This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
And we're back. Hey there, what's up? This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School, here with you for the weekly recap special broadcast. We have just finished week number 26, well over halfway in the year. And also, I'm going to officially begin the Side Hustle book countdown.
It is 77 days to go. 77 days from now, maybe even sooner if you're listening after this episode has been out for a bit, the Side Hustle book launches. That is September 19th. And as excited as I am, I'm also a little bit like, wow, that's coming up actually quite soon. I told you last week, I'm going to go to 100 cities. And so far, I've planned maybe, I don't
know, three of them, three or four. It might actually be like five or six, but it's definitely no more than that. So I've got a lot more work to do. And I don't even know what the tour calendar will look like. The goal is to have that finished by about 45 to 50 days out. So stay tuned and we'll
see how it goes. Now, interesting news about this last week on the email list, there is a Side Hustle School email list, by the way, which you can subscribe to for free at sidehustleschool.com. I did a reveal of the book cover. And I also sent this out on my general Chris Gillibow newsletter as well. So you might have seen it somewhere. But if not, you should come to the
website today and take a look. It was quite a challenge to get to this cover. And at the very end, we had two covers that we liked myself and my publisher, but we weren't sure which was best. And so we put them out and did a little split test with a panel of readers and listeners, as well as an independent panel from the publisher who may or may not have ever heard of me. So the idea was to look at a couple of different groups and see what people thought. Now, the interesting thing about testing
is when you test, you really have no idea what's going to happen, or you actually may think you know what's going to happen, but you could be totally wrong. And in this case, we were completely wrong. Of the two covers that we were considering for the final selection, there was one that was preferred almost universally by everybody at the publisher, and honestly by myself as well, at least at first. But then we did this test. And I was amazed. We were all amazed actually,
that more than 80% of people preferred the other cover. And at first we thought, well, maybe this is just like my little subset of people. But in fact, the independent results were just the same. The other cover was preferred at least four to one. And so lesson learned, sometimes you are not the smartest person in the room. Sometimes a lot of smart people can
actually be wrong. And that's why you test. So of course, that story is about the side hustle book, but it is perhaps a lesson that applies to lots of other stuff as well. There are several things in today's recap. We have a listener call in question, going to look back on the episodes we've covered, give you a little preview of what's coming up. But first, I want to give you a new prompt this week.
This is a new question that I would love listeners to answer. This one is really simple. Who has helped you along your journey? I would love to do some shout outs on the show. Just some thank you, some acknowledgments of people who have helped you in your side hustling journey as you get started, or as you go further, if you've been doing this for a while. So it could be a friend,
it could be a mentor, it could be some other author or podcast or some other resource. Let's just say thank you to some folks who have helped us. And if you'd like to be part of this, all you need to do is call the hustle hotline and leave your less than 30 second response. That number is 8 4 4 9 hustle or 8 4 4 9 4 8 7 8 5 3. Or if you prefer, of course, you can just use your phone to make a quick voice memo and email that to podcast@sidehustleschool.com.
And we haven't done these prompts in a couple of weeks. So I would love next week to be a big one. Starting next week, we will feature not just a couple, but hopefully many responses. Give me a call and let me know who has helped you along your journey. Now let's jump into a listener question. Hey, what's going on? My name is Paul and I'm from
Southern New Jersey. I feel that every once in a while, I have these diamond in the rough ideas that would genuinely improve lives and also potentially make me some money. As a full time student, I need that. So I'd like to be able to get some of these ideas off the ground. And I think side hustle school can help me with that. So my question is, how do you go about doing a side
hustle if you don't have the ability nor the time to learn the abilities to fulfill your side hustles? I have a couple ideas that require coding and I have no coding skills at all. And I have no idea how to go about either starting them or selling these ideas to people that could actually fulfill them. Thanks. Hey Paul, thanks so much for listening. New Jersey represent. I too hope
the show can help you out. Now to me, it sounds like you don't have a problem coming up with ideas, which is great because that is a very valuable skill. And you may have heard me say this before, but I don't necessarily think that you should go out and get coding skills to make your idea a reality. Like if you're inclined to do that and that's your dream, that's great. But from what you said, it doesn't sound like that's possible in your life right now, just because of time or whatever else. So I don't know. I guess my first thought is, does it have to be one of those ideas? If you
have multiple ideas, why not choose one that is feasible to you right now? Why not look at the skills you have? Why not make a list of all the different things you're good at, all the things you're interested in, as well as the problems that you've experienced, things you would like to solve, questions people ask you about. And then instead of identifying something that might require technical skills you don't have, could there not be something that you could do soon? Could there not be something you could start within 30 days? And then in the future, if you go on to do something
else, well, maybe you will improve your skills. Maybe you will find someone else who can do that coding. But for me, that doesn't seem like the most relevant point, at least based on what you said. Anyway, good luck. Let me know how it goes.
This week's episodes went from number 177, all the way up to 182. Whoa. We started with the full-time mom who ships $35,000 a month in frozen bread on Amazon. Pretty crazy. She's also in Whole Foods and a bunch of other places. And that person, I think her name was Stacy, along with two other
people this week, actually created some pretty scalable businesses, which is not always what we look at inside of school, of course. But all these people created those businesses while working a full-time job, which is the key point of the show. You saw that again in the following episode, designer who illustrates success with personalized wedding products. Then again, in yesterday's episode, the Chicago woman who sells $70,000 a month on Etsy. And that reminds me, we actually did an extended episode one week ago today, which did an even more detailed look at that woman's business, a behind the scenes look at an Etsy store that has done more than seven figures in net income. What's different about that store? What does she sell that makes it so
successful when other people aren't successful? How does she write her copy? All of those things, if you missed the extended cut, that should be available in the Apple podcast feed or wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can just come to sidehustleschool.com/extended. You'll be able to hear any of those episodes. We do one a month that is a bit more detailed than the short stories I tell you every day. Oh, and by the way, there was also some other episodes this week, of course,
including one about a guy who makes $22,000 a year handing out business cards. That was a story of passive income, a bit different than those scalable stories, but also a story that encouraged you to look at what you're already doing. If there's some opportunity that you could find similar to what that guy did, you might not make $20,000 a year passing out business cards, but I do think there's a lesson for you somewhere. Looking out over the next few days, I've got some really interesting stuff coming up. You definitely don't want to miss it. A story about some hand grippers, you know, those things that you hold in your hand and you
squeeze them to increase your grip. Well, somebody has made a $60,000 side hustle from them and this wasn't the person who invented them in the first place. So that's pretty cool. There's also the story of 500 brides who received wedding veils shipped by the post office. Now I often make fun of the post office, but apparently the post office is reliable for shipping brides wedding veils.
So you'll hear about that. And more importantly, you'll hear how someone makes money doing that in the upcoming story. There's also a feature on a stay at home dad who starts a coffee roasting business, a side hustle that disrupts the car rental industry. And I try not to use that word disrupt very often because it is on my list of terribly overused startup words. But in this case, I think it applies and I look forward to telling you more about that and lots of other stuff coming up. I can hardly believe another week has gone by. We are in the middle of summertime,
at least in my hemisphere. I am aware that we have lots of folks listening in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, maybe Antarctica. I have no idea. Give me a shout if you're listening from there. But anyway, where I live, it is now officially summertime. And I'm having fun. I love
making the show every day. I'm going to do some credits and shout outs here just for the other folks who work on the show. But as always, I want to give a shout out to you, the listener. That's right. If you are over there listening, you are the reason I make this show. It's not just
entertainment. I hope it's fun. I hope you enjoy it. But I want this to be meaningful in your life, impactful. I want you to be able to have something to show for it at the end of the year, if not much sooner. And I know a lot of folks have done that in different ways. Anyway, Sydasil School is
recorded on location at World Domination headquarters in Portland, Oregon. A junk removal service then transports it to Brooklyn, New York at the Panafly Studios, where our production team is led by AC Valdez, also featuring Odelia Rubin. Show notes back in Portland are by Whitney Corinnek. My cat, Liberia Gillipo, would love to try coconut oil mouthwash. Maybe that guy from episode 179 would send us a sample. Who knows? Life advice of the week, never trust an atom,
because they make up everything. Sydasil School is part of the Onward Project curated by best-selling author Gretchen Rubin, a collection of podcasts full of concrete, actionable ideas for making your life happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. Maybe you'll even make more money, at least if you do something about it. Unfortunately, it does not work by osmosis. Believe me, I've tried. If you are enjoying this show, I would be super, super grateful if you would
leave a quick rating in Apple podcasts. It only takes a second. We are, in fact, listener supported just one sponsor per episode. When you take a moment to leave a rating or a review, or tell your friends about the show, or post about it on social media, that just rocks my world. It makes it so much easier for other people to discover, especially as we go into these 77 days until the book launch. I can't wait to tell you more about that as we get closer. In every episode, I always
say inspiration is good, but action is even better. I am supportive of you taking action. I am cheering you on. Episodes go online at 6.01 AM Eastern time every day, and I hope you'll keep listening. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
