This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Ruta Drungilaite, founder of Side Hustle Spotlight Twist datesa company that helps couples plan dates with digital offerings – case files, conversation starters, romantic board games and more.
Image credit: Courtesy of A Twist of Date. Ruta Drungilaite.
What was your day job (or other sources of income) when you began working on the side?
After graduating with a degree in Economics and Finance at the age of 21, I took the ‘textbook’ route of a Master’s program at a major bank in Canary Wharf, London. Since then, over the course of seven years, I have worked in seven positions in various departments and business units, quickly climbing the corporate ladder. I specialized in financial product management and my last role was as VP Senior Product Manager for Payment Innovation (recent payment acceptance solutions for enterprise merchants).
When did you begin your side business and where did you discover the inspiration for it?
The idea for A Twist Of Date got here to me during one of the Covid lockdowns of 2021. We live in London, so we’re normally spoiled for selection when it comes to fun things to do. My fiancé and I have done all of it: hidden jazz clubs, secret cocktail bars, underground shows, wine and cheese tastings, comedy nights, Horrible Histories cruise, outdoor escape room style food maze, indoor mountaineering, quirky installations Artistic, Driving Range and many others.
However, the lockdown took away all these opportunities. As a result, my fiancé had a hard time coming up with unique date ideas, and it only fueled my very own creativity. I noticed that there have to be other individuals who also struggle to come up with creative date ideas at home (not only a movie and dinner). So I began considering about how to solve this problem for couples.
What were the first steps you took to break away from the game?
My first idea was to create date boxes delivered to you, with every little thing ready and planned for a romantic evening at home. In February 2022, I launched boxes for making cocktails, on the occasion of Valentine’s Day, and later boxes for ceramic workshops. The boxes included playlists, all the tools to make cocktails and pottery, tools to start deep conversations, and other activities designed to deepen your bond with your partner.
The couples loved these boxes and I received a lot of good feedback, but hand-making the boxes was extremely labor-intensive, profit margins were slim/non-existent, and sales volumes weren’t as high as I had initially hoped. Ultimately, the date box idea wasn’t scalable or financially viable for me to pursue it.
Six months into my enterprise, I started selling PDFs of 110 date idea cards that couples could immediately download and print at home. As the idea worked, I pivoted my business away from physical dating boxes and towards digital products, expanding my offerings to include romantic board games, cold case files, escape rooms, conversation starters, and more. That’s when my business really began to take off and I knew I used to be onto something.
What were the biggest challenges you faced in building your side team and how did you overcome them?
Building my first business was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and also the most rewarding. It has been an emotional roller coaster filled with countless challenges.
Here are some of the primary ones:
- First product unprofitable: As mentioned above, my first idea for physical date boxes was mainly a waste and wasn’t profitable or scalable. Even today, our cabinets are filled with a whole bunch of mini bottles of spirits from the cocktail boxes I sold! I could have given up at that time, but I made a decision to experiment and change, which led me to the digital dating products I sell today, which include over 5,000 orders placed in 80 different countries.
- Knowledge gap: Most of the time I didn’t know what I used to be doing, but I wanted to learn and persevere. In the starting, I didn’t have a big budget, so I did every little thing myself: I coded my website, searched for answers on YouTube, I clumsily used Adobe Illustrator to design my logo, I wrote the privacy policy, terms and conditions and other legal documentation for my website, creating and designing all products without any experience with Canva, learning how to create TikToks and how to grow on social media – I had never even used TikTok before. Throughout my journey, I have all the time tried to adopt a mindset I have no idea how to do it, but I can definitely learn it.
- I’m trying to build a business while working full time: There is no magic or mystery here – reconciling my demanding day job with the business was very difficult. I attempted to work on my business as much as possible in the evenings and weekends, but after a full day of “putting out fires” at my day job, I used to be often emotionally and physically exhausted, so it wasn’t all the time possible to work on my cases as much as I would really like. I had to accept that I only had so much energy and time, and to make this endeavor sustainable I had to prioritize my health, mental health and overall well-being, despite the fact that that meant things were moving slower than I would favor in the short term. I had to pay close attention and notice any signs of deterioration in my mental health due to overwork and prioritize resting and doing things that brought me energy and joy. My approach was to prioritize consistency in my actions – trying to do at least a little bit every day to build and grow my business.
How long did it take for you to achieve stable monthly income? How much did the side hustle earn?
In the first six months of starting the company, my total revenue was slightly below £3,000 (about $3,800). Seven months later, my printable Flirty Dice board game went viral on TikTok, bringing in over £700 (about $890) in just three days, which is when I knew something was on and I began seeing more growth from using organic social media to increase sales.
Since my sales were primarily driven by the popularity of my videos, my income levels varied greatly from month to month. I proceed to work on diversifying my marketing strategies and revenue streams to achieve greater revenue consistency.
Why did you choose to move from a side hustle to a full-time job? What does growth and revenue seem like today?
I had over 5,000 orders from 80 different countries and made around £60,000 (about $65,000) before I left the corporate 9-5, which made me confident that my idea was solving a universal problem for couples around the world. After verifying the business concept, I felt that I could manage this enterprise if I devoted my full attention to it. I have built up my personal savings to sustain myself for at least the next 12 months, after which I hope to have enough income to pay myself a salary similar to what I had at my job in finance. Leaving a high-paying job in finance is the biggest risk I’ve ever taken, but I absolutely love the business I’ve built and imagine that with consistency, discipline, and a growth mindset, I can make it occur.
What do you enjoy most about running this business?
Although my education is related to finance, I’m a very creative person by nature. I really like coming up with recent ideas for date ideas and bringing them to life.
My best joy is knowing that every one of my labor is helping countless busy couples around the world enjoy quality time together. The honest messages and reviews I receive from customers all the time make me feel higher. Couples have told me that they use my dates to reconnect after having a baby or to discover recent things about themselves even after 18 years of marriage.
What is your advice for others looking to start a successful side hustle or their very own business?
- Find the pain point. I like to recommend a unbelievable book titled: Tasks to be done so that every aspiring entrepreneur can learn to discover and solve real problems.
- Verify your idea. Every entrepreneur thinks his idea is unbelievable, but the only way to confirm it is to see if someone is willing to pay for it and whether it will possibly be profitable. If you would like to quit your corporate job and pursue something extra, I imagine you absolutely need to prove your concept first.
- Choose motion over perfection. Learn to be comfortable taking your ideas to market and testing them until they are perfect. The more chaotic and chaotic the actions you’re taking, the faster you’ll get the feedback you would like and you’ll have the ability to learn from it. There is no point in working for years to perfect a product only to discover that no one wants it.
- Do something that basically interests you. Ask yourself if your corporation idea is something you actually care about. If this happens, it’ll be price it to endure the setbacks and disappointments you encounter along the way.
- Adopt a growth mindset. It’s easy to fall into a victim mentality, blaming circumstances and feeling sorry for yourself when things don’t go according to plan, but it won’t serve you well. Take ownership of your failures and focus on what you’ll be able to learn from them. Develop a mindset of curiosity and never-ending learning.
- Stay true to your values. We see the stereotypical high-flying entrepreneur who doesn’t sleep for weeks, works around the clock and has no time for a social life or relationships. While this will work for some people, I’m an advocate of intentionally defining what success means to you and consciously selecting the price you are willing to pay in various points of your life to get there – because I imagine you’ll be able to do all of it, but not All. I know that my health and relationships with my family, friends and fiancé all the time come first and I don’t desire to surrender on these points of my life, even if it means slower growth of my business.