This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
All right, all right, what's up? Welcome back to Side Hustle School. Chris Guillebeau, your host here. Today is Throwback Thursday. We're gonna hear how a creative project for a friend in recovery became an actual business, eventually leading to a partnership with a Washington DC nonprofit.
In these episodes, we like to take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. We do all kinds of updates. Last week, it was a side hustler who builds a trustworthy supplement guide, originally based on one TikTok video, turning it into a $40,000 affiliate business. Today, as mentioned, a creative project for a friend who is going through recovery, alcohol recovery, substance abuse recovery. Morgan was a friend to somebody going through this process.
And of course, wanted to be as helpful as possible, ended up coming up with a project that helped not only their friend, but also lots of other people. And now, as mentioned, kind of partnering with a nonprofit. So it's a do good and do well story, which I always like, as long-term listeners know. You can do good for others and also do well for yourself at the same time. So let's hear how Morgan was able to do it.
A guided journal, a friend in need, and 1,000 plus sales. Let's pass the mic to Morgan. I'll be back at the end with a few words of wrap up. [Music]
Hey, I'm Morgan, and I live in Baltimore. A couple of years ago, one of my closest friends went through alcohol recovery.
They were doing the work, meetings, therapy, all of it, but kept telling me how awkward and impersonal most recovery tools felt. They had this one line I'll never forget. They said, they asked, "Why does everything I'm supposed to fill out "look like a worksheet from middle school?" Now, I've always been into journaling and design, so I said, let me try making something for you. I created a rough prototype in Canva, basically PDF journal with 30 days of reflection prompts. Nothing clinical, just stuff like, what did you avoid today?
Or what version of yourself are you trying to become? They loved it, and they wanted to share it with their local group. I said yes, and I also cleaned it up. I added a cover, and I listed it on Etsy as a guided journal for sober curious or recovering individuals. At first, it was a digital download, nine bucks for a printable version, but people started asking for a printed copy, so I used Lulu Direct to offer print-on-demand softcovers, and I kept the price accessible.
18 bucks for physical, still nine for digital. Sales trickled in. Then a sober influencer on Instagram shared it, and I sold 50 copies in one weekend. From there, it stayed consistent, maybe 60 to 100 orders per month across Etsy and my own Shopify account. So far, I've sold just over 1,100 copies.
Last year, I got an email from someone at a DC-based nonprofit that's for recovery and harm reduction programs. They'd seen the journal, and they wanted to offer it to their clients, but with their own branding on the cover. We worked out a co-branded edition. Same content inside, their name and logo on the front, and a bulk discount. They ordered 250 copies to start and just reordered 500 more.
I print them here through a local shop in Baltimore, which keeps costs manageable and supports another small biz. Revenue-wise, I've made about 14,000 in profits so far, and that's after printing costs, platform fees, and design software. I don't pay for ads. Most traffic comes through Instagram, Reddit, and SEO blog posts that I wrote about journaling and recovery. It's still a side hustle.
I work full-time, I work in communications, but this little project means something. It's useful, and the fact that it pays for itself and then some makes it easier to keep it alive. So what started off as a one-off gift for a friend has now helped more than 1,000 people. That's a business I feel pretty good about. [Music]
Morgan, thank you so much for sharing the story.
Well done. $14,000 in profits, and also been able to partner with an organization, which makes the whole business a little bit more sustainable, and also doing good for others, as I mentioned. Two good things there. Listeners, let me know who you'd like to see featured from our archives of thousands of episodes. I love hearing updates and transformations, evolutions.
Sometimes people go on to do something completely different than they were doing a few years ago, and that's okay too. Not every business needs to last forever. If you have a question or an update about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com, you can also access a notes page, a detailed notes page, for every single episode we have ever published that is more than 3,000 episodes, and it's all completely free on the website. Much more is coming up as well on the podcast. My name's Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School.
[Music]
From the Onward Project.
