1998
8 min 9 sec

Hollywood Video Editor Shoots for the Stars

An ambitious video editor (who also runs many side hustles!) uses a string of $5/month Craigslist ads to land thousands of dollars in work
Equipment Rental Reselling Service

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What It's About

A hardworking Hollywood professional builds an empire from inexpensive Craigslist ads.

Words of Wisdom

Graham is a huge advocate for Craigslist advertising, “Make use of those $5/month Craigslist ads! I don't know of a more cost-effective form of advertising.”

Fun Fact

Graham once did a project for the band Maroon 5. They had several hundred videotapes of behind the scenes footage they had shot over the years, and needed it all captured to a computer.

Notes from Chris

Episode 1998

Graham “Gray” Jones works as a TV editor/writer. Because that industry has so many ebbs and flows, he’s always filled in the gaps with side jobs, including building a stock footage library and getting sponsorships for his video podcasts. But in 2017 when he was invited to shoot a music festival, he started thinking bigger.

Although he had a lot of gear already, he didn’t have everything he needed, so he rented it from a peer-to-peer equipment camera sharing platform called ShareGrid.

That experience made him realize he could be renting out his own gear when he wasn’t using it, so he immediately listed everything he had and started making $1,500/month. He reinvested earnings to build a bigger rental catalog, and got it as high as $3,500/month before COVID hit.

In addition to bringing in revenue, the rentals also allowed Gray to be more aggressive in pursuing jobs that needed a lot of specialized equipment, because he knew whatever he bought could be rented out to offset the purchase price.

Buying and selling camera equipment has also been lucrative. In fact, Gray made about $30,000 last year just on the buying and selling through a mix of eBay, Craigslist and ShareGrid, the website that started these hustles.

So far, Gray’s biggest catch was a $140,000 job with an educational foundation for billionaire Michael Milken. The foundation had 14,000 videotapes (appropriately fifteen tons of tapes) that needed to be imported.

By capturing from nineteen machines at once, Gray and a small team were able to deliver it in ten weeks. Even the most established transfer companies would take a year or more for that amount of video, so he feels that speed is what’s helped him succeed in that niche. He celebrated the six-figure project with a week-long vacation in Disneyland and a weekend in wine country.

When Gray saw how much success he had renting out camera equipment on ShareGrid, he and his wife started renting their minivan through the peer-to-peer car rental site Turo. In the first two weeks of signing up, they booked $3,000 of rentals. They plan to reinvest their earnings to buy more vehicles and gradually build a fleet.

Finally, because two multi-six figure side hustles isn’t enough, he’s also in talks to buy a competing well-established audio/video transfer company.

 
  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

  • Learn more about Graham and his AV services at his website, AVGearGuy.com/.
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Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,

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Quote of the Day
"Make use of those $5/month Craigslist ads! I don't know of a more cost-effective form of advertising."
—Gray Jones #SideHustleSchool

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To infinity and beyond,

Chris Guillebeau