Not long ago, I interviewed a young lady for a column I was writing for a newspaper. What I found interesting about her, was that she had started her own Instagram business, and was quite successful.
She works a full-time job at a bank, and decided that she needed to start a side gig to supplement her income. After doing her research, she found that the best platform for her to run her business, was Instagram. Having made up her mind and getting all her ducks in a row, she got started.
It took her years, but eventually she grew that business to a point where the amount of money she was earning from the business was equivalent to the amount of money she was earning in her job. And what was her business?
Her business was that she used to buy second-hand clothing off the streets, take them home, wash them, make them look smart, take photos of them, and put them out on Instagram.
Where did the idea come from? She told me that the idea came from her own practice because that’s what she used to do. Since her salary wasn’t that much, she couldn’t afford to buy brand new clothes. So, she used to go to the streets and buy second-hand clothing for herself and her family.
And then one day the idea struck her: “Why don’t I do this for other people as well?”
She reasoned that not everybody had the opportunity to go to the streets and buy clothing. There market out there, of people who are sitting in offices, and who would love to buy some of these things at these cheap, discounted prices.
So she thought, “why don’t I somehow make these things available to them?” And so, that’s where the genesis of the idea was. 25
Like all new businesses, she started with no leads, no customers, no networks. It was dead. Nobody was buying. Sales were zero.
But she learned how to market herself on social media. She learned how to grow her following. And eventually, she built up a large following, and the sales started rolling in. And things started to snowball from there. She said to me, ‘I’ve come to a point where I put out pictures on Instagram in the morning, and by afternoon, everything is sold out!” She said people even fight with her sometimes when they miss out on an offer. “But what can I do? These are second-hand clothing, and I don’t have the choice of what stock I get. Whatever I get, I sell.”
Even though she earns as much money in her side gig as in her full-time job, she has no intention to leave her job. She enjoys her work, and likes her colleagues. The only problem she had, was that she was not earning enough; but she solved that problem by starting a side gig, and has literally doubled her income.
“It’s a win-win situation. I have a job I enjoy, plus I now have enough money to look after my family, to buy whatever I want, to go on holidays, and to basically spoil them. And I’m very, very happy right now,” she said.
Now, this young lady is not a multi-millionaire, not a multi-billionaire, but she inspires me. She inspires me because she is a person who is living the life that she is happy with. And when you speak to her, you can sense that deep down inside her, she’s a happy person. She’s a person who is living the life she wanted to live.