This Facet Hustle Highlight Q&A options Colorado-based entrepreneurs Boone Whiteside, 29, and Ben Medalie, 28. Whiteside and Medalie are the co-founders of Highland, a haircare model that began as a DIY ardour venture in a Denver condominium and has grown into an eight-figure enterprise in three years. Responses have been edited for size and readability.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Highland. Boone Whiteside, left, and Ben Medalie, proper.
When did you begin your facet hustle, and the place did you discover the inspiration for it?
Whiteside: When Ben and I grew to become greatest pals throughout our junior yr at CU Boulder, one of many issues that introduced us shut was our shared aspiration of constructing our personal factor — in not strolling a 9-5 path engaged on another person’s dream. This shared ardour would not manifest till a lot later, although.
Once I first began dreaming of a hair product firm that went past styling one’s hair with poisonous sh*t, I used to be working at an ecommerce startup in a advertising and marketing and operations function. We had been a small group, and the corporate was struggling exhausting to ascertain itself. I realized a ton about problem-solving via the early phases of enterprise, however I had one foot out the door, pulling me towards my calling of being my very own entrepreneur.
Ben was working at a payroll tech firm in an analyst function, however the precise function modified a lot throughout his tenure as a result of he hated doing the identical factor every single day. Juggling gross sales, learning to code, dealing with danger evaluation, dabbling in advertising and marketing and development… his managers had been always respiration down his neck to “JUST FOCUS” on “his major function.” Neither of us had been proud of these profession trajectories.
Sick of the archaic legacy manufacturers that dominated the hair styling area with low cost, chemical-based formulations and wasteful packaging, and unsuccessful in my seek for a model that was disrupting the business, I stumbled into an concept that may resolve my very own client want. I had a hunch this drawback would resonate with folks like me.
What had been a number of the first steps you took to get the facet hustle off the bottom?
Whiteside: The primary steps had been hitting the Google machine (BAI, or earlier than AI) to uncover naturally occurring, plant-based substances that would change plastic, endocrine-disrupting formulation. With no lick of chemistry or cooking expertise to my identify, I started ordering waxes, clays, oils and different botanical substances and began mixing them on my stovetop.
Fortuitously I’ve at all times been a weirdo, so I used to be bizarre sufficient to start out placing these failed concoctions into my hair, bizarre sufficient to make all of my pals do the identical and provides me suggestions and peculiar sufficient to be unbothered by my roommate, Ben telling me how bizarre I’m… quickly to develop into a hair weirdo himself.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Highland
Are there any free or paid assets which have been particularly useful for you in beginning and working this enterprise?
Medalie: Some tech standouts embrace: Klaviyo for e mail advertising and marketing, Shopify (and all its superior plugins) to energy our web site, Triple Whale for attribution metrics, Amped (now Mailchimp) for lead seize, Adobe Premiere for content material creation and at last Figma for making the non-designer feel and look like Rembrandt.
Whiteside: Ben coated a lot of the paid ones. Free of charge, the perfect useful resource we tapped into was our well mannered persistence in demanding assist from different enterprise builders. Folks typically need to assist, however you’ll be able to’t be afraid to ask. We lately grabbed espresso with Justin Gold, founding father of Justin’s, the peanut butter model, and he summed it up properly: “Be unreasonable.” This mentality has been instrumental in constructing an unbelievably useful community of people that have helped us construct the Highland technique from the bottom up and in avoiding errors different founders have made. So go be unreasonable — simply be well mannered about it.
When you might return in your enterprise journey and alter one course of or strategy, what wouldn’t it be, and the way do you want you’d performed it in a different way?
Whiteside: I feel Highland will get excessive marks for doing this early, however I want we would performed it even earlier. Get very critical about your unit economics from day one. Be taught what your gross margins are. Make a plan for a way you’ll convey down COGs over time, and know that each penny counts. Get critical about your funds, and work out how and when you may make your enterprise worthwhile. For now, the times of elevating capital and determining the best way to develop into worthwhile later are gone, as are a lot of the companies that took this route.
One of the vital magical days of Highland was when the June 2023 books closed, and we had $113 in revenue. We might discovered the best way to make the enterprise self-sustaining, and that meant our runway was limitless. Become profitable, do not die, then work out the best way to successfully scale.
But in addition, no regrets. The journey was the journey, and it formed us. Let yours form you.
In relation to this particular enterprise, what’s one thing you have discovered significantly difficult and/or stunning that individuals who get into the sort of work must be ready for, however doubtless aren’t?
Medalie: Formulations (of any type, however particularly in magnificence) which might be actually pure are extremely exhausting to get proper. We realized quick why all of those that got here earlier than us minimize the corners they did, and we had been provided the identical formulation shortcuts that guarantee consistency and so-called “efficiency.”
In being adamant that our merchandise could be totally different, we bumped into points left and proper. Our substances are unstable and misbehaving; early batches would range drastically, and so they had a a lot shorter shelf life than the merchandise we had been going up in opposition to. A number of occasions, we misplaced 1000’s of models to failed batches, went out of inventory in consequence and questioned if it was all price it. Ultimately, we broke via on the opposite facet of this problem, now redefining what innovation is feasible inside “higher for you, higher for the planet” formulation.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Highland
Are you able to recall a particular occasion when one thing went very fallacious? How did you repair it?
Whiteside: We have by no means raised a multi-million-dollar spherical — not less than, not but — however that hasn’t spared us from going through critical money move challenges. Proper after our family and friends spherical, we hit a tough patch. We had been burning about $10,000 a month as we labored towards lowering our losses and slowly ramped up our marketing spend. Nonetheless, we weren’t too frightened. We had three months of runway and what felt like the proper investor lined up — somebody prepared to jot down the total test and convey business experience and mentorship that Ben and I had solely ever hoped for. We had been set. Till, all of a sudden, we weren’t.
The method dragged on for months. Our checking account drained. The deal finally fell via. We needed to cease paying ourselves, minimize bills to the bone, delay development plans and pressure relationships with our manufacturing companions. It was the primary time we actually confronted the potential of shedding the corporate, and it was a intestine test.
Medalie: So, we scrambled. We raised much less capital than we had deliberate, however we made it work. We stored a assured entrance for our traders, received lean and stayed scrappy. Trying again, it was the most effective issues that would’ve occurred. It compelled us to show our path to turning into cash-flow constructive and helped us retain extra possession. However it was a hard-earned lesson: Fundraising is not actual till the cash hits the financial institution. And irrespective of how promising a deal appears to be like, you’ll be able to’t construct a enterprise on potential alone.
How lengthy did it take you to see constant month-to-month income? How a lot did the facet hustle earn? What does development and income appear like now?
Whitside and Medalie: We did not begin incomes constant month-to-month income ($10,000-$20,000 per thirty days) till mid-2023. The facet hustle kicked off all the best way again in 2021, when Ben and I had been making the batches of our Glacial Clay Pomade in our KitchenAid mixer, packing the models by hand and promoting them on our Shopify storefront and to a few salons and barbershops. The side hustle most likely generated a mean of $1,000-$3,000 a month between 2021 and 2023.
Now in 2025, after launching our third-ever SKU, we hit our first million-dollar month and have been worthwhile for almost two years straight. It isn’t a race. Develop into an in a single day success in 5 to 10 years.
What do you take pleasure in most about working this enterprise?
Medalie: Truthfully, scorching take… getting to do that entire factor with the folks we love and cherish most in life. Folks at all times warn in opposition to stepping into enterprise with greatest pals or household, however this half has been essentially the most enjoyable. Each single day is totally different, and attending to see your self and pals develop, thrive and even fail in entrance of one another is extremely highly effective and motivating.
Whiteside: What I take pleasure in most is waking up every day with a objective, fixing difficult issues with my greatest good friend and co-founder and selecting our personal journey in each side of what we do. Being your own boss is NOT an overrated a part of being an entrepreneur. It is extremely exhausting, nevertheless it’s additionally the perfect.
Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Highland
What’s your greatest piece of particular, actionable enterprise recommendation?
Whiteside: Getting began is usually the toughest half, but when somebody has, I would provide a bit of recommendation from my pricey good friend and Shopbop founder, Bob Lamey: “Beware the incoming name.” It means to be laser-focused on what you suppose the roadmap is for your enterprise and striving towards these targets with intention. Many emails, cellphone calls, pitches and day-to-day duties develop into a distraction from what you recognize you have to be engaged on.
This does not imply to disregard alternatives as they come up — it’s a name to define your vision and maintain your self accountable in working to convey it to life. You recognize what you have to be doing; do not let the noise distract you.
