This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Bank cancels TikTok stars revenue stream. Oh man, it is time for another failure Friday story. Once a week, we look at something that goes all too wrong, a mistake, a misstep, a disaster, or just an outright failure. And of course, most of the time, I'm telling you stories of success, stories of things that have gone amazingly well, and all kinds of people who've made all sorts of money with their side hustle, because that's what it's about. Like, I actually want you to be successful, right?
I don't want you to fail. But one day a week, by popular request, we feature stories that don't work out, and stories that, well, it just kind of goes off the deep end, completely falls flat. Or sometimes there's an assumption, there's an idea, a presumption that someone has, and they think this is how it's gonna go, and it goes very differently. So what do you learn when that happens? And that's the whole point.
Like, what do you learn? And maybe you learn something that's practical. Maybe you learn, okay, here is a strategic move that I can make differently. Or, wow, I didn't really understand that there wasn't a market for this idea. But now I know, and maybe this will help me the next time.
Or sometimes it's not such a practical thing. It's much more about your own confidence and belief in yourself and ability to recover from difficult situations. When something outside your control happens and you're like, oh man, I couldn't have seen that coming. Not only did I not see it coming, it wouldn't have been possible to see it coming. So what am I gonna do?
Like, how am I gonna respond to that? Am I going to let it hold me back? Or am I going to find a way to overcome? And I want you to overcome. That is my goal for making this podcast every single day, more than 2,400 days in a row now.
I want you to be able to overcome. I want you to be strong. I want you to be resilient. Maybe even better than resilient. I want you to be anti-fragile, where resilience is all about holding up under pressure.
Being anti-fragile is about being made stronger through pressure. So with that in mind, today's short story features Molly, an aspiring travel blogger and TikTok star. After an initial run at making a good income, the banking partner she worked with dropped her from its affiliate program. I know how this works very well. I used to be in the travel space doing credit card affiliate program stuff.
And basically there's only a few large companies that offer direct affiliate links. If you really want to be a player in that world, you have to have your links from one of those companies. And they have all sorts of performance requirements and terms and conditions, which are actually quite restrictive, compliance regulations and checks and such. And if you fail at any point along the way, sometimes in a way that's not clear to you, what the requirements actually are, then you're just gone, basically. So that's what happened to Molly.
Let's hear the details from her. Let's hear about that struggle. I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap up. [Music]
Hi all, I'm Molly, the traveler who tried to sprinkle some finances into my adventures, only to end up struggling in the desert of TikTok influencers. Armed with the exciting tales of my globe trotting and the lure of credit card reward points, I decided to monetize my TikTok account using credit card affiliate links.
I mean, it was a simple plan. Entice my followers with mesmerizing travel clips and subtly slip in how credit cards could help them live this jet-set life. Easy, right? Well, the bank partner I worked with offered between a hundred to $200 per referral. So picture this, a hundred of my followers signing up through my links and I'd be sitting on $10,000 or more.
That's enough to fund several future adventures, you know? Well, it was as if I'd switched from travel blogging to trying to decipher hieroglyphics. 'Cause I was used to leisurely pinning down my journeys, you know, crafting stories, filled with culture and landscapes, but TikTok? TikTok was really a different beast. It required like these catchy hooks, clever editing, and me trying to fit it into like these 60-second bites of entertainment.
And I didn't do that, I like to talk. It felt less like inspiring travel and more like shooting a quick fire commercial. So I did manage to churn out a few videos. A panoramic view of the Eiffel Tower with a voiceover about air mile rewards. Uh, even a hyperlapse through bustling Tokyo.
Suddenly implying that a travel credit card could be your ticket to experiencing this rush. I thought I was doing okay, but the TikTok algorithm thought otherwise. So my follower count hovered around the same number as the people in my extended family, not that many. My posts were as consistent as a cat's attention, completely unpredictable. The magic of viral videos seemed as elusive as the Northern Lights in the summer.
So six months in, the affiliate company pulled the plug on my links. My inconsistent posting and limited reach failed to meet their criteria. And so then my dreams of rolling and referral bonuses just went up in smoke. Just like the incense sticks I had bought in India. The revenue model I had banked on came crumbling down and it really turned my dreams of self-funding adventure into a complete mirage.
My TikTok credit card venture may have flopped, but it did leave me with lessons more valuable than air miles. 'Cause I learned that every platform has its own rhythm and syncing with it requires more than just a change of content. It requires a whole change of pace, style and delivery. So in retrospect, my TikTok venture was less about the monetary gain and really more about the business lessons I gathered. It taught me that the journey of entrepreneurship is not always smooth sailing, but even in failure, there are valuable lessons to be learned.
So here's to the ventures that don't take off. They often become the stepping stones to bigger or even better things. And while my TikTok account didn't take off as I'd hoped, it did help me become more succinct in my storytelling. Like now, for example, I hope you enjoyed this story. Travel well.
- Hey Molly, thanks so much for sharing this story. As I mentioned, I'm pretty familiar with this world of affiliate links in the travel credit card space. And when I was in it for several years, it was often kind of scary how like you've got this revenue stream. It could be a significant revenue stream. You might be depending on it.
You might be making investment choices to like, you know, build more content or improve your website or whatever else do marketing and such and making those choices, not knowing if next month you'll actually have that revenue stream or what it will look like. And if the incentive bonuses change and if the requirements change and if the company just decides they don't like you anymore. So I went back and forth with that for years and it's just not fun to depend on, you know, outside sources for your success, of course. But, you know, here we are. It's failure Friday.
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. I have no doubt that Molly can use this lesson to move on to something better. Bigger and better perhaps, or at least better 'cause that's what's most important. So listeners, thanks for being out there. I really appreciate our community.
I appreciate the sponsors. I just appreciate everybody who makes this happen. Shout out to Chuck, our producer. He's been working with me for, I don't know, really long time now, years. Thanks, Chuck, appreciate you.
And listeners, of course, a new episode every single day. Today is episode 2,421. I've got a book coming out next week. Wow, just a big time this summer. Anyway, feel free to join in.
My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
