This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome back. This is "Side Hustle School." I'm Chris Guillebeau. Every day, a different story of someone who starts a hustle, an income-generating project, without quitting their day job. How do they get the idea? How do they do it?
What do they learn? And how can you apply this kind of thinking and this action to create your own project? Oh, and also, do you have some extra space in your home or apartment? Or if not, do you have access to space somewhere? Well, today's story is about how an unused basement becomes a $3,000 a month Pilates studio.
I'll tell you all about it right after this. [Music]
Leif Uland is the director of sales operations at a company that does education assessment for K through 12 schools nationwide. He had been mulling over the idea of a hustle and initially assumed it would have something to do with writing, since that's what he did before he took a corporate job. But then, during a long run one day, he realized that in his family, it was actually his wife, Colleen, who had the most untapped potential. Colleen is a former dancer who had started teaching Pilates as her dance career was winding down.
She was a phenomenal teacher with some devoted students, but she had recently quit to take care of their two young children. Colleen wasn't thrilled about working for other people and getting paid a fraction of what the clients are charged. But what if she could start a studio at home and teach on her own schedule? Leif literally dashed home from his long run and looked up the laws and regulations for in-home businesses. They had an unfinished basement.
And as it turned out, in their neighborhood, they could have up to five customers a day, as long as they didn't have a sign that lit up. And that's how it all started, with just five minutes of internet research. Leif pitched the idea to his wife, who didn't need much convincing, she was in. Then they got to work finding a contractor to remodel the basement. With his brother-in-law's help, Leif did some of the work himself, and for the rest, well, luckily he had just gotten a bonus at work, so he took that money and put it towards the remodel.
Fast forward a few weeks, they now had a beautiful basement, but with no Pilates equipment. So Leif searched the internet again and found a credit card with a $10,000 limit and a one-year no interest offer. He used that to purchase $7,000 worth of Pilates equipment and was able to pay it off before the year was up. Now Colleen had a beautiful studio with equipment, ready to go, and she just needed students. She had a few clients she had been working with in their homes, so she asked if they'd be willing to come to the studio instead.
They were all open to the idea, and in fact, they loved that they could work with Colleen in a fully equipped, yet private Pilates studio. And Leif had also started his own marketing efforts before the renovation was even complete. He opened a Squarespace account, designed their website himself, and set up that account to accept payments. He also opened a business bank account to make sure their business and personal expenses were kept separate. After going to Colleen's initial client base, they then used the app called Nextdoor to market to their nearby community and neighborhood.
Now when Nextdoor started, businesses couldn't directly market themselves, so Leif would do some subtle promoting by responding to relevant topics. But now the app lets businesses do direct marketing, so that's become a source of local clients. They've also gotten involved with local charities by donating gift certificates to silent auctions, which not only gets them some visibility and potentially new clients, it also creates some goodwill in the neighborhood for their new small business. And all these efforts are paying off month by month. Their revenue started off slow the first month, which is $400, but two months later they were at $1,000.
Couple months after that, $2,000. And now one year into it, they're consistently bringing in $3,000 a month. Leif couldn't be happier with how this first side hustle has turned out. Colleen loves being able to teach again and that she's making far more money part time than she did when she worked for someone else. Plus being able to work from home means she doesn't have a commute.
Leif is excited to have a reason to learn about SEO, email campaigns, and other small business tools. It's motivated him to look at his other ideas and see which one is the most feasible for him to focus on himself. He wants to be an example to his kids on how to diversify income and not be totally reliant on any one source, which is of course a primary value of the side hustle way. [Music]
And for you over there, remember inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action so much better. If you'd like to see the show notes for today's episode, just come to sidehustleschool.com/98.
Now yesterday or the day before, we had a story about calligraphy and hand lettering. Well, I just noticed that my friend and fellow podcaster Gretchen Rubin just released her own all ages coloring book. I thought this is pretty cool. It's called "The Happiness Project Mini Posters," a coloring book of 20 hand-lettered quotes to pull out and frame. You can find it for yourself at your local bookstore or any online retailer, including amazon.com.
Now this inspired me because I want to create an adult coloring book. So we'll see how that goes. I'll probably be at least a year or two behind Gretchen per usual, but I thought it was a fun project. Thank you for listening today. I'll be back tomorrow.
I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
