Boring Gift Frustration → $150k/Month Dessert Empire

🏖️ Creative Entrepreneur fun one-liner:

Why did the entrepreneur refuse to stop at the red light? Because they only know how to 'go'!

Onto Today’s story….

Have you ever received a gift that you just tossed in the back of your closet and instantly forgot about?

We all have.

Samantha Khater had the same problem and started the dessert company DessertBoxes.com.au.

Let us see how she went on to make $150k/month.

Samantha Khater was frustrated of having to send and receive boring gifts, which would end up being thrown away,

dying, never used, and at best re-gifted.

She told her brother and sister about it and they decided to do something about it.

They decided to wage a war against boring gifts!

Valentine's Day was coming up and they decided to launch something.

They reached out to popular local dessert makers, and quickly put together their first offering - a Nutella themed Dessert Box!

Launching just through social media and word of mouth, to their surprise they sold over 400 boxes in under a week.

This stunning success made them realize they had stumbled, onto an underserved market with major potential.

Soon after, they developed their website DessertBoxes.com.au, to start selling gift boxes for any occasion.

They wanted their website to look like a familiar online gift store.

They made people aware that they could give a Dessert Box as a gift, and suggested appropriate occasions for doing so.

In their first month of business,following the initial sale of 400 boxes for Valentine's Day…

..they found it challenging to find a courier willing to handle their delivery.

The courier needed a guarantee of 10 boxes per day,a number they couldn't consistently promise at that time.

However, a few months later, they began dispatching hundreds of boxes daily, and finding a courier was no longer an issue.

While Samantha managed the marketing and partnerships, her sister focused on operations and logistics.

Meanwhile, her brother handled the finances and administration.

Samantha says they all balance each other out perfectly as a solid trio of founders.

They contacted influencers on Instagram, asking if they'd like to be the first to receive a Dessert Box in Sydney, in exchange for a post on their page.

They also offered free products to smaller influencers, in exchange for posts and stories about their boxes.

These nano and micro influencers often had incredibly engaged followers.

Sales continued to increase.

They also decided to use Facebook Ads.

In their initial stages, they didn't have much knowledge about Facebook ads.

So, they watched YouTube Videos and learned how to target people in Sydney, who were in a relationship and potentially looking for a Valentine's Day gift.

They also collaborated with other Dessert markers,and leveraged their following and promoted it to a wider audience.

After the initial Nutella-themed test, these DessertBoxes founders realized they needed to think bigger.

They set out creating gifts for every major occasion, birthdays, anniversaries, Mother's Day, graduations, and more.

However, they customized each box to make the recipient feel truly special.

They soon started Facebook Retargeting.

They retargeted recent site visitors with special deals, and this helped recover abandoned carts.

They also made the packaging very nicely.

Every box showcased gorgeous photographs of the desserts inside.

Sales continued to grow.

The gift boxes were shipped all around Sydney & Melbourne.

Everything was made fresh every morning, and delivered to the recipient by 3pm that day.

DessertBoxes.com.au started shipping out hundreds of boxes every day, with sales topping $150k/month.

Samantha says…

“Stop putting it off, it’s never going to be the perfect time, just start!”

6 Reasons why she succeeded:

1. Ran small Test launches

Initially, they tried out their dessert box idea with a small Nutella-themed event,

a week before Valentine's Day.

They managed to sell 400 boxes in less than a week,

using only social media and word of mouth.

This success showed that the idea could work.

They didn’t need to spend a lot of money up front.

2. Got idea from Personal Problem

Samantha was personally frustrated with having to give,

and receive boring gifts that would anyway be thrown away.

She built a business specifically around giving people,

gift options they would enjoy and use.

3. Got good help

Samantha handled marketing and partnerships.

Her sister managed operations and logistics.

Her brother oversaw finances and administration.

4. Reached out to micro and nano influencers

They offered free dessert boxes to small influencers with engaged following.

They saw a huge spike in sales and repeat customers because of this.

5. Learning what they didn’t know

if they didn’t know something, they figured it out.

They did not know how to do Facebook ads and they learnt from YouTube.

They also learnt Facebook retargeting from YouTube.

6. Started even when most things were not ready

They started selling dessert boxes even though website,

product, marketing weren't perfected.

They first made sure people liked their products.

Once they got sales and money, they developed these things.

Hope you enjoyed the story and their success tactics.

Let the good times roll for you!.

Yours “Rooting for your success” Vijay Peduru