This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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All right, today's question takes us to Springfield, Illinois. We're gonna hear from a listener, Owen. He has caught onto the growing wave of interest in DNA testing and ancestry. Have you done that? Have you done like a 23andMe test or I think there's some other companies as well.
And now that I say this, I realize 23andMe has been a sponsor of us long ago in the past. So this is not a sponsor message, but I actually did a 23andMe test and I learned all kinds of interesting stuff about myself. And perhaps you've done that too. We also hear all these weird stories about people learning stuff about their family that can sometimes be a surprise. You know, it used to be that you never discovered, you know, lots of connections.
It was just impossible to do so. But now, of course, thanks to this medical technology and other advancements, you know, these things are possible. So who knows what is to come in the future. But of course, here on Side Hustle School, we're interested in helping people figure out how to make money, how to start a little business, a side hustle, perhaps using some of this societal change or technological advancement. You know, what are the business opportunities for just, you know, a regular person out there.
So we've got a caller who wants to use customer submitted results to create custom family history books. He'll explain a little bit more about this, basically combining these findings that you get from these kinds of test results with detailed narratives and photographs. So definitely a creative idea. Let's look at the business side of it and see what's in store for these family history books. Detailed question coming up, along with my answer in just 30 seconds.
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Hi, Chris. It's Owen here from Springfield, Illinois. A genealogist friend introduced me to this side hustle school. And I know we're all trying to find creative ideas. Here's mine.
I've noticed many people taking DNA tests to learn about their ancestry. Drawing on this trend, I'm contemplating a service where I craft family history books using people's DNA results and any historical data they have. The book would be a journey of their lineage, complete with narratives and photos. In your experience, do you think there's a demand for personalized history like this? If so, how do you proceed?
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All right, Owen, thanks for the question. Definitely true that companies like 23andMe and Ancestry DNA and some others, no doubt, they have sparked this curiosity in so many people about their roots and ancestry and connections with others and so on. So this desire for personalized products and data has never been stronger as well as the technology that can match that desire. The desire, in fact, comes about because of the increased advancement in technology. So let's take it to your idea of merging DNA results with crafted narratives and photographs.
Before jumping into it really deep, I would recommend you start with a small pilot project, perhaps offered to create some of these family history books for close friends or family, probably doing this for free in the beginning. This will just help you to refine the product but also give you a tangible example to potentially showcase to customers. So of course, you'll need people's permission to do that. But if you're doing it with your friends, they might be willing to do that. And given that Owen has a genealogist friend, perhaps there's some opportunity for collaboration in terms of delving deeper into the histories, bringing them to life with storytelling and visuals.
But I think mostly it's gonna come down to what that product is. And then from there, this is the kind of thing that could work with social ads in terms of really targeting a demographic, iterating, doing lots of split testing. That's something that takes some time and there is some cost to it of course, but it can be worth it for the right project. I just wanna make sure that the product is as strong as possible before you go to market with it. So that's what those prototypes can do.
That's what the testing process is for. And then last but not least, just a word of caution of dealing with personal data requires sensitivity, just an awareness of privacy laws. So just make sure you always get pretty clear permission when you're creating those narratives or stories based on the information you get from the test results. Anyway, Owen, good luck. I wish you well.
Listeners, I wish you well. sidehustleschool.com/questions. You can always share your ideas, questions with me. And thanks for listening. I just appreciate you so much.
I love making this podcast. Much more is coming up. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
