This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Hey there, welcome. I'm Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School, where every single day you'll hear a story of someone who starts a hustle without quitting their day job. Now, yesterday you heard about Brianna, whose day job is as a high school student, and Brianna started a pop-up shop during the holiday season in her hometown of Victoria, Canada. I mentioned Brianna's work ethic and how she was pretty much on site the entire time that pop-up shop was open during the holiday season. A lot of what I try to show
you inside hustle school is how to start your hustle on a limited amount of time, since I know you're busy with all kinds of other stuff. But as I said yesterday, sometimes it's also great to go all in for an opportunity, and that's why I like today's story because a similar work ethic shines through. And this hustle that you'll hear about was started by a busy new father who had a full-time job yet managed to turn the hustle into a full-time income, thanks to a similar kind of hard work, combined with working smart and having fun at the same time. I think you're going to like it. Jake Posco worked in higher education, managing a team, and presenting on behalf of his university.
On the side, he played guitar and sang, mostly for fun, but also for hire with a small band at weddings and events. Jake had pursued a few different hustles over the years, some that fell flat, and others that were moderately successful. One day, he had a new idea. He decided to try offering guitar lessons. And if you're listening and you think, "Well, that's not a terribly original idea," you're right. Here's the thing about playing guitar.
A lot of people know how to play guitar, at least a few chords. And there's also no shortage of people offering lessons of varying expense and quality. In other words, it's a crowded market, and Jake knew he had to stand out somehow. Even though plenty of people offer guitar lessons, most of them don't put much care into their ads. If you think about flyers you've seen or ads you might see online, the headline is usually "Guitar Teacher for Hire," which is accurate, but it's hardly exciting. So Jake's first ad got straight to the point
and made a bold claim. And here's how he wrote it. The headline was "The Most Awesome Guitar Lessons in the Universe." If you want to learn how to play the guitar but don't have a lot of extra free time, I can help. I provide private guitar instruction to busy kids and adults too, with a schedule already jam-packed with commitments and students who don't have time to sit in traffic and rush to a lesson. I have a professional background in higher education and over 15 years of guitar instruction and 20 years of performance experience. The
typical goal is to have fun first and foremost, as well as learn the instrument, all while maximizing efficiency so that we meet your goals. So that was some ad. Most awesome guitar lessons in the universe sounds a lot better than "Guitar Teacher for Hire," right? Even if the claim is a bit of a stretch. Like, who knows, maybe he is the most awesome guitar teacher in the universe. But regardless, it's funny and it gets people's attention right
away. Still, as awesome as Jake's guitar lessons promised to be, he didn't exactly have customers breaking down the door right away. It took some time before the first student booked a lesson and he was nervous. When he came home from work that day he had his first student, he told his wife that for the side hustle to be successful, he'd need to quit his job. Well, fortunately, she brought him back to reality. He didn't quit the day job,
but he kept working at it. He kept working at that hustle during his limited free time over the next eight months. That first ad, he ran on Craigslist, so now he branched out running ads on Google and following the same formula he'd used in focusing on why he believed his lessons were so spectacular. Jake started out by charging $50 an hour for these most awesome guitar lessons in the universe. He gradually raised his rates until he reached what he thought the market could handle, which was somewhere between $80 and $120 an hour depending on the location of the lesson and how many lessons people paid for in advance.
For the first month he was focusing on it, he earned $420. The second month he earned $1,535. By the time the seventh month rolled around, he took in almost $3,000, $2,800 to be specific, and was ready to quit his job, which he did. He now sees take-home pay of around $5,000 to $6,000 a month and he works 20 to 25 hours a week. Thanks to steady clients and continued referrals, this side hustle is now a primary income earner that allows him to spend more time at home with his wife and young child.
So there's a lot of lessons we can take from Jake's story. I'll pick three of them. First things first, Jake started this hustle while he was working a full-time job with a nine month old at home and a wife who also worked and went to school full-time. So just keep that in mind when you think about how busy you are. I know you're really busy, I am too, but I don't know many people that were busier than Jake when they started their hustle.
And when I talk with him, he said, you know, my best advice is there's no perfect time to start. He said, if I realized if I just kept waiting for that perfect time, it would never arrive. So there's no perfect time. Just start. And let's look at that headline one more time. The most awesome guitar lessons in the universe. You know, what a great headline,
but it's not the only selling point. That headline is fun and it gets your attention. But I read the whole ad to you because I want you to understand how that reassures potential students and demonstrates his authority. He's talking about maximizing efficiency, making sure you're going to have fun, but you're also going to learn. That's what I try to do on side hustle school. So Jake is basically saying, this will be a good investment for
you. I'm not going to waste your time. I'm a professional. This is the best way that you can learn to play the guitar. And then third, over time, he found the optimal price point for his lessons. He could have stayed at that initial price point, $50 an hour,
which is great, but he found a way to raise that even further. So in some later episodes, you'll learn a bit more about how to set your prices. So for now, just know that there's usually a range in which you can price something without encountering much resistance. There's like a low end, there's a high end, there's like a middle to it. And your goal is to kind of approach that high end and just set your price there. So if people are equally happy
with paying Jake $40 an hour or $80 an hour for the same lesson, why wouldn't he charge $80? Now, this doesn't mean that you can always continue to increase, right? And Jake can't do that either, because no matter how awesome his guitar lessons are, eventually he would hit a ceiling where most people would say, "I'm sure this is fantastic, but that's too much for me." And through a period of trial and error, Jake figured out where that was, where that optimal price point was. And doing so was a big part of what allowed him to quit his university job and earn a full time income while working only 20 to 25 hours a week. Well, it may not happen exactly like that for you, but if you listen to these stories like Jake's, like Brianna's yesterday, you begin applying them to your own hustle, you will see results over time. I want you to remember inspiration is good, but inspiration
combined with action is so much better. Every day, there's an original post with show notes about the lesson on sidehustleschool.com. You can also use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, whatever social network has been invented this week to tell your friends about the show. Use the hashtag #sidehustleschool. And if I see it, I'll give you a shout out as well.
Thanks so much. I'm Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. I will see you tomorrow with another episode.
