How Sarah Henderson Grew Her Side Hustle Into a Thriving Home-Goods Brand
Many entrepreneurs will let you know that what they’re doing now just isn’t what they initially got down to do. Making main skilled modifications—even mid- to late-career—can typically result in extra fulfilling and profitable outcomes. That’s what our sequence The Pivot is all about. Each month, we communicate to founders, business leaders and entrepreneurs about how—and why—they modified course and located success in a completely completely different business. Here, we communicate to Sarah Henderson, founding father of home-goods model, Hudson and Oak.
Having grown up on her household farm in Abbotsford, B.C., home-goods designer Sarah Henderson has at all times appreciated being surrounded by nature. After taking a advertising and marketing class in highschool, Henderson knew she wished to pursue a profession within the business and earned her advertising and marketing diploma on the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Following commencement in 2011, she labored as an account coordinator at Vega, a plant-based protein firm. Henderson spent the subsequent few years climbing the ranks, gaining expertise in advertising and marketing departments in varied sectors, from native municipal authorities to tech and B2B firms. “I saw these talented entrepreneurs do amazing things, but I never thought I would one day be an entrepreneur myself,” she says.
Then, in 2017, she purchased her first place, a loft in her hometown. She wished to brighten, and her sister steered including vegetation to heat up the industrial-looking house. Henderson adopted her recommendation solely to appreciate her choices for aesthetically-pleasing planters had been few and much between. “Back then, nurseries would only sell plain, traditional terracotta planters,” she says. Inspired by the thought of making her personal, a seek for potential supplies led her to fibreglass. “Fibreglass’s lightweight nature makes it incredibly functional,” she says. The materials’s watertight qualities make it leak-proof, and it could actually endure temperatures as little as -30 levels Celsius.
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After contacting a neighborhood producer, Henderson designed the primary two preliminary shapes: A standard cylinder and a spherical planter in three completely different sizes. She had the planters hand-finished utilizing automotive-grade matte paint, which might resist color fading. It was then that her upstart, Hudson and Oak formally took root. (“Hudson” is a nod to the title of the constructing, Hudson Lofts, the place Henderson lived on the time). She launched an Etsy store, and her experience in SEO and e mail advertising and marketing performed a key function in her side-hustle’s speedy success.
The high-quality, up to date planters in customizable Pantone colors grew to become successful, with matte blush planters as the highest sellers. Henderson offered roughly 700 planters within the first six months. “I started with $300 dollars to make my samples,” says Henderson. From there, she invested each greenback she earned into manufacturing extra merchandise. The success was thrilling, however studying learn how to bundle and ship massive, delicate planters throughout North America was a problem. “Figuring out how to ship your product is something most business owners don’t think of in product development,” she says. Through trial and error, Henderson needed to experiment with completely different packaging supplies and courier companies to make sure that her prospects bought their merchandise safely and on time.
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Meanwhile, Henderson was nonetheless working her full-time advertising and marketing job in tech, which concerned in depth journey all through North America. “I had to become a scheduling pro,” she says, explaining she would ship merchandise throughout lunch breaks and evenings after work.
But in the summertime of 2019, the model bought a giant break when it gained an endorsement from Canadian way of life influencer Jillian Harris. Hudson and Oak was chosen as certainly one of 9 retailers for a partnership with Etsy Canada referred to as The Jillian Harris x Etsy Summer Collection. The collaboration featured Henderson’s pink medium and huge light-weight planters, and Harris promoted them on her fashionable weblog and on social media. Hudson and Oak all of the sudden gained 5,000 new Instagram followers. “The collaboration was one of the first moments I realized we were really onto something,” says Henderson.
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After years of working two jobs, Henderson determined to focus her time solely on Hudson and Oak in September 2020. Since then, Henderson says the corporate has skilled a 400 per cent enhance in gross sales year-over-year, permitting her to increase to a crew of 5. In addition to planters, her product line now consists of dinnerware, chopping boards and linen napkins. In the spring of 2022, Hudson and Oak opened a storefront in Langley, B.C. Around the identical time, Indigo contacted Henderson and requested to promote Hudson and Oak merchandise on indigo.ca. “Since onboarding with Indigo, we’ve seen an average increase of 20 per cent in month-over-month orders,” she says.
Henderson nonetheless designs all of the merchandise along with her small crew, and works with producers in locations like Vietnam, France and Morocco. Next up, she is launching a brand new assortment of handmade ceramic candles this fall. She additionally desires to host in-store occasions, corresponding to cocktail-making courses whereas utilizing the model’s new line of glassware, to assist create a gathering place for her neighborhood. “Nothing compares to seeing people fall in love with the products you created,” says Henderson.
