This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome, welcome. Thank you for tuning in today. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host of "Side Hustle School." Today is the 2nd of January, 2023, episode 2,193. We are kicking off a new year, as mentioned briefly yesterday, the official first day of the year. This is our first $1,000 story of the year.
Now, what am I talking about for our new listeners? Well, we have a segment called First $1,000, comes out every Monday usually, and it's all about how somebody made their first $1,000. How did they get to that point? How did they in fact go from idea to income? Now, if you have never had a side hustle or a small business, I wanna help you do that this year.
Like my challenge here is not just to share stories, but I really would love to help you create extra income through the form of, well, let's say a side hustle, okay? Could actually turn into a big business like many of our stories have done, or could just bring in extra money, which is also totally cool. Today's story falls into that second category of extra income, but it's some pretty good extra income. This guy, Rico in Miami, he is earning a few thousand dollars a month. I think it's $3,000 a month or so on average with a very simple business model.
He is fixing broken phone screens, right? Very simple business model, but you can do pretty well with it for the right person. So how did he get it going? How do you make it happen? What did it feel like and what did he learn?
Let's hear it from Rico. [Music]
I always enjoy fixing things around the house. So when I saw a YouTube video on how to replace a broken phone screen, I thought I would give it a shot. I had an old iPhone laying around that I wasn't using. So I ordered the parts online and set to work.
It took me a few hours, but I eventually got the new screen installed and it looked great. When a friend of mine asked if I could fix the crack screen on his phone as well, I feared, well, I would give it a shot, why not? It seems straightforward enough. So I ordered the replacement screen and got to work. To my surprise, both repairs went off without a hitch.
My friend was thrilled to have a working phone again and he even offered to pay for my services. I was surprised, but grateful. And I figured that if I could fix two phones, I could probably fix more. So I started advertising my services on social media and in some local classified ads. I didn't charge much at first, just enough to cover my costs and a small profit.
But word quickly spread and before I knew it, I was getting more business than I could handle my own. That's when I rise my price to $100 plus expenses per repair with a $50 premium for rush jobs. And within a month, I made my first $1,000. And well, I live in a busy suburb. So I set up a small workshop in the garage and I started taking on more and more repairs.
It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. I enjoyed the challenge of fixing different types of phones and learning about new models. And as the business grew, I started getting more and more referrals. People will bring me their broken phones and I will fix them up and send them back out into the world. It was satisfying to see the joy on our customers faces when they got their phones back, good as new.
And one of my favorite memories from those early days was when I repaired a phone for a little old lady who had dropped it in the toilet. And she was so grateful that I was able to save her phone that she even baked a batch of cookies as a thank you. It was a small gesture, but it meant a lot to me. I've never owned a business before. And there was something about that experience that made it feel all the more real.
Two years later, my little phone repair business has grown into a thriving part-time enterprise. Now I have two assistants who help out on a contract basis when things get busy. I never thought I would be able to make over $3,000 a month on such a simple business. But that's exactly what is happening. It's been a lot of work, but it's also been a lot of fun.
- All right, thanks so much to Rico for telling us about his first $1,000. Listeners, thank you for being part of this community as well. I hope you found it encouraging. If you have a question or an update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. As a reminder, we have an episode every single day, seven days a week, coming up on episode 2,200 soon.
We've got a lot of cool stuff to share with you this year, so I hope you will subscribe, follow wherever you get your podcasts. That's it for now. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
