Teen Blogger Draws Up Design Company

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

In today's story, a college student who's been starting blogs since she was 15, ends up discovering a talent for design along the way. Now she has a few missteps, but each one leads her closer to being a self-employed student who sets her own hours and is building toward the future. Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. So glad you're here.

Every day I'm sharing case studies, stories, tips, questions and answers, all kinds of features about people who are finding ways to make extra money, creating a bit more freedom and opportunity for themselves through the form of a Cytosil, which means a lot of things. But the way I think about it is creating an asset for yourself, something that can earn money apart from your day job. Now, by the way, what I just mentioned about having a few missteps, but then each one leads her closer to her ultimate goal. This is the common path for adults as well. It's not just for teenagers.

A few false starts that eventually point to the right direction. So you might as well start to follow that path as early as possible, as opposed to trying to figure out what is the right path before starting. I am always inspired by younger people who are thinking entrepreneurially and just figuring things out through that important try, try, try again process. So it's fun to have a story from one of them today. We're calling it Teen Blogger Draws Up Design Company.

And that story is coming up in just 30 seconds. Stay tuned. [Music]

When Hetty Jo was just 15 years old, she had already been running her first side hustle as a piano teacher for about a year. And for her second, she saw an ad for Wix that said she could make a website for free. At the time, Hetty figured that if she made the website, people would simply come to her.

Surprise, it didn't happen. She only got about five visitors and none of them wanted to give her any money. After a break, she started a second blog. This time she was determined to make all the right moves. She took a much more business approach and decided to interview entrepreneurs from different industries.

She also had a few guest posts. Some of those posts garnered a few hundred views, which is more than five, but still no one who wanted to buy something. Also Hetty was still in high school and ended up pausing once again to focus on her studies. A year later, she came across a classmate who had her own website and it inspired her to try once more. Third time's the charm, right?

She decided it would be an authentic online space with a diary-like feel called happily Hetty. Now this blog was indeed more popular than the first two. Moreover, as she connected with other bloggers, Hetty noticed that she kept getting comments about her website design. It got her thinking, could she offer design as a service? She'd never done it before, but if nothing else, she would try.

She soon added a services tab to her blog where she offered to do basic design projects for a low price. From there, she created a portfolio with all the designs she'd made in the past, or at least all the ones she was proud of. Not only that, but she started to post in various Facebook groups, gently advertising her website. After a couple of weeks, Hetty got her first inquiry. This first client wanted a mood board, including logos, colors, and fonts.

Hetty charged her about $50, which by the way, side note, this is too low, but hey, it's a start. It's her first client, so that's okay. Since she was experimenting, Hetty decided to offer writing services as well. She figured that if she could get paid for design, someone might also pay her for writing. But after a few projects, she decided that design should be her main focus.

Hetty began to reach out to brands for sponsored posts and collaborations. It didn't take long to realize that she needed to refocus her blog. While this third blog was the best, and she loved writing about whatever she was interested in at the moment, she knew that writing more specifically about design had much more potential for her business. So once she began to focus, interest picked up. Hetty joined a program that was sponsored by her city, and through that, she made connections.

Eventually, one of them found out about her studio and hired her to do a design initiative. Hetty is now a student in college, working towards her undergraduate degree. She makes at least $1,000 a month, working her own hours. And while the money is nice, it's also given her valuable skills. She has knowledge in SEO, marketing, sales, and of course, all this work has improved her design ability.

Once she graduates, she plans to make it her full-time career or maybe even start a new company. [Music]

Experience is always available somewhere. That's something I think is totally true. People often spend too much time worrying about whether a particular opportunity is the best one in the world, whether the price is the best, whether the working conditions are the best. When you're getting started, it's totally okay to experiment and to try different stuff and see what you like and what you don't like.

And if you do something that's low priced, well, you get some experience and then next time you can charge more. So with that in mind, I think as Hetty has gone through her different iterations, I think that she has more to come. And so I suspect she'll take what she's learned and move up to truly creating an asset, to truly creating that passive income that I talked about briefly in the beginning, or at least something that has the potential to not just be trading time for money. So I can see by looking at her website, she already has a new podcast called Pursuing the Happy. So perhaps check that out wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can also see her website at happilyhetty.com. I will link that up in the notes, of course. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Thank you for joining me today. Those show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1627.

You got a comment or question for the show, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. And that's it for today, but I hope you all subscribe and follow, come back tomorrow. Much more is coming up. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You are listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the "Onward Project."