This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Language skills are good for travel. It might also be good for getting a job in another country. But hear this, and hear this closely, merely being able to speak multiple languages doesn't create a lot of commercial value on its own. I'm gonna explain this because I hope it doesn't sound like I am downplaying how cool it is that some people can learn a lot of languages. What I mean is, you know, if you need translation or tutoring or some other service that requires these language skills, you're not only paying for the language.
There's a lot more to it, okay? So the woman in this story, speaking a pretty cool, she speaks nine languages. When she starts her side hustle, she only speaks five, right? Only speaking five languages, what a slacker. But as you'll hear, she just keeps going.
It's not only the language skills, it's what she does in terms of turning this into a commercial venture. She now makes $50,000 a year on the side, $50,000 a year as a side hustle in addition to her full-time job as a project manager. So this polyglot conjugates verbs and also conjugates money. Although I was gonna title it that way, conjugates money, but that doesn't actually make sense. I just like the tie-in to, you know, verb conjugation.
But anyway, she conjugates verbs for hundreds of clients. She does really well. I'll tell you how she does it and what you might be able to take away from it in this story. It's coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]
When Ava Rosales graduated from Columbia University in 2009, she entered the job market during a recession.
Completing her program at an Ivy League school was a big accomplishment for Ava, who's originally from Peru and says she wanted to make her dad proud. While she was trying to pinpoint her next step, Ava and two friends took a road trip to Napa, California. While on the trip, Ava expressed her frustration and disappointment at her career uncertainty to one of the friends, Jen. Jen then asked Ava to write down three things she was passionate about. On a napkin, Ava wrote, "Traveling, children, and languages." At the time, she'd already lived in eight countries, spread across four continents and spoke five languages.
It got her thinking maybe she could start a business with these skills, somehow. After getting home from the trip, Ava created a Google doc and brainstorm services she could offer, then researched how to fine tune them. For example, she learned that it's extremely beneficial to get accredited in order to be an interpreter in medicine. It's not enough to speak the language well. The certification, at least in this case, matters.
After figuring out what certification she needed, Ava set up a LinkedIn Premium account so that her profile would have more visibility. And of course, she needed a name. On the same napkin she used to write down her favorite topics, Ava had also jotted down words that described her. Hyper, polyglot, nomad, polylingual, and fluent, to name a few. Looking back at that napkin, two words stood out, hyper and fluent.
Ava decided to combine the two to create hyper fluent. Soon after she narrowed down the services she would offer, including personalized one-on-one language courses, cooking sessions in different languages, translating and interpreting, and more. While she was getting hyper fluent services squared away, Ava was offered a fellowship by the Ministry of Education of Indonesia to study Bahasa Indonesian for a year. Even in her new role, thousands of miles and 12 time zones away, Ava continued to focus on setting up her side business. She made business cards and bought a new camera to take professional photos on location.
While in Indonesia, she made her first website, which at the time was more of a blog. Her pricing structure depended on what the service was and for how long a person needed it. For in-house tutoring, the price was fixed. But if someone needed a series of manuals translated, the price depended on the number of words, the target language, the timeframe, and the sector it's in. Likewise, for interpretation, the price depended on the sector, the distance needed to travel for the assignment, and the duration.
She also decided to price her services differently in different countries in reflection of market realities. The first clients for hyper fluent came after she placed her profile on different teaching platforms, such as universitytutor.com. But like so many new businesses, her most successful marketing technique has been word of mouth. One of Ava's friends spoke about hyper fluent to an acquaintance, who happened to be the personal assistant for an NBA player. That basketball star became a client.
It was also through connections that she landed her most significant gigs with the World Bank, Bloomberg, and for some of the wealthiest families in New York City. She's also active on Instagram, her favorite online platform. Oh, and about that website, it's no longer just a blog. A couple of years ago, she upgraded to one with all the features she wanted, and it's now much more personalized. Since beginning hyper fluent in 2011, Ava's had about 650 clients.
She currently profits around $50,000 a year from a side hustle. And yes, this is still a side hustle. Her full-time job is as a project manager for the International Centers for Precision Oncology. Even with the busy job, she plans to keep offering language services. After the pandemic subsides, yes, I can't wait either, it's gonna happen.
She'll also begin offering a one to two week immersion program in Italy called Mommy and I Go to Sicily. This program will aim to teach Italian to moms and their sons or daughters through immersing themselves in country. Ava says that some of her favorite memories have been through her business. Since starting, she's learned four more languages, worked and cooked with refugees in Berlin, and visited more than 65 countries. [Music]
All right, I have a suggestion here.
If anybody is in a similar place that Ava was a few years ago, if you happen to speak four or five languages, only four or five, right? My suggestion is don't try to do everything at once. Don't try to offer translation and interpretation and tutoring and cooking classes. It's great that it's been able to work for Ava. And obviously she's been doing this a number of years now, and she's found the perfect rhythm between her day job and her side hustle.
But I think for a lot of people, you're actually gonna be more successful in this field if you're just doing one of those things, maybe even for a specific target market. Like for example, one of Ava's client bases is wealthy families in New York City. So you could say, okay, I'm gonna do language tutoring for kids from well-off families in this particular area. Or it could be something totally different. But just picking something I think is gonna help a lot so that you're not just overwhelmed and trying to do it all.
Also, I really love the Google Doc method. When Ava got back from her California road trip, she made a Google Doc and brainstorm services she could offer using her language skills. And from there she made various observations like, oh, I should get a certification to be a medical interpreter. And probably some other observations as well. So just kind of sketching things out and making notes of your skills and what services those talents might lend themselves to can be very helpful.
So if you have not done that before, I definitely recommend it. And also, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. I want you to be able to do more of what's important to you. That's what it's all about here for us. So to find the show notes for today's episode, including links to Hyper Fluent, anything else I mentioned, just go to sidehustleschool.com/1494.
Man, we are almost at 1,500 episodes. I can't believe that, but apparently it is true. All right, if you've got a comment or question for the show, sidehustleschool.com/questions, do make sure you're subscribed wherever you get your podcasts. So much more is coming up. Thank you so much for listening.
My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the "Onward Project."
