This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, welcome to Side Hustle School. I'm your host, Chris Guillebeau. This is episode 265. I'm on the road this week and for quite a while, talking with listeners and readers about Side Hustles. Tonight, I will be in my hometown of Portland, Oregon at Powell's Bookstore before continuing on to Denver.
By the way, I want to give a shout out to independent bookstores. I mentioned Powell's, which is the largest independent store in the country, going to Tattered Cover in Denver. Over the years, I have had a lot of amazing events at independent bookstores, and I just want to encourage you to support them whenever possible, whether from my event or for someone else's, or just because independent bookstores are awesome. On this tour, I'll be at more of my favorites, including Book People in Austin, Books and Books in Miami, and a bunch of others that are escaping me at the moment because I'm kind of in one city a day, but just to say that I really appreciate independent bookstores. If you're able to support them, that's awesome.
And today's story is pretty awesome too. It's about a consultant who spends $200 on advertising, ends up creating a million dollar handcrafted leather business. And one of the lessons in this story is going to stress some of you guys out, because this consultant who starts his business follows this practice of begin before you're ready, which I wholeheartedly advocate. And in fact, you can actually start before you have all your systems in place, before everything is developed, and in some cases before the product is even ready. Like I said, I know some people have a hard time getting their head around this because they want their product or their service to be perfect.
They want to have everything ready to go before they launch. And if you've got unlimited time and you want to wait forever before you see if your side hustle is actually going to work, then that's a great strategy. But for everyone with less free time, who might be a bit impatient, which I don't think is a bad quality, and just wants to get going and see if something's going to work. So that if it doesn't work, they can move on to something else. Well, I think this is a better way, or at least potentially a better way.
And I'll tell you that whole story after this quick message from our sponsor. [Music]
Today's story features Jerry Lee in Los Angeles, California, who has come full circle with his side hustles. About five years ago, Jerry was working full-time as a web consultant, helping businesses establish their website, and generally advising new business owners on how to launch and run their business. At the time, he was looking for a side hustle of his own, so that he could practice some of the techniques he gave to his clients. He wanted to have an example to point to, showing clients that he listened to his own advice and had created a successful business.
With that thought in the back of his head, he was looking for a leather laptop bag online, and wasn't able to find one that suited his taste and budget. So he emailed around to a couple of factories in Asia, and ended up finding one in Taiwan, his home country, that was willing to make a single custom order for him. He built a personal connection with the production team, and was able to convince them to make one-off orders for him. And that was the beginning of Jerry's side hustle, story leather. Once he had a manufacturer willing to make unique leather products to spec, he spent all his free time the next three months building a website and brand.
Since he couldn't find any other leather customization businesses at the time, he didn't want to spend a ton of money and time building an elaborate website, only to find out that no one was interested in buying. So he made a simple yet functional website, built on the open source platform Magento, and then began testing the site by paying for Google AdWords, to bring traffic to the site. He started with a small daily budget of $10 a day, and experimented with different words and phrases to see what worked best. Once people clicked through, he monitored how people use the site, and whether he got any emails from potential customers asking about the products. Within a week, he got multiple email inquiries, and in fact, his very first sale.
He was so unconvinced, but he called that first customer to double check that they did in fact want what they ordered. He then had to figure out how to communicate that order to the factory in Taiwan, arrange for shipping, continue the communication with the customer, and so on. Jerry said that first order was actually a lot more anxiety than excitement. But for only a couple hundred dollars in AdWords, Jerry had launched his side hustle. And once the idea proved viable, he began to build out the website further, and develop more operating procedures.
From that very first sale, the first week, his revenue grew slowly but steadily. Jerry constantly experimented with new products and new ways to advertise. Over the course of three years, the business has morphed from primarily making iPhone cases to customizing wallets, bags, passport holders, key chains, and more. And over those years, his revenue has grown immensely, to the point that his side hustle became a full-time entrepreneurial pursuit. His annual sales are now in the million dollar range, but he says it still feels like a small business.
He's constantly transforming, still learning, continuing to experiment, and gaining new skills. Also, as StoryLeather grew, his friends and family would ask him for advice on how to run this kind of business. Initially, he would help them for free because he enjoyed doing it, and it kept him sharp. But eventually, as the projects became more involved, he realized that the time spent away from StoryLeather was time that he wasn't building that business for himself. So naturally, he began charging for his time, and he turned consulting into a side hustle once again.
As his extended network heard what he was doing, he began to get more and more referrals to consult on other people's businesses. Even now, two years on, most of his consulting clients come from word-of-mouth referrals and online networks like LinkedIn. The new consulting hustle has no overhead, so the $2,000 to $3,000 that he brings in it from each month is pure profit. And guess what he does with the money? This is classic.
For now, at least, he's using that money from the consulting hustle to hire freelancers to work on new side hustle ideas. He has really gone all in. As he puts it, the consulting business basically allows me to fund some new ideas and project initiatives that will hopefully turn into an all-new business a couple years down the road. From consultant to side hustler to entrepreneur and now back to consultant, while he continues to run the million-dollar leather business on the side, Jerry has come full circle once again, and it doesn't look like he'll be slowing down anytime soon. [Music]
This is a great story that illustrates how one thing often leads to another.
And as I say from time to time, your vision expands as you gain confidence. This guy, Jerry, was just looking for a side hustle as an example, or something that he could point to that he built to help him in his consulting. But it ends up growing far beyond his expectations. And then after he does that for a while, he creates a new kind of consultancy, helping people who want to do something similar, while still running that very profitable leather business. So all that is great, but my favorite part is actually how he started before he was ready, how he was willing to get customer feedback, have a live website out there, and even accept orders before he knew exactly how he would fulfill those orders.
So the side hustle book that is now out has this five-week process to it. And in each week, you learn a new concept, and every day you have an assignment. Week four of five is all about how to start before you're ready. And in week three, you're learning about how to get things ready to go. Week four is all about how to put something out in the world and then figure out what to do when you see how people respond, just like Jerry did in his real-life experience.
So perhaps there's a lesson there for you as well. And for me too, since I'm currently out on tour and producing a podcast every day and doing all kinds of other stuff, and I don't feel totally ready for it, but it doesn't matter because I'm gonna go for it anyway, and I hope you will too in your own way. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes are online at sidehustleschool.com/265. You can also see where I'm going next.
I might be in your city soon, and you can say hi or send in a question for the show. Thank you for listening. We'll be back tomorrow. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
