It all began with a holiday side hustle, but for these North Texans, the side hustles have grown into small businesses.
Daniel Usrey, the founder of Deck the Halls Lighting Services, started the company five years ago as a firefighter looking to make a little extra money around the holidays.
“Whenever they first turn them on, people stop by and that puts them in the spirit. They’re ready to start Christmas,” Usrey told NBC 5.
Usrey, who started with 25 clients, said, “We didn’t own a ladder. We went to a pawn shop and bought a ladder.” The company quickly grew. “It went from 25 to 75. From 75 to now: we’re at over 200 houses,” he said.
Usrey left his day job three months ago, and he now works full-time at his lighting and roofing companies. Usrey and his father-in-law install outdoor Christmas lights on up to eight houses a day. They begin their work as early as mid-October.
“Sometimes it calls for full days and working seven days a week for a month and a half. In my opinion, it’s worth it,” said Usrey.
Erica Greer, the small business owner of Black Wrapped, is also hustling this holiday season.
“We are putting in a lot of elbow work,” Erica Greer told NBC 5.
Her company was an idea that came to her two Christmases ago while searching for the perfect images to print and use to wrap her nephews’ gifts.
“I wanted my nephews to have the Santa that we grew up with,” said Greer. “We’ve got to figure something out.”
Greer commissioned an artist and printed up a few sheets of gift-wrapping paper, she said. “I wanted to do something for my family. I see a problem, let’s fix this problem. Then my girlfriends are like, ‘We need it, too,’” said Greer.
Her business venture now continues year-round, presenting gift wrapping and bags for baby showers, as well as graduations and Christmas.
Greer is currently expanding the business with mobile gift wrapping: she’s bought and decorated a trailer so she can take her business directly to clients and pop-up events.
“We’ll wrap it. We’ll take the hassle out of the holidays,” Greer said.
Greer, a full-time occupational therapist, said she would tell anyone with an idea for a side hustle to rally her support system and go. “The hardest part is starting. What God has for you is for you. You just have to start,” said Greer.
According to another small business side hustler, Tamara Fisher, that’s what she did when founding the Rockwall Christmas Company last year.
Fisher sells Christmas tree kits with ornaments, ribbons, and trim. Each item is coordinated around a theme and designed to come straight out of the box and be put onto a tree. She developed the concept after moving houses around Christmastime in 2020. With her decorations packed away, she searched for an all-in-one curated kit for her tree.
“I started shopping and I found it extremely difficult to find all the ornaments I wanted for the tree to put the theme together,” Fisher told NBC 5.
So, she designed her own Christmas tree trimmings and sold her first Christmas crates last year.
“The idea that my trees, that I designed in my own home, could be in their home and that they find joy in it, it couldn’t be better,” said Fisher.
She said the company doubled orders since 2021 after taking a chance on a side hustle. “Believe in yourself. It’s going to be hard. There are going to be so many things that you don’t know how to do, but don’t let that deter you,” Fisher said.
Small businesses employ 44.5% of Texas workers. The U.S. Small Business Administration counted 3.1 million small businesses in Texas.
