This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, hey everyone, what's up? Welcome to Sada School and welcome as well to Throwback Thursday, our segment, which I also call Where Are They Now? I never could decide which title was better, so I went with both of them. Throwback Thursday, Where Are They Now? Where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved considerably since we first featured them.
We have more than 1280 episodes in our archives, including more than 1100 stories, I believe, of people all over the world doing all kinds of really interesting stuff. I mean, that's what it's all about, people creating freedom for themselves through the form of an income generating project without going into debt, using a skill they already have, being willing to step out, try something different, and then regroup, adjust as they go along. I love these features because it often looks at how people are adjusting, regrouping, changing it up as they go along. So far in these features, we have had an Australian woman who draws houses, a New York City musician with a blog teaching jazz that becomes a multiple six-figure business, and many more. Now, today in our latest feature, we'll hear from a man who specializes in naming businesses.
That is his whole business. I mean, he does other stuff too, but like his specialization is naming businesses. If you've got an idea and you're like, "I'm not sure what my business name should be," well, that's kind of what he does. He started out actually selling jokes for $5 each on Fiverr, but he's come a long way since then. And before we jump into his update, I wanted to mention a resource that he refers to, in case you're not familiar with it.
What he refers to is called Envato, which describes itself as a marketplace for digital assets, such as code scripts, audio files, stock photos or videos, and even things like 3D models. So if you make any kind of digital assets, such as one of those categories or maybe some others, you can go and list those assets for sale there. And this reminds me a bit of Creative Marketplace, another platform that does something similar, which we haven't looked at in a while, but could be helpful for someone out there. So if you make digital assets, the new resource mentioned here today is Envato, E-N-V-A-T-O.com, or go to author.envato.com to see the page that focuses more on selling. If you just go to the homepage, it's more focused on buyers, which is how it should be.
So anyway, what's happened since? We're gonna hear from Dion directly, and I will come back at the end to wrap us up. [Music]
I'm Dion Link from episode five, 21, and my superpower or my side hustle is that I name things nameless. I'm currently in Toronto, Canada, but I'm between Washington, DC also. Back in 2008, I started to look at the internet to figure out how everybody was blogging and doing different affiliate marketing and cool things to earn money.
And I did a couple of things, launched a couple of blogs, got some affiliate income and some AdSense money. And then I just, you know, I started to dig deeper into my interests in this site named Fiverr came onto the scene. And before offering graphic design, I actually started off telling like jokes because I wasn't as confident, you know, as I am now with design, especially, but I started offering jokes for $5 a pop. And, you know, testing that out, I said, let me just give design a shot. And then it morphed into something else, which is, you know, what I'm currently known for.
And that's naming things all across the globe. I'm learning a lot. I remember telling Chris, when I saw Chris in Toronto, actually at his side hustle school book signing, and we talked about just learning more. And that's what I'm doing a lot of now, especially with, you know, the restrictions on our travel and movement. Just learning more about, you know, investing in the things that can help me scale a course or scale, you know, all the knowledge that I've accumulated over the last decade.
So I'm working on quite a few products where, you know, I can teach and share this story. A big thing is the time that I want to spend learning and creating courses and creating themes. I create themes at Envato, and I'm working on the theme, the one theme that'll turn me there into what Fiverr has turned me into. So I'm just spending time on passion projects. That's a challenge.
People need me, and I'm available. I don't close my doors because I walk around with my phone naming stuff or, you know, texting people. And, you know, when I have my laptop, you know, it gets even more dangerous. So it's just the time that I can spend working on passion projects and those kind of things. So we're in 2020 facing a global pandemic and lockdowns, but even in this space, I'm fortunate to still be optimistic that you can continue to build and think and be creative and offer something to the world.
Everybody doesn't have the same ability, but, you know, if you have something, do it until the cows come home, because this environment is no reason that you should be able to continually live out your dreams, but you can, even in this nebulous space where things are hard and we don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. But what I started 10 years ago remains today, and that, for me, has been a very powerful omen for what lies ahead. So just continue to believe and push through. These circumstances are pretty much as difficult as we've experienced in our lifetime. So just take it from me, keep going, keep pushing, and be fierce and unstoppable.
[Music]
Awesome, thank you so much, Dion. Now listeners, Dion is a classic hustler in the sense that he just works really hard in the experiments. I liked his original episode. You might want to go and listen to it. It's 521, so that's always, you know, sidehustleschool.com/521, 521.
Because, you know, he really did make $100,000, you know, using this $5 platform, which, you know, I've mentioned before, Fiverr is no longer just for $5 services, but Dion did a lot of different stuff. And over time, he began specializing in this skill or this art of naming businesses or naming ideas. If you've got a product, you're not sure what to call it. He's really good at doing a lot of research. He's got a process for it.
And that's one of the main ways he ended up doing well, but he also does a bunch of other things too. And now he's continuing to experiment with this new platform in Vado that I mentioned at the top, envato.com. So I respect the hustle, good work, man. And listeners, we'll be doing these segments throughout the rest of the year. They've been very popular, so just let me know who you'd like to see featured from our archives of more than 1,000 stories.
2020 is our year of interaction. If you've got a question or an update, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1286. Thank you so much. Keep fighting the good fight, much more is on the way.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
