This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey everyone, let's go to adult summer camp. Okay, maybe not in January, unless we're going to South Africa or Australia, but North American summer. So summer camp and the actual summer, for those of us in this hemisphere. Well, that's what today's caller wants us to do, or at least they have an idea about summer camp for side hustlers. Side hustling, what's that about?
Well, on that note, welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau, your host. And one of the reasons we have this Q&A segment, it's been really fun to work on over the past few years since we started featuring more listener questions. One of the reasons we do it is to look at different business ideas and consider how feasible they might be. Not just to help the caller, I mean, it's good to help that individual person, but also to develop the skill of thinking through different ideas and understanding how to brainstorm, understanding what makes for a viable idea, the most profitable idea, and so on.
What are the pros/cons? And accordingly, the reasons for moving forward with a particular idea versus moving on to another idea. So let's talk about that today. Is there a summer camp for side hustlers? Detailed question in my answer coming right up.
[Music]
Hello, this is Wes calling in from Winnipeg. What do you think about summer camp for side hustlers? I'm imagining a lot of different sessions from teachers who are entrepreneurs, then some workshop time every day for attendees to prepare for a product launch, and maybe some type of inspirational talk around the campfire in the evenings, that type of thing. And of course, they have to have s'mores around the fire. And I don't know if I'm the best person to put this together, but if I was, how would I do this?
And also, if you end up starting this camp, can I come for free in exchange for giving you the idea? That's fine if the answer is no, but I just thought I'd ask. Thanks, bye. - Well, I love the question. It reminds me of my friend, Jonathan Fields, talked about him a number of times on the podcast.
He is the founder of Good Life Project, a very popular podcast. And he's also made it into all sorts of extensions, including for a while, I think five years, Camp GLP. And he held this in upstate New York. I got a chance to go once. It was really a lot of fun.
The camp wasn't strictly about entrepreneurship. It was just kind of summer camp for adults, but definitely some of the workshops and meetups focused on that. So it was fun, as I said, but I know it was also a lot of work for him. Like I know it was a ton of work for him. And I just know from hosting my own events, like, you know, events are not a small thing to put together and produce, at least not doing it well.
And so you've got, on the one hand, everything associated with production, and then the other hand, everything associated with marketing and trying to bring together the audience. So lots and lots of work. As for camp for side hustlers, you know, if it was the idea for you, you know, not just hypothetically, but if you were like, I want to run with this, you would need to commit hard to it. I mean, you would need to commit really hard to it. Events are difficult to fill.
They're also not usually a big moneymaker because there are a lot of real costs you need to pay for and often far in advance. So, you know, you probably need to have some pretty active and engaged audience to draw upon to be able to, you know, fill that camp. I mean, I have a good sized audience and I've sometimes struggled to fill events. Jonathan, same thing. He reaches a massive number of people.
But just to get that big commitment of like, I'm going to come to camp, you know, a physical location far from my home, most likely for a week, you know, it's a big commitment. So just a lot of work there. But if I ever do one, you know, to come back to the end of the question there, if I ever do one, of course there will be s'mores and I will offer a free spot as a thank you for the idea. So you'll be the first to know if that happens. Otherwise, I'm excited about my upcoming book tour.
So I'm going to focus on that. That's going to be in August. More details to come. Listeners, if you have a question or comment, sidehustleschool.com/questions, we'll be featuring them throughout the entire year. New episode every day, seven days a week.
You can subscribe. Follow wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
- From the Onward Project.