With inflation on the rise, Tim Riegel wanted a side project to earn extra income, so in September 2021, he bought seven $90 propane tanks on Facebook Marketplace.
The 59-year-old intended to repurpose the ends of the tank as fire pits, an open, freestanding metal container for fires, usually for patios or yards, and sell them for $400 each in his town native of Lamar, Missouri. The stoves proved popular: they sold out in just 10 days, and Riegel was inundated with requests for more.
Riegel started his business with seven tanks he bought on Facebook Marketplace for $90 each. He sold them locally in 10 days for $400 each.
Tim Riegel
In March, he moved the hustle online, opening an Esty store. He contributed $50,000 over the next five months, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. In June, his highest-earning month to date, he made $16,000 selling fire pits, most priced between $600 and $1,700.
“It’s hard for everybody right now, and I thought, ‘I can make extra income and have fun doing it,'” Riegel told CNBC Make It. “Fun is the magic of the whole deal. From September to December, I almost saturated my hometown with bonfires.”
Here’s how Riegel started his unlikely business and his plans to make it more financially sustainable:
Welder and perfectionist by training
Riegel, who oversees domestic suppliers for a furniture company by day, says his full-time job taught him the art of navigating e-commerce platforms. I had previously used Etsy for new designers and inspiration.
“At first, I thought [Etsy] it was just a bunch of old ladies sewing quilts,” she says. “Then I realized I could use it to see what’s out there, who’s creative. The [small] companies that are about to go broke [into industries] they usually start on one of these platforms.”
Riegel is also a welder (he often restores cars as a side hustle and took vocational welding classes in 2006) and says that working creatively is cathartic, even if his side hustle adds an extra 40 hours of work to the your schedule every week.
Riegel, a trained welder, says it can take three to eight hours to make a pit, depending on customizations.
Tim Riegel
The idea came from a friend who made a similar fire pit out of the end of a propane tank. It took trial and error to perfect the bronzed, custom versions Riegel now sells, he says. He wanted his fire pits to last longer than the ones sold in big box stores, which he says are “easy” and “intended to last maybe two years.”
So, he bought some scrap metal from a nearby dealer and started experimenting with different legs and feet for the fire pits. “The first couple were pretty bad, but the great thing about metal is you can just cut it up and redo it,” he says.
A high cost for transporting heavy goods
Riegel says he spends about seven hours a month just sourcing the metal, which is increasingly expensive. His profit margins are usually between 35% and 40%, but he only keeps about half of his earnings, reinvesting the rest into his side hustle, he says.
Currently, Riegel has just one employee: He pays his 79-year-old father, Terry, $15 an hour to help recycle tank ends and coordinate loading schedules. The 250-pound fire pits can’t be easily shipped via FedEx or UPS, and Riegel’s father helps keep in constant contact with the trucking companies that transport the products across the U.S. and Canada.
Riegel says he wants to expand the business, offering new customizations such as lids, sizes and designed handles. Finally, he also wants to make gas fires.
Tim Riegel
The size of the products limits Riegel’s ability to ship them: From March to July, he only got 60 fires on the road. The farther away a customer is, the more expensive shipping is: Riegel estimates an average shipping cost of $375 per order, so he only ships a couple of lights on freight trucks. in a moment
Etsy’s shipping partners are expensive for small business owners who receive a low volume of product, he says. So you rely on other vendors to tell you which carriers are most effective for small businesses like yours. He says he works with several private carriers to meet his shipping needs, primarily Estes and Unishippers.
However, Etsy helps Riegel substantially with advertising and search engine optimization, he says. He pays an extra $200 a month to advertise through Etsy, which he says is less than comparable rates at Wayfair and Amazon Seller Central.
He also doesn’t mind reinvesting so much of his profits into the side hustle, he says, at least for now. That money is currently being used to figure out how to add gas lines, reduce production times, and experiment with new products like chimineas, a type of freestanding fireplace.
As for the money Riegel has saved, he has spent some of it on another major endeavor: his daughters’ weddings.
“To own [extra money] it definitely helps,” he says. “But more than anything, it’s really just seeing what I can do with this business and pushing it forward.”
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