This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Greetings and welcome. This is Chris Guillebeau First Side Hustle School. A story for you today that comes from South Asia, the Indian subcontinent. It's actually about a blog, a personal finance blog. And the interesting thing here, most personal finance bloggers, this is a whole sub-industry, most of them are American or maybe Canadian, some British, Australian, et cetera, but it is kind of a North American centric industry within the blogosphere.
And naturally not all personal finance readers are in those places. There are people interested in saving money, investing better, embracing the values of frugality, et cetera, all over the world. And for a time, at least when this industry kind of popped up maybe a decade or so ago, it's probably fair to say that most of those people just read the popular blogs or the websites based in the US. And that's fine in some ways because some advice is universal. And some bloggers can do a good job of being mindful of an international audience.
But still, naturally this points to an opportunity, and that opportunity is to serve all those people elsewhere who might be more receptive to something more relevant to their situation or just from a different voice or perspective. So that's what you'll hear about today. It's a corporate employee from India who starts a personal finance blog focused specifically on Indian readers. He's currently making more than $4,000 a month from this blog, which is a pretty fantastic side income anywhere in the world. But especially for someone from that part of the world is definitely a huge success.
He's pretty open and transparent about how he does this. And I'll tell you all about it right after this. [Music]
Pardip Goyal studied computer science at a large university in India. He then spent seven years working at a software company, but he always wanted to do something else. Pardip was interested in personal finance, especially money saving hacks related to credit cards, shopping, and travel.
He spent a lot of free time studying and conducting experiments that allowed him to have a better life despite making just an average income. He then started a blog to detail these studies and experiments. He called it Cash Overflow. And right from the start, he targeted Indian readers. Writing on his homepage, I save more than 10,000 rupees each year from credit cards.
I also know more than 27 ways to save income tax in India. I transparently share the sources of my passive income and where I spend my money. Now, I mentioned the industry of personal finance websites or bloggers. This practice of transparently sharing your income and expenses has a tradition in that industry. And for a long time, there've been a lot of people doing that.
So at first, it was really interesting. You would stumble upon someone sharing their journey, and they just so happened to provide their own personal family budget, where all the money went, as well as where their business income came from. And it's still interesting, of course, but it's not as uncommon now. So it may not be a highly unusual or unconventional way to get attention for yourself. If you're doing this from the U.S.
or from a Western perspective. But in India, at least, this hadn't been done before, at least not commonly. And there was also an aspirational quality to cash overflow. Pardip wrote, "I'm not rich yet, but I'm living a king-sized life. I enjoyed a long family vacation in Thailand, even when my salary was 80,000 rupees." I'm not sure what 80,000 rupees works out to, but I think the point was he wasn't rich, yet he was able to have rich experiences.
And this is a lot like the travel hacking work that I do and some other people do. I might circle back to that later, but the key point is about highlighting the aspirational quality of this kind of lifestyle. And that was very attractive in India, which hadn't seen this model nearly as much as the U.S. had, or at least wasn't as familiar with it. This concept that there are actions you can take to save money or to have experiences that would otherwise be outside your reach.
Now, two months back, Pardip started paid newsletters, where he shares weekly insights on building a profitable online business. And it got a great response. He started with a low price of just 50 cents per newsletter, but he got hundreds of people signing up. He then raised the price from 50 cents to $10. Right now, it's a one-off payment, but that will change to monthly at the end of the year.
And in fact, his goal is to get to a thousand members by the end of the year. Pardip did something interesting with the paid newsletters. He shares the values of Side Hustle School and wanting to make sure his readers take action. And the interesting thing he did was, if you don't take action, he doesn't want your money. So in fact, as a condition of joining the paid newsletter, customers have to promise to take action.
And one of the actions they need to take is filling out a Google form, which is pretty simple. But the first week, 41 people did not complete the form. So he gave them their money back, writing them an email that said, "Hey, you have not asked, but I'm issuing you the full refund of money that you paid for the newsletter. That's the condition I put on newsletter subscribers. You have to take the action.
Otherwise, the purpose of my newsletters will be dissolved. It's really hard to say goodbye to someone who paid money, but the fact that you have not completed the first assignment means you were expecting some non-actionable newsletter. So I understand that you may not be ready for this. I'll still keep you updated with my events, but the paid newsletter isn't for you." I thought that was pretty hardcore. I love the spirit of it.
If you don't take action, I don't want your money. And not only do I not want your money, but you can't pay me money. And this seems to be working pretty well for Pardee, because the blog is currently receiving more than 100,000 monthly visitors and making more than $4,000 a month. That's not 4,000 rupees, that is 4,000 US dollars, which is a good income in the US and a great income as a side hustle in the US. And really a tremendous income as a side hustle in India, Pardee describes himself as an entrepreneur and storyteller.
He says he spends most of the time on his project writing stories or engaging with his audience. I think that is so great. He's also expanding from a portal to learn about money saving to generating passive income. He's noticed in engaging with his audience that that's something a lot of them want. So trying to understand the unique needs of his readers and give them something valuable has also led to him creating that passive income for himself.
[Music]
So this is a good example of how timeless principles like personal finance, it could also be self-improvement of any kind, fitness, dieting, productivity, sexuality, travel, you have these timeless principles, but they probably need to be adapted in some form to different local cultures around the world. And that's what Pardee has done. Now I mentioned travel hacking briefly earlier. That is also all about telling an aspirational story. It's about showing people, hey, I'm just a regular person too, but look, I was able to have this experience.
Because I learned these strategies, I took these actions and you too can fly first class or you too can fly around the world and stay in a nice hotel or whatever it is that you want to do. And here's how you do it. That's a similar model to what Pardeeep is doing with personal finance in India. So you may not be interested in personal finance, you might not want to write a blog and you might not live in India, but still think about timeless principles, think about the knowledge you have, the experience you've had, and think about the people you have influence with or the communities you have access to. Might there be something there for you?
Well, as always, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/167. That is for episode 167. I will be back tomorrow with another story I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
