This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello and greetings. You are listening to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Rolling strong into episode 203. This is another story that features a teacher.
For a variety of reasons, teachers make great side hustlers. That's partly because of the flexible schedule they tend to have, especially in the summertime, but also because of their great self-discipline and organizational skills. Once you've been a teacher for even a short period of time, you learn pretty quickly that it's important to stay ahead, to plan well, to always know what you're doing, or at least to project like you know what you're doing, which is what a lot of us are doing through life anyway. And this story has a slight twist. It's about how students inspire a teacher to turn his woodworking hobby into a side hustle that brings in an extra $15,000 a year.
And it will come along with a lesson about what sells and what doesn't. Had a great quote from this guy about how just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. I thought that was really good, so we'll pick up on it at the end. And that story's coming up in just a moment. [Music]
Steve Smith's side hustle story might sound traditional.
A high school teacher creates a second income for himself, but as you'll learn, his path has been unique. Steve is a high school teacher based in Greensboro, North Carolina. He loves teaching, but a few years ago, he also decided to make and sell something. He first created some wooden snowflake earrings and Christmas ornaments. And while the initial reaction to them was quite positive, they totally flopped when he tried to sell them online.
Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he was trying to sell Christmas ornaments in January. However, Steve says if he could do it again, he would still do the same thing because it was a good learning experience. It wasn't until later when he attended his first craft show that he was able to experience the acceleration of selling to somebody other than friends and family. Like any teacher looking for stories or anecdotes, he shared that experience with his class, and he noticed that in a rare magical occurrence, his students actually paid attention. In fact, they were captivated by his story.
He saw before him a great opportunity to teach his students, regardless of whether his business idea worked out. And thus, Steve shared his three-year plan with his students for his new business, which he called Two Puggles. Side note, despite my extensive research for all kinds of side hustle animal stories, I didn't actually know what a puggle was. So if there's anyone else out there like me, a puggle is a crossbreed dog with a beagle parent and a pug parent. And Steve had two of them, apparently, and chose the name Two Puggles.
His business plan would have three phases, each in their own year. While he still wanted to make money, the first year would be focused on learning, the second on brand awareness, and the third on refining his products and then maximizing income. And in that first year, Steve made a modest $5,000. The second year, his profits more than doubled to $13,000. He's now willing to his third year and on track to reach between 15 and $20,000.
Now, because Steve already had a woodworking shop to start with, he had very few expenses besides materials. During the early days, the most common advice he received was for new products he should make, or at least products that people thought he should make. Steve had to learn just because you can make something doesn't mean you should. For example, in Steve's second year, he made a dovetailed cedar flower. He thought this was a great idea, but over the course of his selling season, he had sold exactly two of them.
And he finally tried pricing them at the low, low price of $0 to give them away, and nobody wanted them. And that's when Steve learned the hard lesson that you can't be the sole judge of what people want. But another side note, if you want one of these cedar flowers for yourself, just let him know. He still has them and they're still free. Aside from a few setbacks like that, Steve's yearly focus has paid off.
He attributes his higher sales and reduced time investment to the knowledge he gained in those first two years, narrowing his product offerings and discover where and how his target customers shop. Every Monday, Steve shares an update on two puggles with his students about the accomplishments, his goals, and his upcoming tasks. He says that students that were once hard for him to reach have become much more engaged, and he now has students starting their own side hustles. In fact, one of his students, Ciara, even became his first intern before beginning her own income generating project. As Steve ends year three of his experience this fall, he'll be brainstorming what's next for him with his students.
But he's also in no rush. He and his wife are both teachers. They live modestly. So while two puggles isn't a huge financial asset for his family, it's been an amazing creative outlet for him with the potential to become more of a financial asset down the road. And if you ever want to say hi to Steve online or in Greensboro, North Carolina, don't forget to mention Roxy and Marty, the two puggles behind two puggles.
Well, congratulations to Steve and his students and of course the puggles. As I said, I really love that quote. Just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should. You should always be careful when people are like, oh, here's an idea that you should follow up on. But even for your own ideas, when you're thinking about different side hustles, there's probably all kinds of different things that you could do.
And one of the greatest challenges that people face as they kind of embrace this world a bit more and they become more comfortable, they learn how to do some technical things so that those aren't the biggest obstacles. One of the biggest challenges is trying to figure out, okay, out of all the different ideas, how do I know which one to pursue? Or if I'm gonna make a product, I could make a dozen different products, which one is the most important for me to focus on? Or maybe I just have five totally different side hustle ideas. Well, in the upcoming side hustle book, I actually have a whole chapter on how to navigate this process.
'Cause I know it's a major challenge for a lot of folks, but you don't have to wait for that because a while back, I did an extended episode, one of our monthly extended cuts, all about a tool I use called the Side Hustle Selector. It's a very intuitive, easy to use tool to help you make decisions when you're trying to figure out, okay, which product do I make or which idea do I pursue? So if you wanna check that out, it's back on sidehustleschool.com/extended. That's where all the extended cuts are. And in this case, you're looking for number five, which is called how to choose between multiple ideas.
[Music]
I hope that's helpful to you. I hope this episode was helpful. I've got a weekly recap coming up next tomorrow, and then a whole set of new stories next week. I would love for you to join me for that. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is better.
Today's show notes are live at sidehustleschool.com/203. You can say hi to me there or on social media @chrisguillebeau or @193countries on Instagram. And I am Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School, and I'll be back tomorrow. [Music]
