Notes from Chris

Episode 1541

For years Dennis Hensley was a writer for the magazine industry, mostly interviewing celebrities. He honed his interview skills over time, eventually learning exactly what to ask to craft the perfect story.

But, as the magazine industry began dying, so did Dennis’s job. With less people reading print there just wasn’t the budget to keep someone like him around. It helped that he was ready for something new anyway, so he set his sights on developing a side hustle: something to help pay the bills if his income took a hit during the change.

During this transition period, an idea struck that wasn’t all that unrelated to his old magazine work. Dennis devised a concept whereby someone could pay him to interview them. In the interview he’d ask all sorts of questions, some general, some cheeky, and some probing. Things like “When was your first kiss?” or “What was the most trouble you ever got into in school?”

Afterwards, he’d condense everything into an audio story of the person's life. He describes it as an audio family heirloom. The idea gained some attention and he spent a couple of years launching a website and working with customers. However, it never really took off the way he hoped it would… at least not until we fast-forward to 2018.

A friend of his, Jeb Havens, worked as a game designer. After hearing about what Dennis was doing, thought it would make a great game. Instead of needing an interviewer, family and friends could pull from a deck of cards and ask the questions to each other. Together they called the game, You Don’t Know My Life.

Rather than use a platform like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo to raise the funds, they hit up every single person they knew to presell them the game, also encouraging them to share the concept with others. They created a website in Weebly with PayPal linked to it. That way, customers could pay on the spot with the promise they’d receive a copy before Christmas of 2018.

That Christmas period was significantly busier than the first and the momentum continued into 2020. Their latest invention is virtual game nights. For their existing customers they’d host a version of the game over Zoom at a cost of ten dollars per head. That generated over nine thousand dollars in additional revenue for the year.

Add that on top of the earnings the game is bringing in already and it shows one thing... Dennis and Jeb may not know your life, but they certainly know how to create a successful side hustle.

 

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  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Check out Dennis and Jeb's You Don’t Know My Life Game at their website, youdontknowmylife.com.

SEE ALSO:

• Cards Against Humanity Inspires Six-Figure Party Game: Two friends in their twenties create a “nonsense” party game. Ten years later, they turn it into a side hustle that is now sold at Target.
• Childhood Game Master Earns $1 Million from Nerdy Kickstarter Campaigns: This Ohio man loves board games so much that he made his own—and when he tries to raise $6,000 through a Kickstarter campaign, he ends up with much more than he ever imagined.
• Spousal Birthday Gift Becomes $40,000 Card Game: It starts as a creative gift for his wife, but this tabletop game ends up making a lot of other people happy.

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work! Yours in the revolution,

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