This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Hey, what's up? Welcome back to Side Hustle School. I'm your host, Chris Guillebeau, episode number 16. Every day, a different story of someone who starts a hustle without quitting their job. And now today's story is really fun. It's about how two friends changed their
first idea into something much better that then went on to sell more than 75,000 units. Now a lot of Side Hustle stories are just about making some extra cash. And that's totally cool. That's great on its own. Because for a lot of us out there, an extra $500 a month or $1,000 a month, $2,000, whatever it is, it really is a big deal. And not just for
the money itself, but also for the confidence it brings us. We're able to say, "We made that money. It wasn't part of our paycheck." And that's very empowering. But I also like to feature some stories of Side Hustles that have really, really taken off because I want you to know what's possible. And yesterday's was like that. Julia the artist learned to
charge $250 an hour, and that became a six-figure income. And today's story, kind of along a similar line, started out bringing in decent amounts of extra cash, which is great, but then it grew to sales of seven figures. So there's a lot of lessons in this hustle story, and I look forward to telling you about it in just a moment. By day, Joe Milano works as director of development at a cancer research facility in Philadelphia. He's on the front lines of research doing important work to help doctors and scientists learn more about treating serious diseases. But in his spare time, Joe enjoys hanging
out with his friend Jack. Both of them have an appreciation for cocktail culture. And a few years ago, they'd even gone so far as to collaborate on their own bathtub gin recipe. For drinks, they had what they thought was a great idea. Let's open a distillery and sell our gin to the world. Alas, this idea wasn't meant to be. When they looked into
the rules and regulations of operating a distillery, even a small one, they discovered it would be a tremendous challenge. Local, state, and federal agencies all controlled different aspects of the alcohol trade, and it wasn't just a matter of paperwork. Joe and Jack estimated the startup costs for such an endeavor would be in the one to three million dollar range. Disappointed but not deterred, Jack came up with the idea of giving people the tools to make their own gin and their own kitchens. A project that would require far less startup capital. And since Joe and Jack wouldn't be selling the alcohol, there were far fewer
hoops to jump through. They started by assembling 250 homemade gin kits in Joe's 700 square foot condo, not having any real idea of who would buy them. But then, as word got out from their friends and family, as well as a few websites that featured the kits, sales took off. They improved their operation, redesigned the website, and worked on the project during spare nights and weekends. Within four years, they had sold more than 75,000 kits. Large
kitchen stores ordered and stocked them. The New York Times wrote a favorable review. A friend who traveled mentioned seeing the kit at a major celebrity's home. Now, to be fair, not everything is easy in the world of homemade gin. As this hustle grew into a real business, it wasn't only the press and lots of happy customers who noticed their success. A number
of copycats sprung up, offering essentially the same product and in many ways even duplicating their branding and sales copy with only small changes. This was an aggravation, of course, but it kind of came with the territory of launching such an interesting and profitable project. Overall, the two friends who started with a love of cocktails and followed a crazy idea couldn't be happier. Joe still has his day job, but he also has this side hustle that makes real money and allows him to work on something he really enjoys, the best of both worlds. So let's talk about this a little. This is a transition story. Two guys have one idea,
which is fun and interesting, but as they do more research, they learn it's not really feasible or it's not really possible because this is a side hustle. And so maybe they could have figured out how to raise millions of dollars, but that wasn't the goal. And so once they switched their vision, once they had this different idea and said, "Let's pursue that instead," then they found something else that was fun and interesting and it was also profitable. So in a traditional startup story, you would have heard, "Oh, they should have just kept going. They should have pursued that initial vision to start a distillery." But in the side hustle world, things are different. And so you also may experience something similar
as you investigate different ideas. Your first idea might not work out right away or you might discover something better. So the skill here is not perseverance. It's adaptation. It's the willingness to say, "Well, it would have been fun to build a bathtub gin empire, but since we can't, let's build something else." So as you develop ideas, as you explore different possibilities for your hustle, it's really helpful to ask and answer as many questions of yourself as you can. So you want to ask things like, "What do I need to get started?
How do I go from idea to execution with this idea? What potential obstacles are in my way? Is there a big challenge that might prevent me from succeeding or at least from getting started? And how hard will it be for me to actually get started off the ground, get my first sale? Have I done something like this before? Has anyone else done something like this before?"
And asking these questions doesn't mean that you're going to be deterred. It's going to give you some information. It's going to help you make better decisions. And so the more you can do that, the better and the greater your odds of hustle success will be. And it may not happen exactly like that for you. But if you listen to these stories, you
apply them to your own hustle, you will see results over time. Remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. If you'd like to see the show notes for this episode, just head over to sidehustleschool.com. You can also send me a note from there. I want to make sure you're fully supported. I'm Chris Guillebeau.
This is Side Hustle School. I'll see you tomorrow. Tomorrow's episode is really fun. It's about an Airbnb for dogs. [Music]
