This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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What's up, welcome. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host of "Side Hustle School." Really glad you tuned in today. We've got a new episode every single day, all about creating extra money through the form of a side hustle, an income generating project, something that is not just a hobby, but also is profitable. That's what we've been doing every single day since January 1, 2017. And earlier this year, we started a new feature called "Your First Thousand Dollars." Now, that title is very subtle.
You might never guess that this feature is, in fact, about how someone made their first thousand dollars, but it is, in fact, the topic. How did they get to that point? Not their first hundred thousand dollars, that's cool. Not their first million dollars, but those would be long stories. We're looking at how they actually really got started from that point of having an idea to generating revenue.
And often, like you're gonna hear in today's story, going on to so much more. We're focused on that origin point, but that's from which all things come. So with that in mind, today's feature comes from Jason Fitzgerald in Denver, Colorado. We first featured Jason back on episode 1347. Dedicated runner goes the distance for online training.
Jason is, in fact, a running coach. He creates running plans. He made one for me at one point a couple of years ago. And his business grew to become a full-time career about two years after he started. So that's great.
And what about his first thousand dollars? How did he make that happen? What did it feel like and what did he learn? So let's hear it from Jason. I'll come back with a quick wrap up at the end.
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I'm Jason Fitzgerald. And my business strength running helps runners improve, whether that's getting faster at a certain race distance, preventing injuries, or increasing strength. I started strength running in 2010 as a very simple WordPress blog. I didn't have any monetization of the website at all for about the first six months. I spent that six months creating content for adult runners who love the sport and want to get better.
I interacted with my intended target audience in online forums, on social media like Twitter and Facebook, and through guest posting on larger sites. I wanted to learn what topics resonated with runners and how I could best help them. It was also a time when blog comments were a hotbed of conversation, and I was sure to provide value whenever I could. I started learning more about search engine optimization and targeted my writing to the topics that runners were already searching for. I tracked my traffic from the search engines, and as I gradually got better at keyword optimization, I watched my site traffic grow week after week.
I also had a few articles go semi-viral on platforms like Reddit, and what used to be known as StumbleUpon. In about six months, my traffic had tripled, and thanks to my efforts at building my email list, I now had a reliable way of communicating directly with the strength-running audience. After about six months of consistent writing and community building, I started offering two different services, private online coaching and custom training plans. If you wanted me as a coach, you could now do that. I would work with any runner who loved the sport and wanted to improve.
Or if you just wanted me to build you a personalized running program, I could do that too. It's like coaching light. You get the program built specifically for you, but without the ongoing cost of having a coach. I also started experimenting with affiliate marketing, at first recommending my favorite training books on Amazon, but also recommending other creators' products in the fitness space. It felt great helping runners learn more about the sport.
After nearly a year of consistent content production and interacting and learning from my audience, I realized that I had a legit side hustle going on. At first, I was making $100 or $200 per month, but soon my roster of private clients grew, and I was consistently writing a half dozen custom training plans or so every single month. My first $1,000 was made primarily through coaching services, both online coaching and custom training plans in the first year of my business. Even though I was working full-time, my side hustle was an enormous source of pride for me. It made me feel independent, it supplemented my income, and I was extraordinarily happy that I was making money doing what I love, helping runners elevate their performances.
28 months after launching Strength Running, I quit my full-time job to coach full-time. And nearly 10 years later, I couldn't imagine doing anything else. Awesome, thanks so much, Jason. Really appreciate that story. Blog comments aren't so much of a thing now.
That was a thing, as he mentioned, when he was getting going, to just be really active in the comment thread and respond to people. But even though that particular means of communication has diminished, I was gonna say died down, but just diminished, let's say, engagement still matters. There's always different ways to engage. Could be on social media, could be through direct email. But especially for a coaching business or any kind of service, people are going to sign up for packages, for training, for consults, whatever it is, based on that personal relationship, based on the sense that you are available.
You don't wanna give away all your work for free, of course, but you do wanna be as helpful as feasible. Again, thanks, Jason, for telling us about that first $1,000. Listeners, I hope you enjoyed it. Check out his website, strengthrunning.com, just two words, no hyphen, strengthrunning.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @JasonFitts1.
If you've got a question or an update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Thank you for tuning in today. New episode coming out tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
