How a 'Scrappy' Side Hustle Led to Over $150 Million in Revenue

Entrepreneur

2 days ago

It's the era of the side hustle, and if you've ever considered starting one to earn some extra cash outside of your 9-5, you're in good company. These days, more than one-third of U.S. adults have side hustles, and their supplemental gigs make an average of $891 a month, according to recent research from Bankrate. Of course, the most successful side hustlers see much higher earnings, especially when they start a business that brings in nearly as much as — or significantly more than — their full-time sources of income.
Billy Candler, 39, is one of them. Learn more about the business the Los Angeles-based entrepreneur and his co-founder, Noah Russell, started in 2012, here. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Absolute Merch. Billy Candler.
What was your day job or primary occupation when you started Absolute Merch?
Absolute Merch started as a side hustle during my early entrepreneurial days. When I was 24, I quit my job at a concert venue to work for myself and ended up starting a music management company with some friends. We were managing some great artists in the Vans Warped Tour world who were in need of better merchandise solutions. Absolute Merch was born out of necessity, originally just to help service the bands we were already managing. Within a year, we realized the side hustle we created was actually our main business and went all-in on building and developing it.
Related: She Quit Corporate Life to Pursue a Side Hustle With Her Sister. They Saw Over $100,000 During Launch Weekend — and Now Have an 8-Figure Brand.
What were some of the first steps you took to get your business off the ground?
We bootstrapped this thing from day one: no investors, no real resources. We were literally stealing Wi-Fi from Fearless Records and working out of a closet down the hall from them. It was pure hustle: pitching creative merch ideas to bands we already had relationships with and trying to convince them to launch sales on ecommerce. As money started coming in, we reinvested into our own equipment, upgraded our space and scaled from there. We focused on delivering the best creative work possible to set ourselves apart early on.
Are there any free or paid resources that were especially helpful when starting and running your business?
When I started Absolute Merch with my co-founder, Noah Russell, I was obsessed with the podcast How I Built This by Guy Raz — anything entrepreneurial that I could get my hands on. Hearing other founders' stories was incredibly motivating and helped give me the inspiration I needed to keep pushing through the early days.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Absolute Merch
If you could go back and change one process or approach to save time, energy or headaches, what would it be?
The biggest piece of advice I'd give anyone starting a company is to make sure your accounting is dialed in from day one. We bootstrapped everything and didn't establish great systems or keep great records early on. By the time the business got big enough that proper accounting became essential, we had to start from scratch, and it became messy, causing a lot of unnecessary internal problems. Looking back, having solid accounting from the start would have saved us a ton of stress.
Related: This Mom Used an 'Overlooked' Ingredient to Grow a 6-Figure Side Hustle From Her Kitchen: 'Like an Intensive MBA Program'
What's something particularly challenging or surprising about this industry that newcomers should be prepared for?
When things are going well early on, you tend to assume that nothing bad will ever happen. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. You have to be prepared for issues with employees, lawsuits, economic downturns — all the usual things that come with growing a business. I wish I had learned earlier to "hope for the best, but plan for the worst." That mindset would've saved me from a few tough lessons, but ultimately, the only way to learn is to go through it.
Can you recall a specific instance when something went very wrong? How did you handle it?
During Covid, our business pivoted heavily to ecommerce as touring shut down, and our revenue spiked fast. In trying to keep up with demand, we started throwing money and resources at problems without really understanding our margins, largely due to the lack of proper accounting I mentioned earlier. We lost a lot of money without realizing it at the time. The way we got through it was the same way we started: grit, hustle and cutting through the noise. A lot of the problems came when my co-founder and I had handed off too many key responsibilities to new executives. We learned the hard way that nobody will care about our business the way we do, so we took back control, leaned on our instincts and course-corrected. That tough year in 2021 actually led to the three best years we've ever had.
How long did it take to see consistent monthly revenue, and what does growth look like now?
It was a long grind. People talk about the "snowball effect," and it's true: You work hard for a long time without seeing much, and even as revenue starts coming in, you're constantly reinvesting. For a while, we didn't make any money ourselves — it all went back into the business. Eventually, the revenue grew to a point where we could pay ourselves and build real infrastructure, and that's how we've made our living for the past 12 years. Since launching, Absolute Merch has generated over $150 million in revenue. We've grown from a scrappy side hustle into a full-service merchandise company trusted by some of the most impactful touring artists in the world. But we've stayed lean and grounded. Even now, the business is worth maybe $5 million, and that's fine by me. What matters most is that we've built something real, sustainable and meaningful.
Related: This Former Microsoft Consultant Started a Side Hustle After a Frustrating Vacation Experience — It Hit $250,000 Fast and Makes Millions Now
Image Credit: Courtesy of Absolute Merch
How much time do you spend working on your business? What does a typical day or week look like for you?
That answer has changed a lot over the years, but the one thing that hasn't changed — and something every entrepreneur needs to understand — is that when you own the business, every waking minute of your life, you're working. That doesn't necessarily mean sitting in front of your computer doing spreadsheets or sales calls, but when you're responsible for everything that happens, you're always on guard, always on call, always thinking about tomorrow's problems. You're never fully checked out.
When we were first starting, I was probably in the office 60 to 70 hours a week. During rough patches, I was working 80 hours a week, legitimately waking up and logging on until 1 a.m., sending emails. Now that we've built a strong team and solid infrastructure, my day-to-day is closer to a typical 9-to-5 in terms of active hours, but from the moment I wake up to when I go to bed, my mind is still on the business. That's just part of the deal when you care about what you've built.
What do you enjoy most about running this business?
I love the people I get to work with, from my incredible internal team to some of my favorite artists and their managers, many of whom have become close friends. Getting to collaborate creatively with people I respect and enjoy being around is something I never take for granted.
Related: This Mom's Side Hustle Selling a $600 Children's Toy Became a Business Making Over $1 Million a Year: 'There Is a Lot to Love'
What's your best piece of specific, actionable business advice?
If we're talking actionable, the first step is: Take action. So many people I've met who want to start a business are just too afraid to start. My partner and I say all the time that what made us successful is that we were too stupid to fail. We didn't overthink it, we just dove in headfirst. No guardrails. No backup plan. We just kept going, even when logic said we should've stopped.
The truth is, nobody's going to teach you how to be an entrepreneur. You learn through doing. You'll mess things up. You'll make bad decisions. But that's how you figure it out. My advice: Just start. Dive in. Don't look back. The only way to solve hard problems is to face them, mess up and then get better.