Boyfriend’s Sloppy Penmanship Turns Into Outsourced Writing Business

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

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Hey there, side hustle school listeners and community. Welcome back, this is Chris Guillebeau. Are you one of those people that has really good handwriting? You know, some people you look, and even when they just sign their name, it's beautiful. And you're like, wow, are you a professional wedding invitation designer?

Or if that's not you, do you have good handwriting or acceptable handwriting? Or do you have terrible handwriting? Now, me personally, I was never that great. And I think over the past couple of years, I've actually gone from acceptable to terrible. My signature has always been deliberately minimal, since I have this long last name, Guillebeau.

I usually just sign a variation of my initials, but I did still used to do quite a bit of long form writing. So I had a journal, and every day I'd write a couple of pages in my print journal. And I would also do a lot of blog post drafts and other writing in my notebooks, sometimes before transferring them to the computer. But I got to admit that over the past couple of years, I've been doing far more of that just directly on the computer. And aside from writing down like my tasks and my to-do lists and my project ideas and all that kind of stuff, I actually write by hand far less than I used to.

And it definitely shows in the quality of my handwriting. Now, I know I'm not the only one because, well, I know I'm not the only one because a lot of people have this problem. But also because today's story is about an account manager for a software company who creates a side hustle involving a mechanical handwriting machine after visiting his new girlfriend's family and feeling ashamed about his poor handwriting. I'm gonna say a quick thank you to our sponsor, and then I'll be right back with that story. [Music]

In an age of computers, not everyone has crisp, clean handwriting.

In fact, great penmanship is becoming more and more rare. And for David Daniels, our feature in today's story, poor handwriting wasn't just an inconvenience, it was an embarrassment. And this embarrassment also proved to be an excellent source of inspiration and motivation. See, David had received formal training in hospitality management and landed a job as the manager of a four diamond resort. It was thrilling and challenging, which he enjoyed, but it also came with major setbacks, including a very heavy workload.

Resort management isn't a 40 hour a week job, it's more like 80 hours. He rarely got days off to rest, he hardly ever went to visit his family, and as this started to wear on him, he knew he wanted to move on. But what would he do? The first step was to transition into an account management role for a hospitality software company. This gave him the flexibility he was looking for, but something was still missing, perhaps a creative outlet, perhaps one that would pay him more money on the side.

As someone who loved a good challenge, he felt his need to build and create wasn't being met. Then the 2016 Christmas season arrived, and David went to meet his girlfriend's parents and extended family for the first time. For the most part, the holiday went well, and he was proud of the impression he left. But then handwritten cards started coming in the mail from the family groups he met. His girlfriend had a lot of family, they went all up and down the state, and they all liked to send holiday cards.

So these cards started coming in, handwritten, David wanted to return the gesture to show his gratitude for the hospitality he was shown, but when he sat down to write a few cards, all he could produce was chicken scratch. If you're not familiar with that expression, it means terrible handwriting, a lot like mine. He threw more than one of those cards away out of embarrassment. He felt like his penmanship simply didn't match the responsible, put-together impression he had tried so hard to leave behind. A couple quick Google searches revealed the solution to his handwriting woes, machine handwritten cards.

What a concept. He thought it would have been perfect, but nobody was offering the service where he lived. That's when he thought back on that creative desire, as well as the desire to start a side hustle, and he thought, well, how hard can it be? As the holiday came to a close, he returned to his account manager job, but his gears were already turning to the tune of a different business. And he would call this business BroNote, a mechanical handwriting service.

By day, he helped hospitality businesses thrive with specialized software, and at night, he transformed his new idea into a website. It wasn't just a website, that part was simple enough. He also had to get a handwriting machine, and those aren't cheap. The one he wanted was priced at $10,000, and the company was based in Virginia while he was in Colorado. If the device were to break down, his new business would be instantly stalled for a week or more.

And it's not like the computer repair shop down the street would know what to do. But David was clever. He asked the machine handwriting company if they would consider leasing him a unit on a trial basis. And they agreed. He got to use the machine on a month-by-month contract with no long-term commitment for $400 a month.

With that and some business cards and pens, his total startup cost was about $500. He started BroNote out of his one-bedroom apartment and slowly refined the business over the course of several successes and failures. The first failure was targeting individuals. A single person rarely buys more than one card at a time, which meant each order was very small, less than $5. This led to a different approach, switching gears to targeting businesses.

Business clients often order 10 or more cards at one time, bringing the average order size up dramatically. He also found a good source of clients in the form of message boards. David began posting on message boards and forums about handwritten marketing strategies. And he landed his first client who he hadn't met in person. And since that time, most of his customers have been coming from those message boards.

He's continuing to try new marketing efforts, new approaches to reach more people. He's also becoming more narrow and refined as he understands who his target market is and where he can reach them. A year ago, he had the stress of the 80-hour-a-week job. Then he transitioned to a role that gave him more flexibility. And now he's trying to see what he can do with BroNote.

Do you have bad penmanship and need to send a handwritten card? Well, now you know where to go. [Music]

Well, this is an interesting creative project. I am curious to see if the market is gonna be big enough in the long term and is priced high enough to actually make money. So he's doing okay right now, but he's gonna need to scale it further if he wants to keep growing.

And it's hard to make money on $5 a customer, like he saw in his initial targeting attempt. But David does seem resourceful. He's willing to try new things, reach different people, switch from targeting consumers to targeting businesses. And like I said, people's handwriting is only getting worse and worse. So if there is a real need for this service, which we'll see kind of long-term, he's positioned to provide it.

And if it doesn't work out, because remember not every side hustle does, while he hasn't spent $10,000 on that machine, he has just leased it on a month-by-month basis for $400 a month. So if you take nothing else from this story, as you're thinking about your ideas and your projects and what you move forward with, try to find ways to lower your risk and lower your exposure. So that if something doesn't work out, it's not gonna cost you a ton of money. You're gonna have learned something that you can apply in your next attempt, and you're also gonna have a good story. [Music]

Well, that's my two cents for what it's worth.

As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/266. Thank you for listening. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]