“It's not about ideas. It's about making ideas happen.” - Scott Belsky.
April and I had been talking for months already about what business should we start as an additional source of income for our household.
Previously, we planned on selling some spring rolls to Tita Nessie, our go-to place for porridge, and to everyone within the area. However, since going to the wet market daily, plus the time consumed in preparation, we had scratched that idea for now.
I believe that if I will have more time in the future, we can work on that. I am still employed full-time, doing Hive on the side and other gigs. The octopus will be ashamed of how busy I am and probably sleep will be more or less a luxury if I will go on that route.
So we talked about what cheap consumable items we could buy. Then an advertisement in TikTok popped up, showing a dishwashing liquid. We stopped for a while and watched the whole ad, and then afterward a swarm of videos relating to dishwashing liquid start-ups immediately flooded our feed.
I guess this is the sign to start one, right? Thanks, algorithm! You sold our details very well!
I asked April if she was okay with the idea and she said yes. I checked out the dishwashing liquid kit pack. I told April that I will just drop by the plastic center nearby to see if there was an empty bottle sold and the pail to be used as I am trying to avoid the shipping fee costs.
I found the pail easily and had a small talk with the vendor. When he realized I was looking for other stuff such as funnel and empty bottles, he asked if I was planning to sell some dishwashing liquid. I said yes and mentioned it was a good plan. An extra source of income is something that everyone's looking for. Since we chatted for a while, I asked if he can give some discounts on my purchase but he said there were none.
They don't have any stock of empty bottles right; he pointed me to other shops, but unfortunately, they are also out of stock.
With no choice, I just opened an online shop application and ordered the bottles as well.
The bottles arrived the next day, but the kit wasn't available yet. Dyn-Dyn checks if all products are in good shape, just like a DTI representative.
Tuesday, we got the package. We were excited to prepare everything, but we had plans to go outside in the morning. April just mentioned that she will have this settled in the afternoon.
In an empty bucket, fill it in with 15 liters of clean water. Add the bubble booster, then suffrocant and mix it thoroughly. Once you see the bubbles rising, add the desired extract of your choice. Since it is a test product, we used the basic scent which is calamansi. They have lemon, bubblegum, and lavender too, but since we want to be safe, we just used what we are familiar.
Once it is settled, the thickener is added and these should be mixed thoroughly to avoid any lumps in the mixture. Per April, the mixture was too strong and facemasks are required if mixing the product.
After minutes of mixing, the result should look like this:
She just covered it and let it rest for 24 hours to remove the bubbles automatically.
After 24 hours of rest, April used the funnel and transferred the mixture to the empty bottles. She could fill 15 1/2 bottles, and we agreed that the 15 bottles will be included in the costing computation and the half will be for our personal use.
The ones that we buy in the wet market are almost the same as what we have. Consistency-wise, the ones sold are quite thicker than the ones that I am using now. As April explained, that is because the remainders were just the scrap of the product mixtures, etc were already placed in the first batch that she scooped.
And comparing the finished items, I agreed it was different. Cleaning power, bubbles, etc. I am pleased with the result.
We will just try to have these products sold out, and in the future will create more batches. If we will go full scale, with business registration, logo, etc, that is something that needs to be reviewed thoroughly.
There are other stuff available in the shop, such as soap mixture, alcogel, detergents, etc. However, since we are not yet sure if those alternatives are good, we just focused on the dishwashing liquid for now.
I took all images from our devices and edited them through Canva.