What It's About
How a switch from physical to digital products helps a mental health counselor build a profitable side hustle.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
Janine's story is a perfect example of the kind of success you can find when you redirect your focus after dedicating a lot of time to something that isn't successful. It's not all that uncommon for the first thing you try to not exactly pan out and when it doesn’t, it can feel really discouraging.
Here's some advice if you find yourself stuck in a similar situation: instead of just saying “This sucks” and moving on, try to understand why it didn’t work and what you could change so that something else down the line does work out.
Fun Fact
I know from my inbox that a lot of people have tried various ideas and fallen short. Well, Janine has a failure story of her own.
Before she started this project, she had another website called Encourage Play, all about teaching kids social skills through play. She tried a couple of different products lines, including a failed subscription box and a failed Etsy shop. She says now that’s she’s glad for this experience because her work at Encourage Play allowed her to discover what did work and translate that into Coping Skills for Kids.
Notes from Chris
Episode 166
Janine Halloran is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, and also a mom. She sees clients in the morning, but before and after school until bedtime, her focus is on the kids. She helps with homework, packs lunches, and takes them to after school activities, etc. In the afternoon, as well as after the kids’ bedtime, she has a different focus: it is—wait for it—her side hustle. It’s called Coping Skills for Kids. With Coping Skills for Kids, Janine makes products to help kids learn to deal with stress, anxiety, and anger in healthy ways. She offers both digital and physical products on her site, but her focus recently has been mainly on digital. She also recently created two courses using Teachable, which was easier than she expected. Profits for Coping Skills for Kids are averaging about $1,100 a month now. Janine is working on more downloadable products, as well as posters through print-on-demand services for some of her popular free printables.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Coping Skills for Kids: Learn more about Janine and her digital products on her website
- Encourage Play: Janine's first side hustle idea with the focus of helping children learn important social skills through play
- Teachable: The learning platform that Janine used to sell her online courses
- Waldorf Teacher Designs Curriculum for Other Educators: How a teacher uses what she knows to help other teachers save time and teach more effectively
- High-School French Teacher Earns $8,000 Writing & Selling Curriculum: A busy high-school teacher uploads more than 600 digital products to a peer-to-peer sharing site, where she’s paid a royalty for each sale
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