This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, hello, welcome back. My name is Chris Guillebeau, here with you again on "Side Hustle School" to bring you a new story. Today's actually an artist feature, a New York City office manager with a ceramic side income. She actually changes mediums from painting to ceramics and brings in extra cash doing something she enjoys. But first, all week long, we're hearing about something that didn't work out.
Last week I asked you for failure stories, and it turns out that a lot of us have tried things that didn't quite work out. Apparently this is normal. So let's hear an example of that, and then the story of the creative cash collecting ceramist. - Jake from Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada here. I've got a whole series of "Side Hustle" failures.
My favorite was being a bicycle wine tour guide. I got to learn a lot about wine, wineries, and the region that I live in, but the money was just terrible for the time taking away from my family. Thanks a lot, Chris, for "Side Hustle School," and I can't agree more that inspiration is great, but inspiration combined with action is better. - Hey, Jake, thank you for calling in from Niagara Falls. It sounded like you were actually in the falls right then.
It's pretty cool. Love how you identified the fact that the money you were making from that project did not compensate you fairly for the time it took from your family. That is exactly why I always encourage people right from the beginning to focus on how your project's gonna be profitable. So it's not just a fun thing. It's not just a hobby.
Like hopefully it is enjoyable, but for the record, we are talking about income generating projects. So thanks again, Jake. Hope to see you up there somewhere else sometime. [Music]
Nicole Helen Brunner is Dremen to Create. When she's not serving as the HR manager and executive assistant at a New York PR agency, she's creating art.
When she moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn, she found herself with limited space and ventilation and had to give up her passion for oil painting, or at least put it on hold. But she didn't put her artistic inclination on hold. In fact, it was just the encouragement she needed to find a new medium. In moving to Brooklyn, she discovered ceramics, which was both affordable and something she could do at home. With an investment of less than $3,000 to cover supplies and equipment, Nicole got set up.
But at first it was mostly a hobby. It wasn't until she'd amassed so much inventory, she could no longer navigate her small Brooklyn bedroom that the side hustle ceramist was born. Making ceramics is hands-on work and Nicole doesn't shy away from getting her hands dirty. She mixes her own clay. And when she's visiting family back in New Jersey, she can often be found at the side of the road picking plants and flowers to use for her dye.
These custom made dyes add another layer to the unique aspect of her products. And she's reusing materials like onion skins to create some of the dyes. She says that a wide range of results can be developed from items most people would throw away. When she learned that a bag of onion skins could create colors ranging from bright yellow to deep orange, she was hooked. And reusing discarded materials not only gives them greater purpose, it also saves money.
This is Nicole's first serious side hustle. She previously dabbled by selling her paintings as well as vintage clothing and furniture, but she feels that this project is more intentional, especially in regards to making money. And her perseverance is paying off. Through her website, most recklessly.com, a name inspired by a trip to Mexico City, Nicole creates eclectic gifts and home decor from cereal bowls to hand dyed linens. And it currently brings in about $700 a month.
She's also landed a few wholesale accounts, is working on getting her goods in stores outside of Brooklyn, and has been taking custom orders for wedding favors and special centerpieces. Nicole is now focused on building her social following through Instagram and Facebook and streamlining production. She's exploring the use of molds rather than hand building all her pieces, which would help leverage her products for a wholesale market. Her work would still have handcrafted quality, but with greater efficiency and presumably more profit. She's also starting to build out a studio space complete with kiln that will house other ceramics and hopefully build a community.
I asked Nicole if she had advice for other aspiring artists. She talked about researching your competition, knowing your market to stay on schedule and learning about social media. But she said her most important piece of advice is to celebrate your achievements. And she said, maybe even celebrate your screwups or your mistakes and ask yourself what you can learn from them. Well, that's what we're doing with listener stories all this week.
By learning along the way, you'll get closer to creating your income generating side hustle, maybe even doing something creative, like what Nicole has done with most recklessly. [Music]
So I love the advice on celebrating your achievements. This is something I encourage everyone to do. A big part of starting a side hustle is the empowerment it brings you and the disproportionate satisfaction you can receive from seeing something that you made go out in the world and then interact with people who value it enough to pay for it. That is really fun and motivating.
And when it begins to happen to you for the first time, you should celebrate it. And when it happens to you again, and you go to a next level or you start a new project, celebrate that too. Nicole is also curious. She says her whole life, she's reached out to all the people who are doing what she wanted to do to ask questions. Curiosity and the willingness to ask questions are two characteristics of successful people.
I'm grateful to Nicole for illustrating that for us today. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. I have a question for you that we'll be featuring next week. The question is what prevents you from moving forward and making progress? We all get stuck sometimes.
And when you get stuck, do you have a tip for moving forward? I would love to hear your short answer to that question. Give me a call on the Hustle Hotline 8449 Hustle, or you can record a quick voice memo with your phone and email that to podcast@sidehustleschool.com. What prevents you from moving forward and making progress? Next week, we'll feature those answers.
Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/157. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. I'll be back tomorrow. [Music]
