This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What's up, hello, greetings. Happy holidays. We have just finished week number 51 of season three. The final countdown continues. There are only eight more shopping days.
Wait a second, not shopping days, episodes. There are only eight more episodes until the new year. 2020, everything's gonna change. We're calling it the year of interaction. Can't wait to share it with you.
Also, for everyone ready to get past the holiday craziness, my favorite holiday, Return to Sanity, is just around the corner. Can't wait, literally counting those days. Now, this week on the show, because you know, the show goes on, this week featured musicians who produce classical music concerts for families with young children, a style blog for men of modest height, and more. It got me thinking about this topic I will call passion, the ideal market, and business skills. Now, what do I mean by this trifecta?
Well, let us explore it briefly. I think it has an important lesson for someone out there. So, passion, ideal market, business skills. That episode on Monday about the two musicians in New York City producing classical music concerts for families with young kids, this is a good little jumping off point for us because here you have a blend of passion and market fit, which I know I've talked about before. What I wanna throw in here is this basic concept of learning some pretty basic business skills.
So, think of these things as being connected, these three elements. You got your passion, the thing that you're excited about, that leads to a market fit, something that people want, a true market desire, and then you improve, you tweak, you optimize, you do all kinds of stuff to review and regroup. So, it's all connected, but just imagine if any of these elements aren't present. Short version is you're gonna have a mismatch of some kind. Now, I know I've talked before about the necessity of both passion and market fit.
That's pretty basic, but it's also really important. You can't just be passionate about something, you have to be passionate about something other people are passionate about. It has to truly be this gap in the marketplace, there has to be a need that you're meeting, a solution you're providing. It's not just about you and your passion, it's about other people's interests as well. So, we've talked about that.
But what I wanted to highlight here was how you can X factor those things, those two elements with the right business skills, which are not difficult to learn. This is what I'm trying to teach people through side hustle school, is first of all how to generate valuable ideas, and then how to make those ideas happen. And often there are multiple ways that you can bring an idea to life. And one way might be just fine, and there's nothing wrong with just fine, okay? But the other way is gonna really like next level it, as I said, X factor it.
So, a couple of examples, those music teachers went from passion to market and then improved. Was it enough to just be excited about something that other people wanted? It could have been, but I don't think it would have grown the way it has, the way it is growing, the way it's really taking off and becoming sustainable without paying attention to data, without really thinking through human resources, or bringing on other performers and so on. Maybe an even better example is from episode 1017, 1017, newlyweds operate campground booking biz from RV. It's essentially about a young couple, Heath and Alyssa, who are really into RVing.
And they're like driving their RV around the country, they're camping, and they've encountered this problem with campgrounds. And that you have to actually like show up at a campground to see if there is a space for you. It's really difficult to find out ahead of time. So, they go of course and create the solution for that. And at first it works okay.
Like it works okay, but it's kind of a manual process, and they're charging campgrounds or campsites to be listed. And again, it's fine. It's working, they're making a small amount of money. What happened was they found a way to tweak it to where they're actually charging the end users, people who actually make the reservations. They were then able to list a lot more campsites on the app.
It became much more of a business. And now instead of just doing fine, it is doing tremendously. Like I forget the exact numbers, but I think it's multiple tens of thousands of dollars a month, maybe even during peak months, a hundred thousand dollars in bookings. This is not just a side hustle, but it's one of those things that's creating true financial freedom and independence for them for the rest of their lives potentially. So, here you can see passion, market fit, like something they were excited about.
There's definitely a market for it. But then as they analyzed and optimized and grew, they were able to make these decisions that took them to the next level. Because they really looked at the analytics, they thought about a different way to offer their service. They thought about how they were trying to serve people, the different markets and groups. You've got the campsite owners, then you've got the actual end users.
All this stuff is not that hard to learn. It's what I write about like in the side hustle book. It's what we're talking about every day and different examples in ideas and implementation plans. But if you pay attention to it and spend just a little bit of time on it, it can really be worth it, okay? Passion, ideal market, and business skills.
Now, speaking of applying those skills, here we go, it's a good segue, it actually fits. Speaking of applying these skills, gonna go on to the audio update and hear about someone who has done just that. This one features Karen in New Zealand. So she's gonna tell us about her digital paintbrush business, which was going quite well. We first featured it way back on episode 457, I believe.
But now it's doing even better. We've got several lessons from her, but first a message from our sponsor and then we'll hear from Karen. And I've got some comments on that as well. [Music]
Hello, side hustlers. This is Karen, the kiwi coder from New Zealand, who has a little iPad-lettering side hustle.
I was lucky enough to be featured on episode 457. And when Chris asked me to give you guys an update and I look back at what happened since then, I was really surprised. So I really try and keep it short. So first, Instagram. I managed to double my followers count from around 150,000 back then to over 300,000 now.
This is mainly thanks to keeping up with my consistent posting schedule and adding videos that people really seem to like. Then of course, I've also continued making new brushes. I've now got about 180 different products in my shop, some of which I'm selling on behalf of my lettering friends. Talking about the shop, I've completely redone my website and migrated it from Adobe Business Catalyst to the big commerce platform. It's not free anymore, but it has made a huge difference to the look and feel of my brand and the management of customers and orders.
It also integrates with all the analytics and marketing platforms, which is super convenient. Now, the biggest update or advice is probably that this is still my side hustle. Yes, it could be a full-time gig by now, but I'm so glad that it's not. Earlier this year, I had a family emergency to take care of, which means I had to put iPad lettering on hold almost completely for a couple of months. I lost a lot of Instagram followers and my sales dried up.
It was a very, very stressful time, and it took almost six months to get back to where I was. But thanks to still having a full-time job, I didn't have to worry about paying bills or the mortgage, which made a huge difference in my mind. So if you're someone who worries about cashflow a lot, really consider whether or not you want to give up your full-time job. And now what's next? I'm just about to film my fourth online course, together with my friend Amanda O'Neill, which is super exciting.
I've now had over 2,000 students take my online courses. I've got 15,000 people subscribe to my YouTube channel. And this is probably where I see most of the growth of my little side hustle coming from in the future. [Music]
Awesome, congratulations, Karen, and thank you so much for sharing those details. I thought this was a pretty cool business when we first featured it way back on episode 457.
I think the title then was Kiwi Coder Makes Extra $50,000 a Year From Digital Paint Brushes, which I still kind of like, wait a second, how does that work? But yes, she actually is selling digital items that are kind of accessories or tools that you use with the iPad for those that are doing art or design or painting on the iPad. And so she's essentially creating products, which the inventory is pretty easy to keep, right? Because it's just on a website. It's just a downloadable file.
And as you heard, she now has 180 of these products, hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers. It's really is a whole community, as you can see from looking at the hashtag iPad lettering. And I think that last part kind of speaks for itself about how she said, this could be a full-time gig now, but I'm so glad that it's not. People start side hustles for all kinds of reasons. And in that situation, she had to take a break from it for a while.
Now, fortunately, she's able to get back to it and kind of pick up where she left off. And as you heard, she's working on courses and so on. So just a really fun project. And I love everything about this world because there's just so many things you can learn. Go check out what Karen is doing at ipadlettering.com or just check that hashtag on Instagram, #ipadlettering.
You can see all sorts of applications of the work that she has created. [Music]
Coming up soon in just those eight shopping days, we're gonna be adjusting our format a little bit because we wanna apply some tweaks and improvements as well. As we enter that year of interaction, if you have a question you'd like to ask, which we're gonna be featuring many of these on the program every single week, just go to sidehustleschool.com/questions. You can also just go to the website and then click a link at the top. I think it says something like Ask Chris.
That's me, by the way, you're gonna ask me a question and I'm gonna answer it on the show. We will also be featuring many more community projects, listeners out there from all over the world who are starting their projects. We're gonna follow them in real time as they go up from January to December. So it's gonna be a lot of fun and I hope you'll join me. Be sure to invite your friends as well.
I often say if you know somebody out there who needs more than one source of income, but they might not read a business book, they might be getting the wrong information from somebody, they might be watching a popular TV show and think, "Oh, this is what entrepreneurship is." And that's just one form of entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, every single day I'm telling you about people who don't need investors, who don't need to go into debt. They've just got an idea and they find a way to make it happen, even though they already have a job, even though they've got lots of other responsibilities. That is what we are all about here on "Side Hustle School." So, before I close things out, I just wanna say thank you. First of all to you, our listener, for making this community what it is.
You're the reason I make this show every day. It's not just me, I wanna thank as well our producer, Chuck Reed, community liaison, my "Side Hustle" sidekick, Jed Chang, content manager, Tina Hart, and the official show cat, Libby Guillipo. Together, we're all part of the Onward Project, which is curated by bestselling author Gretchen Rubin. Check out her show, "Happier." There's also "Happier in Hollywood," and a program from Melissa Urban called "Do the Thing." I often say inspiration is good, but action's better. It's 'cause it's my hope that you will take action.
I wanna feature your story here, perhaps, next year. Coming up soon, okay. Consider this a short daily investment in yourself. Just 10 minutes a day. Our episodes go online at 6.01 a.m. Eastern Time.
Do come back next week and beyond. My name is Chris Guillebeau for "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
