Psychologist Earns $74,000 Helping Students Make the Cut

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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Hello there, greetings, and welcome back. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." In a recent episode, I told you a bit about my unconventional childhood. Well, I didn't tell you a lot, but I mentioned dropping out of high school, stealing a collection of road signs, and planting them in my friend's yard. There are many other stories like that, and I freely admit that some of these difficulties were self-created.

And fortunately, even though I wasn't motivated to learn algebra, I somehow took that skill of borrowing road signs, let's use that word "borrowing" instead of "stealing," and eventually parlayed that into a pseudo-career of extended side hustles. But enough about me. Today's story is about how, after overcoming significant childhood barriers, a psychologist leveraged his educational success to launch an admissions assistance side hustle that produced $74,000 just last year. That story right after the break. [Music]

Growing up, Chirag Shemassian did not have it easy.

Around the age of eight, he started exhibiting the symptoms of Tourette syndrome. In the lead up to being formally diagnosed, Chirag was frequently mocked by his peers. This teasing, however, was not as tough for him as the lack of understanding and acceptance he experienced as a result of the condition, not only from his friends, but also from his own Armenian-American family. As an adolescent, Chirag didn't fully understand the effects his condition would have on his life, but he knew it would significantly shape his future goals. And it did.

During high school and college, his interest in mental health and psychology blossomed. He began to realize he could translate his personal experience with Tourette's to positively impact others. And despite those early challenges, Chirag went on to achieve significant success. He studied human development at Cornell and then obtained a PhD in clinical psychology from UCLA. He was also able to graduate from both schools completely debt-free.

He now works as a clinical research psychologist, developing tests used to assess children for mental health conditions. And it was out of the success that his side hustle developed organically. His friends and family had noticed his track record of getting accepted to and then receiving funding from really great schools. So they began to ask him for help with their own applications. He was happy to help free of charge.

And then those he had helped achieve similar results of getting into their dream schools started telling others who also requested his help. With more and more people knocking at his door, Chirag eventually decided to make the side hustle official, launching Shemassian Academic Consulting in 2013. He didn't know much about running a business, but he didn't let that stop him. He drove straight into reading books and online articles about everything from structure to sales and workflow. He also signed up for a course called Zero to Launch, which focuses on growing an online business.

And as a quick side note, I've seen this course myself and I've seen it help a lot of people. So I'll mention that again at the end and link it up for you as well. Between the training course, books and domain name registration, his startup costs totaled about $3,000. He cut expenses wherever he could, launching a free Squarespace website and registering for a free Mailchimp account. He offers services including advising and application support to prospective college students, as well as graduate and medical school students.

And these services cost anywhere from $300 all the way up to several thousand dollars. During the first year, his new company earned just over $1,000 and the second year it jumped to $12,000. Despite the big jump, Chirag says those first two years were emotionally difficult since he didn't feel the business was growing fast enough. But he turned that around in 2016 when his academic consulting hustle earned a full $74,000. This big success has given Chirag peace of mind that if he loses his full-time job, he could still support his family through the business.

He's saving most of the income and it's also allowed him and his wife to worry less when they travel about staying in a nicer hotel, buying lattes or having a good dinner out. So far, he's supported more than 200 students through one-on-one support and group coaching. And his track record is impressive. For college, 90% of his students have gotten into at least one of their top three schools. And for med school, over 90% have gotten into at least one school, which is definitely not easy.

So like a lot of stories you hear on Side Hustle School, Chirag has found great success for himself while doing something genuinely helpful, useful and valuable for others. He's also overcome an initial hardship and turned it into a strength. [Music]

So as we have seen in other stories, college admissions is a big business, especially for graduate school, there is a lot at stake. If you're going down that path, it's gonna determine at least some aspects of your future and potentially a lot of aspects. So if someone can show a connection between their test prep strategy, their tutoring process, their workshop, whatever it is, it's not a hard sell for anyone who wants to improve their odds of acceptance.

The value proposition is very clear. It's also a competitive field. Because a lot of people know this, it is a big industry. So it definitely helps to have your own approach to it, something that is different, not necessarily something that's going to become a huge market leader, because some of the companies that work in this field are very big businesses, but that's okay. Working part-time, in his third year, Chirag has built this business to more than $70,000 a year.

And now he's focusing on streamlining, maybe bringing on another consultant, hopefully making it even more sustainable in the future. I also appreciate that he has this background of having to overcome an obstacle, a pretty significant one. I think it makes him more relatable, especially to anyone else who's had an obstacle like that in their way, or just hasn't had the same advantages that other graduate school or med school applicants have had. So congrats to Chirag, you are an inspiration. And of course, for all the rest of us, we don't want to just be inspired, we want to actually do something about it.

Now, I mentioned this course that he took called Zero to Launch. I've seen this myself, and over the past year, I've referred a bunch of people to this course, who have pretty much all given it really good reviews. Now, unlike the show and lots of other things I talk about, this is not a free resource. The course is a bit of an investment, but you can learn about it, and probably even learn a few things about the process of launching a product, just by checking it out to see if it might be a good fit for you. So if you want to learn about that, just come to sidehustleschool.com/launch.

L-A-U-N-C-H. I will also link that up on the show notes for today's episode, which are at sidehustleschool.com/133. I hope you enjoyed this story. I'll be cheering you on today. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.

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