This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hey, hey, what's up? I wanna begin today with a shout out to everybody in the military. Shout out to everyone in the military. Thank you for your service. Now I am American, so of course I'm thinking of the American armed forces, but I realize that we have listeners from lots of different countries.
So I should also mention our allies in military service, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Germany, elsewhere. Anybody else in NATO? I don't know, I'm probably gonna forget somebody, but wherever you are, thank you for that. My brother was in the army for a number of years, served in Afghanistan and Iraq. So I'm always grateful for those who've had that experience.
Now I hear from a lot of folks in the service. There's a reason why I have a shout out to those in the service. I hear from a lot of people in the military service or who have recently been discharged or are looking ahead to what's next. In fact, the couple that's calling in today, I think they're actually active duty and with no plans to retire anytime soon, but they are also kind of thinking, well, what can we do right now? Which I love because you don't have to wait.
You know, if you have a job, you don't have to wait to start your side hustle. That was part of why I started this whole program three years ago, to show people that entrepreneurship does not need to be a full-time thing. So what might be a good side hustle for a couple that moves frequently and also has the possibility of being deployed? That's what we're gonna look at in this episode. So shout out to our sponsor and then we'll jump into that question.
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Hi, Chris, this is Barry and Carol. - Hi. - We've been listening to the show for the last couple of years and have gotten really inspired to start our own side hustle. My wife and I have both been in the army for more than 10 years each. That's a long time, but we still have at least another 10 years to go.
What's a good side hustle for military service members like us? Keep in mind, we tend to move a lot, so we wouldn't wanna do something that relies on local connections and there's always the risk of deployment. Thanks, Chris. We look forward to hearing what you have to say. - Hey, Barry and Carol, thank you so much for listening.
Thank you for all you do. And as I said, I'm so glad that you're thinking ahead, not just thinking ahead to 10 years from now, but asking what can you do right now? So let's back up and look at this big picture. In any situation, you can look at the pros or the cons, the benefits or the challenges, right? So in the military, you mentioned a couple of challenges, people tend to move a lot.
They also might get deployed for a long period of time where they aren't able to work actively on their business. So that is in the challenge department. The benefit, however, is that you have a stable paycheck. You got a stable paycheck, you've got stable benefits as well. Your housing situation is often either handled for you or you get some assistance.
I realize it's not always a turnkey process in different deployment areas, but there's usually a network at minimum. There's like a network of people that's gonna help you with housing and a stipend and so on. So some of those things perhaps might be easier than for other folks. So to me, when you think about all these things together, it just points to the importance of growing your side hustle in a way that can be operated from anywhere and doesn't always require a big time investment. I think that's a good thing for a lot of people to consider, not just folks in the military, but especially if you're in the military, because as mentioned, you might move.
So a local cupcake shop is probably not a great idea. A service that requires you to constantly be on the phone, also not a great idea because you have some uncertainty in the career situation. However, that still leaves a lot of options. A product that can be fulfilled by Amazon to where that product is just shipped to Amazon's warehouse, you never actually touch it. Everything that you do is on the backend.
A content blog or site. Building authority in some particular topic. I just recorded an episode about a guy who's built out a multiple six figure business coaching runners. So we'll have that story at some point, but was just working on that and thinking about it. Could be something totally different for you.
An evergreen online course. Like those are all good options. And of course there are many more. If you think about all the different archives, everything that we've featured here in the past three years, there are lots of different options. So it's totally possible.
I often mention this example of Victor de la Flor. This was episode 968, 968. Marine goes undercover to create eyewear protector. It's this guy who created this pretty simple, basic sunglasses clip to protect your sunglasses. So you don't sit on them or otherwise cause damage.
And he's done very well with it. But there are many others as well. That's just one example. So the main consideration here, I think the question is not so much, I'm in the military, what might be a good business for me? But rather the same question that everyone should start with which is what are my skills?
Like what do I know about? What am I particularly knowledgeable in? What is the intersection between those skills and what other people are looking for? What is valuable? What is helpful?
Just the same kind of thing that we start, the same foundation we think about for anybody else while in this case, considering the constraints that come with frequent moving. That's what I think about that. I also want to mention Phil Randazzo from American Dream University. This is a great resource for anybody in the military. American Dream University.
The whole mission is to serve returning service members who are beginning to transition to civilian jobs while encouraging them to consider entrepreneurship. So I was supposed to speak at, I think it was Fort Carson in Colorado earlier this year. Phil does events all over the country for returning service members. I was really excited about that, but like so many other events, it was canceled. So hopefully I'll get another chance at some point, but he has lots of great online resources as well.
Again, that's Phil Randazzo with American Dream University. All right, thank you again, Barry. Thank you, Carol. Thank you listeners. You're all awesome.
I will be back tomorrow. Much more is coming up. If you have a question of your own, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We're gonna continue to roll them out. We've got updates from other listeners.
We've got updates on their projects. We've got questions, challenges, reports, all sorts of stuff. So be sure you are subscribed. All right, my name is Chris Guillebeau. You are listening to Side Hustle School.
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From the Onward Project.
