This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, welcome back. My name is Chris Guillebeau, the host of "Side Hustle School." Really glad you're here and I'm also really impressed with today's story. I think you're gonna like it as well. This is unintentionally student week here at "Side Hustle School." Perhaps we should make it a formal thing, but I just thought of that since the other day we had the story of the guy who starts the historic letter subscription service. What a fun project, it's doing well.
He's actually optimizing a lot and getting smarter as he goes and making him more runny. All good things. And I really love highlighting creative projects from creative students and young people. If you're out there and you're a student and you've done something like this, like what you hear about on the show, or if you know somebody who has, I'd love to hear about it. As a reminder, you can always submit your story or tell somebody to go submit their story at sidehustleschool.com on the about page at the bottom.
Little link that says submit your story. And getting back to the focus on students, I had an entrepreneurial spirit when I was a young person, decades ago, but not a ton of success until a bit later. So I had this entrepreneurial spirit, but I actually wasn't making a lot of money. I was experimenting a lot. I was learning.
I was getting by, like I was doing okay. But honestly, some of you guys out there and some of the stories I featured really are ahead of the curve. And I think that's great. Like it's been too long since I've said, you know, I'm learning along with the audience. Like our community out there, you're learning as you go, like I'm learning too from these stories and the research that we do, the lessons that emerge, the different stories and examples.
I just continue to be impressed and surprised. So today's story is about a Turkish student, student in Istanbul, who turns teacher, starts his own little tutoring workshop, earns more than $14,000 part time in fairly limited hours. So he's definitely doing something we talk about a lot on the show, which is taking the skills you already have and then transforming those skills into an offer that other people can pay for. So stay tuned. Let me say thank you to today's sponsor and I'll tell you exactly how he does it.
Lot to learn here. [Music]
Back in 2015, Chihan Akhlaap was a student at Koch University in Istanbul. While he admits to not being the best student, he was a natural when it came to learning. His super curious little brother, aged 10 at the time, would always hound him with questions about everything from what makes the earth spin to how technology works. He was particularly interested in his big brother's university classes and Chihan enjoyed spending time breaking down the information to explain it more simply.
So in the spring of that year, Chihan heard that a few students were really struggling with the information systems class at his university. Having already taken the same class, he knew he could simplify the information and help those students pass their exams. He decided to turn the classroom on its head and go from student to teacher. So here was his action plan. Step one was to email the 120 students taking the class whose contact details he got from the school database.
He sent them an email offering a two hour lecture on the key topics, as well as a 25 page set of thorough, but easy to understand notes. The email outlined the specific topics he'd be covering in the lecture and it included a sample one page preview of the full notes. The price he offered was based on what he felt would be fair compensation for his time. He wanted to get at least $150 for running the lecture and he predicted that of those 120 people, maybe three people would sign up. So based on that estimate, he set the price at $60.
He was surprised to find that 21 people replied to his email accepting the offer and perhaps even more surprisingly, all 21 of them actually turned up for the lecture. The demand was clear. Chihan's hustle idea had passed that first test with flying colors. And since his first class, Chihan has expanded into other subjects that he knows well. This has become a little enterprise.
He chooses classes that students might be finding difficult and he runs up to three at a time. He focuses on subjects like information systems, e-commerce management, and marketing and advertising. Depending on how difficult the class is, students pay between 60 and $90. His bottom line is significant. Each class brings in an average of $3,600 each semester and he has zero costs for this business.
He runs an average of two classes each semester. So with two semesters a year, his income is just over $14,000 working part time. He's also optimized his time. Once he's designed the lecture and then written those 25 pages of notes, these can be reused semester after semester. He offers his services just four months of the year and spends a maximum of just 30 hours each of those months delivering the lectures and materials.
He also provides an email address for students to send follow-up questions to, but only about one in 10 of his students ever use this. So it's not a lot of work. And otherwise he just needs to send emails to invite people to his class. Now there is at least one built-in challenge with Chihan's little business. If he does his job well, his customers won't need to come back for more.
So instead of depending on repeat customers, he's focused on how to spread the word. He introduced a discount offer of 25% for anyone who refers a friend. And that combined with the word of mouth effect, which is always strong on campus, has led to a reliable stream of students signing up for lectures. The results have also been highly positive for the people he's helped. Chihan describes one student whose regular C minus grade was transformed into one of the top A's in the class.
And he puts the success down to his dedication to simplicity. He teaches complex ideas in really simple ways, avoiding the jargon and complicated language that his professors always seem to use. Aside from simplicity, his other teaching superpower is to get in the mindset of his students. For example, he knows that most students have a weakness when it comes to knowing real-world case studies to use in the exam. These can be difficult and time-consuming to research.
So he makes a point of including plenty of easy-to-remember examples, which can often make the difference between a pass and a fail. Being a peer rather than a professor gives his teaching style an added edge. Chihan has now left college and is working at an educational gaming startup. His job has given him a few lessons of its own, particularly when it comes to email marketing. He's been able to streamline the email marketing he uses for his tutoring based on what he learned at his job.
And a new challenge is coming up because later this year, Chihan will be starting a master's program at Duke University in North Carolina. He plans to bring his tried and tested technique from Turkey to the U.S. to expand into new classes on a new campus. I for one will be cheering him on, so we'll watch for this new challenge to see if it passes the test. Yeah, what a great story.
I hope you liked that as much as I enjoyed working on it. I actually feel inspired now after I'm looking through all these notes and thinking about what he did. So what do you think he did particularly well? 'Cause a lot of students have tutoring businesses. Or they're not really businesses.
A lot of students are tutors. Maybe that's the first point. He didn't just advertise himself as a tutor. He thought systematically. He created a course.
He created this 25-page set of notes. And first and foremost, he targeted a desperate need. It was really important that students pass this course and it was a difficult one. A lot of them were struggling. So to that desperate need, he brought his clear authority.
He had already taken the course. He had done well. Not only that, but he had been comfortable teaching and simplifying information. And when he sent them that pitch, that email, he included a sample page of notes. So they knew what to expect.
And I'm guessing that one-page sample he sent was pretty good. I imagine it's the kind of thing where if you look at it, you're like, wow, 24 more pages like this, this is really gonna help me. And then he developed a proven product. In this case, the product is the service of delivering the lecture and providing those notes. After he did it the first time, he had lots of testimonials.
People are talking about it. Word of mouth is spreading. So there's no greater testimonial than somebody who's been through the course and found it successful in improving their grades. And apparently he has lots of students who can make that claim. And then last, as he went along, he optimized.
Once he left college and was still doing the side hustle from his day job, he took the lessons he learned from email marketing and applied them to the side hustle. He got to where he was reusing the same notes and doing the same lecture over and over. So he's spending far less time preparing. I mean, basically he did everything right. And most college students, I would say in the US, I mean, not just Turkey, most college students don't earn $14,000 on the side unless they're spending a lot of hours working a part-time job, which is very inflexible.
It's gonna take time away from their studies. It's not really gonna help them get ahead. Whereas what Xi'an has been doing is something that can help him get ahead. And it has. Now he's coming to the US and he might be able to do the same kind of thing.
So he really is creating this asset for himself. And just like I said in the beginning, I'm learning along with you. As I go through this, I'm like, wow, it's great to hear about his process. It's great to see how he did this. If I think back a long time ago, like when I was in school, I might've come up with something like this, but I don't think I would have been as systematic about it.
I don't think I would have been as good at it. I certainly don't think I'd be able to replicate it over and over semester after semester. So good work, Xi'an, congrats to you. Look forward to seeing what happens when you come to the US. And for everyone else out there, thank you for listening.
Thank you for being part of this community. Don't forget inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Our show notes for today are online at sidehustleschool.com/466. That is for episode 466. We are cruising along.
I'll be back tomorrow with 467. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
