This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
>> What's up, Side Hustle School listeners? Welcome back. My name is Chris Guillebeau. I have a great story for you today. It's about Mexican avocados.
That's right, Mexican avocados that ripen into an $85,000 Snapchat consulting contract. Yes, I did enjoy writing that headline. By the way, I'm curious, what social network is your favorite? Do you use Snapchat? Personally, I don't, but lots of people do.
For me, I try to do what I can to keep up on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. I am sadly inconsistent on all three of those. But I would say for myself, at least, Instagram and Twitter are what I look at every day. This story is essentially about social media consulting for brands, which is a common side hustle because a lot of brands need help with their social media. If you are savvy about that world and you're interested in helping brands connect with millennials or different demographic groups, or otherwise just get their message out, then it can be something interesting to pursue.
Anyway, I'll tell you about how one guy did it, along with that surprising Mexican avocado connection right after this. Austin Dixon is a serial hustler. The digital marketing consultant and millennial business coach has a few different side projects, each with a varying level of involvement, success, and failure. His words. Through his personal brand, he works with small businesses on marketing.
He also has his own e-commerce store and Instagram community called P&W Paradise. I believe that is short for Pacific Northwest, where I live. There's all kinds of stuff there, but here's our focus for today. The one he calls his true side hustle, the one he started to make some extra money outside the nine to five, is called Filterhouse. This is a service that works with brands to promote their products through custom Snapchat geo filter campaigns.
Now, some of you probably know exactly what that means, but for the rest of us, a geo filter is a graphic overlay that can be added to a snap to capture where you are or what you're doing. It's basically like a fun custom visual that goes on your social media post called a snap through Snapchat and different brands and organizations and events can set these up. It was after Austin made a Snapchat geo filter for a friend's birthday party that he and another friend, Shane, saw some marketing potential. Geo filters were a great tool for marketing an event, so why not try them for marketing brands too? Austin and Shane thought that geo filters could be a fun, effective way for brands to connect to their audience through advertising that didn't feel like advertising.
In one night, Austin set up a one-page website, and within the first week, the duo had made a sale. That first sale was a, hey, this could actually work moment. Their startup costs were a grand total of $20 for the domain and hosting. Since this is a service business, Filterhouse has a very high profit margin of about 80 percent. Any project they take on is going to be profitable because clients are invoiced before their campaigns run, and the only fees the business is paying are the setup cost to Snapchat.
Anyway, here's the fun thing. Filterhouse's biggest client to date, Avocados from Mexico, came from a blog post Austin did about their digital marketing strategy during the Super Bowl. Apparently, there is a board of leading avocado producers or providers based in Mexico in advancing their agenda of supporting unlimited immigration from avocados across the US-Mexican border. They obviously had a lot of money since they could afford a Super Bowl ad. The digital marketing director for Avocados from Mexico ran across Austin's post on Twitter and got in touch.
A lot of big marketing blogs had written about the ad, but he felt that Austin's critique of their strategy was the best and it got their attention. Avocados from Mexico had also allocated marketing funds towards Snapchat, but the company had no idea how to break into that platform. Conveniently, that's where Filterhouse came in. They were given full creative freedom to pitch a campaign that would help create an association between sports and avocados, and they landed a 12-month $85,000 contract. Over the course of 12 months, Austin and Shane will each work a few hours each week on this contract.
If you're doing the math, yes, there is definitely money to be made in helping brands use new media. Now, to be fair, the business has experienced a bump or two along the way, especially in connection with decision-making when it comes to growth. The partnership between Austin and Shane is 50-50. Austin focuses on creatives for clients, and Shane focuses on finances and operations. But after landing that big contract, Austin first thought, "Hey, we should keep growing.
We need somebody to help with sales." Austin hired a salesperson to join the team. This salesperson was a good college friend, but unfortunately, he turned out to be a better friend than a co-worker. So when they realized he was not the right fit, they had to let him go. Austin says that was a tough situation, but in the end, it was also good for his friend who was dealing with some personal issues. You win some, you lose some, and Austin's advice to fellow hustlers is, "Don't spread yourself too thin." He's going to apply this practice himself.
Shane is going to be starting grad school soon, and Austin has several other projects. So Filterhouse is not taking on any new business, just finishing out their existing contracts. In making this decision, they went back to their original goal, which was to make the most of their time and effort using Geofilters as a marketing tool and to learn as much as possible. So whatever happens later, the education of this experience has been crucial for Austin, not to mention that $85,000 that he splits with his partner, and of course, whatever free product he received from avocados from Mexico. Austin feels like he's grown immensely in his confidence, his ability to sell, and his serial side hustling mindset.
Well, this story speaks for itself. Just a couple of quick comments. Social media consulting for brands is a thing, including big brands with a big budget, like you heard in this story, but also lots of small businesses that recognize the importance of social media but don't have the time or knowledge or expertise to do it themselves. So if you're an early adopter in particular, when there are new networks, new platforms springing up, which pretty much happens all the time, there's definitely value in being a connector between a brand, a company, a small business, and consumers. Then also toward the end, there was that bonus anecdote.
Austin thought he needed to grow the business, so he hired his college friend. That turned out not to be a great decision, and I think that's something to be careful about and mindful of. Just because someone is your friend doesn't necessarily mean they'd be a good partner in your side hustle, a good employee or assistant, or otherwise sharing some role with you. It can turn out really well, just like with Austin and Shane, but I don't think you should automatically assume that every friendship is also conducive to a good business relationship, because they can sometimes be two different things. Anyway, that's all for today.
I don't know about you, but I feel like having some guacamole. Siduswell School is not sponsored by avocados from Mexico, but they sound delicious. Inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/235. If you would like to ask a question for the show, give me a call on the Hustle hotline.
The number is 8449HUSTLE. Thank you for listening. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Siduswell School.
