This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, hey, what's up everybody? Welcome to Side Hustle School, so glad you're here. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Welcome as well to Throwback Thursday, our weekly segment, where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. And last week we heard from a woman who designs and sells matching clothes for dogs and their owners.
Dogs plus owners, clothes, she's doing really well. Pretty crazy story there. Today in our latest feature, we'll hear from a teacher who buys and resells sports gear. I love to look at stories of simple reselling, because as I said, simple. These are very simple projects that are important to highlight because it's something that most people can do.
If you're out there and you're like totally new to the whole Cytosil world, this is a great thing to jump into. I think the guy we're gonna hear from today, Matt, his total startup cost was something like $100. And he actually makes his first profit by selling his own stuff, like his own jerseys. Kind of reminds me how I was selling my own items from around my apartment more than 20 years ago when I got into this kind of thing. And eventually for him, he ends up going all in with this.
Actually retires from teaching PE to focus on his reselling gig. His business is going really well. He's doing up to, I think, $8,000 a month or so. He's managed this all throughout the pandemic, of course. So he's got some good lessons about time management, et cetera.
Now we first heard from Matt nearly two years ago, in the original story, let's now hear directly from him. And I'll come back at the end to wrap us up. Perhaps share a story or two from my own reselling years, a little quick trip down memory lane, along with some advice for you if you'd like to get into this too. [Music]
My name is Matthew Myers. We are located in Indianapolis, Indiana, on the north side of town.
My side hustle from episode 727 was Kevin's Clubhouse, and still is Kevin's Clubhouse. My side hustle is I'm a resale sports clothing store. So I essentially, I hit Goodwill's thrift stores, grab sales, flea markets. And then I essentially resell, gently use sports fan gear. And it's pretty much anything ranging from palos to pros, from golf gear to cycling gear to winter jackets.
It could be anything from Nike North Face to that old 1990s starter jacket everybody had, the Chicago Bulls one that we all grew up in war. So I always try to find the brand names that everyone tries to buy, but often I'm at a discounted price. And then obviously compared to the larger companies like Nike and Adidas and things like that. So essentially I just go to stores, mainly thrift stores, buy low, sell high, and try to offer good products to people. And it seems to be working where people are always going to be wearing that either to a game.
And obviously, people are not really going to games right now during a pandemic, but a lot of people like wearing that stuff, going to route on their favorite team. I started this back in 2017 in between teaching jobs. I left my previous school for a new teaching opportunity, but I was also unemployed and needed cash. So I kind of just sold things on the side that I wasn't using, like an old jersey. So I sold an old Chicago Cubs jersey for 70 bucks.
And then I said, well, maybe there's something in to this. So I was like, I'm going to sell, I mean, I probably had 30, 40 jerseys at one point, and I sold the majority of them just so I could be able to pay mortgage. And then I was like, okay, well, they sold pretty quick. Maybe this is something I can actually take off and run with and actually create a business. But between sports memorabilia and mainly flipping clothes, I've been able to manage to make profit enough where I can officially retire from teaching and make this my main hustle.
I knew before I left, I needed to see the numbers on my end of like, okay, we're making five, 6,000 a month, okay, in sales and gross sales. So I knew that it was a good enough jump to try to make this a full-time gig. And I'm lucky to last two years that it has even with a pandemic. My biggest challenge right now is that it's time. Time's always going to be a challenge.
I think a lot of people would tell you that. My thing is that I love working at night. I'm kind of like a night owl per se. So I like to get everything done late at night, but then as the morning hits, it's hard to get up at seven, eight o'clock and try to figure out, hey, I need to get all this stuff done before, I don't know, four o'clock and get my orders out. So just trying to be more productive, trying to be better on my time.
That's always been my biggest challenge. And going into this year, I wanted to really make that my project per se of like, yeah, you know what, it's time to get up. It's time to be productive. It's time to get to the stores. The fun part about all this is that you can go and thrift and you can go and find all this stuff.
The hard part is get it all up, get it listed, get it measured. And then getting it shipped out when someone buys it. That's always the not so fun part. So just trying to balance both has been tough, but again, realizing that this is my full-time job, like there is no teaching job anymore. There is no, you know, kindergartner's coming in, you know, for PE, like I just need to be completely focused on everything.
And I think so far, granted it's only been seven days of 2021. I think I've done a pretty good job so far. - Awesome, thank you so much, Matt. Really appreciate that update. So glad to know it's going so well.
You've been able to make it your full-time gig. Listeners, if you want to check out Matt's shop, it's kevinsclubhouse.com. I believe he's named his business in honor of his father. Again, kevinsclubhouse.com. I'll link it up in the notes as well.
Now, as you heard, we recorded that conversation about a month ago or so. Matt said he's had a good first seven days of 2021. So I'm glad I got started well. I hope it's been well since then. And listeners, I hope that you as well have been able to get a good start for your year.
If for some reason you haven't, well, you can always start right now. You know, dates are arbitrary. So Matt talked a bit about the different tasks required in this kind of business. The thrifting or acquiring items, like however you get your items you're going to resell. He does a lot of thrift shop stuff.
Then the listing, the communication with buyers, shipping, all those logistics. I found when I was doing this, that grouping these tasks helped quite a lot, which it sounds like what Matt is doing as well. It's also true that you enjoy some of these tasks more than others. So for me, what was helpful is like, you create little rewards for yourself along the way. I kind of like divided my time into, okay, this is the block of time in which I'm focused on, you know, acquiring stuff, whether it's looking online, or like I said, in Matt's case, going out to thrift stores, Goodwill, et cetera.
And then, you know, that communication block, that printing out shipping labels, then actually running the errand or dropping stuff off, whatever it is you need to do. And it could vary a bit. You know, for me back in the day, I actually received physical checks in the mail, which I know, you know, makes me sound ancient, but I used to get these physical checks in the mail, and I often would be depositing the checks the same day I was shipping stuff out. So it's not like I was worried about the checks clearing or something, but I wouldn't deposit the check until I actually shipped the item. It was just a mental thing for me.
Even if, as I said, it was the same day, I was like, I gotta ship the item, then I deposit the check, just so I have like a connection between the work I'm doing and then getting paid. Little ways that you can motivate yourself like that are helpful in just creating that sort of organization and flow to doing reselling, especially if you're not doing it full-time. And most people do not jump into doing it full-time right away. They just kind of do it on the side like Matt was doing. And then they think, oh, maybe I can actually, you know, take this somewhere if I choose to, you know, if I want to.
All right, I will leave you with that today. If you have a question, if you'd like to update us about your side hustle, anything else, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. And by the way, this is episode 1503, sidehustleschool.com/1503 for the show notes. Whatever you're up to today, you're awesome. Be sure to take some time for yourself.
I hope you'll join me again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
