Teen Funds Dance Intensives Through Online Store

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

[Music]

Greetings and welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. A quick reminder that in 2020, if you've been listening for a while, we're gonna make a format change for 2020. We're gonna do some live coaching and updates from listeners working on their projects throughout the year. It's the year of interaction.

I'm excited to bring it to you. And as part of that, I would love to feature some younger hustlers. All right, so if that is you, or if you have somebody in your household who is starting early on the road to self-reliance, let me know. It's one of my favorite things to feature teenage side hustlers, sometimes even younger than that. So if that's you, send a note to team@sidehustleschool.com.

That's team, T-E-A-M @sidehustleschool.com. And let us know what you're working on. If you have a website already, include a link so we can take a look. So why do I mention this now? Well, I was inspired by working on today's story.

It's all about a teenager who designs and sells his own t-shirts, among other things. He does this initially to fund his interest in dance, bringing in $8,000 a year while attending middle school. He's a bit of a Renaissance soul. So I'll tell you about him and how he made this happen right after this message from our sponsor. [Music]

It was 2014 and seven-year-old Hobbs Waters just couldn't find a hobby that fit quite right.

He'd been trying to play basketball, but it wasn't for him. His mom, AJ, suggested football or maybe soccer, but Hobbs rejected both. He loved spending his free time drawing and painting. And AJ wanted him to also find something that would connect him with other kids. They were living in New Orleans at the time, and AJ mostly had college friends who didn't have kids.

They were missing a larger community and sense of belonging. Later that year, AJ happened to see that there was a ballet class taking place close to their home. She asked Hobbs if he was interested, and he agreed to try it. That class made quite the impression. He was lit up for several days afterwards.

Soon, he was taking two ballet classes a week. Hobbs had found his people. In 2016, the family moved to Portland, Oregon. Shortly thereafter, Hobbs had the opportunity to attend a seven-week-long dance intensive over the summer. He loved the in-depth training and immediately started looking for more opportunities to improve his new skills.

The only problem was that dance intensives are expensive. AJ knew it wouldn't be realistic to keep paying for those and his regular dance classes. However, around the same time, Autumn, a friend of the family's, noticed Hobbs' artwork. Autumn was a talented ceramist and thought Hobbs could be successful selling his work. Intrigued, it didn't take long for both of them, Hobbs and AJ, to jump on board with the idea.

To start, they decided he would sell his artwork printed on a few items, such as T-shirts, mugs, and tote bags. They created an online store, which they called CityTroll, and started working on some prototypes. Hobbs attended a screen printing class and got help from a graphic designer to soup up the new website. His first customers came from AJ's friend group, which they nicknamed Anti Nation. The women came together to both buy his products, but also to spread the word.

Now, at the same time, to be clear, this wasn't just a friends and family effort. Hobbs started hustling. He talked to people in the community and posted on social media. Slowly, the spirit of customers buying his work began to grow. To increase his entrepreneurial knowledge, Hobbs read Start With Why by Simon Sinek.

Simon's actually a good friend of mine, shout out Simon. He also went to several workshops, talks, and seminars. This has allowed him to network and build a community of support. After each workshop he attended, he increased the number of people around him, providing him advice, pointers, and help. Now, over the last three years, since beginning at that very young age, the city troll hustle has grown into a real business.

T-shirts on his website cost around $35, while hoodies run about $55. Many of his designs focus on black empowerment and include phrases like black artists matter. He also sells shirts with drawings of animals on them, including elephants, flamingos, and rams. AJ has a background in marketing and development, which has been beneficial for Hobbs, but he's the one who does the social media and writes the press releases. As AJ describes it, she gathers the resources and knowledge, but Hobbs does 90% of the work.

So what kind of outcome are we looking at? Well, city troll now brings in about $8,000 a year, which is going a long way to helping him fund his dance career. It's also been quite a learning experience. Young Hobbs is now juggling that dance career and his side hustle, not to mention the day job of going to school. And while most people have been supportive, AJ said they were recently told by a local business owner that kids' products are just not a good fit for the Portland market.

Thankfully, the recent sales numbers are proving that to be incorrect. Thanks to the profits from city troll, Hobbs is dancing all the time. He's performing as the lead role in "The Nightmare Before Christmas" at the World Trade Center in downtown Portland. And that's not all. Hobbs is really trying to double down on his business for next year.

He's starting to get wholesale orders and has plans to keep growing city troll. [Music]

Well, as I said in the intro, Hobbs is a bit of a Renaissance soul. I was looking at his Instagram and the website. This experience has led him to begin a number of other projects as well. So in addition to the art he does, the dance and the t-shirt business, he's also an amateur musician, among other things.

He's also giving talks about the business, among other things. So to me, this points to a principle that I like to highlight from time to time, which is that experience produces confidence. Your experience brings you new ideas, it expands your vision. So the sooner you get started, the better. If there is a young side hustler in your life, encourage them, give them resources, show them examples, basically follow the model that AJ has set here, but let them do the actual work as much as possible.

All right, that's my encouragement for you. Thanks so much to Hobbs and AJ. We will link up CityTroll in the show notes. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Those notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1084, 1084.

That is of course for episode 1,084. I will be back tomorrow with another one and I hope you will join me. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.