Metal Detectorist Gets Paid for Finding Lost Jewelry

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

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Back to speak with you once more about the art of starting a side hustle and income generating project you can operate without quitting your job and without taking a lot of risk. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School, the only show bringing you these stories every single day. It's not just fluff, it's not just inspiration. We're looking at the details of how people get ideas, how they make them happen and what the outcome is.

How much money do they make? How does that money affect their life? What challenges do they encounter? How do they overcome those challenges? And of course, if you want to do something similar, what would be the next steps for you?

Well, today's story features something that I don't think we have ever talked about before on the show. And pretty soon I'm gonna get forgetful because we're approaching episode 500. But still, to my knowledge, I'm pretty certain that we have not talked about metal detecting. And that's right, metal detecting is a thing. It's not just something that you thought about when you were, I don't know, 10 years old on a beach somewhere.

Ironically or not, that's actually how today's story begins, but we'll come to that in a moment. There is a whole industry, a community of people who call themselves detectorists. And by coincidence, I happened to watch a British TV series of the same name, the detectorists, recently. I think you can find that on Netflix or Hulu or one of those networks. And it's a pretty good show.

I enjoyed it a lot. I watched every episode of two seasons, I think. But today's story, of course, is true. It features a full-time data developer who starts a detective agency with his kids. This agency goes on to help people recover over $100,000 worth of jewelry in a casual side hustle, earning rewards along the way in the form of real money.

Now, I'll tell you right now, this is not a get rich quick episode. He doesn't get paid $100,000 for recovering $100,000 worth of jewelry. But of course he does get paid, which of course is what we talk about every day. And he's also found this to be a very rewarding project to do with his kids. All right, so the metal detectorist who gets paid for finding lost jewelry, that story is coming right up after a quick thank you to our sponsor.

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Dan Rochul was vacationing on a Florida beach. A cool breeze ran through his hair and the sand was, well, everywhere. It's a beach. A beautiful day was coming to a close and he walked down to where his kids were playing close to the water. He began to give him the sad news that it was time to pack up and head out.

But little did he know, the fun of that day was not over. As they were walking back up the beach, they saw a man walking around with a metal detector. They watched him search up and down the beach for a few minutes. As he approached, they asked him if he'd found anything. In fact, he had.

In one of his hands was a necklace with a dozen rings hanging on it. All jewelry that tourists had lost on the beach. The man explained that finding the jewelry was only half the fun. Finding the owners was also exhilarating. Shortly after Dan and his family returned to Wisconsin, his son approached him and asked if they could get one of those treasure finders.

It seemed like a fun hobby for him and his kids, so Dan agreed. At first, they had a cheap, low-end, hobby-grade metal detector. They would take it around the school playground for a while each weekend and come out a few dollars richer. A couple weeks after buying that initial detector, Dan saw a Craigslist ad offering a reward for a lost ring. Equipped with his basic metal detector, Dan replied, and the next day, after showing up in less than an hour of searching, Dan found the ring and returned it to its original owner.

It felt rewarding, and so did the $200 check that arrived in the mail the next week. Fired up from that payment, Dan quickly sold his entry-level detector and used that $200 to buy a nicer, more powerful one. He believed he was onto something. Over the next couple years, Dan and his kids found more and more lost rings, phones, and keys across his state. He usually charged some sort of reward, but it was an informal process.

Somewhere along the way, Dan realized he should make his business more official. So in 2015, Dan formed Lost and Found Ring, LLC, and created a WordPress site to go along with it. Newly equipped with his stronger metal detector, a handful of accessories, that website, and an official LLC, his total startup costs were just under $1,000. He set up the site himself and began blogging about his findings over the years. He noticed that most of the searches that came to the site were along the lines of where to rent a metal detector or how to find my lost ring.

Dan works on persuading those readers that they shouldn't try to rent a cheap detector themselves. They should hire a metal detecting veteran with pro-level gear. He also posts about many of the jobs he takes, showing people what was lost and how he was able to recover it. Within a couple months, Dan had made over $1,000, earning back the money he spent getting everything off the ground. But that was just the beginning.

Dan's feel-good stories started getting picked up by newspapers. The tales of long-lost family heirlooms being rescued from a beach or a random pasture seemed to multiply, and Dan began to get more and more inquiries. A lot of his jobs happen during the summer when people are more active outside. Rings come off while throwing a ball at the park. They slip off while playing at the beach.

Sunscreen causes them to get loose. Each season, there are also a number of "toss jobs," as he calls them, where a couple in a heated fight end up with a ring lost somewhere in the yard. Dan's starting fees are pretty cheap. He charges anyone in his city an initial flat $25 for a land search and $50 for a water search. If clients are outside the county, he calculates a travel fee as well.

His main payment is in the form of finder's rewards, which he receives when he's able to recover the item, whether a ring, necklace, or something else. Dan usually gets three to four particularly large rewards per season, sometimes close to $1,000 for a single item. And recently, he's begun exploring a different market, insurance companies. He's finding that rather than just pay out the insurance claim on lost jewelry, companies would rather hire someone to try to find it one last time. So far, he's done a few of those gigs and thinks they will grow as a source for bigger, more profitable contracts.

This little hobby is paying out. Even in the off season, Dan and his son find two to three items per month on average with a 65% success rate, putting an extra few hundred dollars in the bank account each time. As exciting as that is, the thrill of finding items isn't as satisfying as seeing the faces of people who are having important possessions return to them. He loves helping them resolve the guilt of losing the item in the first place, especially when it's an irreplaceable thing, like their great grandmother's necklace or the ring their late husband gave to them. According to Dan, those experiences, as well as the time he gets to spend with his kids, is the true reward.

So this metal detecting family, who are now equipped with multiple detectors, plans to keep searching for treasure. So metal detecting is a thing. I've always kind of wondered, especially after I watched that TV series. Again, it's called The Detectorist, if you want to check it out. And there's something I thought was interesting here.

It's a part about how so many people are coming to his site, looking to rent a metal detector, and he tries to steer them away from that. I actually went to go and look at the site to check out what he says. And on one of the main pages, the headline is where to rent a metal detector, which makes sense, since that's the phrase that people are searching for. And he really does try to talk people out of it. You know, the copy here is, have you considered hiring someone instead?

The cost isn't that much more than renting a metal detector yourself, plus you get a professional who actually knows how to use a metal detector properly. Give me a call, location doesn't matter. I can't help you directly. I'll find somebody who can. And he goes on a bit at the bottom.

He says, "I hear stories all the time from clients who wondered where to rent a metal detector. They first tried to find their lost ring themselves by renting a detector or borrowing one from a friend or neighbor. In almost every case, the person quickly became frustrated after digging up more and more trash. You'd be shocked to know what is under the grass and in the water. But if you have the right equipment and experience, you can ignore 90% of the trash and just focus on the good signals, which is likely your lost ring.

Anyway, that makes sense for people who are searching for a lost item. Why not steer them toward his service instead, which is what he's doing. But I do wonder, since he's getting this attention, there are probably a lot of other people, maybe some people even who are listening to this episode, who would like to get into the side business of metal detecting. So I wonder if he shouldn't have some content for those people as well. Perhaps maybe at some point an ebook or other low-cost service or product that people can purchase to quickly learn the lessons, to understand how much they should spend on this kind of equipment, what to be aware of, what to steer away from, all that kind of stuff.

And that's a completely different market from the people who are looking to find their lost ring. Just a thought there, I know he's busy. He's got plenty of stuff he's doing, but that could be a good side business for somebody out there. So for the rest of our detectorist audience, who knows, maybe there's somebody out there. If Dan is too busy, maybe you should write that ebook.

Somebody should. I hope you enjoyed this story. It's a feel-good story with people being reunited with prize possessions, the joy that this guy has in doing this together with his kids. But of course, he's also making money. So two good things, three good things, all put together a win-win, or shall we say a win-win-win.

I don't know if that's a thing or not, but at least in this story, it sounds like it is. Thank you for listening today. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. The show notes for today's episode, including links to Dan's site, are at sidehustleschool.com/495. I'll be back with you tomorrow as we keep rolling along.

This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.