A friend of mine accidentally ordered the wrong product online. Instead of going through the hassle of returning it, he listed it on Facebook Marketplace just to see if someone would buy it. To his surprise, it sold within 24 hours. Even more surprising the buyer asked if he had more to sell. That sparked an idea. He ordered 10 more units from the same supplier, listed them, and they were gone within a week. Three months later, that little “mistake” snowballed into a small side hustle that cleared over $1,000 in profit. Nothing fancy, no complex business plan just testing something small that happened by accident. The whole thing made me realize, sometimes opportunity shows up disguised as a problem, most “business ideas” don’t start with big plans, they start with tiny experiments, you don’t need permission to start just curiosity and a willingness to try. I wonder how many people here have had something random or accidental turn into a side hustle or even a full time gig?

    He turned a $100 mistake into a $1,000 side hustle without even planning to
    byu/WarrenTrader inEntrepreneur



    Posted by WarrenTrader

    8 Comments

    1. All obstacles are opportunities.

      What did he make per hour? That’s were scalability first rears its head. “I can buy this for $10 and sell it for $20, but it takes 90 minutes to manage each transaction”…. That’s where failed ideas live.

    2. To scale this profitably, you really need 50% or better margins per item sold. By the time you factor in your overhead costs for boxing and shipping, pay taxes correctly, have a space for inventory to be stored, account for items lost or damaged in transit, respond to customer inquiries, etc. – you’re looking at a few bucks an hour for your time.

      It works fine for one offs if you’re not making a business of it, but to scale as a business is a bit more complex than just “buy low sell high” – even if that’s the foundation.

    3. CookieCuriosity on

      Your friend discovered how retail works.. unless you have some big margin in that product or there’s huge demand and a reason why others aren’t just going to his supplier, this is a one time $1,000 not a side hustle

    4. Far_Needleworker_938 on

      He made enough to cover two weeks of rent. How’s he going to cover the other 50 weeks in the year?

    5. My first product in e-commerce was actually from a friend. I was really young at the time and didn’t know anything about pricing, profits, or how this all works. I just asked my friend to give me her card so I could run Facebook ads.

      The first ad I made was just an image, and it didn’t get enough clicks. So I searched for this product online and found a video of someone doing an unboxing. I picked that video, did a quick montage, and posted it. The video showed everything that came in the product, and after that, I started making money.

      Even though I set the price way too high because I didn’t know better, it actually sold and that mistake ended up giving me like 80% profit. I wasn’t planning anything fancy, just testing something small.

      Looking back, if I were in this situation now, I could make a lot more money off that product. I would scale, do more ads, and try other products too. At that age, I didn’t know about delivery, suppliers, or handling multiple products, but that experience taught me so much.

    6. So flipping an item that people are too lazy to search out themselves?

      Are people not competent enough to quickly find things for the lowest price from the origin?

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