Woman on Food Stamps Earns $86,000 Teaching People to Bake Bread

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Greetings, hello, welcome back. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. I have a pretty amazing story for you today. It is a true rags-to-riches story that has nothing to do with making an app or anything startup-y. It's all about a woman who goes from living in poverty after leaving an abusive relationship, cleaning motels, even being on food stamps.

It makes a life-changing transition into an online teaching business that made $86,000 last year. And the other day I talked about social media consulting. Well, we're gonna go old school today because she did this not by teaching about digital marketing or building websites or anything like that. She has established independence and truly created an all-new life for herself on the trendy topic of baking sourdough bread. That's right, sourdough bread.

This is not a joke, my friends. You're gonna like this one and I'll bring you the full story in just a moment. [Music]

Teresa Greenway loves baking. The love affair began in 2004 when one of her daughters decided to try and bake authentic sourdough bread. The daughter gave up after a month of trying, but not before leaving a remark that changed everything.

No one can make real sourdough bread, Mom. Not even you. Well, those were famous last words. There's nothing quite as motivating as someone telling you you can't do something. Teresa would go on to research and try her hand at baking sourdough from then on.

Unknowingly, the work she put in paid off years later when she was able to monetize her expertise. But first, some context. Just three years ago, Teresa got out of an abusive relationship and had barely any income of her own. She had to juggle multiple part-time jobs which involved cleaning at motels and even being on food stamps for a while. As though her financial situation wasn't bad enough, Teresa wasn't able to work full-time because she had to care for her son who had autism.

Her mother was also suffering from a terminal illness. The horizon was bleak for Teresa all around until she attended a workshop that opened her mind to starting a business. This is what helped her take her first step into expanding her side hustle. She took a couple of courses on the online learning platform Udemy which gave her all the information she needed. The courses were diverse, ranging from photography to video editing to YouTube channel management.

And all of those skills were new to Teresa, but they were all skills she felt would be valuable in starting her side hustle. Those courses cost $10 each at a discounted price, but for her, it felt like an investment. By following along with the courses, she got the idea to create her own course and she had just the topic in mind, baking sourdough bread. Teresa knew there was a market for online courses. After all, she had just purchased a few herself.

Perhaps it would be possible to get others to buy hers. Of course, there were challenges. She didn't have any of the equipment that you would need to make your own course. She didn't have a professional camera or any high quality editing software. In fact, she didn't even have a real kitchen.

Teresa had only her makeshift kitchen in the garage with a cracked and stained concrete floor and terrible lighting. But still Teresa persisted. It took her four months to create and launch her own course, but she did it. The first month she made $1,000 in revenue, which seemed huge and was a tremendous encouragement. By the end of the year, she had netted over $28,000 in income from that course.

Sometimes the best form of marketing for your project, whether it's a course, a book, something else, is to create another one. And that's what Teresa did for her courses. She continued to create 10 more Udemy courses over the next two years. And she stayed pretty focused on this niche. Courses included professional sourdough baked at home, more fun with sourdough bread baking, extreme fermentation, bake modified gluten sourdough bread, make your own sourdough starter, capture and harness the wild yeast, discovering sourdough part two, intermediate sourdough, and the classic discovering sourdough part three, advanced sourdough, warning hard mode.

I'm not making this up. You can go and see for yourself. And the result, she did over $86,000 in revenue in 2016 and is on track to top that this year. Along the way, her following grew as well. She now has an active following of 50,000 people, spread like butter across her social media accounts and another 4,000 people on her mailing list.

It's a solid sourdough foundation for expanding her hustle and growing it even further. This extra income and financial stability has literally changed Teresa's life. And she says it was scary for her even when she succeeded because there's a lot of trepidation and uncertainty when you go from being on food stamps to making over $80,000 and you're in your fifties. But as I said, it's been life-changing for her. Her best experience so far is making a down payment on her first home, all from those yeasty core sale commissions.

Teresa is now creating more income streams by becoming an affiliate for both Udemy and Amazon while expanding her courses to Skillshare and Etsy. Her website and growing YouTube channel continue to bring in more leads for the courses and she hopes to turn her site into a membership for those interested in baking. She's also published a memoir, "Reach for Joy," which documents her trials and tribulations in leaving that abusive relationship and creating this new life for herself. Being able to combine her passion for helping others and baking has brought Teresa great joy in financial security. And it also illustrates to you, perhaps, you don't need to have a grand idea for your side hustle.

Or if nothing else, it definitely doesn't have to be cutting edge or something no one else has ever heard of. Teresa's story proves that you can create a profitable new source of income from doing all sorts of things. You just need to take your first steps, just like she did. [Music]

Well, if this story doesn't inspire you, I don't know what will. If you don't like this one, you should probably unsubscribe from side hustle school.

Just kidding, don't do that. Or if you do, be sure you leave a five-star review first. But seriously, when I heard this one, I was like, well, I am inspired. I need to go and do something. But for you over there, side hustle school listeners, friends, community, it's your turn to get to work.

In fact, you should stop loafing around 'cause I make this show as a daily encouragement for you. It's the yeast I can do. Inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. I hope you take action just like Teresa did. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/237.

The best is yet to come. I'm Chris Guillebeau out for Side Hustle School. [Music]