This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, hello, thanks for tuning in today. My name is Chris Guillebeau, your host of "Side Hustle School," the daily podcast about making extra money without quitting your job, helping you find economic empowerment, whatever that looks like for you, so that you can do more of what's important to you. And again, whatever that looks like for you. All right, so today on the podcast, we're gonna hear from Alex from Chicago. She's combining a background in law with tech skills to create something that is potentially groundbreaking, at least new, different, exciting, and fun, not just fun, but hopefully valuable, an app that connects people to class action lawsuits they could join.
Class action lawsuits are interesting. Sometimes a big company like an airline will get sued. And if you have been a passenger on that airline, you know, during whatever the time range is, often it's multiple years, there's a website you can go to and register your details, and you actually can get some of the money. It's usually a pretty small amount of money. The lawyers get most of the money, and then there's hundreds of thousands of people, you know, that split the rest of it.
But still, it's free money in that case. So when it comes to monetizing such a unique and specialized service, how do we do that? You know, that would be the app, okay? So Alex finds herself at a crossroads, let's explore some strategies, or at least talk it out, a way to make this innovative idea not just helpful, but also profitable. I love this concept.
I have sometimes gotten a couple hundred dollars from companies like Airlines, or it could be a hotel company, or it could be, I think the milk industry sent me $50 once, you know, just from joining one of these things. So it would be helpful if there was a directory of such things. Anyway, let's talk about Alex's idea right after this quick shout out to our sponsor. [Music]
Hey, I'm Alex from Chicago. I have a background in law, and I'm developing an app to help people find class action lawsuits that could join.
The idea is there, but I'm stumped on how to monetize the service. I've considered ads and premium features, but I'm just not sure if those are the best routes. Any insights? [Music]
All right, Alex, I love this idea actually. I think this idea of creating an app, or maybe just a website directory, I think that could also work and be a lot easier, but either way it could work.
Some sort of hub where people can go and learn about these different lawsuits. I think it could be very helpful. Now, as for monetizing it, of course that's what the question is. You know, that could be a challenge, especially in a specialized field like law. So I wonder if in some ways it's more of like a lead generation tool for, you know, a law firm, which could be your law firm, or a law firm that's sponsoring it.
I think that could be something. Like there's a couple of Instagram accounts I follow that are like really large city or state apps. Like they have like a huge community from a specific region and they're often law firms that are sponsoring paying what I'm pretty sure is a good amount of money to sponsor those accounts specifically. So they might be interested in something like this. I think that's probably the best way to do it.
You could also look at doing, you know, premium features, affiliate commissions, and so on. But I tend to think a sponsored model might be best in addition to the great usefulness that it provides. So like I said, I think it's interesting. And I have from time to time, as I said in the introduction, joined some of these kind of settlements where you can just kind of put your name down and get a hundred dollars or a couple of hundred dollars. So no doubt a lot of people would be interested in doing that if there was a really easy way that they could go and see, okay, here's what is available.
Here's what you might qualify for and so on. And also when I go there, like sometimes I'll send it to friends as well. I'm like, hey, go put your name down, you know? And so then it's like, I'm not just doing it to get 50 bucks for myself. I'm also like, you know, sharing the love with friends.
So I definitely think there's interest, all that to say. All right, listeners, if you have a question, sidehustleschool.com/questions, let me know how I can be helpful, perhaps advise you or steer you in a direction, or maybe even connect you with somebody else. That's what we're about. We are a community of interesting people around the world. I'm not saying I'm interesting.
I'm saying you are interesting. We are all interesting. How about that? Let's go with that. And of course, I hope you'll continue to listen.
It's always free. Episode 2479 is wrapped, but a new one's coming out tomorrow. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
from The Onward Project.
