This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Check one, two, one, two. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. Hey, I wanna welcome you back. We have just finished week number 29. Going strong from January to July.
Over here, it's been a bit of a recovery week for me. The previous weekend and much of the week before, I was hosting the World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon. Was a pretty incredible experience. It was also very intense. During the busiest days, I was pretty much going from 6 a.m. till 10 p.m. at night,
but it was all for a good cause. I have no complaints whatsoever, and I really had a fantastic experience. If you would like to see more than 1,000 photos of WDS, you can just take a look at my Flickr, which is flickr.com, F-L-I-C-K-R.com/ChrisGillibout. And I should have a pretty fun recap video for you to see soon as well, if you're interested. Now, it's also 57 days to go until the Side Hustle book comes out.
I have not started freaking out yet, but that's probably coming up in the next 30 days. I am going to do a 100-city tour, and right now I have about 12 cities confirmed. That means there are approximately a lot more still to be worked out. I hope to be able to have a sign-up list of at least the first 40 or 50 for you pretty soon. I'll be in most major North American cities, and then of course going around the world as well.
Now, you can already pre-order the Side Hustle book. That would be super awesome if you do that, and I'm going to have a pre-order bonus for anyone who does. And you can pre-order from any retailer you want, from your local bookstore, amazon.com, barnsonnoble.com. Just save your receipt when you do that. And when I have the information about the tour, I should also have the information about that pre-order bonus.
And today I want to look back on the episodes of the week, give you a preview of what's to come. I'm also going to read you a couple of letters from listeners as well as answer a listener question on voicemail. Here's the first letter I want to highlight. It comes from Namar, who is a Side Hustle school student at the Side Hustle workshop in Atlanta last month. And he writes in to say, "I wanted to share "that today was the first day of my life "when I earned money outside of any employer, "and it felt awesome.
"I made my first $150 as a personal finance coach. "A guy replied to my Craigslist ad. "We met at Jason's Deli for an hour "to start a personal finance plan, "including budget, savings, et cetera. "He walked away with actionable steps "that will lead into our next meeting. "I'm really excited to be able to help and see his success.
"We're going to meet over a period of six months "so that I can hold him accountable "to the goals we established. "This isn't scalable because I'm still trading time "for money, but I figure if I can help enough people "one-on-one, I'll be able to establish a routine process "and put it into a course which could be scalable." So congratulations, Namar. I totally agree. When you make your first money outside of an employer, it does feel awesome. And I hope you go on to make much more.
Then a second listener letter from June in Nashville. This is about her daughter, Eleanor. She says, "When her daughter was obsessed with Frozen, "weren't we all, she begged us for the $30 DVD of the movie. "And we said she could buy it only if she came up "with the money herself. "She's quite an artist, so she decided to make "and sell some drawings.
"I said they had to be something people would really "want to buy, not just things they bought to be nice. "And if they passed my quality control review, "I would post them on my Facebook page." Eleanor got to work looking through her books and decided on a bird and animal series. When she had about eight drawings finished, I posted them with prices on my Facebook page. She set the prices herself from four to $7 based on how much effort each drawing took her. I then helped her take orders, have high quality copies printed on card stock, and deliver or mail them.
Several people bought more than one, and I shut down the operation when she had made over $80. We wanted her to work toward her goal by selling something of quality, not just soliciting donations. She has since come up with a dozen ideas of things to make and sell, including cat houses, pet toys, jewelry, and various food items. In each case, we have her look at similar items already for sale, determine how much time and money the projects would take, and then think through the logistics of delivering the items. She also makes a prototype to gauge time and materials needed.
She hasn't yet had another success like the drawings, but I feel confident that she will be side hustle-ready when the time is right. I love that story. Thank you, June, for sharing, and congratulations, Eleanor. And now let's hear from a listener, Colin. - Hey, Chris.
This is Liz calling from Charleston, South Carolina. I think I have a good side hustle idea. I've researched it, priced it, and I'm using skills I already have, so startup costs should be low. But the stumbling block I keep coming across is I don't know what to name it, and I feel kind of stuck to move forward without a name for branding and website purposes. So do you have any advice for how to just pick something and move on, or a quick way to figure out what to call your side hustle?
Any advice would be so appreciated, and thank you so much for the show. It's really inspiring to hear everyone's stories, and I know it's a lot of work. Keep it up. Thanks. - Liz, you are awesome.
Thank you so much. It is indeed a lot of work, but I love it. Honestly, what makes me very happy is hearing from listeners, like in those emails I read or in your message, of people who are actually starting stuff. That's motivating to me. So for everybody out there, keep starting stuff.
Okay, so about naming your side hustle, it's definitely much more of an art than a science. There are several different approaches. I'm gonna give you two ideas, two kind of threads of thought to play with, and I will say that the principle for both ideas or really any good side hustle name is that the best names you kind of understand right away. Like if you hear what somebody's doing and they say, oh, and it's called whatever it is, like you immediately get it. I think that's what you're going for.
And here are a couple of examples from recent episodes. So the first thread of thought is to just be very descriptive. And this is good if your side hustle might be dependent on Google rankings or people searching for a common phrase. So we featured a number of people who are doing tours recently. I think I actually have a story coming up next week of a different one.
But back on episode 158, that was about a woman who does urban hikes in San Francisco. Her side hustle is called Urban Hiker San Francisco. So it might not be the sexiest name, but you immediately understand what it is. And also just a few days ago, we did Marrakech food tours. That is the name of the side hustle, and it's also exactly what it is.
So if you were visiting Marrakech and you were interested in a tour or a food tour, that is precisely the phrase you would type into Google and then guess what's gonna pop up? This person's side hustle. So that's one approach. The second approach is to still have something that's very understandable or it really kind of makes sense and relates to the side hustle, but you're looking for something a bit more clever. So in this one, I'll go way back to episode 27, which was about a stressed out mom who started a line of private label wine.
This was a great story because she didn't actually have to open a winery. She just found a way to put her own label on an existing vineyard's wine products, and anyone can do that. So the name of her brand, what she chose was Stressed Mommy. And I love that because it's clever. And when you hear that there's a brand of wine called Stressed Mommy, again, you totally get it.
Actually, I have a story coming up, I think tomorrow, which is called Mommy Coffee, similar kind of concept. Now, a few days ago in episode 198, there was a woman in the UK who helps people who are going to propose marriage or engaged couples pick out the perfect engagement ring. Her side hustle was called Agent Engagement, which is also really fun. And maybe if you hear it, you don't immediately know, oh, she's helping people pick out engagement rings, but it is fun and memorable, which are great qualities of a good side hustle name. So I would encourage you to go down one of those two tracks and just kind of brainstorm, write down all the different words and phrases that you think of, maybe even ask your friends if they have ideas.
I don't think it's always good to ask your friends for side hustle advice because they may not be qualified to give it. But when it comes to naming, sometimes a friend or somebody else might be able to help you come up with a great name, or maybe they can at least give you some ideas. And of course, you'll make the final decision because it's your side hustle. Thanks again, Liz, all the best with your hustle. [Music]
Looking back on this week, a few things stand out.
In episode 198, a marketing manager doubles as secret agent for engaged couples. As mentioned, great concept. Also a great pricing model. She found a way to make money without charging people directly. And she makes her money on commissions from the jewelers.
It's always a fixed commission. So she's not incentivized to take people to a certain place or steer them to something more expensive. I think that is super smart because it kind of counters objections, it helps lower people's defenses, and it shows that she is indeed a trustworthy secret agent, which she's also built some fun branding around. The next episode, 199, was about a comic creator who illustrates his way to $30,000. You can, in fact, make money writing science fiction or writing romance novels, as we saw in a previous episode, or doing something else in which you kind of create your own little world and your own characters, and then eventually build up a fan base.
It's not necessarily easy, but some people do it. Episode 200, obviously a big milestone. And I featured two high school students who earned $10,000 selling at farmer's markets. They actually began in middle school. It's a brother and sister duo who were each able to buy their first car with the income they made baking bread.
So this wasn't just a one-off success. They've actually built this recurring sustainable side hustle at the age of 13, 14. Think they're closer to college age now, but they've been doing this for several years. Episode 201, Food and Travel Writer creates food tours in Marrakech, earns $60,000 a year. That was that Marrakech food tours thing.
And as I said then, you never know what's gonna happen with your side hustle, because this person's goal, her goal was just to make a couple hundred dollars a month. It really was, but this tour thing started taking off. Nobody had done it there before. She was smart about how she did it. She learned along the way in working in partnership with her husband, who is Moroccan.
And if you're still trying to figure out if you should start your side hustle, well, here's a great example why you should. It might turn into something far beyond your expectations. And speaking of expectations, I wanted to mention episode 202, a physician assistant who's earning about $12,000 a year coaching aspiring physician assistants. Now this is a big career that a lot of people are going into every year. I don't always make predictions, but once in a while I hear an episode and I'm like, you know what, it's great that they made $12,000 last year.
I bet this is really gonna take off much more. And this is one of those. So we'll see what happens. Obviously I could be wrong, but I just think there's so much potential to it. And finally, an episode about a high school teacher who turns a woodworking hobby into a five figure side hustle.
As a reminder, not every podcast player downloads every episode. So if I mentioned an episode, if you feel like you're missing something, do go back to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts and make sure you have all those episodes downloaded. You can also listen to the complete archives on sidehustleschool.com. If you've just joined us recently, you may want to check out some of those archives to get caught up. I tell you these stories as a demonstration of what's possible.
I don't expect you to go out and start a side hustle every single day based on what you heard in that day's episode. But I do hope that every day you'll hear something and you'll think, wow, that's interesting. I wonder if that gives me an idea to do something else or maybe that affirms something I've been doing. Maybe it helps me course correct in some way. Or maybe it's just kind of affirming to hear what all these different people are doing.
And when they started, they had the same desire that I have now and they've been able to do it. So maybe I'll be next. And speaking of what's coming up next week, I think I briefly mentioned the Mommy Coffee Company. Now this is pretty cool. As a side hustle, within less than a year, this coffee brand is now bringing in $20,000 a month, focusing on coffee for new mothers and breastfeeding mothers.
Also a really genius idea. I'll tell you all about that tomorrow, in fact. Then there is a law student who creates a $6,500 a month morning routine journal project. Also another episode about tours. This one focused on biking and wine.
And of course so much more. New episode every day, new story every day. As I said in response to Liz's message, I love doing this. I really do enjoy it. I work on the show every day.
And I do it for those people out there who are trying to create that additional source of income for themselves. And if that's you, you're probably a busy person, just like me and like most of the other listeners. So you have limited time. So we keep the episode short, on point, and designed to be actionable. If you've just joined us recently, I want to encourage you to make this part of your routine.
If you listen every day, I know that I'm going to be there every day. And our goal together is to make this a reality for you. [Music]
Now I'm not the only person working on the show every day. We do have a small army of remarkable people behind Side Hustle School. The show is recorded on location at World Domination headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
After visiting a farmer's market, it is then produced in Brooklyn, New York at the Panoply Studios. Production is led by AC Valdez, also featuring Odelia Rubin. Back in Portland, show notes and host wrangling are by Whitney Karinek, my assistant, and my cat, Liberia Gillibo. Normally a big contributor to the show, but she's actually still on vacation at the meow house. Should be coming home next week.
I hope you've been having a good week over there. By the way, I lost my mood ring the other day. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Side Hustle School is part of the Onward Project, curated and led by bestselling author Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen also has a book coming out in September, one week before mine.
It's called "The Four Tendencies." I have read an advanced copy. It is wonderful. Learn more about the Onward Project at theonwardproject.com. And my last, but not least, thanks, RTU, the listener. As I said, you're the reason we make this show.
It's a free, listener-supported show with just a single sponsor per episode. If you wanna do a small thing that will help a lot, I would love it if you would share the show with your friends. Tell them about Side Hustle School. Take their phone and subscribe them to it. Leave us a quick little rating or review on Apple Podcasts.
It just takes a moment and it helps other people discover the show. I always say that inspiration is good, but action is better. I look forward to hearing about you taking action. I hope to see you tomorrow and every day next week with more fun stories. Episodes go online every day at 601 Eastern Time.
I'm Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
