729: $500,000 in Hamster Ball Sales? How a College Student Brought a New Product to Life
About this episode
Ethan Haber shares his journey of creating a successful pet product business while in college, highlighting key lessons in entrepreneurship and retail.
Half a million dollars in hamster balls. What if you spotted a gap in a market that hadn’t changed in 50 years and turned it into a fast-growing product business while still in college? That’s exactly what Ethan Haber did with Happy Habitats, a small pet products company he started as a sophomore at Wake Forest University. While watching his hamster Mooksy roll around in a standard hamster ball on campus, Ethan looked over and saw someone walking a dog. The thought hit him: why can’t I walk my hamster? That simple question launched a product line now heading into 1,500 stores nationwide through a major big-box retail deal. Ethan’s story covers everything from cold-emailing a design firm and navigating COVID shipping delays, to cracking Amazon and landing a mentorship with the founder of PetSmart — all from a niche that most people overlook. Tune in to Episode 729 of the Side Hustle Show to learn: how to take an existing product and improve upon it to create a defensible business what it really takes to get your product into retail stores and online marketplaces why patents, packaging, and the right partners matter more than most first-time founders realize Full Show Notes…
Sponsors
Indeed
More episodes of The Side Hustle Show
- 735: Meet the Master Reseller Who Gets Literally Tons of Inventory for Free
- 734: From Zero to 35M Downloads
- Rank and Rent: $1000 a Month From Simple Local Websites
- 733: $25k/Mo From a Vibe Coded App, $10k/Mo Selling “Fake” Watches, and More
- 732: 24 Years of Side Hustle Advice
- 731: Unlocking Big Profits from Liquidation and Government Auctions
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Side Hustle Show podcast page.