This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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What's up, Cytosol School, Chris Guillebeau here. I am celebrating the launch of "The Money Tree" all week long. It's my brand new book, a story about finding the fortune in your own backyard. A number of people have asked me if there is an audio version. Yes, there is.
I did record it myself. So that is available on Audible or wherever else you get your audio books. There's also a Kindle version as well as other digital formats. And of course, you know, good old print. So go check it out, moneytreebook.com or of course Amazon or your local bookstore.
Now here on the program, welcome to Throwback Thursday. It is Throwback Thursday slash where are they now? Where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved considerably since we first featured them. Last week's segment was about a graphic designer who creates a watercolor brand that is sold in retailers throughout South Carolina and beyond. Today, in our latest feature, we'll hear from Nicole, a professional beekeeper.
That is a beekeeper, not a bookkeeper, professional beekeeper who was initially a side hustling beekeeper. This wasn't her childhood aspiration from a young age. It's something she stumbled upon later. And she comes to us from Houston, Texas. Now it's been more than two years since we featured her.
What's happened since? She's got some advice on partnerships and mentoring. So let's hear directly from her. I'll come back at the end to wrap us up. But hey, Nicole, show us the honey.
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My name is Nicole Burgess. I'm from Houston, Texas. And my side hustle is B2B Honey Collective. I was featured on episode 104. B2B Honey Collective is a business that provides beekeeper education through presentations, classes, mentorship, as well as hyper-local honey by neighborhood.
I was a backyard beekeeper. I started my business because I found that a lot of people needed help getting started beekeeping and just needed someone there to hold their hand through buying the equipment and getting started with the stewardship of their bees. And I also found that there were a lot of beekeepers in Houston and a lot of people wanting local honey, but not one way to connect one to the other. So I started a website where I feature different neighborhoods honey. Since I was featured on Side Hustle School, my business has grown tremendously.
I now am a featured vendor at one of the best farmer's markets here in Houston. So I am there every week, which has increased my revenue. I now have employees, which is a big deal. I have right now three part-timers that help me looking for more people, and I have a business space. So I have rented the, I live in a duplex.
I've rented the downstairs of where I live, which I can hold classes at and do a lot of my operations out of. So I've moved the business out of my home, but just downstairs, it's a big deal. My biggest current challenge would be finding talent. I am only one beekeeper and having a beekeeper with the level of knowledge I have to help me has been hard to find. The goal with the B2B Honey Collective was to mentor people so they could get to my level and then help me as I expanded.
And I find that it's been hard to kind of wean people off of my surfaces. They really enjoy having me there. And my challenge is here is to make my mentees self-sufficient and then hopefully able to help me going forward. In order to do that, what I'm doing is I'm now offering more intermediate level courses and level of just hands-on. I'm kind of taking a step back and saying, "Okay, now it's your turn.
You're gonna do the work today and I'm gonna be here and guide you and be more hands-on." Which I think I'm maybe a little bit of a kind of control freak or like a mothering sort where I'm wanting to do the work and help someone do the work. And I end up doing it for them. So I'm really taking a step back this year and allowing the members to really learn by doing. I get contacted all the time from people who want to start this in their own communities and I definitely encourage them to do so. There are a lot of different methods that beekeepers can take.
But the first thing I would do would be to first find a partner to help would be very helpful. You have strengths that perhaps another person doesn't have. Maybe they're very good at the communication and scheduling and you're better with the bees or vice versa, handling books, whatever it may be. I also would recommend that if they have the resources to have their own apiary that people can come to them and learn versus having to go to the person's hive to teach them, it's much easier for them to come to you where you have all your equipment at hand and you're not driving around all day like I do. So if I had to do it all differently, again, I might do it that way.
And I would recommend someone starting maybe with a different structure, yeah. - Thank you so much, Nicole. Now, as I have mentioned a couple of times, partnerships are not always a good idea. Just wanna pick up on some of those last points that she mentioned. We have a Q&A episode coming up about this very topic next week.
But in short, the right time to do it is when you have those complimentary skills like Nicole mentioned. If there's something that you really lack but somebody else has, that might be a good time perhaps to look at a partnership, but it's also okay and might in fact be better to do it on your own and just find a way to compensate for that weakness without entering a formal partnership. [Music]
I actually got to visit an apiary last year in Portland. Apiary is like where bees hang out. Fun fact, new word.
I got to visit one of those places in Portland. It was up on the roof and they have all these different, well, I don't even know what they're called, like little homes for bees. I guess you just call that itself the apiary but there were lots of little boxes and buckets. I even put on a bee suit to do some filming. It was just one of the high points in my surreal life and I don't think I want to join the hive.
I got enough things going on but I enjoyed learning more about the life of bees. So 2020 is our year of interaction. If you have a question, if you'd like to update us about your side hustle, if you want to become a beekeeper, you can receive a free starter kit of bees whenever you order 1,000 copies of the money tree. If you order 1,000 copies, I promise I will find a way to get you a free starter kit of bees. For all those things or, you know, just to ask a question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions.
We'll continue to feature them throughout the year. Today's show notes, specifically with Linkston, Nicole, anything else we mentioned are at sidehustleschool.com/1195, 1-1-9-5. All right, I'm gonna buzz off. I got stuff to do for my book launch but I will be back tomorrow. Thank you so much for listening.
You're a rock star. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
