" And I was like, "Oh, wow. Okay. Well, and in my head I was thinking this is just another conversation that I've had tens of thousands of times where someone tells me something they're going to do and they're never going to do it. But I was like, "Okay, well, I'll just like I said, I don't really know anything about like ecom, but I could just tell you like what this thing called Shopify is and I could tell you that you probably might want to buy some ads and you probably want to do this." I gave you the most generic thing ever that you could just have Googled and then two weeks later I get a link to I think it was your a website or an Etsy store and I was like, "Oh, this person has a company named exactly what you were going to name your company." And you're like, "Oh, no. This is mine. I did what you said. I created an Etsy or I think a Shopify store, something like that, Woo Commerce, and I flew down to North Carolina and I bought a bunch of fabrics and I am now getting my friends to buy the stuff to give me a good review." And that's where we are. Is that right?
That's basically how it happened. I wanted to understand what an e-commerce entails because again, I know how to sew, but someone my age or most people my age have a very hard time understanding e the e-commerce concept and all the lingo that goes along with it like what is SEO, what is, you know, conversion rates, you know, all all this stuff. So I wanted to understand from your perspective what you understood and really should I buy ads or not like what is this exactly and I was able to pick your brand and I got a lot of information about it and also I needed encouragement from from people who were maybe young entrepreneurs people who were doing it and you were you were always creating new companies you're always talking about businesses what you're up to so I I wanted I wanted some encouragement and and you provided that. That was cool.
How did your first customers find you?
So, Etsy is a wonderful platform. Etsy made it pretty easy. At the beginning, you're right. I want I needed a couple of reviews. I have sewed for like so many of my friends and family. So, I had to get a couple of people to buy a few pillows and then just write a couple of reviews. But the first time I actually had a client that I have never met ordered something, it was amazing. It was exhilarating. I was so excited. And that feeling that you get like someone says, "Hey, you're worth something." So, and then when it kept happening, I I really kept doing it. It really helped. I started my business in 2020. In January 2020, I opened my Etsy store and March 2020 we shut down for CO. So, CO really helped launch my business. I think the first month in January, I sold about maybe like $300 of pillows. February, maybe about $500. But by the end of March, April, I was selling multiple thousand of pillows. And then the issue was I couldn't keep up the demand. I couldn't make them all by myself. But I did for the first nine months I did make them all by myself, pack them and ship them and all that. And then eventually I had to to find help.
So I'm known on this podcast. It's so funny. I have like my home life and then I got like this like public life and people on the audience and they they know me as someone who asks very blunt questions.
Yes, you do. I know that too. Yeah,
I was like, I'm still going to ask blunt questions, but I respect you to you can you can respectfully tell me, Sam, I'm not I'm not answering that, but
I will definitely do that.
When were you able to pay yourself?
I was able to pay myself the very first year.
Do you remember how much or you want to say how much or no?
I think the first year maybe I made like $60,000. It wasn't a lot.
What was the most money you made as a teacher?
So you beat your or you matched your teaching your your your job in one year.
The fir the first year. Yeah.
That's pretty awesome. How's that feel?
Oh, it was it was great. I did enjoy teaching as well. So I don't regret it. It was fun. I thought I was rewarding as well. So, but it's nice to be able to do this and get paid well for doing it.
In order to give the viewer and listener some context, are you able to say like how much revenue or profit or sales you want to you're going to be doing in 26 or 25?
So, I can tell you this in in 2025 I my business my revenue grew by 100%. So we are in a seven figures now in terms of like profit. I mean we have a I make a very healthy profit. I'm very happy with with the income that I make.
So I I know what it is and I'm not going to say what it is, but I'll say that I know people who have businesses that do 20 million in revenue. ecom businesses that do 20 million in revenue and I have a feeling you're making more money than they are in terms of like
I don't know about that but I I would say that I do very well. I love what I do. I never think about it as work work. I love it and you know that, but I think it's a viable way to measure your success. So, I I do try to I pay myself. But in 2026, our goal is to probably try to grow the business by like another byif at least 50%.
And and I think I can definitely do that. I I have a very clear path ahead to how to grow the business and I know you think it's really funny that's how we started.
I think it's awesome.
One of the many reasons why I wanted to do a podcast with you was because you know me and Sean we get all these people reaching out to us that say they want to start whatever and they like write up these complicated reasons or these complicated business plans or something like that and we're like that's just not important. just like start something in a week, just move fast, you know, momentum to your first dollar. And I don't know if this is like a genetic thing or people can become this, but there's this weird thing that I tend to have, Sean has it, you definitely have it where I almost call it like being a caveman where you're like smart enough like like you're you can be both you can be really smart but at the same time you're like this seems so simple and just straightforward. I'm not going to overthink it. I'm just going to like do step one, step two, step three. Whereas a lot of people tend to like overthink things.
Well, I think a lot of people would think about it. They don't take action. So, I'm okay making mistakes. I've always been that way, but I've also taken action on the things that I wanted to do. I'll give you a quick quick example. So, when I moved to the US, I was 16. I went to high school. I went from Catholic schools in 80 to a high school in one of the worst neighborhoods in Miami. Right. So, high school was horrible. I didn't know the language. The students were awful to us in general and I wanted to not stay in high school. I had three years left, but I was like, well, I really I really don't want to be here. So, I decided to go to night school as well. So, I did three years in high school in two years without knowing English. So, I graduated and got out. So, I I I just knew that there are ways to do things. If you really want to do something, there's always a path to to take. There's always a way always a way to do it. For me, it was that I I learned how to do I know I can definitely say that I know my business from inside out. I knew from how to manage the website, how to I take all my photos and the learning curve that was really huge because then I had to learn Photoshop, Canva, and tons of other programs. But I also knew that again I I could learn it. I never doubted myself that I couldn't learn things. So you just break it down in small chunks and you learn a little bit every day. So at the end of the month it's like all of a sudden I know how to use Photoshop and I know like your audience generally are really young entrepreneurs but I think I was thinking well what kind of value can I add to your podcast and I think the value would be in people who are maybe in their 50s and don't want to retire or want to have a different kind of career who really had a passion that they didn't have an opportunity to follow. And for me, that's what I did.
