Tie One On for This Australian High School Teacher

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

[Music]

I'm going to share a different sort of story with you today. Now this story's subject matter is bowties. In the course of 629 episodes so far, we've talked about at least two other bowtie sellers. Apparently there is a resurgence in the bowtie world. Not something I understand, but hey, that's okay.

It's not about me. Today's story is different, not because of topics so much, but because of what this person does with it. Okay, so this is the story of an Australian high school teacher who wants to learn about the world of side hustles so he learns to make and sell his own bowties. This quickly becomes a profitable project, but then he gets tired of it and decides to move on. Now listen, I am a big fan of moving on because life is short and you're already busy, so you should spend your limited time on something you're excited about and something you believe in.

But what do you do when you're no longer passionate about the project you started, or you recognize that to grow it would require more time and resources that you don't have? Is there a way you can profit by making a change? So that's what this bowtie selling teacher figures out. And I know that there's a lesson here that can help somebody else out there. So listen up.

This is Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Got a quick thank you to our sponsor and then tie one on for this Australian high school teacher. [Music]

Vince Massera is a high school teacher living in Victoria, Australia. On the side, he now runs a small business that helps other teachers learn more about the side hustle world.

However, it was by way of his first income generating project that led him to what he's doing now. And that's what we're gonna look at here. That first project was called Why Not Ties? Like why not with a K-N-O-T, why not? Vince started Why Not Ties on a whim.

He thought that at worst it would make for a funny story down the road. He pictured himself saying to his friends, hey, remember when I tried that crazy idea of selling bowties? Wasn't that silly? As whimsical as it was, there was also an underlying reason behind it. He described it as that feeling of being able to do almost anything when you look and feel like your best self.

He wanted to provide that feeling of confidence for people every day. And he had personal experience with this feeling. Growing up, he had struggled with his weight and the resulting lack of self-confidence. Teaching only made things worse. He wanted to be the best role model for his students, but found it hard when he didn't feel good about himself.

He realized that in order to be the best person he could, he needed to make some changes. He began exercising and clocking hours of extended learning. He came to believe in using systems to bring about true impact and lasting change. Since then, he's lost a hundred pounds and is much happier both in and out of the classroom. And that brings us to why not ties?

The idea of solving new problems excited Vince and he wanted a new challenge. He also viewed it as a cheap business school and figured that he had nothing to lose. Well, it wasn't quite nothing. His startup costs were about $2,000. That covered his WordPress site and original inventory.

He found a manufacturer on Alibaba where he was able to use his own designs. Then he began telling everyone he knew about the project, even cold emailing newspaper and magazine editors to pitch them on coverage. In less than a year, why not ties was regularly earning between 500 and $1,000 a month. And normally at this point, I would tell you what he was doing next to grow it further. But no, I warned you that this was a different story.

So here's what really happened. Despite making that 500 to $1,000 a month, Vince admits he misjudged the online marketplace for fashion. The barriers were too great to truly scale. Most customers weren't willing to leave a website they usually shopped at like Amazon to buy a mid-priced bow tie. So if he were to do it again, he would have tried for a greater presence there on Amazon or maybe eBay or somewhere else.

Also, he fell out of love with the brand and with the fashion business in general. Even with the goal of increasing people's confidence in mind, ultimately it didn't feel as though he was helping anyone, which as an educator is critical for him. Last but not least, you could say he didn't want to get tied down. Since he went into why not with a nothing to lose mentality, when he was no longer excited about it, he was content with just giving it up. But instead of merely walking away, he was able to sell the brand and remaining inventory for $5,000.

That included the website and some yet to be published exposure in GQ magazine. There were other benefits. Vince began incorporating the lessons learned from why not ties into the classroom and rejuvenated his teaching and turned teacher-led innovation into his new passion. The skills he now uses in his new side hustle came from what he learned from why not. Entering the online business world for the first time, Vince noticed that referrals were by far the biggest way of getting qualified leads and new customers.

Most people he talked to were filtering money into Facebook ads, but most of them didn't have a system for generating referrals. This was something Vince was able to do with why not, so now he's teaching it to others. He recently started a blog and podcast, The Smart Edgypreneur, about the need for change in education. This bow tie hustle is all tied up, but he's moving forward with a fashionable future. [Music]

All right, congratulations to Vince.

Fun story and some pretty clear lessons here as well. Most important lesson, life is short, so don't be afraid to change it up. Change is constant. And the only choices that you face are, first of all, are you gonna create some change of your own or just have it happen to you? And second, when change does occur, for whatever reason, how will you respond?

Will you fight it or flow with it? It's often much easier in these situations to flow with it and say, okay, this isn't working or it's not working the way I want it to be working. Like in this story, it was working technically, he was making money, but it wasn't what he ultimately wanted to do. And instead of just continuing, he found a way to sell the project, make $5,000, and even above that $5,000 were the benefits that he gained in learning to be a better teacher and giving him a vision for what came next. And the other lesson is that what you learn in one place or in one experience is probably gonna help you somewhere else, at least it has the potential to.

So the single best thing you can do for yourself, if you've been listening for a while but haven't taken action, is to go out there and get some experience. If you don't know exactly what your project is gonna become or even what you wanna do, that's okay. Sometimes it takes time. These kinds of experiments or even smaller ones can help you. So I hope you enjoyed this story.

I hope you're not feeling tied down yourself. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes, including links to everything mentioned in the episode are at sidehustleschool.com/629. I'm also gonna include a link to a book I really like. It's called "The Referral Engine" by my friend John Jantz.

And over time, I've read a lot of books about this. This is the number one resource that I refer people to when they'd like to learn more about a systematic process for generating referrals in their business. So again, that book is "The Referral Engine" and I will link it up in the notes. All right, thank you for listening. I hope you have a wonderful day wherever you are in the world.

I'll be back again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School."