This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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What's up friends, listeners, side hustle school community. So glad you're out there. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Here we are in the month of September, September 2020 for those in real time. Wow, well, I don't even know what to say about the beginning of another month moving into another season, also known as fall or autumn in the Northern hemisphere.
I'd also like to welcome you to Throwback Thursday, our segment, "Where Are They Now?" Where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved quite a bit since we first featured them. Had some really great features this year. It's actually been one of my favorite segments. I hope that you have enjoyed it as well. If you're new, welcome.
Last week, we heard from Kayla Pipkow, the graphic designer for dogs, who's now grown into a full fledged agency, retrieving clients from other industries. She is in fact barking up the right tree. Two weeks ago, we heard from a couple that does faux taxidermy. And of course, many other features since we started in January. Today in our latest, we'll hear from Willem in Amsterdam.
Willem is the co-founder of a mega popular board game designed to inspire conversations. The title of his original episode back in the day, I think it was, what was it? Episode 437, "Four friends create conversations, earn $400,000 in eight months." Pretty good return on investment there. But what's happened since? Well, a lot of things, including an even more aggressive expansion, a change in model to provide online options for this previously offline game.
And of course, the coronavirus, the novel coronavirus known as, well, you know what it's called, I don't need to tell you. Let's hear directly from Willem and I'll come back at the end to wrap us up. [Music]
Hi, my name is Willem Jeff Beckman. I'm located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. And the name of my side hustle is Pertellus.
And I was last featured on episode 437. Pertellus is all about creating connections between friends and family, and also making people kind of reflect on their own lives. Effectively, what we wanted to do is just make sure people take a moment in time to really stand still with the relationships that they have in their lives. So I got started with two friends who had a nice idea for themselves. You know, they just wanted to do something fun with their family, and they noticed that it just really blew all expectations out of the water.
Another friend then said, like, "Hey, you know, this is cool, you should give it a shot. Now let's see if this is something that other people enjoy as well." And that really hit it. And then they realized that this is something that, you know, this could also really be very successful in the U.S. or, you know, all over the world, because people are just craving, you know, more and honest connections. And that's when I got involved to bring it to the U.S. as well.
This has really become a main hustle and like a real job at this point. You know, like we currently employ 25 people, some of the franchisers. And before this, I was doing the career thing in a Fortune 500 company. I think one of the quotes that has always stuck with me the most is that the biggest threat to like the great life is a good life, you know? And I was definitely having a good life, right?
Like I had the sort of like the perfect thing that you can imagine. Like I said, I was making a career, you know, decent money, you know, got my two weeks of vacation, a boss that, you know, appreciated me. So like everything was pretty good, but like there's, there was always like this thing like in the background, right? It was just missing, not quite there. So that's what made it a relatively easy decision for me to leave that behind and go forward with this.
The other biggest thing that we probably have done, and that's something that we've actually done at the beginning of this year, late last year, beginning of this year, is that we've moved to online as well. It's obvious to me right now that we can use technology to actually connect with one another. So I think now that we're being forced to, you know, I hope that's something that can stick and that we can really see like the value of technology on our relationships. We've seen a spike in our Mindfulness Journal because, you know, people are really getting into like being retrospective, you know, really looking at what it is that they're doing in their life. Are they on their path?
You know, do they personally agree with it, right? Not something that is just given by society or that they feel like they have to do, but really like understanding of, you know, what it is that they're doing, what they're on, and then really having a positive mindset about that as well. You know, looking at the positive things and the small wins in a day, as opposed to the, you know, all the crazy stuff that happens. In this new world, right? Like, I think there is just a really cool opportunity for like a lot of new businesses to kind of spring up and find like how we are going to have those real connections online.
Facebook is not going to cut it, right? At the end of the day, they're just an advertising platform. That's just, you know, the simple it is. Instagram, perhaps a little bit better, but there's going to be new and different ways that people want to connect because that's something that we will continue to want to do. And the life will just look a little bit different after Corona, you know, whether that's because the government will continue to put up restrictions or because people are just anxious, you know, about the potential consequences of getting sick.
Well, 2020, I mean, what can we say about 2020? It has been a weird year in so many ways. It's not surprising that people are asking those questions of themselves that Willem mentioned. I think this is a great time to actually take stock of your life. Whenever the world is kind of turned upside down, I've been suggesting this and trying to do this myself, you know, ever since all this kind of stuff started.
So asking these questions, are you on the right path? You know, not the path that society necessarily dictates for you, but the one that is right for you. It's always a great time to create positive change in your life. And so I also really liked what Willem said. This was kind of my takeaway.
He said, don't let a good life keep you from the great life. And that's why he ended up making a big change in his life. Don't let a good life keep you from the great life. I think somebody out there needs to hear this. You know, if you have a good life right now, that's cool, but is there a great life that's kind of, you know, just waiting behind some sort of change in direction that you need to make?
So I'm grateful to him. Thanks Willem and the team over there at Vertellus for helping us with this segment. We'll be doing these new segments throughout the rest of the year. 2020 is our year of interaction in addition to the year of strangeness. So if you have a question, if you would like to update us about your side hustle, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions and to inspire meaningful conversations.
If you want to check out Willem's project, just go to Vertellus.com. Now Vertellus, I think that is a Dutch word. It is spelled V-E-R-T-E-L-L-I-S, Vertellus.com. Of course, we will link it up on the show notes page as well. There is, as he mentioned in the update, now an online mode or an online community for them.
So lots of good stuff, more to come. Thank you so much for listening. Those notes for today are at sidehustleschool.com/1342. One, three, four, two. My name is Chris Guillebeau and you are listening to Side Hustle School.
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