This Side Hustle Q&A spotlights college best friends turned small business owners Jess Blakely and Willow Sprague. Blakely and Sprague founded BarBeeswomen-led company “offering inclusive and celebratory cocktail classes for any occasion, anywhere” in 2019.
Image source: courtesy of BarBees. Jess Blakely, left; Willow Sprague, right.
What was your day job like when you began working on the side?
I (Willow) had just graduated from Belmont University and Jess was still two semesters old there when we began BarBees. I had no idea what to do with myself, so at the same time I began an internship at an executive coaching company, where I spent the first 4 years of building BarBees. During the first few years of her business, Jess held down several jobs and even attended law school for three semesters. Our goal has all the time been to grow BarBees into something much larger than simply a side business. We believed in our mission from the starting and desired to create as much connection and community as possible through our cocktail classes.
When did you begin your side business and where did you discover the inspiration for it?
We began the business as one as an excuse to hang around more often and a solution to facilitate this sort of friendship and connection for others! We went to bartending school together on a total whim, and that is where the idea for BarBees (including the name!) was born. We initially began as a bartending service focusing on the wedding and event industry in Nashville. Thanks to Covid, we began offering virtual cocktail classes, which turned into live cocktail classes when the world got here back to life. We found that this model was more consistent with the mission we had for our company from the starting and was more repeatable. We have since expanded to 11 regions across the country and now have a team of over 35 instructors.
What were the first steps you took to interrupt away from the game?
Our first steps towards launching BarBees were by reaching out verbally and on Instagram to people in the Nashville events industry. We needed to build contacts and learn about the industry. Then, once we got on people’s radars (and they knew we charged significantly lower than any of our competitors), they began asking about small events, music events, and eventually weddings (in addition to, yes, a lot of free promotion opportunities). We said yes to every thing. Like most individuals who come up with a cool business idea on a whim, [we didn’t] We really know what we’re getting into! We definitely didn’t realize that we had signed as much as carry 100-pound mobile bars and wrestling bags of ice on our feet for hours on end – we quickly discovered that the mobile bartenders weren’t quite as much as the task of constructing contact as we thought.
Then when we began teaching cocktail classes, it was a completely latest marketing model that began from scratch. We modified our vocabulary, social content and, most significantly, our booking process. Customer relationship management platform Honey Book was a huge a part of this variation because it provided all the tools we wanted to completely restructure our company.
What were the biggest challenges you faced in building your side team and how did you overcome them?
The pandemic was the biggest obstacle we faced in our first 12 months and a half of operations. When the world shut down and our entire event calendar was worn out, we began offering virtual cocktail classes to remain in business, which launched our latest model, the cocktail class company. This inevitable pressure to adapt gave us a likelihood to define what we desired to do with BarBees. It also gave us a likelihood to invent a latest industry. Various restaurants and brick-and-mortar venues offer cocktail classes across the country. But no one has done what we do, in as many places as we do – bringing classes on to your individual space. We greatly appreciate this huge challenge that pushed us to build the company we proudly represent today. Thanks to this, we have grow to be a company that may develop Shark Tank.
Image source: courtesy of BarBees
How long did it take for you to realize stable monthly income?
After the first 12 months of operation, we were just approaching stable monthly revenues when the pandemic broke out, forcing us to completely restructure. It wasn’t until late 2021, when we became fully comfortable with our latest model (personal cocktail classes), that we saw our revenue grow to be truly consistent. We overcame challenges because we believed in what BarBees provides people – connection and community.
Is business now a full-time endeavor or do you continue to consider it a side hustle?
Preparing for Shark Tank, we each decided to go full-time with BarBees. We desired to make sure we gave this business and this crazy opportunity our hearts and souls. It definitely paid off and we were capable of exit the tank knowing we were as prepared as possible. Since our episode aired in January, we have gotten into a great rhythm with our operations team and instructors. This has given Jess and I more time to interact in brand latest initiatives in the business and explore other outside passion projects that also light us up.
What does growth and/or revenue seem like straight away?
Since it aired Shark Tankover 40,000 people connected with us on our website and social media, an increase of 220% in comparison with this time last 12 months.
What do you enjoy most about this business?
We began BarBees as an excuse to spend more time together – and it definitely gave us that! Building something together with your best friend is exciting and adds a special level of bonding that is different from other friendships. Additionally, we are each honored to have attracted such great people to our team. We like the idea of giving them their very own activity where they’ll perform and interact with others. Our classes are a wonderful means for energetic, energetic people to have fun the most vital moments in everyone’s life (and do it through craft cocktails and conversation).
What is your advice to others who want to begin their very own successful side hustle?
Start saying yes! It doesn’t matter if you do not have every thing together, the perfect booking process, or even the full picture of what you would like it to be. You will learn and create all of these items over time, because irrespective of what, your enterprise will look different than you ever expected. This is a good thing! Be willing to say yes to latest opportunities and requests that are outside your typical scope. That’s exactly how we began offering classes – people asked for them. Saying “yes” to what people are asking for, moderately than disregarding the original design, will enable you transform your enterprise into what people really need. And what is going to they pay for? “Yes” is the strongest word in the first years of building a dream.
This article is a part of our ongoing Women Entrepreneur® series highlighting the stories, challenges and triumphs of running a business as a woman.