"Anybody can do this": Rodney Melton, who makes $23,000 a month from his side hustle-turned-full-time business

Rodney Melton was a 55-year-old Arkansas resident when his side hustle journey began by coincidence and was unplanned. He created a headstone for his friend's dog, Molly, using his $15,000 engraver. He later started taking his stone-carving hobby more seriously and opened an Etsy shop in March 2021.

Melton used a computer-controlled carving tool known as a CNC router to engrave stones.

CNBC 5 Chicago reported that Melton would use it to carve family names or street addresses into rocks for his neighbours' yards. There was room for such lawn accessories in Alma, a town of 6,000 people at the edge of the Ozark Mountains.


Initially, Melton could fulfil only 16 orders from Etsy, as he used cement slabs that took at least five hours to engrave and glaze. His wife gave each cement memorial a finishing touch by filling the letters with epoxy glue.

New equipment sped up Melton's production

NBC 5 Chicago reported that three months after opening the store, Melton spent $7,000 from his savings on sandblasting equipment because an expert online told him he'd "be crazy" not to. The equipment cut his production time to 45 minutes. In the second half of the year, he brought in between $5,400 and $8,300 per month.

He gradually upgraded his equipment to create better, premium products for his customers.

Melton added expensive and premium options like granite to his repertoire. However, he faced challenges in sourcing granite, as it was difficult to find.

He approached a local monument company that had a nine-month-long wait time. After exploring further, he found a countertop manufacturer that agreed to sell him granite scraps.

He invested $38,000 in a laser engraver that further reduced his production time. Melton also turned to Facebook Marketplace to buy discarded countertops. Though the pieces were cheaper, they required more equipment for better results.

Therefore, Melton spent about $66,500 on stone tools, including a $3,000 granite and a $3,500 chisel machine.

Making it a family business

Melton quit his job and brought his family into the business. He involved his wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law in making pet headstones.

He told NBC Chicago that each member of his business works five hours a day, producing 50 pet memorials a week.

Revenue

He sold engraved memorials worth $20,000 in May 2022. He told NBC Chicago that he still had 230 orders pending by the end of the month.

A month after leaving his full-time job, Melton made $23,200 that June.

His shop generated $207,000 in revenue in 2022, of which Melton said 65% was profit.

NBC Chicago reported that Melton's store brought in nearly $383,000 in revenue over two and a half years.

Melton and his family experienced many highs and lows. Those fluctuations worried him until he realised that the only thing he could control amid the uncertainty was the consistency of his work, reported NBC 5 Chicago.

"Pets are such an integral part of our lives. They're like family, to say the truth. To be a part of making something that helps people means a lot to me," Melton told NBC 5 Chicago.