The Hero’s Journal Helps You Make Progress Toward Your Goals

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

[Music]

You've heard of the hero's journey, a framework for quests that's been used for countless movies and stories. But have you heard of the hero's journal? Today's story is about two friends who create a productivity journal that uses Joseph Campbell's hero's journey as a lens to make progress toward your goals. The idea is that if your goals are reimagined as quests, and as you come closer to achieving them, you become the hero of your story. Welcome to Saddle Soul School.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. I'm excited to say that this story is a listener success story from somebody who's been with us for about two years, listening to the program on a consistent basis before starting this project. So sometimes good ideas take time and this is a really good one. Working together with a friend, they raise $15,000 on Kickstarter, learn about manufacturing, and completely sell out their first run of journals to rave reviews. They're now working on next steps in building a sustainable venture.

So hey, remember, there's a project waiting for you. If you've been out there for a while listening and you're not sure what you're supposed to do next, you're like, "I like all these ideas, but I haven't found mine." Well, don't give up because the answer is out there somewhere. We're calling this the hero's journal helps you make progress towards your goals. The episode is coming up in just 30 seconds. Stay tuned.

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A lot of people use goal-setting journals to help them stay on task. And Nick Vitarello is no different. But he'd always been disappointed that the typical journal was boring and uninspiring. They all looked the same and always included the same motivational quotes. As a self-described closet nerd, Nick thought that he could spice things up.

He was a big fan of Lord of the Rings and imagined that he could design a productivity tool that paid homage to the story. Roping in Kyle, his best friend from college, they decided to produce a nerdy version of goal-setting journals. What had once been considered to be the domain of nerds was now popular culture. Just look at "Star Wars," "Harry Potter," and "Game of Thrones." The two had always loved great stories. They believed that this could be the opportunity to create a goal-guided template for someone to live out their own great story.

This was a concept developed by American literature professor, Joseph Campbell, who termed it the hero's journey. Having been used by screenwriters from superhero movies to childhood classics such as "The Lion King," this was a model that definitely connected with people. The only question was whether it could be applied to journals as well. That's the idea of the hero's journal. Coming up with designs, Nick and Kyle had great fun in bringing their imaginations to life.

Nick even consulted his high school English teacher on the idea, the same person who had taught him about the hero's journey. Then they commissioned the help of a designer they found on Upwork to make sure the artwork lived up to their high standards. But that was just the first step. With no business experience or any real projection of how the idea would perform, Nick and Kyle decided that they would launch the product on Kickstarter to see if there would be any interest. With the help of an ally, a mutual friend who had experience with digital advertising, their strategy was to build a list of email addresses they could get to support their launch.

They achieved this by writing a series of short blog posts as well as designing a personality quiz that matched people to specific heroes and folklore. People who took the quiz would only be able to get their results by giving them their email address. They brought traffic to their site from Facebook ads where $1,500 in advertisements gave the duo roughly a thousand email addresses. This was the base in which they would generate additional momentum. Putting together the campaign video was the next step.

This took some effort and Kyle flew to Seattle to make it with Nick. The effort proved to be worthwhile as the hero's journal raised over $15,000 even though they just asked for $10,000. This allowed them to make their first book order from manufacturers in China. After fulfilling the Kickstarter orders, they were left with 700 journals, which they listed for sale on their Shopify store. These flew off the shelves as well.

The Facebook ads they had purchased paid off even though they have little experience in this space. Testing markets that range from high achieving young professionals to Harry Potter fans, it took time for Nick and Kyle to discover the demographic that would be attracted to their product. In the end, those ads paid for themselves as revenue on the journal brought them three to five times what they spent. The designer for the artwork, the videographer for the video, advertising and manufacturing costs added up to around $6,500, which was something that the two friends were prepared to spend even if the idea didn't take off. Obstacles included their first round of journals arriving three months late and they even had a temporary scare.

The shipping company had lost their package. But with their product priced at $40, the two friends have since pulled in $20,000 from this project. And now they're ready for round two, having reordered 2,000 journals. In many ways, you could say that Nick and Kyle have embarked on their own hero's journey building their side hustle. They answered the call to adventure, crossed the threshold, overcame trials and tribulations, entered the dragon's lair, captured the treasure and returned home to a changed world.

Ready for their next quest. [Music]

Very cool project. Big congratulations to Nick and Kyle. I mean, the hero's journal, first of all, great name. Fantastic name, I can't believe nobody's done that before.

And I see on their Instagram that they have it trademarked. So good idea there, good thinking. They've also done a good job with that Instagram account, just kind of sharing the journey with people, showing the different page proofs, showing a photo of a huge pallet when the journals first arrive, talking about when they're sold out, all that kind of stuff. So they're kind of sharing the hero's journey of making the hero's journal with people who are following along, which is great. And then just on a practical note, I had this comment in the story, traffic to their site came through Facebook ads where they spent $1,500 in ads to get roughly 1,000 email addresses.

So that's a pretty good rate. They're paying $1.50 for each email address and not every person's going to convert, of course, a lot of them won't. But the idea is when you're targeting the right markets, whether it is high achieving young professionals or Harry Potter aficionados or something different, the idea is that you're going to get a lot more value than you spend. And in their case, I think they got, three to five times what they spent. So now it's just a question of, okay, how can we make this more sustainable?

We sold what, 1,000 journals, 300 through Kickstarter and 700 on our own. Now the reorder is for 2,000. So in some ways you could say that the hero's journey is just beginning for them. But I think they're off to a pretty good start with this initial success. Awesome project, as I said.

Be sure to take a look at it on the show notes page. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. And that notes page is sidehustleschool.com/1004, 1004. Thanks so much, my friends. Be sure you're subscribed.

Much more is on the way as we continue to level up. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.