WEEKLY RECAP: Simple, Boring, and … Highly Profitable?

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

[Music]

What's up, friends, listeners, community? So glad you're here. My name is Chris Guillebeau. We have just finished week number 46 of season three. Week 46, 1,050 episodes done.

This week featured ergonomic desk accessories. We're gonna talk about that a bit. Custom calligraphy and more. Now over here, I'm back from Australia. I had a really fun trip at one of my favorite places.

Now I'm getting ready for my annual review. So that's coming up too. I also have a special announcement coming on December 1, December 1st, about the future of side hustle school. What? Yeah, that's right.

After nearly three years of producing the show every single day, a lot of people are starting to ask, "Hey, we're coming to the end of 2019. Will it continue in 2020?" You know, what's up? What's the status? Well, I do have an announcement, or at least an announcement is in the works. It's pretty exciting.

So two weeks from today, I'll let you know exactly what's happening and how it will all work. But for now, let's talk about simple, boring business ideas. Doesn't that sound great? Isn't that why you listen to podcasts to hear about simple, boring ideas? That should be the new tagline for TED Talks.

Simple, boring, might possibly be worth spreading. Who knows? I thought about this as I worked on two stories this week. One of them, the one about ergonomic desk accessories, which is really just a fancy way of saying elbow pads, as well as another episode, 1048, about a guy who earns extra money mounting TVs and hiding the wires in people's homes. So what do these things have in common?

Well, they are pretty simple, pretty basic, even boring, you might say, and profitable, highly profitable in the case of the elbow pad business. So in my inbox in any given day, I hear about a lot of different projects. I've got people writing in about all kinds of big tech stuff, tech startups, or just some kind of advanced idea. You know, many of which, many of these ideas will never see the light of day or ever be profitable. And meanwhile, my entire focus here is on showing you examples of real people out there who are starting profitable projects by solving simple problems.

That's what we're about. A practical solution to a clear problem, a product or service that meets a specific need. It may not always be sexy, but if your goal is to make money, not just talk about your cool tech idea, this is not at all a bad approach to take. In fact, it's a very wise approach. So I went back through some of the archives to make a list of other projects that fit this category.

I found a lot of them, so I'm just gonna pull out a few of them for you here, in case you're interested in going back to listen. Number 280, episode 280, boring desk job leads to $14,000 a month coffee pod biz. So this guy who's basically learns how to import coffee pods to the UK. Episode 430, choir teacher tunes sight reading workbooks into $20,000 hustle. She's making workbooks for high school choirs.

Episode 542, graphic designer chalks up gripping side hustle, which it's a great title, gripping side hustle, but it's basically about chalk. Okay, it's chalk for people who are into CrossFit. And that person is doing really well with it. Episode 611, just two more for you here. 611, accountant earns six figures selling spreadsheets to Etsy sellers.

I think most people in the entertainment business, if you went out to pitch that, say, "Got this great story about an accountant who's making a lot of money selling spreadsheets." Be like, "Well, that's actually, you know, the definition of boring, basically." But yet, you know, six figures, she's doing really well. This has transformed her life. And then the last one I'll mention is 964, Knoxville man rents reusable packing totes. So this guy is building a legit second income renting reusable packing totes. Again, not super exciting necessarily, but I want you to be encouraged and inspired.

If you're out there and you haven't found your idea yet, maybe you're overthinking it. Maybe you're trying to think about something that is too advanced or something that you don't know how to make happen. You don't have a vision to see it through from the beginning to the end. My question for you would be what can you do that compares to elbow pads, TV installation, choir workbooks, chalk for athletes, packing totes, or spreadsheets? Think along those lines, simple, boring, and profitable.

All right, next, let's go on to our audio update from a previously featured side hustler. This one is, I believe, from Caleb Kingston. But first, we got a quick message from our sponsor. I really appreciate them allowing the show to be completely free. And then we'll hear from Caleb.

[Music]

What's up, side hustlers? It's Caleb Kingston here from App Design Tips. I was featured on episode 413 talking about my Udemy course and how I leverage Facebook groups to market my course and earn $1,000 a month. Since that episode, my side hustle income has increased to $3,000 a month. My App Design Tips YouTube channel is growing and earning extra money, and I'm currently working on my next design course, Photoshop for iPad Masterclass.

I'm taking a different marketing approach with this new course. With my previous courses, I did some upfront marketing to bump my course placement on Udemy, and then relied on Udemy to bring students in where it was only possible to earn around $10 per student. This time, I'm going to self-host my course using Teachable and run Facebook ads to get students to join a free webinar where I can share some great design tips and invite them to enroll in a paid course. The hope is this new method will allow me to increase my course value and earn $90 per student, and it will allow me to stand out above the hundreds of Udemy instructors in my industry. You can check out my website AppDesignTips.com for the latest updates on what's going on, and until next time, keep on side hustling.

[Music]

Awesome, congratulations Caleb, and thank you for sharing as well. I believe Caleb is from Salt Lake City, and here he's talking about this, what can be a logical transition from making online courses and hosting them with another platform, like Udemy in his case, to doing it yourself. And the time to do this is once you've had some experience and you feel confident about the ability to bring in your own students, okay? Because the advantage that platforms like Udemy provide is the existing audience. This is no small benefit.

Like they have a very wide, large audience. If they get behind a particular course, they can definitely bring you a lot of sales. Now on the downside, your royalty, for selling a course on Udemy or a similar platform, is gonna be much, much, much lower than if you sell them yourself, usually. So in Caleb's case, because he's been building his own brand, his own audience, for a while, making that transition, he's able to earn $90 a student instead of $10 a student. So $90 is usually better than 10.

Bonus lesson for you there. You can follow along with Caleb at AppDesignTips.com. [Music]

All right, if you have a question or comment for the show, which by the way, this might relate a little bit to that announcement I've got coming up in a couple weeks, but I don't want you to get ahead of things. Just call the Hustle Hotline, leave me a message, 844-9 Hustle, 844-948-7853. You can also write us a podcast at sidehustleschool.com.

All right, excited to bring you more episodes soon. Got something coming up about woodworks, something about cartography, something about color. Maybe even something about rabbits. Okay, we haven't done rabbits in a while. Look forward to working on that.

And before I sign off for the week, I want to say thank you. First of all to you, our listener. You're the reason I make this show, 1,051 days and counting. If you make the commitment to make this part of your routine, I'm going to be here. Got all these archives are completely free.

You can listen at any time. You can come to the website and download them in bulk. You can also go to Spotify, Apple Podcast, Stitcher, wherever you like to listen to podcasts. I want to say thanks as well to our producer, Chuck Reed, Community Liaison, Jed Chang, content manager, Tina Hart, and the official show cat, Libby Dillebo. All of us here at team sideusselschool are part of the Onward Project.

That is founded, led, curated by bestselling author, Gretchen Rubin. Check out her show, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, as well as Happier in Hollywood and Do the Thing. This collection of podcasts is all completely free and listener supported. If you're enjoying them, especially this one, since you're listening, but you know, all the others too, I would be very grateful if you'd leave a quick rating in Apple Podcasts, only takes a second and it helps other people discover the show. Also, if you know somebody who should be listening, let's even say if you know somebody who needs another source of income, send them to us, we'll do our best to take care of them.

All right, I hope you'll join me tomorrow and every day next week for more stories and actionable ideas. Consider this a short daily investment in yourself. Episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern time. My name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School.

[Music]

From the Onward Project.