This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, what's up and welcome back. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Today we're gonna talk about building a side hustle while battling a chronic illness. And the story itself is about creating an online course, which is something I know a lot of people are interested in. If you do it right, it definitely has real potential.
But I wanna focus on the bigger picture of how a side hustle can accommodate your life, including the challenges and struggles of your life. So that's what I thought was most interesting about this story. It's a story of Brittany in New York City who faces a difficult illness and wants to create a sustainable side income, partly to pay her hospital bills, but also just because she realizes it's a good idea. That story in just a moment. First, we are asking what prevents you from moving forward and making progress in your side hustle?
And if you've been stuck before, do you have a tip for moving forward? Let's hear what we have from a listener today. What's up, Chris? This is Shane from theboxcrusher.com. What holds me back from side hustle success is having too many ideas at one time and not focusing.
I know it's a problem, but it's a daily thing and I try to do better with it. And I think a lot of people doing side hustles have that same problem. Thanks for the show. Hey Shane, thanks for the call. I will check out the box crusher.
Yeah, you're totally right. I actually have this problem myself. I think a lot of people who are motivated to start things are in the same box, no pun intended. Sometimes what helps for me is to focus on a specific idea or project for a set amount of time. And I just kind of force myself and say, okay, well today or this morning or for this particular work session, or maybe it's even like all week or perhaps a longer period, like this is gonna be what I work on.
And it doesn't mean I'm not gonna work on other stuff later, but for now, this is the priority. I'm gonna stick with it. And then once that period's over, I'll reevaluate, see if something else might be better or if I wanna keep going. Anyway, thanks again. [Music]
Today's story comes from Brittany Berger in New York City.
By day, she's a PR manager at a software startup and her main side hustle is creating and selling online courses, helping female entrepreneurs to improve their systems and productivity. Brittany has had a handful of other projects over the years, including some one-off freelance gigs that she did sporadically. But in 2015, she was diagnosed with a chronic illness and faced an expensive hospital bill, as well as the prospect of spending hundreds of dollars a month on treatment for the foreseeable future. That's when she knew she had to get more serious and strategic about making money outside of her day job. Since Brittany had ongoing health issues, getting a part-time job wasn't an option.
She needed to control the hours and environment and be able to work from bed or not work at all, depending on how she was feeling that day. So at first, she started promoting her freelance services to startups and small businesses. She also developed a blogging planner for authors that she sold on her blog as a form of passive income. But the freelance assignments took a lot of time and the blogging planner was priced low, so she decided to develop a premium productivity course for female entrepreneurs and charge $129 for it. That course, Build Your Own VA, helps people master workflow automation and automated systems.
Brittany already knew how to grow and market an online business through content marketing, so it made sense to teach that. She did research in her Facebook groups and determined that what people were confused by was the automation apps themselves. So she structured and organized the course around app-specific trainings instead of organizing the information by topic or function. Since she had limited time, she decided to host her course on a platform called Teachable, rather than creating a separate site or building a membership feature into WordPress. She decided on her initial launch price based on the type of content, which was a mix of video and PDFs, and where her audience was at in their business.
Most of them were still getting started and not able to make large investments. She offered a self-study option and a live community version. She also ran a giveaway with a bunch of different productivity resources for her audience, including a spot in a future course. And she ran that giveaway right before her launch and people needed to sign up for her email list in order to enter. So that's how she generated a lot of leads right before going live.
In her initial launch, 10 people enrolled in the course, and over time, a few more people continued to join each month. She's also added live coaching calls and raised the price. The self-study version is now $179, and a community plan with a Facebook group and live training is $197. Brittany's first attempt at marketing the course brought in about $3,000, and now that it's done, it can continue to earn passive income whenever someone purchases it. Between her course and freelance services, she earns about $2,000 to $2,500 a month on the side, depending on how she's feeling and how much she's able to work.
Brittany is now looking into ways to revamp her services so they're more streamlined. She's also launching spin-offs to her original course. In that course, she mentioned five main ways entrepreneurs can streamline systems, and then she dove deep into one of them. She now plans to create products for each of the other four methods. She does this while spending eight to 10 hours a week on her business.
She can't put too much more time into it because of her health, but she makes more than enough to cover her medical bills each month, and is also gradually paying off the larger ones from that initial diagnosis. She says she's happy with the slow growth, this money makes a real difference in her life, and at some point, she hopes to have more strength to put into the hustle, but for now, it's still helping her a lot. [Music]
You know, I sometimes say that no one cares about your well-being as much as you do. Like, even if you have a good job, you work for a company you believe in, you have good benefits, that's great. You've probably heard me say several times you shouldn't quit your job, at least not without a plan.
But still, even in those great situations, it's still true that you're the one who cares the most about your well-being. You're the one who has to look out for yourself. And that's not even to mention all the people who don't have great jobs, or don't work for companies that really care for their employees. So either way, this story illustrates how you can make something that works for you with whatever limitations you have, with whatever challenges you're encountering. And it illustrates yet another reason of why this is so important.
Of why, even though you are so busy, you have to find a way to invest some time into making this happen for yourself. Because it's not just about the short-term benefit, it's also about what this can do for you in the future. And every day on the show, I'm trying to show you a different example of someone who applies these principles. If you'd like to learn more about Brittany's work, or that platform, Teachable, that I mentioned, we will link all of that up on the show notes at sidehustleschool.com/164. Inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better.
Much more is on the way. I'm Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
