This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What if deciding at age 19 that you will never work for anyone else could become the foundation for building multiple successful businesses and getting elected to public office? That's a little bit of the story we're gonna hear today framed inside of Soul School of Fashion, of course. It is what Megan Hunt accomplished when she chose entrepreneurship over employment. She built a wedding dress business, then another fashion business, a stationary store, and also became a Nebraska state representative. So Megan, who is a longtime friend of mine, she is a multi-potential type hustler, a polymath.
She's smart about a lot of different things. So let's look today at this case study. In this segment, by the way, it's part of our weekend workshop format, how you can learn the key steps to a new side hustle, one step or a concept per week. We're including activities, examples, and we're now in the case study portion of the series. We're using the book "Side Hustle from Idea to Income in 27 Days," available wherever books are sold.
And for the first half of the year, we went through the 27 steps in the book, and now in that second half, and now in the second half, we're looking at those more detailed case studies. So you can understand how people apply the framework. And just remember, I'm telling you these stories because there's something you can do too. Okay, let's talk about Megan. Megan, at a young age, made a life-defining decision.
She was actually a 19-year-old college sophomore, and she was like, "I'm never gonna do anything but work for myself." Was this youthful rebellion or naive optimism, or was it a calculated choice based on understanding exactly what kind of life she wanted to live? Megan recognized early that conventional employment would limit her creative freedom and financial potential, and so rather than climbing corporate ladders, she chose to build her own business from the beginning. She did work a couple of eight to five desk jobs for a while, but only as stepping stones to gain capital for her entrepreneurial ventures. So let's talk about the first one. Megan started her wedding dress business with a clear vision of serving brides aged 24 to 30 worldwide.
And worldwide is key. From the beginning, 40% of her customer base was international, proving that small creative businesses can scale globally from day one. Now, that business grew steadily through referrals. Each satisfied customer became a marketing asset. And as the wedding dress business succeeded, Megan started thinking about what else she could do.
One of the things she did was she founded a co-working space in Omaha, where other creative entrepreneurs could work alongside her. And that also solved a practical problem for her because she preferred working unconventional hours. As the owner, she could work through the night with her infant, in fact, without anyone complaining about her schedule. So that's a little bit about how Megan got going. Let's hear what happened next, her political success, her current business ventures.
She's doing a whole bunch of stuff. And also how you can apply this mindset to your own ventures. Because as I said, there's something you can do too. That's what we always try to come back to on "Saddestle School." Quick shout out to our sponsor, and then part two. [Music]
Fulfilling a lifelong dream, Megan Hunt was elected to the Nebraska State Legislature in 2018, representing District 8 in Omaha.
She was actually reelected then in 2022. She identifies as bisexual. She's one of the first openly LGBTQ people elected to the state legislature in Nebraska. And also the first woman to represent the 8th District. But hey, this isn't about politics.
That's just like one of her roles. She also continued running her business and also opening a new business as well. She's got a business called Ceremony. It is an Omaha-based online store and showroom offering new reworked and vintage clothing. And then she also has a shop, another one, called Shop59, a stationary and project supply shop.
In addition to that, Megan travels, she writes, she speaks, she does all kinds of things. One of those people where I'm like, if you want something done well, ask a busy person to do it, right? And I think the through line in a lot of Megan's projects is she is following her passion to a certain degree. And she's also, as I speak on often, aligning that passion with something that is valuable, something other people want. She's got specific skills in retail.
She has got a lot of people skills, knows a lot of people through networking, both for her business and now for her work with the state legislature. And then she also has this philosophy that I love called strategic giving, which is deliberately providing just extra value to customers and community members as a core marketing strategy. I love strategic giving. I think when you give of yourself, when you try to go above and beyond, it often comes back to you. Maybe that's karma, maybe that's just good business, or who knows, maybe it's both.
Maybe it's just being a good person. And I think for everybody else out there, as we're coming to the end of the year here, Megan's story just shows that entrepreneurial skills and independence are excellent preparation for all kinds of leadership. So the question isn't whether you have enough experience or resources to start your next site hustle or small business. It's whether you have the commitment to see it through, regardless of obstacles, because everybody experiences obstacles. Like I haven't talked about some of Megan's challenges, but I know, just 'cause I know her personally, that it hasn't always been easy.
In fact, it's often been tough, but she's believed in her mission and so she keeps going. All right, friends, I'm gonna leave you with that here today. As always, it's better to have a simple idea you can start right away than a brilliant idea that never launches. And thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for listening this year.
We are at the end of the year. Just a few more episodes remain, and I appreciate you spending this time with me. That's all for now. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
