Friends’ Garage Side Hustle Earned $220,000 in Just 3 Months

This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Cristina Ashbaugh, 28, and Kelly McGee, 29, co-founders of the design-driven ski pole brand Yardsale. The San Francisco-based duo’s business saw $100,000 in sales in its first month and $300,000 at the end of its first year (with a ski season of only four months). Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Yardsale}

What was your day job or primary occupation when you started your side hustle?
CA: I was the head of content for a venture capital firm in San Francisco, where I focused on helping my firm’s general partners develop their investment theses and translate them into long-form written content to attract founders. Before that, I helped build the content marketing function at Samsara, an IOT tech startup that went public during my time there.

KM: I previously worked at Apple as a product designer and then started a medical device company in orthopedics. When Cristina came to me with this idea, I told her I could help on the weekends and nights.

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When did you start your side hustle, and where did you find the inspiration for it?
CA: I started in March 2023 by sketching ideas down on a napkin, then onto paper. The inspiration for the product came from my direct experience as a lifelong skier. I always hated how ski poles were so unruly to manage, as well as how ugly they always were. For a sport where people spend thousands of dollars on their gear, I felt like there were no ski pole products on the market that people could actually get excited about. Plus, there was no go-to brand for poles. The market was fractured by legacy ski brands that made poles as a cheap side accessory since the bulk of their revenue came from skis/boots or apparel. I was inspired by Recess Pickleball’s approach to building a product and brand around pickleball and thought there needed to be something similar for ski poles: A go-to brand for beautifully designed ski poles.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Yardsale}

What were some of the first steps you took to get your side hustle off the ground?
CA: I relentlessly researched factories that I could have kick-off conversations with to see if anyone would even be interested in manufacturing this product for us. I had absolutely zero experience in doing this but took full advantage of Google and ended up finding the factory that makes the majority of the world’s ski poles in Asia.

I did a lot of consumer research, which primarily consisted of reaching out to all of the people I knew who skied, and I asked them 1) if they could name the brand of ski poles they had and 2) if they could name a single thing they liked about them. Ninety percent of people could not remember the name of the brand of their poles (even those who had just purchased them), and 95% of people couldn’t name something they liked about them. This was the first product validation that I got. (I made sure not to mention to them that I had this inkling of an idea or what I was working on so that I got untainted data.)

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I also called a ton of ski shops and asked what kinds of poles they sold and what the main reasons were for people purchasing new poles. I learned that most skiers went purely based on color because there were no differentiating factors among most poles. During these calls, I also learned that the sales associates at these stores rarely paid any attention to selling poles because there were virtually no selling points or differentiators among the poles they sold. This was also incredibly validating because I knew that if we could build a product with key differentiating factors, ski shops would be motivated to bring them in because they could sell more of them.

On the brand side, I did a lot of research into brands I liked and why and looked at the competitive landscape across the ski industry. I noticed that most legacy ski brands spoke solely to the aspirational skier, and everyone seemed to neglect recreational skiers. All of their marketing looked identical — white snowscapes, skiers jumping off cliffs, etc. and none of it felt relatable to a skier who cares more about the entire experience of skiing versus just the act of going downhill.

What went into the development of the ski pole?
KM: We started with a rough prototype in our garage, where we taped magnets onto some old poles just to see if the concept would work. Then, we went into a deep development cycle on all the features as well as the look and feel we’d want in our dream ski poles. This required a ton of design work and a bunch of 3D prints before kicking off tooling and testing with our manufacturing partners.

The hardest part of our design was not only hiding the magnets inside the handles and the baskets but also getting a manufacturer to completely rethink how a pole is assembled. For decades, ski poles have been shafts glued together with handles and baskets. For our completely modular system, which allows customers to mix and match, we needed to have each piece be created separately and seamlessly click together, regardless of what color or model you choose. No one had ever done this before, so we spent many days on the factory floor working through the complexity of the design and assembly.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Yardsale}

What were some of the strategies you used to generate awareness and drive sales for the product?
CA: We wanted to try something that no other legacy ski brands would do, so we invested in subway advertising in New York City for the months of November and December in 2023. It paid off for us! We got inbound from REI, SKI Magazine and other retailers who saw our ads in real life and wanted to learn more about our product and brand.

As a small company with a limited budget, we’ve also stayed far away from working with traditional influencers or professional skiers, which most other ski brands embrace. Because we focus on selling to recreational skiers, we recognize that most regular folks don’t keep up with the X Games or know every hot new professional skier. Instead, we focus on seeding our products to regular people who we think will love the product and brand and recommend it to their friends.

From the start, we also spent a lot of time and energy on earned media. Thanks to my background in the tech industry, I knew how to craft pitches and position our product to media. I cold-emailed hundreds of editors before we even had our product in hand. Then, we got a bite. The inbound from our first feature was astonishing, and we’ve been huge proponents of earned media and public relations ever since.

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How long did it take you to see consistent monthly revenue?
CA: Immediately. We found product-market fit almost instantly and were shocked that people immediately resonated with the product and the brand.

How much did the side hustle earn?
CA: We did $220,000 in our first three months in business.

When did Yardsale’s potential to be a full-time business become clear?
CA: Almost immediately. After we launched, we weren’t sure if people would care or resonate with our product/brand, but after our tenth day packing orders all night in Kelly’s basement, we knew we had to quit our full-time, stable jobs and dive full-time into Yardsale. I was going into my office every day at the time and packing orders all night, which I knew would be unsustainable in the long run. We could have decided to grow the brand slowly, but we saw so much positivity and momentum that we wanted to take advantage of it as quickly as possible. Taking that dive enabled us to dedicate more time and energy to Yardsale.

What does growth and revenue look like now?
CA: We’ve grown our DTC sales by 180% this season compared to last (our first season), and we’re expanding fast into wholesale, which we hope to turn into 50% of our revenue in the next two years. We have tons of inbound from other retailers.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of Yardsale}

What do you enjoy most about running this business?
CA: Every day, we face completely new challenges (and successes), so nothing is ever boring. It’s the most energized I’ve ever felt (and the most stressed!), but it’s been life-changing for me to work on something that I started and own because I get to see the impacts of my work almost immediately.

It’s also so fun and rewarding to get to work in an industry where we get to see our product in action every time we go skiing. Just this weekend, we were in Deer Valley and saw Yardsale poles all over the place. We stopped a few folks to ask them how they liked them, and they all loved them and were so excited to tell us about their experience. We don’t get to ski too much anymore (too much work!), but when we do, those moments are so special.

I also love building this brand and business with one of my closest friends. We’ve gotten to travel all over the world together and go through so many firsts together in this business and I’m grateful to get to do it with someone like Kelly.

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KM: For me personally, it’s rare that you really get to experience true product-market fit. When you make a product where a customer goes, “Wow, why hadn’t anyone thought of that before?” it means you’ve really found something unique. Those aha moments are what we strive for in our design principles, and we’re so excited to take that thinking beyond poles in the years to come.

Additionally, it’s fun to make products that your friends and family can use. So many folks we know are users of our products, and we’re able to feel their excitement each and every day they use them. They’re our biggest fans and our best test dummies.

What’s your advice for others hoping to start successful side hustles or full-time businesses of their own?
CA: Make sure you’re making something unique and speaking to an audience that wants that product from you. Do all of the research you can before jumping in to make sure you’ll have product-market fit. It makes your life 100 times easier than trying to convince someone they need something that they don’t really want.

KM: Definitely keep your day job if you can until you find product-market fit! Once you have it, then you can scale accordingly. Additionally, especially for a hardware company, setting your sights on profitability ensures the long-term success of your business. We’ve tried to stay as lean as possible and use unique marketing tactics to help customers discover us and reduce our customer acquisition costs. Once we get to be financially viable, we’re excited to grow the company from there, but until then, we’re not sleeping much!