Tailgate Lover Creates Product Review Business

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

[Music]

Hey everyone, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. So glad you're tuning in today. Hope you're well wherever you are in the world. Today, we're gonna talk about tailgating.

Tailgating, tailgating in the form of a side hustle. Of course, and do you know what tailgating is? If not, don't worry, I'm gonna tell you. And if you do know, well, grab a beer and let's grill some meat, or a veggie burger for me would be a great place. All things are possible in the world of shared experiences these days.

And in particular, I'm gonna tell you about an insurance manager who has an idea in the middle of the night. Those are my favorite kinds of ideas, by the way, especially when they stay with you in the morning. Anyway, he gets this idea, he balls in love with the intersection of entrepreneurship and sports. The title of this episode, Tailgate Lover Creates Product Review Business. I'll tell you all about it after this quick message from our sponsor.

[Music]

Luke Lorik was falling asleep after a long week of working at a Fortune 30 insurance company. While he liked his job, he was starting to get bored. He began to imagine what it would be like to put his multiple business degrees to use and combine it with one of his passions. Above all else, he loved tailgating. So let's break this down for those who don't know, tailgating is a type of celebration that typically occurs before a big event.

Now, usually this event involves sports, like a football game, but some people have them before concerts or festivals as well. Most tailgates, because it can be a noun as well, a noun in a verb, most tailgates involve some combination of drinking beer, sitting in fold-out chairs and grilling food in the tailgate of a truck, hence the name. Now, tailgating had been one of Luke's favorite things to do for years. And as he was thinking about how it could become an even bigger part of his life, the words tailgating challenge suddenly rang through his head. He began to wonder if he could start a business where he would review tailgating products and build a community of fellow fans.

In a sleepy stupor, he created a Facebook page for his idea and then went back to bed. When he woke up, he was ready to answer the call of the ball. Quickly, he made accounts for Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. He then made a website, spending about $250 for what he'd call tailgatingchallenge.com. That actually has a hyphen there, so it's tailgating-challenge.com.

From there, Luke began to share his new idea all over his personal accounts. He made business cards to bring to parties and implored anyone he met to follow along. He worked on the project a little bit each day. He reached out to brands to see if they would partner with him. And with his minuscule social media presence, this proved to be more difficult than he anticipated.

However, he also knew it was important. He wanted to review products and give his audience honest opinions on the best tailgate items out there. Luke was persistent. And finally, one company gave him a shot, Polar Bear Coolers. They even offered to print the tailgating challenge logo on the cooler they were sending him.

From there, it became a lot easier to find other brands that were willing to partner. He has now reviewed hundreds of products and has never accepted any money from a company to do so. Of course, we're gonna talk about money here in a moment. He says that he wanted his products to be totally unbiased, even if it meant mentioning ways that the product could be improved. Luke didn't go a day without working on his hustle, even if it was just those few minutes of work.

As his presence began to grow and he gained more followers, he started hosting giveaways. And this technique was one of the best ways for him to build engagement and continue to increase his following. Now, pay attention to this. Rather than doing one or two giveaways a month, like most brands do, tailgating challenge has won every single week. Luke says this keeps his audience engaged and coming back for more.

He also strategically plans the giveaways to build engagement in the areas of his business that he wants. For example, he'll do a Facebook or an Instagram giveaway depending on which account he's hoping to grow at the moment. He also does live giveaways to encourage people to stay until the end of his live show and other giveaways to get more people's email addresses. Now, for the first few years, Luke didn't make any money at all. He focused entirely on building up a following and increasing his credibility.

Eventually though, he began to turn more of his attention to monetization because he loved the work, but it would also be nice to get paid. He started to look into offering clients additional promotions for products he liked. He also began to make money from using Google ads as well as his YouTube videos. In addition, he opened an Amazon store that features all the products he reviews and he earns affiliate commissions from those sales. How much money are we talking about?

Well, Luke brings in anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 a month from the site. He's still working his day job. He isn't planning on quitting anytime soon. He says that the side gig brings him a sense of empowerment and also financial freedom and positivity to his life. Years after that restless night where he dreamed up the idea of tailgating challenge, Luke is still gaming high.

[Music]

Congratulations, Luke. I love this story. His tagline is take your tailgating to the next level. And as a reminder, his website is tailgating-challenge.com. In 2016, Luke also founded National Tailgating Day, a national holiday that occurs on the first Saturday of every September.

So no doubt that's gonna be a huge event next September. He also created a national homegating day, which is kind of like a tailgate, but at a house and a national yard games day. So I guess his side hustle is, you know, creating these national holidays. Anyway, well done. Listeners, I hope you enjoyed this story.

Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. I hope this gets you thinking about something that you can do, an idea you can pursue to also create that sense of empowerment, that financial freedom and that general life positivity. Three good things there. Anyway, today's show notes, sidehustleschool.com/17461746. Hope you'll subscribe or follow, wherever you get your podcasts and come back tomorrow.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]

- From the Onward Project.