This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What's up, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. This is Chris Guillebeau. Hey, hey, today our episode is in the theme of Your First Thousand Dollars, a weekly segment about startup stories of someone who has got started without spending a lot of money, like most of our stories, in fact. But specifically, we're looking at how they earned their first thousand dollars.
How did they get to that point? How did they make it happen? Not their first hundred thousand dollars. That's a cool story as well, but it's a longer story. And also, once you earn that first thousand dollars, it's not that hard to earn 2,000 or even to go to 5,000, $10,000 and more.
That first real paycheck on your own, apart from an employer, feels really good, just feels so empowering. So that's why we've been telling these stories. And with that in mind, today's feature comes from Reina Silvante in Chicago. In the early part of the pandemic, she was working remotely for her day job and decided to start a dog walking business called Day Job Dog Walking. All right, sounds good to me.
What about that first thousand dollars? How did she make it happen? What did it feel like? What did she learn? Let's hear it from Reina.
[Music]
My name is Reina Silvante and I started a dog walking service in the greater Chicago area. I know that dog walking probably doesn't sound very exciting, but for me, it was accessible and non-intimidating. I'd tried a couple of things before without seeing them through, so these were important qualities. I live in a neighborhood with a lot of dog owners and I had free time during the day thanks to remote work in the beginning of the pandemic. In fact, I had so much free time that I almost started another full-time job during the same hours as my main one, but that's a story for another day.
At first, I did the usual things. I made flyers for local coffee shops and street pools and I posted in our neighborhoods next door app. That brought me a few customers. Again, I wasn't trying to build a full-time business or anything. I was just curious what I could do without overthinking anything.
My next step was to formalize a bit. I registered my business and called it Day Job Dog Walkers. I decided to capitalize on the pandemic and make it sound like I'd be taking work calls while I was walking dogs, which was meant to be funny, but sometimes actually happened. The attention from the name brought me a bunch of new customers, and before long, I'd made my first $1,000. I also hired a neighborhood assistant, a high schooler who had a lot of free time thanks to her school being closed, so I was able to pay her and still profit.
I did this for more than six months before pausing when my company ended remote work. I ended up clearing more than $15,000 in extra unexpected income, which was amazing. I know these stories usually have some kind of lesson learned, but for me, I can't think of anything I would have done differently. The only thing that comes up is that this business helped me believe in myself more. That may sound silly, but it really is true.
I have a master's degree and earn a good income for my day job, as in my actual day job, but until I tried this experiment, I had no idea I could be an entrepreneur of sorts. I'm really glad I did. For my next move, I'm thinking of something even more daring. Thanks for letting me share my story. I'll keep you posted on what happens next.
[Music]
Rayna, thank you so much for telling us about your first $1,000 day job dog walking. Sounds pretty cool. Listeners, I hope you found the story encouraging. As I said, it's this first beginning, this first $1,000, whatever the number is, that allows you to have the vision to go on to do so much more. So that's why I always encourage you to get to that point as quickly as possible.
Thanks again to Rayna. Listeners, if you have a question or an update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. You can also subscribe, follow, wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a little five-star review. That is much appreciated. Helps other people discover the show.
But most importantly, take care of yourself out there and also, you know, come back tomorrow. All right, that's it for now. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
