College Side Hustle Made $12k on Amazon in 2 Weeks—Then $250M+

Key Takeaways

Tate Stock and his wife Hannah launched the wellness company Chirp in 2015.
Over the past decade, the Stocks have grown the business beyond $250 million in lifetime sales.

This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Chirp co-founder and CEO Tate Stock, 33, of Salt Lake City, Utah. Stock launched the wellness company behind “simple and effective” tools for pain relief and recovery with his wife Hannah in 2015. Tate used his savings to build the prototype of the Chirp Wheel, which saw $150,000 in first-year sales. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Chirp. Tate and Hannah Stock.

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What was your day job or primary occupation when you started your side hustle?
I founded Chirp while I was a full-time college student. During the summers, I sold pest control door-to-door to make ends meet. I did well enough to stay afloat, and for the first three years, didn’t take a salary from Chirp. Looking back, I’m not quite sure how my wife Hannah and I managed it — we pretty much lived off love and potatoes.

When did you start your side hustle, and where did you find the inspiration for it?
I started the side hustle in August 2015 — a month before my wedding and with one semester remaining in college. I was supposed to be out getting an internship, but I was actually at my aunt’s house doing laundry when I noticed a yoga wheel in her living room. I’d never done yoga in my life, but I grew up on a farm and I’m naturally curious…I thought the product looked interesting, so I looked it up online. As I started typing “yoga wheel” into Amazon, the search bar automatically finished the phrase for me — I’d only gotten to “yoga w.” That moment clicked. If Amazon’s algorithm was predicting it, that meant people were searching for it — yet no one was actually selling them. That was the spark.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Chirp. Making Chirp Wheels in the early days.

What were some of the first steps you took to get your side hustle off the ground?
Once I found out people were searching for these yoga wheels online, I went out and bought $400 worth of sewer pipe and $50 worth of yoga mats and made as many as I possibly could. I cut the pipe on a table saw in my buddy’s mom’s barn, glued on yoga-mat padding and made about 100 wheels by hand. I listed them on Amazon and made $12,000 in the first two weeks. It was the best money and best margins a college kid could get, and to me, it was more valuable than any internship. So, we were off to the races, and the yoga industry was our track.

Are there any free or paid resources that have been especially helpful for you in starting and running this business?
At first, our best resource was other college kids looking for an internship. We had a dozen or so of our peers helping make and sell Chirp Wheels, but after their three-month internship was up and they came to talk about a more permanent role, all I could offer was $7.25 an hour (Utah’s minimum wage at the time), and most were not so interested anymore. We learned quickly that hustle and scrappiness can be a resource too. Everyone wore ten hats, and that’s how we survived those early years.

Doing things the hard way often forces you to understand your product and your customers better than anyone else.

If you could go back in your business journey and change one process or approach, what would it be, and how do you wish you’d done it differently?
I wish we’d found a manufacturing partner sooner. We made the yoga wheels by hand for the first three years, and that was a lot of work…but I didn’t have the money for the minimum order quantities a factory would likely require. So ordering just as much sewer pipe and yoga mat as we needed and building the product out in the garage was really the only way we could fund things. No regrets — it was just the harder way to do it. Looking back, I’d still recommend that other founders build the first version themselves. It taught me that doing things the hard way often forces you to understand your product and your customers better than anyone else.

When it comes to this specific business, what is something you’ve found particularly challenging and/or surprising that people who get into this type of work should be prepared for, but likely aren’t?
It was extremely challenging to get outsiders to believe in us. The banks said no to us, family members often doubted us, and other successful people who could provide mentorship often had their own things to worry about. So it was really just myself, my wife and the early employees who were really dedicated and gave everything to keep the business moving. At a certain point, I just realized that belief had to come from us first, then from customers who kept buying. That’s when we knew we had something real.

Can you recall a specific instance when something went very wrong — how did you fix it?
We did not charge our customers sales tax in 2020, the year Chirp grew by 400%. Because of that, we went to each state and entered into voluntary disclosure agreements. The only way to ethically fix the problem was to pay the tax from our own profits, which cost us around $6 million. Ouch. It was really challenging to swallow that reality, but it reinforced our value of doing business the right way, no matter the circumstances. We came out clean, credible and stronger because of it.

How long did it take you to see consistent monthly revenue? How much did the side hustle earn?
We saw consistent monthly revenue from the beginning, as we were supplying natural demand in the market. After selling to the yoga market for several years, we found that the Chirp Wheels were perfect for tractioning your back, and many customers were simply using them to relieve back pain. The real breakthrough came when we stopped calling it a yoga wheel and started acknowledging what customers were already using it for, which was pain relief. In the first two and a half years, we generated $180,000 in revenue. Then, without changing the product — only the messaging — we achieved $4 million in revenue over the next six months and have since reached more than $250 million in lifetime sales. It’s remarkable how profoundly the right messaging transformed everything.

What does growth and revenue look like now?
We’ve had another breakout year in 2025. Our team continues to grow through innovation — about a third of our company headcount is dedicated to research and development. That focus on solving real pain for real people, along with world-class marketing, has led to over 300% growth this year.

Your customers are your best mentors.

What is your best piece of specific, actionable business advice?
Launch imperfect products. And don’t get lost in the romance of creating a business. At the end of the day, you’ll need to provide something that sells (meaning it actually provides value to someone). Get passionate about that, not your logo, your perfect packaging or even making sure you’ve trademarked everything. Your customers are your best mentors. Talk to them, listen to them, and they’ll show you where to go next.

Key Takeaways

Tate Stock and his wife Hannah launched the wellness company Chirp in 2015.
Over the past decade, the Stocks have grown the business beyond $250 million in lifetime sales.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Chirp. Tate and Hannah Stock.

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