This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome friends, welcome listeners, welcome to Cytosville School, welcome to a new month, the month of December, and welcome as well to Throwback Thursday. This is our weekly segment where we take a look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. We've had all kinds of stories this year. Recently we featured a TikTok live streamer who also sells personalized T-shirts using merch by Amazon. Last week we had a special Thanksgiving episode, which to be clear, even though it's not Thanksgiving anymore, I am still thankful for you.
You're legit, thanks for being out there. And today in our latest feature, we're gonna hear from Jordan Crowder in Florida. He is a freelance designer who is also the founder of Kick Bike America. That's what we're gonna focus on here. I actually had him in the 100 Cytosville's book.
So it was cool to do some photos with Jordan and just kind of see what he's up to. He's got a fun story of moving to the 30A region of Florida and leading tours on these kick bikes. And then from the tours, he went to becoming the marketing guy for the Scandinavian company that makes them. So it's been a while. What has happened since?
Let's hear directly from Jordan. Hey, Jordan, what's up, man? [Music]
My name is Jordan Crowder and I am here in sunny Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. And the name of my side hustle is Kick Bike America. I'm the Kick Bike guy known around town.
And I was on episode 305 way back in the day. So in a nutshell, the way my side hustle started out is I basically hosted, I was a tour guide around my scenic tourist town here on kick scooters. So sort of like segways that you have to do all the work yourself. So like adult, big, super-sized kick scooters, like we used to ride when we were kids, I was just a tour guide and I just took people around and showed them the sights and sounds on these scooters, just as something different and fun and a little exercise too. So I've kind of gone from just being sort of an ambassador of the company and leading tours, which no one had really done before on this product, to kind of working my way into the actual business side.
And now I have taken over certain parts of the business. So it's kind of gone from a side hustle to more of a job in a sense. I kind of was able to use my skill sets and doing my design work as an advantage for the kick bike company because they didn't have, it's kind of a bootstrap startup. So they didn't have a lot of money for like marketing budgets and for designers and things like that. They just kind of outsourced it all.
So I was able to come in and kind of make myself more appealing until, it's a very small company with all the guys, you know, hey, this is what I can do for y'all. I've already been a big investor, I've already been driving sales, I've already been riding around, I've made the news and all kinds of stuff, doing my tours and stuff. So it kind of let me use my skills and my good here for the company and just help us all out. So that's how they brought me on board because I was able to not have to, they didn't have to create like a salary for me per se, they could just say, hey, you're already doing these things kind of and you have the skill sets to do these things. So we want you to kind of harness that and focus it on kick bike.
And so I made a deal with them, presented them with a kind of an option where, you know, I'll just take a percentage of sales so you don't actually have to pay me anything and I'll do all these things. So my main hustle, which was in marketing and design and web hosting or web designing and that kind of stuff, turned into my side hustle and doing my design freelance business. And then I actually kind of molded that into design and all those same things I was doing but for kick bike. So I'm still in a sense doing all the same things I've ever done. I still ride a kick bike every day.
I still do tours and stuff. And I still will do all my design stuff on the side. I'm just kind of, it's more concentrated now under one brand as opposed to kind of being scattered all over the place and being a freelancer and just doing a million jobs for a million people. If I had to kind of leave with one thing, one thing that when I can look back on mine, 'cause when I started this, I didn't really have, I wouldn't say a plan, you know? I thought, here, I found something really cool.
No one else has it, you know, what can I do with it? And my initial thought was, you know, I just moved to this beautiful place and people were doing bike rides but no one enjoyed doing tours. And I was like, okay, perfect, bada-bing, bada-boom. But then I never really thought past that. That was about as far as I got.
And I really see like there was a lot of opportunities along the way that I kind of missed because I wasn't looking for them. 'Cause I was just having fun doing what I was doing. And I really think that if at the beginning I would have sat down and just really kind of thought through like a five and 10 year plan and kind of visualized and had a vision for where this could go, it would have changed the trajectory of things. Maybe it would have made me set up things at the beginning a little bit differently. And, but, you know, I don't regret it or anything.
Everything's fine, you know, you live and learn. And now, you know, I've allowed myself space. I'm working on new side hustles now and I have other things going and I've learned and I'm gonna use that knowledge on the next side hustles. And hopefully I'll be back on your show with some of them. But, you know, I really think that to tell, you know, I would tell people, you know, make sure that even though it's kind of in your head, these are all hypotheticals 'cause you haven't even started your side hustle yet.
But when you start it, kind of start it with the end in mind and be like, what if this does take off? 'Cause I see a lot of times people start a side hustle and then they'll be like, oh, crud, that actually worked. You know, now what? You know, and I, as a freelance designer, I get a lot of people that come to me and they're like, hey, can you please remake my logo or please remake my website? And I'm like, sure, you know, show me what you got.
And they'll be like, oh, I just threw something together because I didn't think this would actually work. And now we're killing it and I need something better. And it's like a great problem to have. You know, it really is, but it is still a problem. So I think a lot of it comes from, it's easier and more fun to start and then kind of figure out the things later.
But sometimes if you take just a little bit of time and think about those things at the beginning, then you can kind of have more of a cohesive plan from the beginning. And it makes it kind of a little smoother and I think it'll make you grow faster. So that's kind of something like a big thing that I learned in all this was, you know, I know they tell you just get started and that's very true. You don't want to talk yourself out of it, but take a little time to think about, okay, if this does work, then what? And thank you so much for letting me tell my little story and I appreciate everything y'all do.
[Music]
Awesome, thanks so much, Jordan Crowder, everyone. Really appreciate that. Check out his website, kickbikeus.com or follow him on social at Kick Bike America. It's either Kick Bike America or I think another one is Kick Bike US. I guess if you search Kick Bike, you're probably gonna find it.
Anyway, let me know what you're thinking, who you'd like to see featured from our archives in more than a thousand stories, 2,000 plus episodes, a thousand plus stories. You can always leave feedback for me at sidehustleschool.com/questions. Follow me on social, say hi at an airport, come to my house. Well, don't do the last thing, but the other two are cool. And of course, subscribe, follow, new episode every single day, seven days a week.
That's all for now. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
from the Onward Project.
