This 63-Year-Old Started a ‘Really Fun’ Side Hustle in a Dairy Barn and Saw About $500,000 in Revenue Last Year
Susan Efthimiou’s bout with Covid helped inspire her business.
Key Takeaways
- A life-long soup maker, Efthimiou wanted to share the joy with others.
- She invested about $70,000 to launch her business, SoupaPOTamus, in 2023.
- Now Efthimiou is aiming to triple revenue to roughly $1.5 million this year.
This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Susan Efthimiou, 63. Efthimiou is the founder and owner of SoupaPOTamus, LLC, a soup company based in a remodeled and repurposed 100-year-old dairy barn in Painted Post, New York. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
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What was your day job or primary occupation when you started your side hustle?
Since 2015, I have been the owner and operator of Homestead Blessings LLC, a wedding and event venue that we started in another remodeled and repurposed over 150-year-old barn in Corning, New York. I still run that business in partnership with my daughter and with help from a number of my kids.
Before Homestead Blessings, I was an organized but busy homeschooling mom to nine fun and amazing kids! We raised our family, constantly trying to perfect ways to eat clean, homegrown food with ease, all year round on our upstate New York farm. That turned out to be foundational to SoupaPOTamus.
When did you start your side hustle, and where did you find the inspiration for it?
I come from a family of soup makers. My focus on healthful food started in my childhood, with the joy of planning a garden in the dead of winter and then planting, tending and harvesting huge bouquets of organic herbs and veggies all summer long — all to allow creative and wonderful meals, including pot after pot of the most amazing homemade soups.
I continued that tradition in my own family by raw-dehydrating and storing our organic garden produce and creatively combining it so that even a 5-year-old could cook up an out-of-this-world locally grown pot of soup with just water and a heat source — and they could do it even in the middle of the winter!
The idea for SoupaPOTamus came to me during Covid. I almost died from Covid in early 2020, but our incredibly healthful and nutritious homemade soups got me through it. In 2021, I decided that I wanted to do something to help other families who were home-bound or battling back from Covid. It took me 18 months to get my soup platform up and running as a business.
What were some of the first steps you took to get your side hustle off the ground? How much money/investment did it take to launch?
I didn’t start SoupaPOTamus with a vision to grow it into an amazing company; I was just supplying a need. I sought out high-quality local produce that I could use to create a convenient and delicious product. I threw myself into customer discovery and product development. I was developing recipe after recipe and handing out sample after sample at local farmers’ markets just to get input and feedback. I then turned to planning and production. We were fortunate to have space in our 100-year-old barn to accommodate our operations, and we transformed a portion of that barn into our first commercial kitchen.
By mid-2023, we got serious about sales. That was when things got really fun – and the fun continues! I invested $50,000, plus about $20,000 that we received in the form of a couple of grants from some local supporters. We have invested more than that since then, but that initial $70,000 got us going.
If you could go back in your business journey and change one process or approach, what would it be, and how do you wish you’d done it differently?
I would seek help sooner. I am a “I can do it myself” kind of person, but it has been important for me to realize that while new venture ideas may be unique, there is no sense in reinventing the wheel when it comes to developing a business plan, distilling it into writing and figuring out things like accounting, software, inventory management and some of the production details. My suggestion to new starters would be to reach out to others for help in their particular areas of specialty and expertise, and do it early. Startup leaders will have to wear a lot of hats, so look for hats that others can wear for you.
When it comes to this specific business, what is something you’ve found particularly challenging and/or surprising that people who get into this type of work should be prepared for, but likely aren’t?
It is easy for inexperienced people to look at a small business or startup and just see the glamorous side of the business. The truth is that entrepreneurship requires work, work and more work. Founders and leaders will have long days and nights and endless problems to overcome. And with the eventual success of some money rolling in, there will be countless categories of expenses rolling out. Be prepared to persevere.
Can you recall a specific instance when something went very wrong — how did you fix it?
We had an opportunity to participate in a national news broadcast feature that would promote small women-led health-food ventures. The excitement and exposure were great, but within minutes of the live broadcast, over 100,000 people jumped onto our website, and it crashed. We knew that a broadcast opportunity like that had potential to generate sales, but we had no idea how much volume to expect.
Fortunately, we had put our tech support team on notice, so they quickly resolved the issue and got the website up and running. But then the orders swamped us. We booked more orders in 12 hours than we ordinarily had been booking in a month. But we pulled our team together, immediately changed production schedules, revamped our shipping and handling process and established round-the-clock processing. Creative solutions and the willingness of our team to pull out all the stops allowed us to process the backlog. We learned a lot, and it set us up for continued growth.
How long did it take you to see consistent monthly revenue?
We didn’t realize meaningful revenue until the second half of 2023. We were in beta mode for all of 2022 and into the early part of 2023, developing our product line and our production capacity, securing required product approvals, forming the company and generating a realistic business plan. Consistent revenue started in the second half of 2023 and has increased fairly consistently ever since. We more than tripled our revenue year-over-year in both 2024 and 2025.
Related: How Can You Use AI to Start a Side Hustle? These Are the 10 Best-Paying Ones Right Now.
What does growth and revenue look like now?
We are targeting 3x year-over-year revenue growth for 2026, which would take us to approximately $1.5 million. We will be leveraging our brand success and customer excitement with additional marketing, increased production capacity and growth in our direct-to-consumer channels and wholesale opportunities. We will also remain dedicated to consistently improving our cost positions, maintaining healthy gross margins and building enterprise value.
What do you enjoy most about running this business?
I love everything about my business. I love creating new products that I know my customers will love. I love supporting real farmers who are growing great food. And I love to figure out unique ways to nourish my customers with real food and innovative solutions.
What is your best piece of specific, actionable business advice?
Treasure your uniqueness. It will help form your vision and keep you enthusiastic about your business during the challenging times. Second, really get to know your target market customers and pay attention to their needs. Spend regular time on customer discovery, especially early on, which will help you evaluate and map your business future.
Mentors and experts are important for general business success and advice, but you need to know what sets you apart. Along the way, some of those experts may try to convince you to sacrifice quality or other values to increase margins or revenue, but if you give in, you have just shot your business in the foot. I will never waiver on quality, flavor, nutritional health and convenience because that is what my target market wants and that is what my customers have come to expect from SoupaPOTamus.
Key Takeaways
- A life-long soup maker, Efthimiou wanted to share the joy with others.
- She invested about $70,000 to launch her business, SoupaPOTamus, in 2023.
- Now Efthimiou is aiming to triple revenue to roughly $1.5 million this year.
This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Susan Efthimiou, 63. Efthimiou is the founder and owner of SoupaPOTamus, LLC, a soup company based in a remodeled and repurposed 100-year-old dairy barn in Painted Post, New York. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Want to read more stories like this? Subscribe to Money Makers, our free newsletter packed with creative side hustle ideas and successful strategies. Sign up here.
