This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Hey there, it's Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. We've just finished week number 35. This is the weekly recap, going into Labor Day weekend in the US and Canada. I hope you're having a nice holiday if it is your holiday weekend. If you're working like me, I hope you enjoy that too. I am
home in Portland, Oregon, going to Montreal next week for just a couple of days. My last trip, actually, until the Side Hustle book comes out in September 19th. Got to spend some days doing focused work preparing for that. But then, of course, I'll have a big tour, which I'm excited about and I hope to see you somewhere along the way. Got a number of things to share with you today. We're going to look at this question, would you rather work hard for $1,000 or receive $500
passively? We touched on this briefly in an episode a couple days ago. Just want to explore it a bit more because I think it's important. Also going to do a quick look back on some of the other episodes this week as well as a look ahead to what's coming up. But first up, I have been getting a lot of listener email recently. I am still very behind in replying, so I apologize if I haven't responded
to something you've written. But I do very much enjoy hearing from listeners and I'm trying to catch up. I'll just read you one today. This is from Caitlin. Caitlin writes in and says, "Thank you so much for the show. I'm a busy mom of two boys under two. Side Hustle School has inspired
me to start taking the small amount of free time I have to do something for myself. I don't know exactly what it will be, but I do know it will revolve around my obsession with modern cloth diapers. I started building my brand and community on Instagram and it's going great. I'm getting a lot of engagement, focusing on organic growth and sharing what I love. I'm already getting some opportunities to work with awesome brands. Now I just have to figure out what comes next and take
the leap. Thank you for giving me the push I needed." Well, thank you, Caitlin. Thank you for sharing that. I'm so glad the show has been helpful to you. And I definitely wish you the best in evolving and growing that project. You mentioned your Instagram account that is @modernbottombabies,
if anyone wants to check it out. So all one word, @modernbottombabies. As opposed to those mid-century bottoms or the postmodern bottoms, those are probably some competitors. So be sure you look for the modern bottoms. All right, just briefly, it is 16 days to go until the Side Hustle book comes out. I've only been doing the countdown once a week, but from here on out, I think it's
going to be once a day just quickly because I'm excited. I'm going to be going to 100 cities, pretty much a different city every day for a while, at least in the beginning. We're going to be creating Side Hustle Society, which is our online community, linking together people from all over the world who are in search of community and greater support. But that's coming up later. First of all, the book is 27 days, 27 steps from idea to income. I want to say a big thank you to
everyone who has pre-ordered the book. That makes a huge difference for authors. And if you pre-order, you can get a special 48 hustle ideas to get you started report based on the popular episodes of the show. We're also adding two new bonuses. I'll tell you about the first one today. And you can
get all these bonuses regardless of when you pre-order it from any bookseller, any bookstore, wherever you like to buy books. The new thing that we're adding today is the complete archive of the show from January 1 until now, available in one simple download. Now it's a big download, of course, because there's a lot of episodes. But if you've ever wanted to access the entire library and just kind of binge listen, or maybe kind of randomly select, here's an episode, I'll listen to that one and see what happens. You can now access that with your pre-order, just go to sidehustleschool.com/book. As I said, you can buy anywhere it costs about $15 to $24,
depending on where you purchase it from. You just send me your order number and we'll automatically send you that report, as well as this new archive download link, and maybe something else that we're working on. Stay tuned. Looking back at this week, episode 240, the tea sommelier who turns leaves into a million dollar business. I really love when something starts small and really grows into this huge kind of thing, which is not to say that every side hustle needs to do that, of course. But it's really fun when it happens.
This was a woman from Canada who used her skills in the hospitality industry to create this whole line of teas. And she learned a bit along the way, because at first she thought she was going to make sexy tea. She had all these fun, flirtatious names for the tea. And it turned out that people didn't really want that, or at least they didn't want that as much as what she evolved to, which was more about tea that helps you feel a certain way, or tea that's associated with a desired feeling. And she kept the name, which is teas teas. And as I said, now it's done
fantastically well. It's actually stocked in the Four Seasons hotels all across Canada, in addition to many supermarkets and other retail outlets in the US and elsewhere. After that, episode 241, a writer who turns leftover cherries into a $5,000 a month income. She begins by creating this alternative ketchup line. So it was either ketchup for people who don't like ketchup, or I guess ketchup for just people who want something a little different.
So she started by making cherry ketchup, and then lots of other fruit kinds of ketchups. But her story changes along the way, because it has this restructuring moment when she's diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, realizes she has to make some changes in her life and her diet, ends up cutting out sugar for herself, and then decides to take this change into her side hustle. And interestingly, as she kind of retools her recipes, creates all new recipes, all new products, essentially, she begins to target the paleo market, the whole 30 markets, other people with those kinds of specialized diets, and actually ends up doing much better. So she doubles her sales, I believe, I think it was $2,000 in something a month. And after doing this retooling, and then introducing an actual ketchup, which was sugar free, she's now doing very well, more than $50,000 a year, again, as a side hustle.
Episode 242 was game night in a can make $75,000 for a TV producer. This was an interesting process involving manufacturing, partnering with a company to make what is essentially a board game. It's not exactly a board game, but it's a kind of physical game that you sit around with your friends and family in a room and play. So some of those same elements. And he initially funds this project through Kickstarter. Kickstarter was quite successful, I think $20,000 or something,
but then obviously it went on to do much more than that. So it wasn't just a success because of crowdfunding, it was a great success because he had a great product. And he was able to get that out into the right retail stores, and ultimately into the hands of people who really enjoyed the game. Episode 243 was about a language teacher who becomes fluent in passive income. That's kind of where I first raised this question that I'm going to come back to you in a moment about what's better income that you work for or income that just kind of arrives passively. And I did have some advice for the person in that story, which may or may not be
relevant for her, but I think it's definitely something to consider if you find yourself in this situation. She was making more than $500 a month, and she was making it passively, which is great. But she also had something like 302 products. And I just kind of wondered if she had too many products, because that just seems like a whole lot to look at. If you're looking through one of the listings that she had on a platform, I think it was teachers pay teachers, it just seems kind of overwhelming. So my suggestion would be if you have a bunch of products,
and some of them are selling much more than others, which is normally how it works, I encourage you to think about pairing back some of those ones that are not selling and just maybe even taking them off the market. Usually you want to focus on your winners and let go of those things that are not working. And that's usually good advice for lots of things. Episode 244 was about a new mother who gives life not only to a baby but also to a self care coaching business. This episode reminded me a bit of mommy coffee, which we talked about a couple weeks ago, that specialized line of coffee that has different caffeine options, as well as an organic decaffeinated option that doesn't use chemicals the way other decaffeinated coffee does, especially for new mothers who are breastfeeding and expectant mothers thought that was a really smart market.
So here in this episode, it was mostly about a woman who had given birth and had this kind of several week period postpartum, where obviously she's focused on being a new mother. But she also kind of has these little pockets of time. And maybe in some ways feels a little bit disoriented during this time of transition, before she goes back to her day job. And she ends up creating this self care coaching business. Last but not least episode 245, man sells $1,400 in coffee to neighbors using the next door app. And I just thought that was so creative. He used this app, which is not
designed for selling. It's not like Craigslist or eBay or Etsy or anything like that. It's basically an app designed to connect people. And he found, as I said, a creative, unconventional, and hopefully unannoying. Is that a word? I guess I just mean he didn't annoy his neighbors by doing this way to
sell coffee to people that lived in his close proximity. And it wasn't just a one hit wonder, he turned this into an actual ongoing side hustle, recently relocating from San Francisco to Encinitas, California. I think the name of his new business is called Bedfellows Roasting Company. And he also sells online and ships around the country. So check that out if you're in need of some coffee, which I pretty much am every day. And as I alluded to, I want to briefly talk about this
question, would you rather work hard for $1,000 or receive $500 passively? Now, when I say this, don't focus too much on the amounts. Because money is contextual, like what is a lot of money to someone is not to someone else. And we're all in different seasons of life. So this could be $10,000 versus $5,000. Or it could be $100 versus $10. The point is, imagine you have two amounts of money,
and you can choose to spend your time and your expertise kind of trading your hours for a certain amount of money. And there's nothing wrong with doing that. Like most of us do that in various ways throughout our life. Very few of us have completely passive income. Nevertheless, I would argue, and I think a lot of you would agree with me, that it's also pretty cool to be able to have this income, this source of money that comes in without you doing much, if at all. And I just love
this concept of going to bed at night and then waking up in the morning checking your phone or logging onto your computer, or whatever the source is, and looking and seeing, wow, I made some money last night. Or maybe it's not quite that way. Maybe it's like you're just going about your normal life and once a month or whenever it is a check arrives in the mail. And there's this moment of excitement because you open the envelope and you get this check and you can deposit it. And you did nothing for it like it just showed up. So each of us are going to have different answers to this question.
The answer might be different at a different point in your life. I work on projects where I do trade my time for money sometimes. But I'm also trying to create income that arrives without me doing something for it. So if you haven't had that experience before, if you've only traded time for money, that's where I think you should put some of your focus. I know you don't have much time, but just think about the value that this has. And think about the potential this could have for your
life. And so my question is, what building blocks can you begin assembling to create some kind of asset that will pay you repeatedly? Just like some of the stories that you heard this week, just like game night in a can. Obviously, it was a lot of work to conceptualize that and to manufacture it and to get it out there. But now it's just kind of selling or even the sugar free ketchup or the teas tea. Definitely a lot of work there. But again, once it's listed on Amazon or
wherever, like they can log in the next day and see what it sold. And if you don't relate to those stories, well, we are on episode 246. So if you go back, I'm pretty sure you can find some episodes, some stories that you relate to, that you can say like, "Yes, I want to do something like that. I want to be like that person in my own way, of course, with my own idea. But that's what I want to do. I want to have that outcome in my life." And going forward, I hope to support you more and
more in that goal. As I hear from listeners, as I prepare to go out in the world and meet with people every night, the show is just going to get better and better. And we're going to make this happen together with you. With that vision in mind coming up next week, we have a pretty cool story. It's actually coming tomorrow. This one's going to be awesome. It is a Target store manager who
makes $45,000 a month writing a blog. I'm not kidding. I'm going to give you the whole story about that. I'll also explain why he's still working at Target, even though he's making $45,000 a month on the side. Short version is I don't think he's going to be working there much longer.
But I really liked working on that story. I'm excited to tell you about it tomorrow. There's also a brother and sister who turn their dad's medical practice into an online store. In addition to mothers, and teachers, and lots of other folks, I know we have some physicians listening to Side Hustle School. And I know a lot of doctors and physicians, healthcare professionals would love to do something to work a bit less, perhaps, or at least have some of their income coming impassively, just like I just mentioned. So that story is about that. There's also a fashion
line that contributes profits toward rescuing elephants. And of course, a bunch of other fun stuff you never know what you're going to hear each day on the show. And I feel fortunate and grateful to be able to work on it and bring it to you. Speaking of gratitude, a couple of quick thank yous to those who work on the show together with me. We record Side Hustle School on location at World Domination headquarters in Portland, Oregon. It then goes to Brooklyn, New York to be produced
at the Panoply Studios. Production team is led by AC Valdez, also featuring Adelie Rubin. Show notes are by Whitney Karinek. My cat, Liberia Gilavo, also known as Libby, Lipster, the Liberator, is not included in the pre-order bonus for ordering the book, just to be clear about that. Fun fact of the week, some of the most popular not catch up flavors include Smokey Date Paleo BBQ, Cherry Chipotle, Tangerine Hatch Chili, and Blueberry White Pepper.
Side Hustle School is part of the Amre project led by Gretchen Rubin. Check out her podcast, Happier on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. On that note, and also the note of gratitude and thankfulness, I'm always very appreciative of those who take the time to leave a rating or a review of the show. Definitely makes a huge difference in helping other people discover it, especially as we work toward the book launch. And if you know someone who should be listening to Side Hustle School, do me a favor, do them a favor, tell them about it, show them how to subscribe on their phone. It is, as you know, a completely free listener supported experience.
In every episode, I mentioned that inspiration is good, but action is even better. I want you to take action. I want you to think about that question from today. What building blocks can you start assembling to create an asset that will pay you repeatedly? We'd love to hear about that and feature it on the show. Hope to see you tomorrow with that story of the target store manager.
Hope to see you the next day with a new story and every day after that. Episodes go online at 6 0 1 a.m. Eastern time each day. You are a rockstar. I'm Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
