This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Friends, listeners, community, welcome. Welcome to Side Hustle School. Welcome to our weekly segment. Throwback Thursday. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
Every week on Thursday-- well, I guess since it's called Throwback Thursday-- once a week, on Thursday, we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. I have been making this show for you every single day for the past 1,755 days. And we have a lot of amazing stories in our archives. In particular, I've enjoyed some of the recent stories we've had in this segment. For example, last week, we heard from the founder of Mombox.
She has gone from frustrated new mom to CEO of a growing startup. Business is doing very, very well. You can check that out in episode-- what was that-- 1748. And today, in our latest feature, we're going to go to New Zealand, at least virtually, digitally. We're going to hear from Martin de Ruyter during lockdown.
His handmade jewelry was worn by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as part of her encouragement to the nation. And of course, that's not all that he is known for. But I thought that was particularly interesting in this update that he's going to share with us. But he's got a cool story. And I'm really happy to be a very small part of that story.
So I'll let you hear all of it from him. That story and a few other updates from Martin all contain within a few action-packed minutes to respect your time, because you're a busy side hustler. You're doing something important. And I'll come back at the end to wrap us up. My name is Martin de Ruyter.
I live in Nelson, New Zealand. Nelson is at the top of the South Island of New Zealand. My side hustle was called Spitfire Tread Chart. And I featured on episode 8-1-12 of Side Hustle School. With my side hustle, I repurposed non-legal tender coins and used brass bullet cartridges to create small spitfires from the coins.
And from the brass, I make flowers and spitfires, which I hand paint. During World War II, my late grandfather worked in a spitfire factory. And during his downtime, he and other staff would use coins to make small spitfire broaches. They were called sweetheart pins. And they'd often give them to their girlfriends and wives.
My grandfather, before he died, he taught me how to create these small spitfire broaches. In 2014, after he died, I inherited his tools and started making these spitfire broaches. Also in 2014, I read the book $100 Starner. And the idea of converting my spitfire broach making skills into some extra income took off with a local gallery, which I convinced to start selling my spitfire broaches. For the last 35 years, my day job has been a photographer for the Nelson Mail, which is a daily newspaper.
Since being featured in episode 812 of Side Hustle School, I've grown my side hustle significantly, peaking at $2,000 per month in January, February, 2020. The growth came from starting to export to Australia from New Zealand, with my single biggest customer being the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia. In BC times, that's before COVID, and the Museum of Contemporary Art was reported to be the world's most visited contemporary art gallery with 1.2 million customers. And the cufflinks I sold there were the only cufflinks that were sold on the gallery. So I reached a stage where I was actually struggling to keep up with the demand from the MCA or the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Like the rest of the world, in these COVID times, with art venues including galleries being closed, my side hustle revenue has been cut, and this revenue is back to where it was in 2018 at about $500 per month. My day job is still safe, but the challenge to my side hustle was that galleries in Australia, my largest market, are still closed. My revenue won't grow back to what it was. While some of these galleries do have quite good online stores and I still do some sales through there, it doesn't come close to meeting what the revenue was when the galleries were fully opened. I think everyone should have a side hustle, and the advice I would give anyone is that ideas are good, but actioning your ideas is way better.
Also, one of my personal mantras is failure has happened, but defeat is a choice. One of the things I've learned pretty early on is to keep good records of sales and expenses. As I said in episode 8.12, my best galleries are also the ones that give me the best reports and the best communication. These galleries also tell me that their best artists are the ones who are the most organized and keep the best records. Currently in my side hustle, I'm trying different ideas and often post these on Instagram.
I like Instagram as it's a very visual medium. With these Instagram posts, I've picked up new galleries who also sell my work, so there has been a benefit from using Instagram as a way of marketing to future customers. I also got the help from New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to model one of my new brooch designs. It's in the shape of a heart with a little copper tail, and the Prime Minister is used during these COVID times a sort of message of kindness and hope and care, and so the brooch design was kind of inspired by her, and she was happy to model it for me. Personally, I find doing something out here is very cathartic.
I know it's tough living in a global pandemic, but I find being able to create something with my own hands that people purchase and enjoy always brings me joy as well. Awesome, thank you so much, Martin. Really appreciate you sharing those updates with us. Also, I love this phrase or this tagline here, if failures happen, but defeat is a choice. It reminds me a lot of the failure Friday segment we've been doing, and in that segment, I often say never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat, but I love the framing of this perspective here.
Stuff happens, right? Things go wrong, but defeat is a choice. There's always a way to regroup, and we're definitely gonna wish Martin the best in his attempts to regroup. Hopefully, museums reopen. He can rebuild some of those wholesale accounts and so on.
Also, did you hear that part, that story, about Jacinda Ardern modeling his brooch? Like he tells that story in a very modest manner, but I think it's pretty cool. So Martin, good work. Listeners, check out his website, spitfiretrenchart.co.nz, spitfiretrenchart.co.nz, or NZ if you prefer, or follow him on Instagram @MartinDeRoyder. We'll link that up on the show notes page as well.
Let me know what you think and who you'd like to see featured from our archives of well over 1,000 stories. If you've got a question or a comment or an update for us about your hustle, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. You can also say hi on social media. Whatever you're up to in the world, wherever you are, I hope you're doing something for yourself, hopefully something for yourself today, and also to invest in yourself for the future. I'll be back again tomorrow with a new episode.
My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
