Jenny Woo came up with her seven-figure side hustle in a classroom.
She was working on her master’s degree in education at Harvard University, learning about emotional intelligence and child development. The former C-suite consultant and school director thought just about everyone could benefit from learning more about both.
She wasn’t sure how to make the topics easy or interesting to learn, until her professor passed out a deck of cards to play with in class. At that moment, she says, it clicked: She could make an EQ game.
Woo spent roughly $1,000 from her savings to launch her side hustle, Mind Brain Emotion, in 2018. The company, still a one-woman side hustle, makes 11 different EQ-focused card games meant to help train people of all ages on concepts like relationship skills, critical thinking and even job interviews.
Mind Brain Emotion brought in more than $1.71 million in revenue on Amazon last year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. It averages roughly $32,900 in revenue per week, and Woo, 42, estimates 40% of that revenue is profit.
It’s relatively passive profit, too. Between Woo’s four income streams — the games, lecturing at the University of California, Irvine, running an online course on EQ and freelance business consulting — she works anywhere from three to 30 hours per week, she says.
Here’s how she built her biggest income stream, and how she balances her time:
Juggling careers, education and family
Most of Woo’s professional life has revolved around people. After college, she became a Deloitte consultant, training managers on how to communicate and lead efficiently. She worked as a personal trainer, got an MBA from the University of California, Berkley, and helped train Cisco employees “in the pipeline to become C-suite executives.”
Those roles taught her something: People climbing the corporate ladder didn’t always have EQ skills like social awareness, self-awareness, self-management and relationship management. It held some major…
Read the full article here
