This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, thank you for tuning in today. My name is Chris Guillebeau, the host of Side Hustle School, bringing you case studies, stories, tips, questions and answers, all kinds of interesting material designed not just to entertain you, but also to inspire you and show you what you can do to create more money for yourself, create a side hustle and income generating project that allows you to, well, I don't know, to more of what's important to you, to have more autonomy and independence, that is our ultimate goal. Now, I also believe that you can learn as much from failure as you can from success, if not more, actually. And so that is the principle we had in mind when developing this weekly segment called Failure Friday, a collection of short stories about mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course, failure. So just like our Throwback Thursday segment, you get to hear directly from side hustlers, in this case, who have struggled to get something off the ground.
They're gonna tell you this quick story of something that went very wrong. And so often the story, they tend to vary, but often begins with an idea, an assumption, what they thought would happen, and then what really happened. And of course, what they learned along the way. So today's short story features Sean Patel, owner of Prep Expert. And we told a successful story of his standardized test preparation business on episode 996.
Sean has been very successful. He earned a perfect SAT score, as you're gonna hear in his story, among other big wins, Mark Cuban invested $250,000 in his business. Lots of good things, okay? But since this is Failure Friday, we're not here to talk about that. Before he started his business, he pitched a book that was rejected by more than 100 literary agents and publishers.
So let's hear the story from him along with his biggest lesson learned. [Music]
Hi, my name is Sean Patel, and I am the founder of Prep Expert SAT and ACT preparation. I wanna share with you a little story I learned about failure early on in my career. When I was first starting out, I wanted to publish an SAT preparation book. Because I had raised my SAT score from average to perfect in high school, I wanted to help other students do the same.
I thought that an SAT preparation book written by a perfect score SAT student would be revolutionary for the test preparation industry. However, when I pitched my book to over 100 literary agents and publishers, every single one rejected me. They stated that the SAT prep market is too competitive and that I didn't have a platform to write such a book. I sat around hoping for a book deal for about six months, wishing that someone would give me a chance. It wasn't until I realized that I should just take the material I had written and turn it into an SAT prep course that my luck changed.
The students in my pilot course had an average SAT score improvement of 376 points to their scores. That's equivalent to going from the 50th percentile to the 90th percentile. This was proof that the SAT prep material that I had created really worked. Shortly after I created my own SAT prep courses, McGraw-Hill, the world's largest education publisher, that previously rejected my book proposal, came back to me and offered me a publishing deal. Now, my McGraw-Hill SAT prep book went number one on Amazon for SAT prep and sold tens of thousands of copies.
So what lesson did I learn? I learned as an entrepreneur, and especially as someone who has a side hustle, you need to stop waiting for handouts. When you are first starting out as an entrepreneur, you often expect others to help you. Because you often have no connections in the beginning, you want others to help you gain influence. Stop depending on other people to hand you success.
Go out there and create your own. Stop waiting for handouts and create your own success. [Music]
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. That is the theme of Failure Friday. Thank you so much, Sean.
You know, I also have had many books rejected by publishers. I don't know if I've had 100 rejections in total, but that's probably because I don't know 100 publishers. Like pretty much everyone I know at one point or another has turned down some idea or proposal for me. But of course, that's not the final story. That's why you keep going and you stop waiting for handouts.
As Sean said, you just keep regrouping. You try different stuff and you may find, as he discovered that your second attempt or your 20th attempt, whatever it turns out to be, your 101st attempt, I guess, for Sean, you may find that that's actually a better idea than what you thought was gonna be the best idea. So again, thank you, Sean, for sharing this transparent and truthful story. Listeners, check out his website at prepexpert.com or follow him on Instagram @SeanPatel. And that's spelled S-H-A-A-N-P-A-T-E-L, Sean Patel.
If you've got a question or an update for us about your side hustle, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Let me know what you're up to and also say hi on social media. Send a carrier pigeon, text message, whatever's good for you, but also come back tomorrow because I'll be here with a new episode. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You are listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
