Revenge of Bat Houses: There’s More Than One Seller!

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

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What's up, friends? Saad Essel School community. So glad you're here. In a previous recent episode, I believe it was number 877, we talked about the bat house hustle that takes a bite out of pesticides. I learned more about bats and the research for that episode than I think I ever have learned in my entire adult life.

Now, much to my surprise, our team's research for this week brought us to another guy in Florida who is also making and selling bat houses with a similar motivation to the people we featured in that previous episode, but an entirely different method. He's also serving an entirely different market than the other guys. They are selling budget-friendly bat houses for your average family who wants to welcome some bats to their front porch. I believe they were working on a model that could cost less than $100. Now, these bat houses, the ones in today's story, cost up to $4,000 and weigh up to 1,200 pounds.

They are enormous. They also have a smaller model, but when I say smaller, it still clocks in at around 680 pounds. I think that one is 2,000 or $2,500. So it turns out that there is room for more than one bat cave out there. Stay tuned for this story.

We're calling it Revenge of Bat Houses. I mean, it just seemed like the only appropriate title, right? Like what else are you gonna call it? Bat Houses Strike Back? We thought this one was better.

[Music]

Let's face it, bats get a bad rap. Bats conjure up images of cave-dwelling creepy creatures or even deadly blood-sucking vampires. But one man in Florida is sticking up for these important mammals and is building them custom big bat houses. I guess we could say it's actually three men considering our previous episode, number 877. But let's talk today about Steve Barlow, who grew up in a beautiful natural setting in north central Florida.

He loved wildlife and was an aspiring biologist by the age of 10. After five years in the U.S. Army, which was later than being 10, Steve earned bachelor's degrees in biology and chemistry and then a master's in wildlife ecology. He was dismayed by the loss of habitat that came with rampant development and dedicated his life to wildlife. In particular, he wanted to expose people in urban areas and suburbs to natural beauty.

After grad school, he worked at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Part of his job involved designing and building bat houses. This was a natural fit. His dad had been a builder, so he grew up around construction. But he was frustrated that his work felt mired in bureaucracy.

When he complained to his dad, his dad said something to Steve that he will never forget. Son, obstacles are opportunities in disguise. It's your responsibility to find a way around, over, or through the obstacle. Steve understood how crucial bats can be to our ecology system. They are pollinators for gardens, forests, and communities.

They eat insects that would otherwise require pesticides. They help spread seed, diversifying vegetation. So he decided to start wildlife integration with the goal of providing blueprints and materials for community-sized bat houses. That's right, it is a build-your-own bat house and it's not small. The blueprints allow landowners, farmers, or park rangers to easily build and install one or more of these houses.

These educational spectacles foster a love of nature and bats that helps to accomplish Steve's mission of bringing wildlife and people together in a positive way. Thousands of bats can pour out of each bat house each evening. Watching them leave the house at sunset is quite the sight. The big bat house design can be shipped anywhere and easily installed, or so he says. I mean, it looks enormous.

You can see photos on the website that kind of look like sheds on stilts. These houses have now been installed in 15 states and a couple of countries with each structure capable of housing over 5,000 bats. As I said, pretty big. The side hustle now brings in around $20,000 a year. He's working on a new product that's a logical extension, the Chimney Swift Roost Tower and Nesting Post, which integrates birdhouses onto preexisting marker poles scattered across the country.

This is in addition to his current day job as Director of Energy Partnerships at the National Wild Turkey Federation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of the typical wild turkey, which just to be clear, I don't think has anything to do with bourbon. Although if there's a conservation agency for that in need of donors, let me know. It wasn't all easy flying. Right off the bat, Steve faced naysayers and people who thought he was just batty. Even the employees at a local home improvement store laughed at him when he went in with a shopping list of materials to build his first house.

But like his beloved bats, he went out on a limb and decided to hang in there. Now here are some words of advice from Steve. And these words of advice can apply to a lot of people even if you don't want to build bat houses, all right? So number one, he says, stay in your lane. If you're the wildlife biologist, do that.

Hire out the other stuff like bookkeeping, manufacturing, shipping, whatever. It was a big leap for me to start paying people to do my bookkeeping, but it was such a big help. And he says he's found sites like Upwork and Fiverr to be invaluable. Number two, he says, be brave. If no one else on earth is doing what you're doing, it takes courage to be the only one, especially if your closest confidants tell you it's crazy.

But just stay true to your heart. And number three, he says, don't make it all about the money. Sure, you need money, but don't let that stop you. Money is a tool to grow your dreams, a vehicle and nothing more. When I catch myself worrying about money, I count how many bats and birds I've helped or how many people have enjoyed one of my structures.

And I immediately shift from lack or scarcity to abundance and gratitude. The best part of the experience for Steve is that gratitude he has, knowing that he's helped millions of bats and given lots of people the opportunity to enjoy watching them. Bring on the bat caves. If you build it, they might come. Well, as I said, I have now learned more about bats and their positive effect on the environment from these two episodes that I ever thought possible.

Perhaps you out there were very well educated about bats already, but maybe there's somebody else out there along with me who has been learning. By the way, also fun fact, without bats, you can say goodbye to bananas, avocados and mangoes. In fact, over 300 species of fruit depend on bats for pollination. Steve also said when we were talking about this whole thing about the naysayers, including some of his friends and those employees at the home improvement store, he actually says he's grateful for the many naysayers along his journey. He said they've actually helped to motivate him and also along the way he's had many more people end up encouraging him.

So he's had more encouragement than discouragement. And I want you to remember that as well, because I think people are often very much worried about this whole like criticism thing. I worry about it too. I deal with it. I don't always handle it well, but I also know that there are a lot more people out there who are encouraging than otherwise.

Discouraging, I guess that would be the opposite. All right, so remember that. And remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes, including links to all the bat houses we could possibly find and anything else that I mentioned in the episode. I think I talked about Fiver Upwork, maybe a couple of other things, whatever I talked about.

It's gonna be on this page, sidehustleschool.com/909. Episode 909, much more is on the way. Be sure you're subscribed and tell your friends. Thanks so much. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

from The Onward Project.