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Key Takeaways McDuffie and Albers raised about $12,000 on Kickstarter before starting their side hustle, Dressy.
Dressy launched in June and hit $2,500 in weeks; now it’s headed for $30,000 in six months.
The co-founders look forward to leaning into potential growth even more this fall.
This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Portland, Oregon-based entrepreneur Lauren McDuffie, 42. McDuffie and her cousin Rachel Albers, 49, co-founded Dressy, a line of superfood-forward salad dressing mixes that can be prepared quickly and easily at home, this past June. Following a $12,000 Kickstarter fundraising campaign, Dressy launched as a side hustle and made $2,500 within its first few weeks. Now the business is projected to see about $30,000 in revenue by the end of the year. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Image Credit: Dressy. Lauren McDuffie.
What was your day job or primary occupation when you started your side hustle?
Before launching Dressy, I spent more than a decade building a career as a food writer, recipe developer, cookbook author and photographer. Through my recipe website, My Kitchen Little, and my cookbooks, I worked to help people make home cooking feel more approachable and interesting.
Running a recipe website gave me firsthand experience at building an online brand, creating content and understanding how busy people actually use their kitchens. Dressy grew very naturally out of that work; it felt less like swapping careers and more like solving a problem that had been bugging me for years.
Rachel, who is an attorney by education, had ended a long career working as a political consultant and was preparing to send one of her sons off to college. She shared with me over coffee one morning that she was ready for something new, and I realized that working with her — combining our different skill sets, experience, interests and aptitudes — would make for a great partnership.
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