This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
All right, Side Hustle School listeners, what's up? Welcome back. Today's episode falls in our first $1,000 segment. Legal Eagle lands big order after rapper shout out. That's right, Legal Eagle.
This is a corporate attorney. She starts custom painting sneakers for fun. And then she gets a social media shout out from a very well known rapper. This makes her phone blow up with followers and potential income. So let's look at this whole situation, how it came to be, and also a little bit about how she balances legal briefs by day and custom sneaker orders by night while raking in a five figure side income.
Sounds good to me. Hopefully we can go from five figures to six figures even. But of course, this is part of our feature called your first $1,000. How does somebody get going and make at least $1,000? All right, over to Shannon.
I'll be back at the end with a few words of wrap up. [Music]
I've always been fascinated by sneakers. Some people collect them. I love transforming them. By day, I'm a corporate attorney.
By night, I'm hunched over my kitchen table with paints, stencils, and a stack of high tops ready for reinvention. Being a lawyer can be pretty intense with tight deadlines, long hours, and constant negotiations. I had to have an outlet. When a friend asked me to customize a pair of sneakers for her birthday, I jumped at the chance to be creative. I painted a white pair with bold pink and turquoise patterns and posted them on Instagram.
The response was huge. People started messaging me about commissions. At first, I was like, "I'm just having fun," but curiosity won. I accepted a few orders just to test the waters. I quickly learned regular acrylic paint would not cut it.
After testing, I settled on high quality leather paints, about $5 to $8 per bottle, and a protective sealant to preserve the design. Some clients would send their own shoes, but I often sourced them myself, paying anywhere from $50 to $120, depending on the brand. First, I charged a flat $150 for simple designs, up to $300 for intricate ones. That covered my time, my supplies, and left room for profit. Initial orders came from friends, but things exploded after I tagged a few artists I admired.
One was a celebrity sneaker customizer. A few weeks later, Lil Nas X shared one of my designs on his Instagram story. I woke up to nearly 200 DMs and a wait list of 40 plus people. That week alone, I earned over $1,500. I passed the $1,000 milestone faster than I imagined, and that's when I realized this could be a real business.
My job wasn't gonna go anywhere, so I got organized. I created a Google form to collect shoe size, color preferences, and references. Then I used a spreadsheet to schedule two or three commissions per week. Each pair took about four to six hours across several evenings. Many clients wanted shoes for birthdays or events, so I had to really manage my turnaround expectations.
I'm based in Chicago, but orders come from across the U.S. and beyond. I charge a flat $10 shipping fee in the U.S. and more if it's international. I started with PayPal and Venmo, but moved to Shopify so people could pay by card.
Balancing everything has been challenging. I had to block off evening hours for painting just to stay focused. And then when my wait list hit 80 plus, I raised prices slightly and communicated delays clearly. Most clients were happy to wait. I also realized I needed a separate identity for this creative side.
I started calling the project Kicks and Briefs, a playful nod to my legal career. And as someone who obsesses over tiny flaws, I had to learn to step back and recognize when a design was good enough. Now I complete about eight to 10 pairs every month, averaging $250 per pair, which is around 2,000 to 2,500 in monthly revenue. Over a year, that adds up to a five-a-year revenue stream. I don't plan to leave law, but I'm excited to keep exploring this.
Maybe I'll have your jackets next. For now, I'm building my Kicks and Briefs empire, one sneaker at a time. - Hey Shannon, thanks for the story, love that. What a fun niche to be in. And by the way, this might be a good time to mention, I always encourage people to choose a different kind of side hustle or a different kind of project or industry or focus for your side hustle than what you do as your day job.
So if you're a lawyer, you've got all kinds of skills, but it's usually not good to be a different kind of lawyer in your side hustle. You want to use a different part of your brain. And in this case, maybe you even want to use your hands a bit, right? You want to do something artsy crafty hands on because you're using your brain so much during the day. So do something a little bit different for your side hustle than you do for your day job.
If you have a question and update for us, a story for us, sidehustleschool.com. This is episode 3,096. I'm so honored and privileged to make the podcast for you every day, seven days a week. So a new one's coming out tomorrow. You can always follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
The complete archive is available for free on the website as well. But that's all for now. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
