This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
But traffic nerd turns public data into paid service. That's what we're talking about today. Welcome back to Side Hustle School. Welcome to First $1,000. This is our segment, comes out every Monday.
It's about how somebody goes from idea to making $1,000 or more. And I do this because it's cool to hear how people make lots of money, but most listeners who are new to the world of Side Hustles, you need to learn how to make $500, $1,000, something like that, because then you'll see, it's actually not that much more difficult to go and make 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 and beyond. So how do you go from that first idea to making it happen? Today's story comes from Orange County, California. A data savvy local finds a way to monetize his skill and also helps small businesses make smarter decisions in the process.
So we're gonna hear more about that from Sandeep. He earned his first $1,000 in just a few weeks. He's gone on to do more. He's got more requests coming in. So let's consider how he did it, or let's listen and perhaps absorb something.
This might give somebody an idea out there, or it might just kind of give us a little nudge, a little push, a little sense of momentum to do something today to get closer to a goal that we have. So without further ado, let's pass the mic. I'll be back at the end with a few words of wrap up. [Music]
I worked in analytics full time, but on the side, I always played around with open datasets such as crime maps, traffic patterns, census blocks, you name it. One day I was helping a friend who was thinking about opening a sadness shop in Orange County.
He had two locations in his mind, both in the same size, similar range, but he had no clue which one had more food traffic. Google reviews and Yelp maps weren't much help. I pulled some data from Safecraft. They are limited free access, if you know where to look, running through few filters in Python and build a heat map and some other heat showing how early food traffic for each block. It was clear that one location had nearly twice the average visits per day and bigger lunch rush.
That reward helped him to choose the better spot. Then he said, "You should charge for this help." So I gave it a shot. I created a one page flyer advertising hyper local food traffic reports and posted in two places. One was a local Facebook group for small business owners. Second one is a forum for Orange County real estate professionals.
I offered one free neighborhood sample report as a late magnet. Three people messaged me within 48 hours. One was a landlord who wanted to show potential tenants and their property had comparable traffic to a nearby shopping plaza. Another was a copy shop evaluating expansion. I priced these custom reports between $99 and $250 depending on their complexity.
Most people went to 150 tier, which included three locations, hourly traffic breakdowns, top visitor homesit codes and a short PDF summary with visuals. Within three weeks, I had brought $2,000. My only real cost were time and tools. I used the free tier of safe graph, some local mobility data via country open data portal and occasionally run estimates through gravy analytics or place AI. I used free demos or friends login.
Most of the analysis were done in Python and exported as PDF through Canva. There are two things made the reports work. First, I used plain language. Average week day food traffic from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
instead of geo-mobility aggregation. Second, I tailored it to who was reading. Landlords wanted to traffic comparison to justify rent. Tenants wanted to know if their customers were working by your driving past. Since then, I've packaged few templates and now offer monthly food traffic updates for some clients who operates chains or manage multiple units.
If you are into data, here's my advice. Don't underestimate how valuable, simple, well-presented local insights can be. You don't have to create dashboards or code fancy apps. Just answer real questions with real information. [Music]
- Sandeep, thank you so much for sharing that story.
Listeners, thank you for listening. We're making the podcast every day for 3,180 days now. And I do that because I want it to be helpful to you. I want it to give you a sense of purpose and a sense of possibility. There's something out there that you can do as well.
I'd love to feature your story sometime. And I hope you'll take action, as I said, on a goal that's important to you. sidehustleschool.com, the complete archives, complete history of the podcast, legacy archives, all available for free download or streaming. Of course, new episodes drop every day, wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe or follow. Come back for more.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from The Onward Project.
