This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
We don't feature a ton of stories about peer-to-peer lending on the podcast, just 'cause there's not always a lot to say about them. There's different platforms where you can like, you know, loan out stuff, get paid for it. It's just kind of turnkey and self-explanatory. But also they're not usually a great business model when you're trying to create an asset for yourself. Like I like to focus the show around helping people create passive income or at least something that has a chance to go on and earn money without them always putting in the time for it.
And also something that's not so dependent on another platform. But you know, that said, there are some exceptions. These platforms and networks can be great to experiment with. And also once in a while, which is what we're gonna hear about today, someone comes along who figures out a competitive advantage and usually does go on to earn a lot of money from one of these sites. So that's what today's story is about, a London receptionist who is also a part-time photographer.
He starts renting out his camera gear. He gets really good at it, systemizes the process to where he can do it over and over. In fact, he ends up renting it more than 1,100 times. And at the time we first shared this story, he had brought in over $30,000 mostly after creating this process where it's not a ton of work for him. So most people who loan their stuff out don't make $30,000 extra doing it.
How has this guy made it happen? That's what today's story is about. London photographer rents camera gear 1,100 times. Stay tuned for the story. [Music]
Antonio Salvani is no stranger to the world of side hustling.
He works by day as a receptionist for a property management company in central London. And a few years ago, he started taking freelance photography gigs. From then on, his evenings and weekends were spent shooting weddings and other various events. It was in preparation for an upcoming wedding that Antonio discovered a completely different way to make money. Despite having spent a year collecting gear, Antonio still didn't feel he had all the camera equipment necessary to create the best quality package for the bride.
But he also knew that traditional camera equipment rentals can be quite expensive. They also require a hefty deposit. The usual deposit at a camera rental shop in London can be $1,500 or $2,000 even. And in addition to the large deposit, the verification process necessary for renting can be inconvenient. He complained about this to a friend who was also a photographer.
And this friend suggested that Antonio use fat llama to rent the equipment he needed. Now for listeners who are not familiar, fat llama is not an up and coming rapper, nor is it a Jimmy Buffett song from 1980. It is in fact a peer to peer sharing platform that connects people who need to borrow something with those who could use a little extra cash. But the term sharing implies a no charge service. So that terminology is a little confusing.
There is in fact a charge to borrow items through the service. However, as Antonio found the rate to rent through fat llama was much more reasonable than the classic rental method from shops. He found he was able to get the gear he needed for less than 50 pounds, about 60 bucks, 60 US dollars. It was a steal of a deal. The gear was available for pickup the same day, the entire process was easy.
And from that first rental experience, Antonio was intrigued. His next thought was, why not rent out my own equipment on fat llama? After all, he already owned a decent amount of photography gear as a result of his business. So that meant he had virtually no startup costs whatsoever. He admits the first time he rented out his $6,000 camera, he was so anxious he couldn't sleep.
After all, he was running out some of his most expensive belongings to a complete stranger. But the next day he met up with the person renting the camera, the day after they returned it, and everything was fine. After meeting with his customer and communicating with him, his fears were eased. And it also helped that fat llama provides insurance in various protections for both parties. In terms of the money, fat llama charges a 15% rate on both sides of the transaction.
That is both the lender and the borrower are charged a 15% commission. And included in that fee is the cost for that insurance. All right, Antonio tried it out, he liked it. So he kept listing his gear. And in the beginning he was booking two to three rentals a week.
This soon increased to five to 10 a day. That's right, up to five to 10 bookings per day and steadily increasing. So what I wanted to know was how does he keep up with his personalized customer service with so many rentals? Well, the good thing is, first of all, 80% of these rental pickups and drop-offs occur on the weekend. Also, about 70% of his renters are repeat customers.
So this makes things a little bit easier. Antonio creates a profile each time he meets with a new client that cuts down on his time spent getting to know them and getting to know their needs. A lot of renters want to pick up gear on Friday evening and drop it off on Sunday. So he now spends a fair amount of time on Thursday planning and messaging about pickups and drop-offs. He kind of batches that communication on Thursday nights.
For the moment, Antonio is managing the system well. However, at some point, yeah, he says he'll probably get an assistant. His priority is keeping his exceptional customer service in place, and as mentioned, Antonio had virtually no startup costs because he already owned the camera gear he was renting out, but he did invest another 4,000 pounds when he bought a new camera lens. So he added some more gear once he saw things were working well. So far, Antonio has had over 1,100 rentals.
He said he's met some amazing people. He's learned so much about the equipment just by talking with those who use the gear day in and day out, and he even feels like he started a community. He's now made more than $30,000 from the hustle, 32,400 to be precise. He is putting the money toward another side hustle buying an apartment in his hometown of Skopje, Macedonia. And for this apartment, of course, he will rent it out on Airbnb.
Well, Fat Llama is still operational. Several years after we first broadcast this story, check out fatlama.com. When I go and look at it, it redirects me to the US site. But of course, it is still in the UK and other countries as well. Yeah, UK, US, and Canada, it looks like, on their website.
And this episode reminds me a little bit of Turo guys, what I called him way back when we started the podcast, episode 32, this guy who made a couple thousand dollars a month renting out cars that he didn't actually own. He leased all these cars. And so for both these stories, you wanna create a system of managing communication and logistics just because so many different bookings are coming in and people have questions and so on. So you gotta be good at logistics to do something like this at scale. But some people are good at logistics and have found a way to do that.
So fun story, congrats once again to Antonio. Listeners, I wanna say congratulations to you as well. Love to know about your story, love to know about your success. I hope you will take these lessons and apply them somewhere. Maybe it gives you an idea for something of your own.
Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Thanks for tuning in today. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
