This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Hey there, thanks for tuning in wherever you are in the world, whatever day it is, whatever time it is. I'm so glad you're listening to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau your host. In today's episode, as we kick off a new week, at least in terms of our publication schedule, this is our segment known as your first $1,000. Your first $1,000. As you might guess,
it's all about how someone makes their first $1,000. How do they get to that point? Not their first $100,000. That's cool, but it would probably be a long story. And we make this show for busy people who want to invest in themselves, but just don't have a lot of time. Also, $1,000 is much more
relatable, I've found. For people who've never started a business, never had an income source apart from their paycheck, if you can get to $1,000, you can do so much. That's my goal for all of our listeners. And with that in mind, today's feature comes from Mickey Gammonal. He is a return to Peace Corps volunteer who starts a tutoring business on the side in Las Vegas. And along
the way, he learns a lot of lessons. We talked about them a bit in the episode that featured him, but what about his first $1,000? Specifically, how did he make that happen? What did it feel like? And what did he learn? Let's hear it from Mickey.
My name is Mickey Gammonal with Gammonal Tutors and ASVAB Domination. I was featured on Side Hustle School Episode 1634, Peace Corps alum tutors, US military recruits. Today, I'm talking about how I made my first $1,000 in business. I tutored with the work study program making about $14 an hour to teach in public schools, and started freelancing tutoring in the summers. One of my first clients was given to me for my part time job. I got along
with the bosses well enough to ask them if they could feed me clients. Essentially, there was one summer and I obviously wasn't in school during the summer, but I still needed to make some money, so I reached out to my bosses to see if they had anybody who needed tutoring. They put me together with a couple of parents who had about a fourth grader. I started out charging about $20 an hour, but eventually I raised my prices to $50 per hour. This was for me to drive all the way out and meet the student in person at the library. At this point, I'd meet with one student studying for
the ASVAB Monday through Friday for an hour every single morning. Later on down the road, after getting a couple of regular students through my boss, what I ended up doing is I started niching down on the ASVAB. I had a really good student, like it was a grandpa who was really interested in seeing his son succeed. He wanted me there every morning, five days a week, for one hour, and so I'd get a crisp $50 bill every single day Monday through Friday on top of my regular full-time job. This meant $250 a week or an extra $500 per pay period, which meant that I was making about a third of my check for 10 hours of work. This got me thinking about switching to full-time
tutoring. I realized I was making more for less time. I was also really happy with what I was doing. Tutoring is definitely much more fulfilling. So we can call it the first thousand dollars per month to do something I found much more fulfilling than my security gig. That was a major tipping
point for me. I knew that working security wasn't a permanent job for me. Since then, I've raised my prices and restructured my business in countless ways. I'm happy that I left that job. Occasionally, I missed the stable income. However, as National Guard Lieutenant, I've got a bit of a safety net
to ensure that I make some form of stable income. Anyway, that's my story about my first thousand dollars. Hope you enjoy it. If anyone is wondering how to make their first thousand dollars, I recommend looking into something that gives you purpose and fulfillment. The money can be secondary. It's very likely that something you like to do can help people. It's not really about the
money. It's more about the positive impact you can have helping people. As you find more and more opportunities to help people solve problems, the money will show up. Thanks so much to Mickey for telling us about his first thousand dollars. I really appreciate his commitment to service and to making a difference in the world. We are all about that here too. We
just also want to help you make money. I think you can do all those things together. And of course, he is an illustration of that. Listeners, I hope you found it encouraging. Check out Mickey's website, GammonalTutors.com. Gammonal is spelled G-A-M-O-N-A-L, GammonalTutors.com. He specializes
in the armed services vocational aptitude battery test, which as you heard in that update is also known as ASBAB. So if you know anybody going into the military, that can be a good resource for them. If you have a question or an update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions, let me know what you're up to, what you're working on, and how we can help. And also subscribe, follow, come back tomorrow. New episode every single morning.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
