This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello there, greetings and welcome back. You're listening to Sadduceful School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Got a fun story for you today. Now I've never really had a real job, but long ago and far away, I used to play music.
And I remember really enjoying the process of learning. I wanted to play jazz in particular, so I remember learning to read music. I remember learning to play different instruments, learning all the great jazz standards and tunes that are then reinterpreted and improvised over. And I also had a lot of fun playing different gigs, joining up with some bands, doing freelance. And I did that not quite full-time, but as my main focus for probably about two years.
And during that time, I supported myself mostly through side hustling, because even though I loved playing music, at least in my experience, it didn't pay very well. And that's one of the reasons why I really like today's story, 'cause it's all about a New York City jazz musician who builds a $40,000 a year blog that ends up supporting him as he continues to play music, but also as he transfers this knowledge to lots of other people. I'll tell you about that right after this. [Music]
And now our story. For several years, Brent Barster had a day job in New York City, working as a musician playing jazz gigs around town.
He also taught and he had a number of other projects to make ends meet. Like musicians often do, especially in expensive cities like New York. But over the past two years, his day job has become what was his main side hustle, his blog and podcast called Learn Jazz Standards. It's a website that helps musicians get jazz tips, advice, and resources for learning and playing jazz music. The website makes money from selling e-books, play along tracks, a new e-course, and some advertisements.
Interestingly, unlike almost every other story you hear on the show, Brent didn't actually start this hustle himself. He actually acquired it from someone else. And the website was originally the idea of a friend of his who is still a friend, but is now a former business partner. That friend, whose name was Camden, was inspired by another friend who was making a living off of his blog. Camden wanted to try the same thing, or at least something similar.
So he started with a fairly basic, quickly thrown together blog in 2010. And he worked on it for about five months or so, before becoming too busy to continue. He liked the idea of the site and he thought it would be a shame if it just went away. So he thought of Brent, who was then in college in New York, studying for his bachelor's in jazz performance. Camden offered to pay Brent out of the Google AdSense money the site was making to continue putting up jazz education posts.
And for Brent, this became his side hustle. It wasn't much money at first, but it was helping pay for a lunch here or there while he was in college. Now, eventually he became more invested in the site and then became the director of operations with a 50/50 revenue share. He was seeing visitors increase, newsletter subscribers increase, and they started making more ad money along with selling jazz play along tracks for people to practice with. Pretty soon the income was about $500 to $600 a month for each of them.
And that went a long way to Brent as a struggling musician. He began to think of ways to increase the income of the website and turn his labor of love into a more monetized platform. And around this time, he bought Camden's half of the business. It was a mutual decision that they were both happy with since Camden's other career commitments were too demanding for him to contribute. And at the same time, Learn Jazz Standards had become Brent's primary focus.
He says it was fun having a friend to collaborate with, but this change started opening up doors for him now that he was on his own. He wrote and released two e-books, and then he planned to release an e-course. And along with the added income that his partner was no longer drawing, these actions skyrocketed his monthly income to a livable wage. Since then, he's redesigned the site and has ambitious plans for releasing more products his followers will enjoy. Now, the best part for Brent is seeing how all that time, all that hard work has finally paid off.
He just launched that first e-course I mentioned a few months ago, and in the launch month alone, he sold $10,000 worth. He felt baffled and gratified. He was baffled that so many people would pay money because they trusted the website as a legitimate source of information. But he was gratified because, well, it was awesome. He had made this course, he had put it out in the world, and in the first month of it being live, he made $10,000.
He also says that the financial freedom this blog has brought him is amazing. It's taken him from being that struggling musician to feeling secure. There's no more worrying if you'll get enough gigs next month. He still is playing music. He's still actively pursuing that, and he loves it, but now he still gets to do that, and he gets to work on jazz and music in general just with the security of having most of his bills taken care of from the side hustle.
So what can we learn from Brent's story? Well, jazz music or any other specialized kind of music or art form is something that a lot of people want to learn. Several weeks ago, the show featured Jake Posco from Maryland who offered what he called the most awesome guitar lessons in the universe, which was a great phrase that really helped him stand out in his market. Jazz and classical music in particular are more difficult than popular forms of music, and a lot of people get stuck or they reach a plateau, and there's a lot they need to learn to become proficient, and they don't always know where to go to learn. With classical music, there's a pretty clear pedagogy and process, but jazz is more creative, or at least the way that people learn it involves a lot of self-study.
So a resource like Brent's definitely meets a clear need. If you look at his site, he talks a lot about how it's really important to practice the right way, and a lot of musicians, even if they're dedicated to their craft, they're probably wasting a lot of time just because they're practicing what they already know, they're not acquiring the information they need, or they don't have a systematic plan to improve, which is what he tries to provide through his course, the eBooks, and the free resources on the site. Now also, just because a product or service already exists doesn't mean you can't make your own version of it, or do it differently, or do it better somehow, especially in a field in which there are a lot of people interested. I remember long ago when I was learning music, I paid for a course a lot like this one. This was something like 15 or 20 years ago, and that course I paid for was very helpful to me.
So I'm not surprised at all that there are all sorts of ways to remix classic, timeless information and tips. That will be very helpful to people that will show them what they need to learn. And whenever there's a large recurring group of people who want to learn something like this, there's probably more than one way to provide solutions for them. So congratulations, Brent. Learn Jazz Standard sounds like a great resource, and I hope you continue to grow it.
And as for you, your story is your own. It may not happen exactly like this, but if you listen to these stories, you begin applying them to your own hustle, you will see results over time. That hard work will count for something. And as always, remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. So I hope you take action on something today that will get you closer to the freedom that you're looking for.
If you want to check out the show notes for today's episode, go to sidehustleschool.com/6969. You can also send in a question for the show or get a free five steps to hustle course. I'm Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School, and I'll see you tomorrow.
