This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hello, greetings and welcome. You're listening to Side Hustle School. I'm Chris Guillebeau and I hope you enjoyed yesterday's story about the Airbnb for dogs. Now I know this isn't for everybody. I don't necessarily expect you to go out and open your own Airbnb for dogs, but it is pretty cool, I think, that someone who likes dogs and is really into it can make up to $200 a day part time by hosting dogs in her home.
And today's story is very different. It's all about how a young student stumbled into a hustle that went on to generate 50 million views on YouTube and eventually hire more than a dozen employees. So again, quite different. A couple of days ago, I told you about Joe and Jack, who started the homemade gen kit. That was a side hustle gone big story.
And so today's is like that. There's nothing wrong with making $1,000 a month from your hustle or $2,000 a month. Those are great success stories, but it's also really cool when someone truly hits it big. And I'll tell you all about that in just a moment. Daisy Jing was a young student surfing around YouTube looking for answers.
Like many other people, Daisy had a skin problem and it bothered her. She'd tried a lot of different treatments and nothing seemed to work. So in between looking at music videos, she discovered a whole world of young video bloggers or vloggers who talk mostly about beauty issues. In particular, Daisy found a YouTube video from a girl who shared her experience with acne. This vlogger showed viewers her skincare routine, the product she liked, what worked and what didn't.
And from there, Daisy discovered other videos of people who had the same skin ailments. She was amazed. They were people so brave to share their struggle and story. And this inspired her. So one day she turned on her webcam and decided to share her own experience.
Daisy was unnatural. In a short period of time, she'd built a following. And because she talked about her beauty routine and the challenges in her own life, a lot of her followers had similar problems and they related to her. There was no business model to this channel at first, but after Daisy graduated college, something changed. Now by then, she'd saved enough money to get her skin lasered, which is something she'd wanted to do for a long time.
It cost $4,000, but she badly wanted her scars to go away. But just before getting the procedure done, she met with a plastic surgeon who told her about using a cosmetic tool in conjunction with a vitamin C serum. And he recommended this routine much more than undergoing the procedure. It was non-invasive, it was natural, and it created far better results than anything he had seen before. Well, she decided to give it a try.
Time went by and at first, Daisy didn't think much about it, but a few months later, her viewers on YouTube were complimenting her about the noticeable difference on her skin. And that's where the hustle came in. She asked her followers if they wanted her to send them some of the same vitamin C serum that she'd used. She placed a wholesale order from the manufacturer and within a few days, everything was sold out. As she puts it, the rest was history.
Now, because this is a very personal topic, Daisy's followers tend to be super fans. They trust her, they tell their friends about her. And if she recommends something, they buy it. Now, in that very first year, she started selling her own products. She made more than $400,000.
Now, the second year, it was 1.2 million. The third year was 3 million. And now we're in year four, so we'll see what happens. But Daisy has clearly found something that resonates strongly with other people who have the same issues she did before she tried different products and routines. [Music]
So let's talk about Daisy's success.
You know, at first glance, this might sound like more of a $100 startup story than a side hustle story. She now has more than a dozen employees and most side hustles don't make $3 million a year. However, you can probably see how some of the same principles you've heard about in earlier episodes make perfect sense in the development of this story. Daisy became a trusted authority. She experimented with different products and sponsorships.
She built relationships with people over time. And she also didn't plan on starting a big business. By her own account, she always thought she was gonna graduate from school and work a typical job and live a typical life. She had no idea that at a young age, she'd have employees. And even now, when I asked her about her first sale, she said the same thing that I hear from many hustlers.
She said, "I can't believe that someone trusted me enough "to give me money for something I created." So I often say, "Once you go down the road of adventure, "you don't know where you're gonna end up." And I often mean that in the context of travel or a quest or something different. But maybe the best takeaway for stories like Daisy's is, once you start hustling, you never know what's gonna happen. But maybe you should be prepared for something big. Well, it may not happen exactly like that for you, but if you listen to these stories and you apply them to your own hustle, you will see results over time. Remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better.
Over on sidehustleschool.com, you can get the show notes for today. You can also get a free five-step to hustle course. You can hear about the workshops I'm doing across the country. And you can tell me where I should go for future workshops. I'm Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School, and I'll see you tomorrow.
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