This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hello and welcome back. You're listening to Side Hustle School. I'm your host, Chris Guillebeau. Every day bringing you a different story of someone who starts an income generating project. Usually using the skills they already have, and that's exactly what I'll talk about today, if you live in an area visited by tourists or any big city or any area with a lot of natural beauty, there are probably a lot of different options to make money by showing people around or teaching people about your city or area.
Now tomorrow you'll hear about a woman in the UK who does chocolate tours. Today I'll tell you about a man who uses his love of the local land in Oregon and his skills in the air to create a sky high side hustle. That story's coming right up. [Music]
Corey Rust is every bit the embodiment of hometown pride. From a young age, he spent large chunks of time exploring the nature and wilderness of his local area near Troutdale, Oregon.
He's seen the gorge, walked beside the Columbia River, hiked through the forests, and even started a small clothing brand based on local designs. However, Corey wanted to take it a step further. He wanted to show people who were visiting the area exactly where they were and what they were experiencing. He knew that tourists were already flocking to the local waterfalls, but he couldn't help feeling this was only a small percentage of what the place had to offer. How could he show people more without increasing the amount of time they needed to stay?
Well, it helped that he had the skills of being a small aircraft pilot. Corey liked to fly, but he had only considered it as a hobby because doing it as some kind of business seemed complicated. But he realized if he could figure it out, he could show people all of the natural wonders from the sky. So he decided to create Envy Adventures with the goal of giving people what he called the 360 degree experience. Now, Corey took his business idea to friends, family, and colleagues.
He actually worked in business development for an airplane charter company, and pretty much all of them initially wrote him off. They said he'd need more than $100,000 to get started and that the FAA would never approve such an idea because they were currently short-handed. But Corey went ahead anyway. The first step was to find an airplane he could use. Since he didn't have more than $100,000, he knew he'd have to get creative.
He dug into the FAA registry, which is a big list of airplane owners, and he looked for someone willing to cooperate with him. After receiving a lot of rejections, he finally found someone who was willing to cooperate and let Corey use his plane. And the next step was to complete a lot of paperwork. Sadly, a flight-based side hustle isn't ready for takeoff as soon as you buy a plane, or even borrow one from someone else. Corey had to get that approval from the FAA, and that was a process that took eight months from start to finish.
And Corey used that waiting time wisely. He started social media feeds on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and he posted regular updates to raise awareness for his project. And he went ahead and built a website, even though he wasn't yet able to offer the tours. And once Corey finally got the go-ahead to fly the plane, he'd take his friends or family up with him to take pictures. He then used those images to update an Instagram feed once a day to try to bring in new interest.
He also spent a lot of time reaching out to local news organizations. He got featured in the newspaper, and he did a radio interview, and all of this buzz began to pay off. Since starting, Corey has been able to pull in $20,000 worth of revenue for his tour service. He's flown 67 tours and carried 152 people through the majestic nature of his area. And some of this success comes down to his unique way of charging for tours, which I thought was interesting.
Instead of charging high premiums per person, Envy Adventures are priced per flight. And depending on the tour, customers can expect to pay $99, $199, $265, or $349 per flight. And because it's priced per flight and not per person, the more people you choose to fly with, the more cost effective it is. However, it's also important to point out this is a side hustle that incurs a lot of costs. That's why from that $20,000 in revenue he's taken in, only $2,500 of it has been profit.
But with reservations coming in every day, and a lot of that money being reinvested back in the business, it shouldn't be long before the number grows a bit bigger. The next steps for Corey are learning how to market Envy to a wider audience. He's looking to create affiliate partnerships with local hotels and tourist operators. Social media has been helpful, but he wants to create a much larger brand presence. So far, so good though.
Corey is enjoying the adventure of watching his side hustle take flight. [Music]
Listen, if your side hustle is not taking off and reaching new heights yet, stick with it. I want you to know that help is on the way. The upcoming side hustle book presents a 27 day step-by-step plan for you to start your hustle. And just by means of public accountability, a lot of people have asked me about the side hustle society, which is something that I promised early in the year, but haven't had a bunch of updates on since.
So by mentioning it now, I'm making sure that it's gonna happen. And side hustle society will be a community of people, just like you, all working on creating their own income generating projects. So more on that at some point. I'm just putting it out there for now. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better.
If you want to find today's show notes, they are at sidehustleschool.com/193, which is also my Instagram handle, almost. It's 193 countries on Instagram. If you have a comment or question for the show, you could let me know on that website or give me a call on the Hustle Hotline at 8449 Hustle. You're a rockstar. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
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