This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello and greetings. Welcome to the Side Hustle School weekly recap. This is episode 260. We have just finished week number 37. I am your host, Chris Guillebeau.
For the past couple of weeks, I've been doing a book countdown until the launch of the Side Hustle book. If you're tired of the book countdown, well, guess what? It's almost over. There are just two days to go until the Side Hustle book is out in the world. I am excited, I am packing my bags.
Well, just kidding. I usually pack my bags 20 minutes before I leave for a trip. This time it might be more like half an hour. And the book will be available in bookstores starting on Tuesday. It will also be available from online retailers, of course, and in the iBook store, in the Kindle store, on Audible.
Basically, however you prefer to read books, there should be a version for you. The UK edition will follow in two weeks. They also use that edition in other countries around the world, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, et cetera. And translations of the book in other languages will eventually follow, but that usually takes a while. They want to see how it does in the original edition first.
Of course, I hope it goes well. I'm very grateful for your support. But enough about that for now. Let's hear from some listeners. I got some really great emails this week.
I'll share two of them with you and also a listener voicemail. And starting out, Jody writes in to say, "I just wanted to let you know I enjoy listening to your show about all the different people starting their Side Hustles. I had an idea myself years ago, and because I've been listening, it has resurfaced. I've even gone so far as writing down what I would need to do before getting the word out. I'm a preschool teacher, and I know it takes a lot of time to coordinate art projects for the whole class.
So I have the idea of making a kit, complete with basic supplies for the whole class. This would save teachers time, and all they'd have to add would be the paint or glue or scissors. This idea was shot down by my family years ago, but now I'm thinking I just might give it a go." Thanks, Jody, great note. I hope you do give it a go. And that might be a lesson for somebody else out there.
Don't let your family shoot down your ideas. They're your ideas. Next up, I got a note from a college student, Braulio Reyes. Braulio writes in to say, "Hey, Chris, I wanted to let you know I've been listening to Side Hustle School every day, and have really been thinking of what to do for my own project. Today, I took the plunge.
I decided to start my own service to review resumes for students trying to find internships. I created a website on Wix, and I'm excited to see what turns out. Currently, I'm finishing the last year of my degree, and I saw this as a problem with many of my friends and classmates. I'm not sure how successful it will be, but I hope I can make some profit to help with extra expenses, as well as help some students along the way, reach their goals." That's awesome. Congratulations, Braulio.
I hope it goes well. And now let's hear a voice memo from a listener. This is also a college student, or actually a recent college graduate, who has another idea to serve students, and he's looking for some advice. - Hey, Chris. My name is Giovanni De Mayo.
I'm calling you from Alamo, California, but I'm working in the Silicon Valley. I'm a freshly graduated college student that just got himself into his first full-time job and has already been thinking about what I can do on the side. Recently, I've had the idea of actually starting my own podcast that's directed towards college students in their juniors and senior years. Every cast would be a different interview with a different freshly graduated college student working in a different industry, doing something else, and kind of talking about what that transition was like, what are the things that they're doing at their job, because when I was in school, yeah, people would tell me, oh, I'm doing investment banking here, I'm doing sales here, I'm doing marketing here, but I never really knew what that meant. I never knew what the nitty-gritty was, what their day-to-day really looked like.
And even it might be cool for some of the baby boomer generation to kind of see into the minds of millennials and see what they're looking at when they're looking for a job, and maybe be able to relate to them because of that. But, you know, the challenge here, I don't really know where to start. I know nothing about podcasting other than guys like you that sound really good doing it. And so any sort of help would be awesome. Thanks, Chris, and I look forward to see what comes next with your book over in September.
All right, have a good one. - Hey, Giovanni, what's up? Thank you for listening. Congratulations on your recent graduation and for thinking about your side hustle. A critical move, as you know.
Now, I had a couple of thoughts in listening to your question. I think you have correctly identified a market, and it's not just a broad market of college graduates. You're actually getting more specific, which is good. The idea of focusing on, okay, what are these careers really like? And maybe not just that, but also like what are the hacks?
What are the tips? Like, how can I get ahead? How can I succeed? How can I position myself to be the most advantageous? All that kind of stuff.
I do think there's a couple of directions you could take with this. So the next step would be to get more clear on your goals. Because when I think about this, I actually picture more of a product than an ongoing podcast or blog. And I think a blog or podcast would be great if you're trying to build platform and create a community and you have more of a long-term approach. But if your goal is more immediate side hustle income, there's a much clearer revenue path to actually creating a product around those kinds of things.
And you could still do it with interviews. It would just be packaging those interviews together somehow, maybe compiling some of the lessons, best quotes, tips, et cetera. So then you have some kind of career guide in a box with a much better name than career guide in a box. But that's up to you. I think either path has potential.
And you could also start developing the product while you're doing the podcast. I just think if the more immediate goal is to make some money, it would be more important to start thinking about a product and an offer. That's my two cents. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.
[Music]
Looking back on this week, we had another powerhouse set of side hustle stories. Every day, a different true story of someone who creates a new income for themselves without quitting their job. That's what's different about side hustle school. There's nothing else like it out there. We are building something significant together.
First episode of the week, getting investors amped just takes a little jamming about a Toronto science teacher and musician who invents a product that gets crowdfunded for a quarter of a million dollars. It actually goes on to do much more than that. Gets a lot of attention all over the world. He's got big plans for that, but he is still teaching high school. Good for him.
Next, we have the attorney who creates an online course called Mindful Return designed to serve new mothers returning to work after their maternity leave. I really liked the story and Lori said something great. She had some really good advice for new people who are trying to do this themselves. I'm gonna cycle back to that in just a moment. But first, the next episode was foodie friends blog their way to free stuff and real money.
That's foodie friends. You know, like people who are really into food. People who might like to post photos of their lunch on Instagram. And speaking of Instagram, can you use that platform or another social account to build a side hustle that pays you money if you don't have a ton of followers? Well, they did.
That's a big part of what I liked about their story. I also liked how they were persistent and they hustled and they used this kind of building block strategy to go from one connection to the next and ended up working with dozens of brands. And at first they did it for free, but now of course they're getting paid, which is good. There was also the episode every dog has its side hustling day, a social good project inspired by a visit to Ecuador featuring two sisters who are both computer scientists. And yesterday, episode 259, $8 startup costs lead to $400,000 in annual revenue.
You can listen to that whole story for the details. Just a disclaimer, it doesn't always work out that way. I'm not here to say that everyone's gonna make $400,000 from their side hustle. I'm not here to say it's gonna be easy. I almost never use that word easy.
Sometimes I say simple. I believe a lot of things in life that are meaningful and worth it might require some work. And that's certainly true of your side hustle. So it doesn't always work out that well, but sometimes it does. And that's why I like to feature a range of stories on the show to illustrate the fact that there can be a range of outcomes.
Now I mentioned Lori Mahalik Levin. That's the attorney from episode 255 who created the online course. I always ask the people we interview if they have advice for other side hustlers. And Lori's advice is two words, baby steps. No pun intended this time for once.
And she says, when I sat down to think about why no one had created a curriculum to help new mothers return to work after maternity leave, I realized the answer was because new working moms have no time and they're completely sleep deprived. By the time they get more sleep and are no longer crazed, they don't remember what they went through and they want to move on. I was fired up about filling this gap and I knew I could only do it in tiny increments. So it took me about four months to create my four week online course. I finished it by breaking it up into 20 to 30 minute bite-sized pieces and tackling one at a time.
So my advice is, yes, you can do this, just not all at once, be patient, it will come together over time. Thank you Lori, I love that advice and I hope it resonates with some of our listeners. [Music]
All right, much more is coming up over the next week and beyond. As mentioned, my book comes out, I will be on the road, still bringing you a new episode every single day of course. This week features a rogue financial analyst who earns $44,000 from a golf membership site.
This guy's actually a friend of mine, I've been following his story from the beginning and there are a lot of lessons in it for anyone who wants to take a hobby and turn it into a hustle. Another story of three friends who team up to design, create and sell colorful hammocks. They actually imported these from Cambodia for several years, supporting women who are working there. Now I believe they're sourcing them from Ethiopia, also supporting local workers. And of course a bunch of other stories, we're gonna continue to feature more and more stuff that just blows your mind.
Someone wrote in to say they feel like the side hustle school stories are actually getting better as the year goes along. And my response is good, that's the goal. Like I wanna keep improving. Every week or every couple weeks we change some things, make a couple tweaks in our process to make sure we're getting something to you that is truly helpful and valuable. That's because I don't want this show to just entertain you, as awesome as it is, I want it to support you in your quest to create your new source of income.
Here we are all the way in the fall, way back in the beginning of the year, I said, if you commit to listen to this and make this part of your routine, I commit to fully supporting you as well, doing anything I can to make sure this becomes a reality in your life. [Music]
Before I sign off for the week, I wanna say thanks to the other folks who work on the show. We record on location at World Domination headquarters in Portland, Oregon. It is then produced in Brooklyn, New York or Washington, DC at the Panafly Studios. My production team is led by AC Valdez, also featuring Adelia Rubin.
Show notes are by Whitney Karinic. My cat, Liberia Guillebeau is not coming on tour. She's also not a fan of the dog episode, but she'll continue to work the night shift. Silence School is part of the Onward Project curated by Gretchen Rubin. She's also on tour for her book, The Four Tendencies, but I don't think she's going to 100 cities.
Come on, Gretchen, I'll save you a seat. If you're enjoying the show, I'd be super grateful if you would leave a quick rating or review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want to go above and beyond and being awesome, tell your friends about it. The show is free and listener supported. There is an episode every single day.
And in each one of those episodes, I mentioned that inspiration is good, but action is even better. That's because I want you to take action and I look forward to hearing about you doing that. Those episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern time. Much more to come.
I have a book coming out. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
