The Business I Built One $3 Bet at a Time

There's a particular kind of satisfaction in turning a forgotten object into something valuable again. Not metaphorically — literally. A shirt buried in a thrift store bin. A stack of dusty baseball cards at a yard sale. A textbook someone couldn't wait to get rid of. You buy it for a few dollars, clean it up, list it online, and watch it find a new home for ten times what you paid.

For 18 years, that small, repeatable act was the heartbeat of Marenna's Treasures, my eBay store. More than 30,000 sales, over 10,000 reviews, and an ever-rotating inventory that ranged from clothing to collectibles to whatever else the market happened to want that week.

Some people collect art. Some collect wine. Apparently, I collected undervalued corduroy.

And recently, I shut it down.

Not because it failed. Quite the opposite. I closed it because it did exactly what it was supposed to do — and because Marenna's Treasures was never just about the money. The money mattered, of course. Side businesses that don't make money eventually become hobbies wearing a fake mustache. But the real value of that store wasn't in the sales total or the boxes stacked in the garage. It was what it taught me about markets, people, risk, and the strange little engine of entrepreneurship.

It was, in its own cluttered way, one of the best business schools I ever attended.

The Accidental Start

Like most side hustles, it didn't begin with a grand plan. It started with a closet.

I had too much stuff. So I sold a few things online. Then friends asked if I could sell their things. Then family. Before long, I realized I'd stumbled onto something real: people didn't just want to declutter — they wanted someone else to handle the friction of selling. They didn't want to photograph items, write descriptions, answer questions from strangers, or explain why a used jacket from 1998 was not, in fact, "new with tags."

Good businesses often begin by solving your own problem. Great ones scale when you realize other people have the same problem and are willing to pay someone else to solve it.

From there, thrift stores became my training ground. I'd walk in with $50 and walk out with inventory that could generate $200 or $300 in sales. Sometimes more. Sometimes considerably less. Occasionally I'd buy something with the quiet confidence of a person who had cracked the code, only to watch it sit in a storage bin for six months staring at me.

That was part of the education, too.

The $3 MBA

People love to talk about entrepreneurship as if it begins with inspiration. In my experience, it begins with a receipt.

When you spend your own money on inventory — even if it's only $3 at a garage sale — the lesson becomes real fast. Every purchase was a tiny experiment. Some bets paid off tenfold. Others taught me that confidence and accuracy are not the same thing. Each one sharpened my instincts about which brands moved, which conditions mattered, and how timing could be the difference between something selling within hours or sitting there quietly judging you.

The market doesn't care how clever you think you are. It cares whether someone's willing to pay.

I also learned that the store evolved whether I planned it or not. I started with clothing, shifted to baseball cards and comics, then books and textbooks, then back to whatever the data suggested. Too many people treat their first idea like it's sacred. I treated mine like a starting point. That willingness to adapt without drama — no hand-wringing, no identity crisis — turned out to be one of the most transferable skills I developed. Markets change. Teams change. The leaders who thrive adjust without losing direction.

What the Side Hustle Actually Built

At the time, running an eBay store felt like a side project — something I did alongside practicing veterinary medicine, teaching, and eventually leading within academic institutions. Looking back, it was a training ground for skills I use every day as Executive Director of Hospital Operations.

Decision-making under uncertainty: every bulk purchase was a version of the same question I ask now when evaluating staffing models or service line investments. You don't have perfect information. You make the best call you can with what you have. The stakes are different. The thinking isn't.

Customer service turned out to be not a department but the whole business. On eBay, one negative review has outsized consequences. I learned fast that the goal isn't to avoid problems — it's to handle them well. Respond quickly, own the issue, fix what can be fixed. That principle translates directly into healthcare, where people can tolerate mistakes far better than they can tolerate feeling ignored.

And then the lesson that followed me most persistently: revenue is not cash flow. I could have $1,000 in active listings and nothing in my account if nothing sold that week. Revenue is potential. Cash is reality. The gap between those two numbers is where most financial problems actually live — whether you're running an eBay store or a veterinary hospital.

Eventually the store hit a ceiling — not because demand dropped, but because I ran out of hours. So I built systems. Photo setups. Listing templates. Shipping routines. Small efficiencies that, stacked together, created breathing room. That's when the distinction between working in a business and working on one stopped being a concept and became something I could feel. When a process depends on one person catching every problem and pushing every piece forward, that's not excellence. That's fragility with a busy calendar.

Knowing When to Close the Chapter

I'm not shutting down Marenna's Treasures because it failed. I'm closing it because it succeeded at what it was supposed to do.

Not everything is meant to run forever. Some projects exist to teach us, fund a season of life, or open a door — and then ask to be released. My focus has shifted to my work at Iowa State, this newsletter, and what I want to build next. The store trained me to think like an operator. That education isn't going anywhere.

We celebrate the launch. We rarely talk about the clean exit — closing something on your own terms, at the right time, for the right reasons. Knowing when to stop doing something that's working, so you can make room for something that matters more, is one of the more underrated skills in leadership. That's not quitting. That's stewardship.

If You're Waiting for the Right Moment

You don't need a breakthrough idea, significant capital, or a dramatic leap. Start with what you already understand. Keep the stakes small enough that a bad outcome is a lesson, not a catastrophe. Expect to be bad at first — volume creates competence, and you don't get better by waiting until you're ready. Most of all, let the thing teach you. A side hustle is not just a test of the market. It's a test of you — what you're willing to keep doing after the novelty wears off, what problems you'll solve at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday, what kind of operator you are when no one's watching.

I started Marenna's Treasures by cleaning out a closet. I ended it 18 years later with more than 30,000 sales and a far better education than I could have imagined. So if you've been thinking about starting something, maybe this is your nudge.

Find your version of Marenna's Treasures. Start close to home. Make the first bet small. Pay attention.

The treasure was never just what I sold. It was who I became while learning how to sell it.