She Had Side Hustles Flipping Beanie Babies and Christmas Presents. Then the 'Unconventional' Path Led to a Multimillion-Dollar Company of Her Own. Ashley Tyrner, founder and CEO of FarmboxRx, transformed early business lessons into a health-equity company.

Entrepreneurial journeys often begin with humble side hustles that teach valuable lessons and provide the necessary skills for success. For Ashley Tyrner, founder and CEO of FarmboxRx, early side hustles flipping Beanie Babies and Christmas presents proved stepping stones toward the thriving, multimillion-dollar business she runs today.

Tyrner launched her first side hustle while working at an Arizona airport. "I would buy all of the cool Beanie Babies, wait for their value to increase (since they were rare), and then sell them for profit," she tells Entrepreneur. That initial side hustle introduced her to the world of entrepreneurship and allowed her to purchase her first car.

^{Image Credit: Courtesy of FarmboxRx. Ashley Tyrner.}

The next side hustle came during a challenging phase when Tyrner found herself with limited funds, relying on Medicaid and food stamps while pregnant with her daughter. She and her sister decided to invest in a hot pink ice cream truck and traveled around neighboring towns, selling ice cream to make ends meet. This endeavor ultimately provided enough money for Tyrner and her daughter to move to New York.

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"More than anything, I learned that I can be incredibly resourceful and use whatever I can to relentlessly pursue my goals."

Once there, Tyrner identified the hottest Christmas toys each year and strategically bought out stock from various stores, reselling the items on platforms like Craigslist and eBay to capitalize on the demand and make a significant profit. "I learned a lot about myself in those years," Tyrner says. "More than anything, I learned that I can be incredibly resourceful and use whatever I can to relentlessly pursue my goals."

Inspired by her own experiences as a Latina single mother navigating food insecurity while relying on food stamps, Tyrner would ultimately embark on a mission to improve access to healthy food.

In 2014, she founded FarmboxRx, a company that provides a range of services for health plan members to improve health outcomes, including boxes of nutritious foods, health literacy resources and customizable nutrition programs. To date, the company has delivered healthful food to 2.7 million people in all 50 states, shipped more than 14 million pounds of fresh produce and experienced 4,748% revenue growth with nearly $35 million in revenue last year alone.

But when it came to raising venture capital funding to get FarmboxRx off the ground, Tyrner faced numerous rejections due to her "unconventional" background. "One VC asked me if I could tell him how much money was in the business bank account because women, in general, are not really good at managing money," she says.

But, in 2015, after four days spent pitching venture capitalists in San Francisco with no funding to show for it, Tyrner and FarmboxRx COO Meghan David had a breakthrough they've since dubbed "the burrito moment." "Feeling incredibly defeated, we were both eating a Chipotle burrito at the airport," Tyrner explains, "and I said, 'You know what, I don't know how, but we aren't going to raise VC money. We are just going to figure this out.'"

Related: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting Your Side Hustle

So they did. Undeterred, Tyrner embraced the challenge and shifted her mindset, focusing on building a self-sustaining business model that would allow her to remain independent — and honing some unexpected skills along the way. In the early days, Tyrner sourced the food and personally packed and delivered it.

"When we first began shipping food in 2014, we were putting fresh produce, local eggs and glass dairy bottles in boxes for FedEx to pick up," Tyrner says. "We were delivering scrambled eggs and compost. It took two solid years of trial and error with some scrappy R&D to get to our packaging today. I never imagined I'd be doing cold chain package engineering in my career, but it's one of my proudest achievements and difficult business hurdles."

"She said, 'I remember what it's like to be like you because I'm a Black woman from the South, and climbing the corporate ladder in health care was not easy.'"

Then, in 2019, Tyner learned that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would allow produce to be offered to Medicare Advantage and Medicaid beneficiaries. She needed to find a health plan willing to work with her — but only one person would give her a chance: Sonya Maddox, the head of product for Vibra Health. "She said, 'I remember what it's like to be like you because I'm a Black woman from the South, and climbing the corporate ladder in healthcare was not easy,'" Tyrner recalls. "Her members needed food, and she would participate in the program. But she told me, 'If you can't keep up with the volume for my customers, I'm going to lose my job.'"

Fortunately, FarmboxRx did keep up with the volume. Today, it collaborates with more than 89 health plans, including some of the largest national plans. This partnership empowers plan beneficiaries with the benefits of nutritious food, offering a solution to chronic health conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.

Related: My 7-Year-Old Daughter Started Selling Eggs. Here's What She Taught Me About Running a Startup.

The journey to build FarmboxRx was marked by Tyrner's determination and refusal to accept failure. As the business scaled, Tyrner also realized the importance of building a strong team to support her vision. Hiring experts in various areas allowed her to focus on her strengths while filling in the gaps with talented individuals.

And for emerging entrepreneurs aspiring to start successful businesses of their own, Tyrner has some additional advice. "Make sure you have true advisors," she says, "people who aren't scared to challenge you and have a different opinion than you. People like this have been essential to FarmboxRx, and this is a main characteristic I look for in all of my partners and employees. The yes-man often substitutes honesty for what you want to hear, which stifles innovation and growth."