This Aspect 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 mission in a Denver condo 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 aspect hustle, and the place did you discover the inspiration for it?
Whiteside: When Ben and I turned greatest pals throughout our junior 12 months 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 have been a small crew, and the corporate was struggling exhausting to ascertain itself. I discovered a ton about problem-solving by 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 progress… his managers have been consistently respiratory down his neck to “JUST FOCUS” on “his primary function.” Neither of us have been pleased with these profession trajectories.
Sick of the archaic legacy manufacturers that dominated the hair styling house with low-cost, chemical-based formulations and wasteful packaging, and unsuccessful in my seek for a model that was disrupting the trade, I stumbled into an concept that might remedy my very own client want. I had a hunch this downside would resonate with individuals like me.
What have been a few of the first steps you took to get the aspect hustle off the bottom?
Whiteside: The primary steps have been hitting the Google machine (BAI, or earlier than AI) to uncover naturally occurring, plant-based substances that would exchange plastic, endocrine-disrupting formulation. With out a 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 all the time 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 bizarre sufficient to be unbothered by my roommate, Ben telling me how bizarre I’m… quickly to change 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 website, 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 appear like Rembrandt.
Whiteside: Ben coated a lot of the paid ones. Totally free, the most effective useful resource we tapped into was our well mannered persistence in demanding assist from different enterprise builders. Individuals typically need to assist, however you’ll be able to’t be afraid to ask. We just 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.
Should you might return in your enterprise journey and alter one course of or method, what would it not be, and the way do you want you’d completed it in a different way?
Whiteside: I believe Highland will get excessive marks for doing this early, however I want we would completed it even earlier. Get very severe about your unit economics from day one. Study what your gross margins are. Make a plan for a way you’ll carry down COGs over time, and know that each penny counts. Get severe about your funds, and work out how and when you can also make your enterprise worthwhile. For now, the times of elevating capital and determining the right way to change into worthwhile later are gone, as are a lot of the companies that took this route.
Some of the magical days of Highland was when the June 2023 books closed, and we had $113 in revenue. We would found out the right way to make the enterprise self-sustaining, and that meant our runway was limitless. Become profitable, do not die, then work out the right way to successfully scale.
But additionally, no regrets. The journey was the journey, and it formed us. Let yours form you.
Relating to this particular enterprise, what’s one thing you’ve got discovered notably difficult and/or stunning that individuals who get into this kind of work ought to be ready for, however seemingly aren’t?
Medalie: Formulations (of any variety, however particularly in magnificence) which might be really pure are extremely exhausting to get proper. We discovered quick why all of those that got here earlier than us lower the corners they did, and we have been supplied 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 risky and misbehaving; early batches would range enormously, they usually had a a lot shorter shelf life than the merchandise we have been going up towards. A number of occasions, we misplaced 1000’s of items to failed batches, went out of inventory in consequence and questioned if it was all price it. In the long run, we broke by on the opposite aspect 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 selected occasion when one thing went very incorrect? How did you repair it?
Whiteside: We have by no means raised a multi-million-dollar spherical — at the least, not but — however that hasn’t spared us from going through severe money circulate challenges. Proper after our family and friends spherical, we hit a tough patch. We have 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 nervous. We had three months of runway and what felt like the right investor lined up — somebody prepared to put in writing the complete examine and produce trade experience and mentorship that Ben and I had solely ever hoped for. We have been set. Till, out of the blue, we weren’t.
The method dragged on for months. Our checking account drained. The deal in the end fell by. We needed to cease paying ourselves, lower bills to the bone, delay progress plans and pressure relationships with our manufacturing companions. It was the primary time we actually confronted the opportunity of shedding the corporate, and it was a intestine examine.
Medalie: So, we scrambled. We raised much less capital than we had deliberate, however we made it work. We saved a assured entrance for our buyers, acquired lean and stayed scrappy. Trying again, it was top-of-the-line issues that would’ve occurred. It compelled us to show our path to turning into cash-flow constructive and helped us retain extra possession. Nevertheless it was a hard-earned lesson: Fundraising is not actual till the cash hits the financial institution. And irrespective of how promising a deal seems, 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 aspect hustle earn? What does progress and income appear to be 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 aspect hustle kicked off all the best way again in 2021, when Ben and I have been making the batches of our Glacial Clay Pomade in our KitchenAid mixer, packing the items by hand and promoting them on our Shopify storefront and to a few salons and barbershops. The side hustle most likely generated a median 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 is not a race. Turn into an in a single day success in 5 to 10 years.
What do you get pleasure from most about working this enterprise?
Medalie: Truthfully, sizzling take… getting to do that complete factor with the individuals we love and cherish most in life. Individuals all the time warn towards moving into enterprise with greatest pals or household, however this half has been probably 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 get pleasure from most is waking up every day with a objective, fixing difficult issues with my greatest buddy and co-founder and selecting our personal journey in each aspect of what we do. Being your own boss is NOT an overrated a part of being an entrepreneur. It is extremely exhausting, but it surely’s additionally the most effective.
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 might supply a chunk of recommendation from my pricey buddy 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, telephone calls, pitches and day-to-day duties change into a distraction from what you recognize you must 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 carry it to life. You realize what you must be doing; do not let the noise distract you.
