This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Well, hello. My name is Chris Guillebeau, and I am honored that you are listening to Side Hustle School. It's gonna be good for you, it's gonna help you, it's gonna make a difference in your life, but I'm also glad to have you around. We have just finished week number 20, and I wanna tell you about something new. Listeners are the greatest part of the show.
I love getting emails and notes, social media comments, running into people in airports who are listening. It's really so much fun. And we're working on a process to begin sharing listener stories and advice directly. Now, obviously every day there's a story on the show, that's not gonna change. And once a week in the recap, we do some listener questions, but we're gonna start ramping this up.
And this is gonna be a multi-part process, but here's the first part today. Are you ready? I have a question for you, and I would love to get your answer to this question. I'll tell you how it works. The question is, now that we've been doing this for a while, do you have a Side Hustle idea or one that you're actively working on?
And if so, what is it? So if you've just joined the show, welcome. If you've been here from the beginning, that's super awesome. Whatever place you're in, I would love to know if you have your own Side Hustle idea or one that you're actively working on. And what is it?
Now there's two ways you can get me that answer. You can call the Hustle hotline and leave your response. That hotline is 8449-HUSTLE or 844-948-7853. You can leave me a voicemail there. Or if you prefer, you can also use your phone to make a voice memo, if that's your style, and then email it to podcast@sidehustleschool.com.
Just looking for kind of a short response, maybe 20 to 40 seconds. What's your Side Hustle idea, if you have one? Or what's the Side Hustle that you're actively working on right now? If you get a second, let me know. And starting next week, we're gonna feature not just a couple, but hopefully many responses.
Once again, that's 844-9-HUSTLE, or make a voice memo with your phone and email it to podcast@sidehustleschool.com. And now let's have some listener questions. [Beep] - Hey Chris, I'm Kunal from India. I've been listening to your podcast for a while now, and the ideas and the stories shared by you have motivated me to start working on mine. My question is, because I am as clueless as many about various careers and business ideas, so I want to start a podcast in our local language to conduct an interview with the experts of various fields.
Can you help me out with a plan? And the tools required for the same? Thank you. - Hey Kunal, thank you for listening. I hope to return to India soon.
I love your idea of starting a podcast, especially in your local language. It sounds fun, and it also sounds like there's probably not a lot of people doing that, although you would know better than me. As to some next steps and where to go to learn, well, there are lots of ways. Apple Podcasts actually has a lot of tutorial information. You can use the free software Audacity, just Google Audacity Audio Software.
Even I know how to use it, so you know it's not too complicated. And I'll also give a shout out to a friend of mine, John Lee Dumas, who gave me some advice when I was starting this podcast. He has a podcast course of his own that may be helpful to you. Now John Lee is not just a side hustler, he is a full-on entrepreneur. So through his free course, he's actually trying to sell you on a paid one.
So just be aware of that. But also know that you can get a lot of value just through the free course. So it's pretty smart of him. And you might also learn something about marketing as you go through the process as well. So if you want to check that out, just Google John Lee Dumas podcast course, and that might be helpful.
[Beep] - Hi, Chris. My name's Heather, and I live in Arizona. I've listened to all the episodes of the Side Hustle School and I love the work that you do. And I have finally figured out what I want to do as a side hustle. I want to sell kits online for a very niche market.
I have a lot of experience in this niche, but absolutely zero experience selling online. I'm a research junkie, so I am very overwhelmed with the amount of information out there on how to start any commerce website, how to find wholesale suppliers, how to integrate a blog. There's so many options and opinions that I feel paralyzed. Any advice on how to get over this initial hump and just get started? I want to keep my costs low, but at this point I would gladly pay someone with a lot of experience to just let me pick their brain for a few hours.
Do you know if this kind of one-on-one coaching exists? And thanks and keep up the good work. Hey, thank you, Heather. I'm so glad you're listening. And yes, I don't want you to be overwhelmed.
There are so many options for all those things that you mentioned, blogs, e-commerce, et cetera. It sounds like you already have an idea that has good potential. And as for the part about putting the pieces together, making decisions on which resources you might need. Well, that's almost exactly the kind of thing that we do in the Side Hustle School workshops. I'm doing two of them a month in different cities, trying to make my way around.
We actually work this out with a small group for about three hours. So I would love to see you or anybody else at one of those workshops. Registration for those is on the site. And later this fall, the Side Hustle book will be out, which actually presents a comprehensive 27-day plan to figuring out each aspect of these things. And my hope is that this book will go all over the world and be very affordable and accessible for anyone in this situation.
But for now, let's talk about your present reality. I understand that you feel the paralysis because of so many options. But for a lot of these things, I really would encourage you that you can't make a ton of mistakes. Not really when it comes to which logistical tools to use. To get an e-commerce website up quickly, check out Shopify, go to shopify.com/sidehustle.
They have a free 21-day trial. You can see if it works for you. There's some other services out there. Maybe even try to set aside a weekend morning or one weekday evening. I know you don't have much free time, but compile all the decisions you have to make about which tools you need and how you're gonna set up the site.
And just commit to yourself that you're going to make a decision in that session, whether it's the evening or the morning or whatever. And don't leave until it's done. And then just move forward. So I realize that doesn't help with everything. And there's still a few months until the side hustle book comes out.
But maybe that's a start. [Music]
So when I was looking back on this week, I'll try to prioritize for you. I realize we have two groups of people. We have folks who listen every single day, sometimes as soon as the episode comes out, or they binge listen to several at a time, maybe once or twice a week. Then we also have some people who always listen to the recap, but don't always get around to every single episode during the week.
So let's try this. If you can only listen to two episodes this week, choose number 137 and 140. Number 137 is called, Australian creates an $800 a month passive income anatomy course. And 140 is called, oncology nurse creates products to regrow hair after chemo, earns $80,000. The other stories were fun too.
There's a story about sugar-free desserts. Something about presidential lip balm, hip hop glitter pendant sell $60,000 on Instagram and more. But I wanna focus on those two, 137 and 140, because I think together they represent the potential of what a side hustle can do for you. So in 137, this guy, seven years ago, creates an audio course to help medical students learn anatomy. And he tests the idea before actually making the course, kind of saving himself some work if it wasn't gonna be attractive or marketable.
And then when it does seem to have potential, he invests the time, creates this course, and then pretty much walks away from it, at least after a few months, but it continues to earn every single month, not just month after month, but year after year. He's actually earning an average of $800 a month, seven years later from this project. So that is of course pretty cool. And then the other episode, 140, about Tanika or T, who not only works as an oncology nurse, but had her own cancer struggle, overcame that and then used essential oils to create products that help people regrow their hair after having chemo treatments. Now, this project started three years ago, and she actually is devoting a lot of time to it.
And it's well worth it, because through all the improvements she's made and the people she's reaching last year in 2016, she cleared more than $80,000. So not every side hustle, obviously, is gonna go on to earn significant income month after month, like we saw in the first story, without the guy doing much about it. I'm actually really careful in not making that promise to you. If someone ever tells you it's guaranteed that you're gonna have this kind of passive income, you should walk away very fast. But at the same time, it is possible.
And the story is not an anomaly. A lot of people see these results, and that's why I tell these different stories every day. And the same with the second story from Tanika, a little bit different journey, different process, more time intensive, but also a very significant result. And I think both of them represent the side hustle way very well. Now, coming up next week, got some more stories to guide you on your path to independence.
There is a Starbucks employee who solves a common online problem. You have probably seen his solution to this problem. Even if you have no idea who he is, he now makes six figures annually from this solution. There is a moonlight balloon artist who resells on eBay for about $2,000 a month. Had some requests for more reselling stories.
So we're getting those in the mix. A tech worker who makes luxury pillowcases, an orthodontist who spends a small amount of money in Facebook ads and produces a lot of new revenue from it. Of course, I'll tell you how he did it and so much more. For you over there in your headphones, in your car, at your house, at the gym, maybe even listening to side hustle school at your day job, I won't tell. Wherever you are, you're the reason I make this show.
If you commit to making this part of your routine, I commit to supporting you fully in your quest to create that new source of income that you know you need. It's not a question of want, it's just a question of time, knowledge, steps, being able to move forward. And that's what I hope to help you with every single day. A couple of shout outs to folks. The show is recorded on location at World Domination Headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
It is then transported in a terrarium to be produced in Brooklyn, New York at the Panoply Studios. That production team is led by Jason de Leon and A.C. Valdez. Show notes are by Whitney Karinek. "My cat, Liberia, the lipster, Gilaboe, has been terrorizing my house all week while I've been gone.
I've been in Amsterdam, I just got back last night. She was like, "Dude, where have you been?" In honor of presidential lip balm, life advice this week comes from Abraham Lincoln, better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. This show is part of the onward imprint curated by bestselling author Gretchen Rubin. A reminder that a new show on the imprint launched this week and it's great. And you should check it out.
It's called "Happier in Hollywood." It is hilarious. Most important of all, I want to thank you, the listener. It would be super awesome if you would mention the show to someone who needs a side hustle. Maybe not just mention it, but show them how to subscribe. Like just take their iPhone and do it for them because not everybody knows how it works.
Oh, and don't forget, I'd love to get your answer to this question. Do you have a side hustle idea or one that you're actively working on? If so, what is it? Give me a call and leave your short response, eight, four, four, nine, hustle, or make a quick voice memo with your phone and email it to podcast@sidehustleschool.com. I'd love to hear from you and you might be featured on the show.
That's it for this week. So much more to come. Thank you, you're awesome. I'm here every morning at 601 a.m. Eastern time.
I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
