This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Let's talk about building a business one signature at a time. We're gonna talk about ballot gathering. Is it ballot gathering? It's more like signature gathering. Signature gathering for ballot initiatives.
And in different states, maybe in provinces as well, not sure how it is around the world, but sometimes people are petitioning for something to be on an upcoming ballot during an election and various interest groups raise money for this, but then they need to have a certain number of signatures to get it on the ballot. Maybe this is only an American thing. I don't know. And maybe it's not even in every state. I don't know that either.
But in some states like California, it is a big business because people are trying to get all kinds of laws passed and there's, as I said, various money behind this. So we're gonna hear the story today. The owner of a California signature gathering business, he employs various canvassers, people who go out to collect signatures for ballot initiatives. And this guy earns more than $1 on every signature and he's trying to capture a lot of signatures. So all this money adds up.
It's a pretty fascinating side hustle. I guess it's a full-time business for him now. I'm not totally sure on that part, but this falls in the segment known as your first $1,000, your first $1,000. So we wanna look at how he got started, how he made his first $1,000 before he in fact went on to make a lot more money. So this is Brian in Sacramento.
Let's hear the story from him. He's got a bunch of details for us. I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap-up. [Music]
Starting my signature gathering business in Sacramento was a classic side hustle that turned into something bigger. I'd always been interested in politics, but didn't have the time or resources to run a full-blown campaign.
Instead, I realized there was a niche I could fill, helping campaigns gather signatures for ballot initiatives. And best of all, I could do it without a lot of upfront investment. It started when a friend involved in a local environmental initiative told me they were having trouble gathering signatures to get their issues on the ballot. They were short on time and didn't have the manpower to get it done. And that got me thinking.
Campaigns like this are often well-funded, but lack boots on the ground to collect signatures. If I could solve that problem for them, I could make a business out of it. Since I didn't have a lot of money, I started small. First, I tapped into my network, local activists, college students, and people I knew who needed flexible work. Sacramento is a political town, so finding people who were interested in making money while working on something interesting wasn't too difficult.
I advertised on local job boards, Craigslist, and even used Facebook groups for gig workers. I offered canvassers $2.50 per ballot signature, which was competitive for local initiatives. At first, I hired just a few people, paying them on a per signature basis. The good thing about this model is that I didn't have to pay upfront wages, only for results. I gave them a basic script and provided some training on how to approach people and explain the initiative.
The environmental campaign agreed to pay me $4 per ballot signature, meaning I made $1.50 profit on each one. Within a couple of weeks, I had five regular canvassers. I kept things simple, no office, just me working from home and organizing the team through group texts and occasional meetings at coffee shops. I focused on high traffic areas like farmer's markets, college campuses, and outside grocery stores. Sacramento's diverse population made it ideal for this type of work with plenty of foot traffic and a high percentage of registered voters.
The key to keeping my overhead low was outsourcing as much as possible. I used free or cheap software to manage payments and track signature totals. For validation, I built a relationship with a local political consultant who could check the signatures for me at a discounted rate. Over the next year or two, I expanded to other campaigns, school funding measures, rent control initiatives, and even some statewide propositions. On average, campaigns were paying me between $4 to $5 per signature, while I paid my canvassers $2.5 to $3.
That means I could make a profit margin of at least $1 per signature, and some days we collected 500 to 600 signatures. After the first three months, I realized I'd built a real business. With around 10 canvassers working part-time, I was able to gather 20,000 signatures for one campaign, netting a profit of $30,000 on that project alone. While the workload was inconsistent, there would be busy election cycles and slow periods. I made enough to sustain the business year-round by taking on multiple projects at once.
This wasn't a business I expected to be running, but it's been really interesting along the way, and unless they change how democracy works in California, most likely it's something I can continue doing for the foreseeable future. Well, I love getting the details in this story. So campaigns sometimes pay $4 per valid signature. Sometimes it's a little bit more, sometimes it's a little bit less. I think it depends partly on how many more they have to go.
If they're like, oh, we're in the final stretch, we're really gonna make sure we hit this goal. That's great. If they're like, we got a long way to go, maybe not so much. But anyway, they're paying $4 to $5, and then he's paying his canvassers between, I think he said $2 and $3, so he makes this profit of more than $1 per signature. And some days he's collecting 500 to 600.
So it's kind of a numbers game. It depends on how many canvassers you can hire, the location you put them at, no doubt the specific initiative. I assume it's probably easier to get people to sign for some things than others, but still a pretty interesting business, I thought. So this may not work everywhere, but it works some places. And of course, I'd like to give you these stories to get you thinking, what might work for you?
What might work for you in your area with your skill, with your capacity? There's something else that you can do, whatever it might be. If you have an idea about that or a question or an update for us, sidehustleschool.com. Today's notes, sidehustleschool.com/2893. We're in the final month of the year, holidays well underway, but of course, a new episode continues apace every single day.
My name's Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
