This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hey friends, hey community. What's up? Welcome to side hustle school. Thanks for tuning in today. I'm sure you have a lot going on.
So I hope you appreciate this investment in time, this short investment in time, and hopefully a significant investment in yourself. I believe in, you know, every single day, what can we do to invest in ourselves? How can we take care of our health, our wellness, exercise, our intellect? What can we learn? How can we create financial freedom for ourselves?
I mean, that's important. It's a big part of why I started side hustle school. And so part of how we do that is by looking at listener questions, listener ideas for little businesses, side hustles, I shouldn't say little, you know, often it's just one or two people running a business, but the revenue can be really substantial, okay? So today's idea, well, maybe I should ask you a question first, how many subscriptions do you have right now? Like paid subscriptions.
And, you know, if you know the answer, that's great. I am embarrassed to say, I don't actually know the answer for myself. I would have to go and count and it would probably take a lot of time just because I have a lot of subscriptions. You know, the other day I signed up for a nutrition tracker, which is cool, but you know, naturally it's a renewing subscription, another one, and I wonder at how many other things am I paying for month after month? It is a problem.
And so where there's a problem, and lots of other people have too many subscriptions as well, we all know that. Where there's a problem, there's an opportunity. You know, you should know that too, if you've been listening for a while. So our caller here, they wanna make a product to help you better manage your paid subscriptions. And it's not just manage, it's also helping you save money.
So I'm gonna say right now, this is a great idea. It doesn't exist yet, at least this version of it. So I hope they go and make it. So let's hear more about the question and then I'll have some notes, feedback right after this quick message from our sponsor. Hey, by the way, thanks for listening today.
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Hello, this is Vera calling in from Scranton. With so many subscription products out now, I'm wondering if there's any value in creating a tool to manage them. The idea is that it would look through your receipts and email confirmations to create a master list of subscriptions and the total pricing. Then users could cancel what they don't need and potentially save a lot of money. As for the pricing, well, you guessed it.
It will be by subscription. I'd make the case that the service will save users much more than it actually costs. Alternatively, it could be like a one-time use that cleans up their subscriptions as part of a new year, new you package. What do you think? [Music]
Well, my first note, my first comment is this is a great idea.
Like this is awesome. Something like this probably already exists. I just haven't heard of it, if so. There's just so much stuff out there these days. And even if it does exist, that's okay, all right?
So if you find some other competitor, that's all right. Just look and see what they're doing and maybe find a way to do it your own way or a slightly different audience or something. But definitely a great idea. I'm sure it would help me just because I have a ton of business subscriptions, like tools and such that I use for my work. And then a lot of personal stuff like that nutrition tracker.
I mentioned in the introduction, like I signed up for it. I like it so far. Am I going to use it forever? I don't know. But how long am I going to keep paying for it?
I think there's a lot of stuff like that. So a tool like this would be very helpful. I also think the discussion around how to price this tool is interesting. So the caller asked for some tips. Should you make it a subscription itself, right?
Which is kind of meta. Or should you just make it a one-off payment? I think I could see that either way actually. And I think you should go all in with it, whatever choice you make. In other words, if you do price it as a recurring subscription, you just kind of build that into the messaging.
And you say like, yeah, we know these subscriptions kind of get out of hand. That's why I started this project. So here with mine, you're going to pay $6 every three months or whatever it is. You're going to save at least $50 with every cycle. Something to justify the cost.
You make it really obvious that you're going to pay this amount of money and you're going to save much more. And not just save money, but it's also going to just deal with some hassle, some headache, reduce the number of inbox receipts that you receive, all that kind of stuff, all the benefits. Alternatively, you could say something like, I made this because I hate recurring subscriptions. So pay $50 and you'll save for years to come with no other charges from us. Pros and cons to that, of course.
If you do the one-off purchase, then the amount should probably be higher, like I just did in that example. But then also you're going to have to provide support for years to come or at least a while. Or even if you don't want to, at least some buyers will expect it. Which is a big reason why so many apps and software developers began switching to the paid subscription model in the first place. They're like, if we're going to support it for years, we need to get paid for years.
So that's a decision that you're going to have to make. But as for the idea itself, I love it. I think it's definitely a solution that matches well with a big problem that a lot of people have. So if you know how to develop it or you can figure it out, then I wish you every success. Let us know how it goes.
The listeners, something you're trying to figure out or an idea you have, sidehustleschool.com/questions. We'll continue to feature them throughout the year, along with updates from listeners as they launch and grow their projects. Hey, just remember, wherever you are, whatever you're up to, I am cheering you on. I hope you'll come back again tomorrow. My name's Chris Guillebeau.
This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
