This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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When a young sushi chef questions the environmental impact of his beloved food, he undertakes a journey to learn about sustainable sushi. His online videos now reach hundreds of thousands of viewers, and this YouTube channel, and there's more to it, it's a whole empire, it's called Secrets of Sushi. Now, I said it's an empire, but actually it's on its way to becoming an empire, let's say, because it's bringing in some passive income, which is good, but for the past couple of years, this young sushi chef's focus has been live events. Well, I had to practice that, young sushi chef, just try to say that. This job is harder than it sounds, I promise.
He's now trying to transition to digital, which we'll look at a bit in the story, and also in my comments afterwards. So welcome to Side Hustle School. If you are new, my name is Chris Guillebeau. Every day for the past 1,325 days, well, 26 if you count today, I have been telling stories of real people out there who are finding ways to create financial independence. This year is our year of interaction, so we're doing lots of question and answers with listeners.
A few throwback episodes every Thursday to kind of go back to one of our earlier episodes and see what has happened since. But ultimately, everything I do here is all about helping you, even if you're busy, even if you have a day job, find a way to make some extra income, okay, because extra income gives you more options for your future, allows you to do more of what's important to you. All right, that's my soapbox. Let's focus on Secrets of Sushi. Secrets of Sushi YouTube channel serves hungry fans.
That story's coming up after this message from our sponsor. [Music]
Brian Succane has been rolling sushi for over a decade, but after learning more about the environmental impact of his industry, he took a step back, did some soul searching, and then returned to the craft with a fresh commitment to sustainability. A full-time web administrator by day, Brian has developed ways to share his passions for sushi and environmental responsibility through his website, YouTube channel, and live sushi classes. But let's back up to 2008, when Brian walked into a sushi bar in Oklahoma, one that wasn't even hiring, and asked if they needed a chef. He didn't have any professional experience, but he was familiar with the rolling process and some Japanese terms from his childhood.
He and his family used to make sushi at home. As chance would have it, the restaurant hired him, although not as a sushi chef. Brian worked for months in the back kitchen, washing dishes and making rice, before he was allowed to handle the fish and roll sushi for customers. But he stuck with it, got promoted, and soon some of his regulars asked if he would help them throw private sushi parties, and Brian obliged. It wasn't long before he was rolling out the rice and nori for friends, those regular customers, and even a few catering events through the restaurant.
Brian was already environmentally conscious, but it wasn't until he first heard the term sustainable sushi that he began to consider the impact of the sushi industry on our oceans. And the more he researched, the worse he felt for unknowingly contributing to environmental damage. He thought about giving up, and for a while he actually did. He quit working at sushi restaurants and put his IT degree to use at a software development company. But after a year and a half, he could no longer stand being away from sushi.
The calling was real. He wanted to find a new way to share his knowledge, just in a more sustainable way. Brian invested $100 in making a website where he could publish articles and teach people about ethical sushi and create some income on the side, of course. Revenue started to trickle in through display ads, but writing articles wasn't enough. He needed to teach people in a different way.
So he began offering live training events. He started off charging $10 for tickets and gradually increased that to $55 per person. His message still wasn't getting enough traction. So Brian overcame his fear of being on camera and put about $600 toward launching a YouTube channel, Secrets of Sushi. Dun, dun, dun.
Some of these videos are incredibly popular with hundreds of thousands of views. And about nine months in, he got an email from Venmo. He didn't even know what Venmo was at the time, but the company had found him through his website and wanted to bring him to New York to teach their interns how to make sushi. They flew him out, bought all new equipment for the class, and paid for everything. It was the first high-paying gig for his sushi business, and he was ecstatic.
Afterwards, Brian started to think that his side hustle could turn into something more. Now, at this point, his day job was in the oil and gas industry, which only increased his guilt at contributing to ocean pollution. To atone, he committed to making his side hustle full-time, or at least viable for full-time work. But before he could do that, he was laid off. Brian panicked at first, but he remembered that first big gig in New York City and how well the sushi class went.
So he picked up the phone and called his old boss at the restaurant he'd trained at. He asked if she would be open to him teaching a sushi class out of her restaurant. When she said yes, he invested $500 in getting all the materials he would need. He advertised on social media and sold tickets through Eventbrite. Within a week, all eight tickets had sold, and he made his initial investment back, plus $300 in profit.
These days, he's still working to develop his sushi hustle. By night, he focuses on an online course. That course has earned $4,000 in the past, but needs to be updated. Plus, he is creating more YouTube videos. His sushi classes earn up to $2,000 a month, depending on the season.
But as of summer 2020, Brian hasn't been able to teach any live classes for several months, for, you know, obvious reasons. He plans to start teaching online before the end of the year, something he wishes he'd started sooner. However, like any good sushi chef, he is rolling with it, and his web content is still bringing in about $400 in passive income each month. [Music]
All right, so what can we learn from this episode, and what do we think Brian might be able to do a little bit better? First of all, I think he's doing a lot of things right.
I really love the name, Secrets of Sushi, very memorable. If you search on YouTube, you're like, where do I find, oh, Secrets of Sushi, there he is. He also has the website, secretsofsushi.com. Now, I think he actually does a better job with his YouTube than he does with his website, which is okay, because like I said, he's getting hundreds of thousands of views on some of these videos. But a lot of the videos that have been the most popular are more archival, like he made them a number of years ago.
And so my suggestion would be to make some more videos, basically, because he's clearly got this active subscriber base, and then also he probably does well with YouTube search, just because he has those videos that have done so well before in the past. So more videos, I would suggest. Video is the ideal format for a topic like this. It's hard to communicate sushi prep exclusively through blog posts. But speaking of the blog, I think the website is pretty cluttered and it needs some updating.
I think there actually could be a lot of information there, especially in terms of gently nudging people toward the course, for example. But it's really cluttered with a bunch of ads that aren't really contextually related to the topic. And it's not totally clear what he wants visitors to do. I think that's always the most important thing to think about for your website. What do you want visitors to do?
If somebody comes to your site with an open mind, they're like, "Oh, this is interesting." What action do you want them to take? I think the more clarity you have toward that goal, the more successful you're gonna be, the higher your conversion rate, the better user experience they're gonna have. So a good time will be had by all if you think about what do you want visitors to do when they come to your site. But be sure to download his free guide, The Essential Equipment to Make Sushi at Home. It is, of course, at secretsofsushi.com.
I will link up anything else I mentioned in this episode on our notes page. Today, that page is sidehustleschool.com/1326. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Good work, Brian, and good work, listeners. I hope you do something today to get closer to that goal of financial freedom, that goal of more options, more security.
This side hustle, whatever you wanna call it, doesn't really matter. Ultimately, it's about investing in yourself. Okay, that's all from me today. Be sure you subscribe. Much more is coming up.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
