This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Welcome, welcome. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host of Side Hustle School, the daily podcast all about making extra money without quitting your job, sometimes eventually building up to a full time career or a small business, whatever you like to call it, but sometimes just getting out of debt or saving for your future or whatever is important to you. We're all about all kinds of things here on the podcast. But again, focused on that lens of making extra money. So this is also our segment known as throwback Thursday. And during this segment, we go back and hear from someone we
featured long ago on the podcast. Last week, we heard from a Toronto yoga teacher who offers classes to people with chronic illnesses. She also works as a freelance writer, she travels the world. This week, we got something a little bit different. We're going to hear from Dan Zircher.
He is a longtime parking lot striper, that would be striper, not stripper, a parking lot striper who has also written the definitive how to guide on the topic. So we've had all kinds of topics on the podcast. And in fact, we have covered parking lot striping. Dan is, as I said, the definitive authority on this, he's built a business several times over, as you're going to hear a bit in his update. So in fact, let's hear from him. And I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap up.
My name is Dan Zircher. I own the American Stripping Company in Columbus, Ohio. My side hustle was started as parking lot striping. And I believe the episode we had about a year and a few months back was episode 1576. It started in 1992. And as I was going through some of my notes here,
it was literally August of 1992. So this marks 30 years. My first job I believe was in September of 1992. But some 30 years my side hustle started as parking lot striping, it has morphed into a couple of other things. I can say more about that in a moment. But it started out striping parking lots.
I was talking to my mom on the phone one day. And at the time, I was an estimator for an asphalt company. She was talking about it, I was talking about it. And I told her that we hire stripers to come in when we're done. And she said, Why don't you do that? I said, Well, most companies
don't do that. It's specialized. And she said, No, why don't you do it? I said, Oh, okay. Well, because I don't have a striping machine. And she said, I'll buy you one. I said, No, no,
you won't. No, you won't just, that's fine. So we hung up and blah, blah. My wife said to me, you look for a side business two years and your mother offers to buy you a striping machine. And you say no. So you know, all you can do is smile. I call her back. Long story short, she sent up some
money. I bought a striping machine. And again, that was 30 years ago. And how I got started was I credit my mother and my wife, you know, just perhaps it was in my blood, perhaps it was in my history or something, but I credit my mom and my wife. After about year four or five, I went full time and it worked out the income was there was north of six figures only worked seven months out of the year. We take winter off, very little overhead. So I went full time. As far as that goes
15 years later, I wrote my book How I Stripe. And I thought to myself, I cannot be the only person that needs a break. I can't be the only person that was broke need some kind of an idea for a side hustle. So I wrote my book and it started selling like right away. It was like right off right away. And as I take all the depth about that about a year later, you're 16. I believe my wife
talked me to buying a large CNC machine computer numerically controlled large table to cut stencils. And so I started doing that has been 15 years ago. And so I have more from parking lot striping. So writing the book on how to into manufacturing the stencils. And so my side hustle became my main hustle. And again, who brings that a little bit from there. So I think a couple of things have
happened since a year and a half or so ago, which I was in the show last, I'm in a shop more. I get away a lot of the striping. It's difficult for me to go out striping 12 hours here, 12 hours there, and have orders come in. I can't do that. So I stay in a shop. I manufacture the stripe or the
stencils. I have good health. My son is there. He runs it. That's the biggest change. I think for
me personally, I'm in the shop more. I have talked on the phone so many times, people will call and ask what machines will paint with tips. That's in my book, but I'll tell him I'll recommend two machines one $6,700 once $4,700 ish, you know, and I don't have any part of that. I just tell him what I would buy. But if they cannot buy that it cannot afford that right now. I have a third one
that I'll recommend you go slower, you'll get done. But maybe in a year, you'll you'll walk away from that when I buy another one. But my point is get started. My advice is get started. I started striping parking lots, then I wrote a book and now I make stencils. Everything can be a stepping stone,
but I would say just get started. The other thing I would say is call me, you know, don't buy anything until you buy my book. Read that through. Call me with questions. I'm here. I'll talk your
head off. Everybody seems to want somebody to give my hand up some advice. Where have you been? How do I do it? Help me out. I'm that guy. I can't not help somebody. And I think one of the biggest
thrills that I just didn't see coming was putting people in business when somebody when a grown man calls me giddy, because he's done his first job took him five hours to do like 20 lines. It's just, you know, it's a fun conversation. And it's never about money. I enjoy putting people into work. So bottom line, buy my book. Don't buy anything else. Read that through. Keep going. Keep trying
and call me. Call me. I got questions. You got questions. I got the answers.
Awesome. Thanks so much, Dan, for sharing those updates with us. Really appreciate that listeners. Check out his website, American striping.com. Once again, that's striping, not stripping, American striping.com. Just one P. He has also written the book on striping how I stripe a parking
lot. Very descriptive title kind of tells you exactly what you're going to get, which I think is good. Let me know what you think and who you'd like to see featured from our archives of more than a thousand stories. You've got a question and update for us about your hustle sidehustleschool.com/questions. And of course, a new episode comes out every single day. It's completely free.
And listen to wherever you like to get your podcasts. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School.
