After Scott Hogan, 35, graduated with his MBA during the last recession, he had a tough time finding a job. He ended up working in the logistics department of a large retailer, where he had to rise at 4 am to manage a team of 40 people. “That was tough,” he recalls.
So, when a job as a manager at GNC opened up, he gladly accepted it. Talking with customers at the supplements store every day gave him an in-depth education in what they were looking for. “There is a human side of things when you work face-to-face,” he says.
That led to work running a franchised nutrition store he purchased with his family and, later, at two large online supplements retailers. He decided to go all-in with a side business—an e-commerce store that sold sports nutrition supplements he designed—in 2018. He’d gotten laid off from his most recent job during a company buyout when his wife was four days away from delivering a baby. He’d already been dabbling in e-commerce, running an Amazon store as a side business since 2015.
Scott Hogan, founder of Salt Wrap, on sourcing trip.
Hogan named his store SaltWrap, in honor of the Epsom salt wraps his mother once prepared when he hurt his elbow playing baseball. He soon discovered that being an entrepreneur was his true calling, as he built SaltWrap into a million-dollar, one-person business and beyond.
“I have always known I was wired for this,” says Hogan. “I remember having a conversation with my brother as a kid. I said, ‘I never want to have a job. I want to have my own business.’”
Hogan is part of one of the most exciting trends in small business—the growth of million-dollar, one-person businesses. Currently, there are about 40,000 of these businesses in the U.S., based on the most recent Census data available.
MORE FOR YOU
With a young family and bills to pay, Hogan had to make the most of his resources, starting the store with what he estimated to be $5,000 to $10,000. His first product was a proprietary supplement he designed for night-time leg cramps—which he had suffered with while doing competitive bodybuilding. The supplement is made with ingredients such as magnesium glycinate, adaptogenic herbs such as ashwagandha and Rhodiola, and passionflower. “I did the thing you shouldn’t do and put a purchase order on credit cards,” he chuckles.
Reaching out to supplements factories he knew through his work in the industry, Hogan was able to find one who was willing to do a small run of 300 bottles of his supplement. “They have high minimums,” he explains. The order was so small it caused problems for the manufacturer’s accounting department, he recalls.
As money came in from the supplements, he reinvested it in the business and was able to place bigger orders. To promote his products, Hogan used the Google Keyword Planner to identify the best search terms for his products and invested in online advertising. For the first two years, he saw little competition for the terms he used, but later, as copycats entered the fray, it became more expensive.
In addition to the supplements, Hogan also wrote and sold a 128-page, self-published book, Pain-Free Fat Loss, which targets people who have inflammation issues, via a separate website. Many purchasers of the pdf book have gone on to purchase his supplements. “They’ve read the book,” he says. “They’ve gotten results.”
To get the most out of his promotional efforts, Hogan works hard to retain customers once he wins them, tapping what he learned from the supplement launches he’d done for his last employer. “The cost of acquiring a customer is about six times the cost of retaining a customer,” he says. He uses email marketing to send customers relevant content and also offers subscription purchasing programs to make more sales automatic. “The only way I’ve been able to scale is to make retention my number one priority,” he says.
To get it all done, Hogan focuses on his “one thing” for at least one hour a day, and ideally, three. He carves out time each week to wear all the necessary hats in his business, for instance, spending Tuesdays on his Amazon store, Wednesdays on advertising, Thursdays on his quarterly goals and Fridays on his books. To stay healthy, he does weight training three times a week and does long walks on the days in between.
Gradually, Hogan introduced more products he designed for joint support, collagen synthesis, muscle recovery, muscle and nerve support and other concerns he’d heard from customers or had experienced as a college baseball player at Emporia State University, a Division 2 school.
“I’ve always been obsessed with nutrient interventions and finding ways to fix issues,” he says. He had spent many days poring over the tome Nutritional Healing when he worked in the supplements industry. “I think I have a Rolodex of ingredients in the back of my head,” he says.
Along the way, he has learned how to get FDA approval for these products. He also wrote a new book, Built from Broken, which focuses on healing painful joints. He spent time running the business from Costa Rica before the pandemic and he and his wife and two children are now based in the West Palm Beach area of Florida.
He manages to get a lot done in a normal workday by setting quarterly goals and not letting himself take on new projects until he finishes that quarter’s goals. After that, he’ll let himself play around with new product ideas, marketing campaigns and new website features.
Using this approach, Hogan grew his revenue gradually. By 2018, the business was bringing in $800,000 annually. That figure rose to $1.5 million in 2019 and just over $3 million in 2020. This year he projects annual revenue of $5-to-$6 million.
Hogan doesn’t see himself returning to a traditional job anytime soon. “At any moment they can snatch that away from me,” he says. “That’s way scarier than running the business.”
