My mother-in-law's side hustle made $1M selling pillows?!?

**Sam Parr** (0:00)
So, how do you create a multi-million dollar business starting with only $10,000, without having much of a plan, without doing a lot of research, without even knowing how to use Shopify, or basically you had to learn the internet from scratch? Well, we have talked about this a little bit on this podcast, but I finally wanted to do an episode with a very special person, my mother-in-law. So about five years ago, my mother-in-law sat me down. She goes, Sam, I have this idea for a business. I want to start this pillow company. Can you teach me how to do it? I gave the most generic advice ever on how to do it, not expecting her to do anything. Turns out, she listened and she Googled and found actually significantly better advice. She built a company that is now making millions a year in revenue. She started it in her early 50s and it's killing it. After years of just quietly chugging along and building this epic business, I asked my mother-in-law, Smithy Sodine, to come on the pod and give her story. If you are in your 30s, 40s or 50s, and you are thinking about starting a business and you're overthinking, you're not sure what to do, or even if you're in your 20s and you want to figure out how to change your life, this is probably the most relatable and I think, inspirational episodes that we have ever done. It's a very special episode for me for obvious reasons. I love her to death, but I think you guys are going to like it. Check it out.
Let me set the stage here, Smithy.

**Smithy Sodine** (1:22)
Okay.

**Sam Parr** (1:22)
Smithy, do you even listen to the podcast?

**Smithy Sodine** (1:24)
I do. I do listen to some episodes.

**Sam Parr** (1:27)
All right. The story is this. Basically, you came over in your early teens as an immigrant. You had some kids and you were a stay-at-home mom. Then the kids grew up and you were like, well, I'm not really sure what to do next. You were trying a bunch of different stuff. I think at one point, you got your real estate license and you did something a lot of people want or they think about. They think like, I want to start something, I want to do something. You thought about it for a couple of years, I think. Then all of a sudden, we had a conversation, and you basically told me what you were going to do.
I wasn't sure if I even believed that you were going to do it, but basically you were like, I'm going to start a pillow business. You had done zero research, you didn't do any market research, and then all of a sudden, two weeks later, you have this online store. Before I know it, you had a bunch of sales.
Now, after doing this for six years, you've made multiple millions in revenue. I don't know if you want to say what it is, or you could say the numbers, but you built a seven-figure business without any Internet experience or any research. We talked about you on the podcast and that was pretty cool. A lot of people have asked. So we have Smithy here who's actually my mother-in-law.

**Smithy Sodine** (2:32)
Well, okay. I'll just change a few little bits of information in that summary. So I came to the US with my family when I was 16 years old. So it was in 1983
We lived in Miami for a couple of years, and then I wind up going to school in New York City. I wanted to be in the fashion industry. Sewing has always been a passion of mine. So my grandparents sewed and my mom did. So I learned from them and then I wind up just liking it. It was just a way to express myself, my creativity. I made clothes for myself and then I wanted to go to Fashion Institute of Technology to study fashion. So I wind up being majoring in pattern making. I also had to work full-time and while I was going to school part-time, so I never graduated from FIT.

**Sam Parr** (3:26)
I didn't know you went to FIT. That's pretty cool.

**Smithy Sodine** (3:29)
Yes, I went to FIT for about a couple of years, maybe two, three years part-time. I was really close to graduation. Then I got married, had a child, your wife, and decided that I wanted to move out of New York City. So we moved to the suburbs, and there was no fashion industry in the suburbs, and I really didn't want to travel back and forth to work in the city. Then I stayed at home. I became a stay-at-home mom for about three or four years. Then I realized, oh, wow, I'm raising a child, but I don't have enough information to raise her. What am I going to do when she needs knowledge? How am I going to help her and so on? I'm like, okay, fine. I'll go to school to become a teacher. I went to school, did a dual major, English, Lib and Education. I actually went to school for 10 years while I was raising my kids and I wind up with a master's degree in Linguistics. Then it really helped having children, but I always sold or did alterations for my neighbors.