This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Greetings and welcome. Thanks for tuning in today. My name's Chris Guillebeau. You are listening to Side Hustle School, only daily podcast, bringing you stories, tips, actionable ideas on things you can do to create a new source of income. Projects you can start, maybe some service you can provide, maybe a skill you already have that is just underutilized or you haven't found a way to transform it into that new source of income.
That's what we're all about here. And in today's segment, it's known as Throwback Thursday. We do a little, well, I guess it's called a throwback where we look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. And in fact, you get to hear directly from that person, hear their updates, as well as their challenges, what's going well, what's not. Last week, we heard from the founder of OnlineJobs.ph, a directory of Filipino workers available for remote work.
The site now has more than 2 million profiles. Today, in our latest feature, we'll hear from Andrew Zao, the founder of Throwlights. Throwlights, interesting. His business provides gear and training for light shows. If you're wondering what a light show is, well, light shows were invented by ravers at underground electronic music festivals.
I learned a little bit about this when I was working on the original episode. Andrew and team believe it's the next big e-sport. So what has happened since we first featured Throwlights? Let's hear directly from Andrew. I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap up.
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My name is Andrew Zao. I'm based in San Diego, California. The name of my side hustle is Throwlights, and I was featured in episode 973 of Side Hustle School. Throwlights engineers, manufactures, and sells revolutionary products for light show artists. And we also help light show artists to turn their content into NFTs.
And we're bringing the entire concept of light shows into the metaverse. I got started with Throwlights when one of my best friends had something that he had to show me back in 2008. He brought over these amazing strobing lights and I instantly fell in love. All along, I knew that this had potential and that I wanted to do something with it. In 2016, I launched an e-commerce store selling the products.
And in 2019, I met an angel investor who gave me the opportunity to do this full time. Before this, I spent 10 years growing as a professional doing sales. I worked everywhere from B to C and eventually did tech sales in Silicon Valley for startups. I was crushing my sales career before I got the opportunity to leave and do Throwlights. But I knew I had to as this was my passion.
Since the last time I was featured on the show, we've launched two new products that we designed and engineered, the Apollo and the Apollo V2 gloves. Throwlights has opened up a brand new office in Oceanside, California. I've assembled an excellent team around me, my VP of Sales, Jacob Livengood, and my VP of Engineering, Jocelyn Raguconis. We're very close to self-sustaining profits now, and we've more than doubled the amount of capital raised to over $300,000. We have a new investment round opening soon.
My biggest personal challenge is to grow as a leader, as I think people management issues and PR have created a somewhat bumpy road at times. The best advice I'd give to someone falling in my footsteps is to learn as much as you possibly can as quickly as you can. Don't be afraid to learn management skills, technical skills, and business skills. Dive in as deep as you can, as all those themes will come in very useful, and you're capable of much more than you think. For listeners that are interested in getting to the NFT space, I would absolutely recommend diving in as soon as possible, as I truly think that this is an emergent technology that is going to change the world.
And I think the sooner that you can start doing that, the better. I would recommend for someone who's just new to the space to find someone trusted who can show you the ropes. And you can do that by looking for the nearest NFT event in your area. There's usually one going on, no matter where you are. And when you go there, you'll find that these are some very welcoming and helpful people generally.
And I'm sure you'll be able to meet someone who can show you the ropes. [Music]
Thanks so much to Andrew for sharing those updates with us. Listeners, check out his website, throwlights.com, or follow them on social @throwlights. They also have a community discord, very community focused, where you can meet other people who are into this esport, as Andrew calls it. You can find the link for that at the website or on Instagram.
Let me know what you think and who you'd like to see featured from our archives of more than a thousand stories. If you've got a question or an update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. That's all for today, but I hope you'll subscribe or follow, come back for more new episode every single day. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You've been listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
