College Friends' Side Hustle Does $20 Million in Revenue

Entrepreneur

07-05-2025

This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features 29-year-olds Courtney Toll and Annabel Love, the co-founders of Nori. They launched Nori Press, a compact steam iron, in 2021 and did $1 million in revenue in the first nine months. They've doubled revenue every year since 2022, ending 2024 with $20.8 million in revenue. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Annabel Love and Courtney Toll. Image credit: Courtesy of Nori
What was your day job or primary occupation(s) when you started your side hustle?
Toll: When Annabel and I came up with the idea for Nori in college, we both chose to pursue full-time jobs after graduation before diving into the business. I joined an expert-network firm called AlphaSights, where I connected clients with subject-matter experts to support due diligence for acquisitions or strategic initiatives. Annabel started her career at an interior design firm, where she gained hands-on experience in sourcing and supply chain management. The skills we developed in those roles across research, operations and project management proved incredibly valuable when we eventually transitioned to working on Nori full-time.
Related: This 34-Year-Old Was 'Wildly Un-Passionate' About His Day Job, So He Started a 9-Figure Side Hustle: 'Be an Animal'
When did you start your side hustle, and what inspired it?
Love: The inspiration for Nori was born out of sheer frustration in our tiny New York City apartments. As we prepared for our first professional internships, we wanted to look polished and professional, but we didn't have the space for an ironing board, the patience for leaky steamers or the budget for frequent dry cleaning. We resorted to every DIY wrinkle-removal hack imaginable, even using hair straighteners as makeshift irons.
That daily struggle opened our eyes to how outdated and overlooked the ironing and steaming category had become. We saw a real opportunity to modernize the space with a smarter, more convenient solution. Our idea for a next-generation steam iron became our side hustle as soon as we started our full-time jobs. To de-risk the venture and maintain financial stability, we committed to working our 9-6 jobs while building Nori on nights and weekends for as long as we could juggle both.
What were some of the first steps you took to get your side hustle off the ground?
Toll: We first began exploring the idea for Nori during our senior year at Wake Forest, where we were both entrepreneurship minors. By the time it officially became a side hustle post-graduation, we had already built somewhat of a foundation for the venture, having conducted market research, analyzed industry dynamics and run pricing exercises.
Once we were in our full-time jobs, we spent nights and weekends diving into product development. We visited 19 design firms across the country to bring our vision to life. During that time, we also incorporated the company, built out initial budgets and even closed a $300,000 friends and family funding round, all before ever leaving our day jobs.
Are there any free or paid resources that have been especially helpful for you in starting and running this business?
Love: Mentorship has played a crucial role in our journey. We owe much of our progress to the insights and experiences shared by fellow entrepreneurs. Reaching out thoughtfully, even to people you've never met, costs nothing but can lead to invaluable conversations. While in side-hustle mode, we sent cold emails to and connected with Emily Weiss of Glossier, Jim McKelvey of Square, Afton Vechery of Modern Fertility and many others. The perspective and wisdom gained from this cold outreach are things money simply can't buy.
Related: These Roommates Started a Side Hustle in Their Denver Apartment. Now It's an 8-Figure Business With $1 Million Months: 'Go Be Unreasonable.'
If you could go back in your business journey and change one process or approach, what would it be? What would you do differently?
Toll: If I could go back and change one thing, it would be how we approached forecasting and inventory planning early on. As a hardware business, our lead times are long, and our capital is tied up in physical products, so any misstep in forecasting can be costly. In the beginning, we were either too conservative, leading to stockouts or having to pay for costly air freight, or too optimistic, tying up cash in excess inventory.
If I could do it over, I'd invest earlier in building a stronger operational foundation: better demand-planning tools and/or an outsourced dedicated inventory planner, a clearer understanding of sales velocity by channel and tighter alignment between marketing and supply chain. It's not always the most glamorous part of the business, but getting it right is critical to scaling efficiently and sustainably.
Image credit: Courtesy of Nori
Can you recall a specific instance when something went very wrong? How did you fix it?
Love: Truthfully, we have something go "very wrong" on a monthly basis. Whether it's our supply chain, a packaging mishap, a delayed marketing campaign or the latest tariff whirlwind we are currently navigating, our job is filled with constant challenges. We find that staying grounded in our mission is key, and leaning on one another, our best friend, has allowed us to navigate totally unforeseen circumstances. We believe that getting comfortable with entrepreneurship is getting comfortable with an onslaught of ups and downs: Hire the best partners possible, and the "very wrong" becomes Tuesday's average challenge.
How long did it take to see consistent monthly revenue? How much did the side hustle earn?
Toll: Since Nori is a hardware and durable goods business, it required significant time and capital to get off the ground (hence, why hardware businesses are so hard to fundraise for). After closing our initial friends-and-family round, I left my full-time job to focus on developing our hero product, the Nori Press, and building our go-to-market strategy. Annabel joined full-time shortly after, before we had officially launched.
We had taken the business as far as we could while balancing full-time jobs, and it became clear that it needed our full attention. That year of dedicated pre-launch work included finalizing the product, refining our brand and laying the groundwork for distribution on our DTC site. This really allowed us to hit the ground running come launch. As a result, we saw consistent monthly revenue almost immediately. Within the first nine months post-launch, Nori had generated $1 million in revenue.
Related: This Couple Started a Side Hustle in Their Backyard. It's Now a Global Brand With $200 Million in Revenue: 'I Get Sweaty Palms Thinking About the Level of Risk We Took'
What does growth and revenue look like now?
Toll: Since our launch in May of 2021, Nori has experienced rapid growth. In our first full year of business, the Nori Press was named one of Oprah's Favorite Things, and we closed out 2022 with $5 million in revenue. We've doubled our revenue every year since: $10 million in 2023 and $20.8 million in 2024.
What makes this especially meaningful is that we've achieved this growth as a lean, three-person, all-female team. In 2024, we also reached profitability. Our journey has been one of true product–market fit and a relentless focus on meeting demand across channels. With the right team, a clear vision and the smart use of many specialized freelancers, we've been able to scale efficiently without the excessive overhead many venture-backed companies feel they need.
What do you enjoy most about running the business now?
Love: My favorite part about running Nori is that I get to build this business with my best friend, Courtney. We challenge each other to grow, push each other to be better and celebrate every milestone — from getting Oprah's Favorite Things to launching in Target this year. There's a deep level of trust, respect and shared vision between us, and I genuinely couldn't imagine doing this with anyone else.
What is your best piece of specific, actionable business advice?
Love: Diversifying your distribution strategy is essential for long-term growth, but it's just as important to master one channel at a time. We started Nori with a direct-to-consumer approach and spent our first 12 months laser-focused on understanding every aspect of that model from unit economics to paid marketing. By the time we expanded to Amazon, we had built a well-oiled DTC machine supported by strong marketing partners and a logistics team that was self-sustaining.
The same deliberate approach is guiding our expansion into retail, which we're only now meaningfully scaling in years three and four. Today, we're proud to be available not only on our own site, but also on Amazon and through retail partners like The Container Store, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and most recently, Target.
Omnichannel growth should absolutely be the goal, but take the time to build stable, scalable systems in each channel before moving to the next.
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