This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What's up everyone? Hello, welcome, greetings. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. Here we are at the end of week number 40 of season three. 1009 episodes done and counting.
This week featured homegrown mushroom extracts, The Hero's Journal, not The Hero's Journey, we do that every day. The Hero's Journal self-publishing e-books on Kindle and more. Now on that last story, I really liked the lesson about the power of reversible decisions. I used it for a blog post on my blog, The Art of Nonconformity. And it also led me to think about a topic I'll call risk-free side hustles.
So if you want to learn more about reversible decisions in that post, I will link it up in the notes, or you can just go to my blog, The Art of Nonconformity. Let's talk a bit about risk-free side hustles. Now that phrase should be somewhat self-explanatory. It just means that if your project is a complete failure, like you decide to start something, you decide to make a product or a service, but you see no sales results whatsoever, with a risk-free side hustle, you haven't lost anything, or at least let's say you've lost very little. I think this also means that there's really no reason why you shouldn't try something that fits that category.
Like if you've actually found something that really is risk-free or at least very, very low risk, that literally is in the what do you have to lose department. So how do you find these magical ideas? I'm gonna give you some general principles first, and then some specific examples. General principles of a risk-free side hustle could be anything where the startup cost is negligible. Let's say it's a $0 startup, which we do feature probably at least once a week, or let's say at least every 10 days, there's a project that costs absolutely nothing to start, or something that you begin where you wouldn't mind losing the money.
Maybe it's a few hundred dollars, maybe it's whatever the amount is, it's something where you're like, if I lose every penny of this, oh well, that's okay. So negligible startup costs, also anything where you'll quickly learn whether it's working or not. Your time is valuable too, so if you spend a year working three hours a day on a project only to find out at the end of 365 days that it's a failure, well, hopefully you've learned through that experience, hopefully it will help you on your next project, but still that's a significant time cost, and you could have done something else with all that time. So you want a project where you'll quickly learn whether it's working or not. And then anything where whatever you do can be adapted to something else if it doesn't work.
So if it is a complete failure, you haven't spent a lot of money, you've learned really quickly that it doesn't work, at least in that iteration, but also you might be able to transform it or adapt it or just modify and tweak it in some form. And I thought about that with that episode, we did a 1006 Kyla's story of publishing how-to guides using Kindle Direct Publishing. All right, so I said I'd go from general principles to specific examples, let's start with that. For Kyla, her first two guides, she spent a total of $110 on producing those guides. And she actually hired a designer to make some custom illustrations and a custom cover.
But if she didn't hire a designer to do that, if she just skipped the illustrations and found some other way to do a cover, the cost would be $0. Not only that, but she can tweak and adjust even after the guide is published. So this example meets all three of those principles. Her startup costs are extremely low. When she launches a new publication, she can determine really quickly if it works or not.
And she has the power of that reversible decision where if it's not working, she can delist the guide, change the title and keywords, and then try again. Essentially, if it doesn't work, you take it down and make some modifications and go for a take two. Reselling is another example that meets at least two of the three principles. So if you've done some research on the average selling price of any given item, you're like, I wanna go out and resell sneakers or whatever the item is, and you know that there is a market for this item. In other words, it's something that is regularly bought and sold.
It's not something that's so unusual that nobody is buying and selling it, or only a few people are. Then you're pretty safe in assuming that your risk in entering that market is extremely low. Most of the time, in the worst case scenario, let's say you won't make a profit, but you could usually sell the items for the same price you paid, or maybe just a little bit less or something. So it doesn't need to be a speculative activity. It's not like investing in a stock market where you can lose 100% of the capital.
You might buy something, and like I said, in the worst case scenario, you don't profit from it, but you sell it back for the same price you paid or a bit less. Now those two examples are for products. One was a digital product, and reselling is presumably some kind of physical product. For the third example, how about a service? Specialized consulting can meet all three of the principles depending on how it's set up.
Your startup costs are really low. You usually learn quickly if you're on the right track, and if your ideal customers don't respond to your first offer, or if you just have a hard time reaching them, well, then you can regroup and try again. So those are just a few examples to kind of make the point that when you're trying to decide what to do, you've got a bunch of different ideas, but you're concerned with risk, all right? You know, I think overall you should reframe that concern, maybe think like what really is risky, et cetera. But just on a practical basis, maybe consider whether your side hustle idea meets at least two of these principles.
And those three examples are just that, examples, you know? Like a lot of different products or services could fit in this risk-free or very low risk category. Compare that to buying rental properties or taking a loan from the bank or investing $100,000 or more in a franchise or any other number of traditional business models. Like all those things are very common when people who don't know how to do this, you know, think about starting a business. And if it works for them, that's great, but they're also taking a great deal of risk.
So our model for sure is different, the side hustle school model. Dare I say it's better? You know, it's like this. Maybe it's not better for everyone, but at least for many people. For a lot of people out there, I really do believe that it is.
All right, risk-free side hustles. I'm gonna link some of that up in the notes in case you wanted some more reading about it. Let's go on to the audio update in a moment. This one features Jodi from Ohio, the Girl Scout troop leader, and she has a big update. So let's hear from her after this brief message from our sponsor.
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- Hi, this is Jodi Carlson, the Girl Scout who turned her hobby into a side hustle with a blog called Leader Connecting Leaders. I was featured on Side Hustle School, episode 317. Since that episode aired, I have doubled my income during the school year, making close to $6,000 a month. Currently, the blog offers over 200 blog posts full of free ideas and over 100 planned activity booklets in the shop to help leaders of girl organizations plan their troop meetings with ease. Thanks to being featured on this podcast, I am now partnering with Code Speaks Labs, and together we have created over 25 STEM style activity booklets for girls from ages K through 12th grade.
Additionally, I have had the opportunity to work with other side hustlers on individual topics leaders need help with, such as first aid, outdoor survival, fun patch programs, and cooking. Next up, I am planning to create and provide at least 10 new activity booklets to my readers by the end of the year. And I hope to connect with two more bloggers or side hustlers interested in working together. - Fantastic. Congratulations, Jodi on that incredible growth.
So cool to know it's going so well, and you've been able to connect with some people. If there's any of our listeners who want to connect with Jodi, go and check out what she's up to. I'm really happy that over the years, which is funny to say years now, but yes, we are a thousand episodes in. Over the years, a lot of our listeners, various side hustlers out there have connected with lots of people that we featured on the program. It really has become a community in lots of ways, which is super cool.
So her website is leaderconnectingleaders.com. We will link that up in the notes as well. Go and check it out. This project is a perfect example, a good model of the knowledge economy, just selling these guides and resources for fellow Girl Scout troop leaders and selling them at a really low price. But yet, as you heard, being able to still profit quite a bit.
So excellent, excellent, excellent. If you have a question or comment, feel free to give us a call, leave us a message. We might play it on the show. The number is 844-948-7853. Or if you prefer, you can also use your phone to make a little voice memo and email it to us at podcast@sidehustleschool.com.
[Music]
Before I sign off for the week, just a couple quick but important thank yous. My first thank you is always to you, the listener. You are the reason we make this show 1009 episodes and counting. I said in the first episode, I still believe it every single day. If you make the commitment to listen, if you make the commitment to make this part of your routine, then I too commit to supporting you in your quest to create that new source of income.
If you don't have a side hustle yet, if you don't have more than one source of income, let's try to make that a reality. We're gonna be announcing some new stuff in the fall that I hope will help you do just that. I also wanna say a big thanks to producer Chuck Reed, community liaison, Jed Chang, content manager, Tina Hart, other folks from Cadence 13, Nick, Sage, and Serena, and the official show cat, Libby Gillibout. All of us on team side hustle school are part of the Armor Project that is led by bestselling author and podcast host Gretchen Rubin. Her show is so fun.
It's called "Happier" with Gretchen Rubin. I listen every week. I would encourage you to do the same, as well as "Happier in Hollywood." That's from Gretchen's sister, Liz Kraft, and the program from Melissa Urban called "Do the Thing." This is a free listener-supported show. I'm always super grateful for your quick five-star ratings and reviews in Apple Podcasts. Just takes a second and it helps other people discover it.
And you can also tell your friends. It'll be so cool and show them how to subscribe. If you know somebody out there who needs another source of income, send them to us. We will do our best to take care of them. That's it for the week, but I hope you'll join me tomorrow and each day next week for more stories and actionable ideas.
Consider this a short daily investment in yourself. Our episodes go online at 6 o'clock a.m. Eastern time. My name is Chris Guillebeau and this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
