This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Sadassle School is brought to you by InMotion Hosting. Go to sidehustleschool.com/website to host your new or existing website for as little as $4 a month. Hey there, what's up? Welcome back. You're listening to Sadassle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Now, yesterday we had this really big story about a guy named Taseer in Los Angeles who rents out an entire fleet of cars he doesn't actually own. This refers to the acquired skill of resourcefulness and hustle creativity that I'll be featuring over and over. Now, please don't miss the point. I'm not telling you or anyone else to go out and lease more than a dozen cars. What I'm saying is look what this guy did. How can you apply the same kind of creativity
to your projects? Now, first of all, pretty awesome story. But second of all, if you can learn this skill of resourcefulness and creativity, at the end of the year, if you're able to look back and say, "I am more resourceful. I have been able to apply this power of observation and experimentation, and I'm thinking differently, I'm acting differently, and it's bringing different results to me," that will be a big win. That'll be a huge win. For this story, let's go back to
technical skills, the kind you learn in college or for your job or just because you're interested in something. The story you'll hear today is in the last group. It's about how an engineer who works for GE makes and sells handcrafted slate artwork to all 50 states. This has brought him a great side income, as well as the courage and security to make decisions for himself, instead of letting his employer decide for him, which I'll tell you about in just a moment. But first, Sadduceville School is brought to you today by InMotion Hosting, which is the same host I use for several of my websites. I've been a paying customer for
several years. I've tried many web hosts only to be disappointed several times. InMotion has 24-hour day support, the ability to grow as your hustle grows, and best of all, they have a deal for Sadduceville School listeners to get a complete hosted account for your website, starting at just $3.49 a month. That's a pretty amazing deal. In the past, I have literally paid several hundred dollars a month for hosting, so $5 a month or less is pretty awesome. You can check that out
and sign up at sidehustleschool.com/website. When Andrew Church of Waterford, Pennsylvania saw the email notifying him of a sale, he thought it was a technical glitch. The email was from Etsy, the online crafts marketplace, and the message was clear. A stranger had bought something from his brand new online shop, and the money would be in his account by the end of the day. Well, let's back up a little. Long before he started a hustle selling handcrafted stone
and slate gifts, Andrew had always been curious and ambitious. Back in college, he had been a champion wrestler, and now he still holds down a part-time gig as a referee while working as an industrial engineer for GE. Out of that curiosity, in addition to his hands-on skills of working with wood and other materials, Andrew decided to experiment with slate by cutting a sign with his last name written in script letters. He planned to put the sign on the roof of his house and have that be the end of it. However, once he bought the saws to cut the slate, he realized how versatile the material was. "You could do a lot with slate," he noticed, "and it wasn't that difficult." And
there also weren't a lot of other people using it so creatively. He had never seen a sign like the one he made for the roof of his house. Now, I mentioned that Andrew lives in Pennsylvania. For a next step, he decided to make Pennsylvania-shaped cutting boards out of locally reclaimed slate. That's how he ended up on Etsy, which seemed like a natural platform for such a thing, and that's when he received that email, notifying him of his first sale. It wasn't a technical glitch,
of course, it was real money, and it felt great. After that sale, another one arrived a few days later, and then another. Now, this got Andrew thinking, and as he continued to experiment in his off hours over the next few weeks, couple months, he wondered how he might be able to expand. Now, if you've been paying attention, you can probably guess what he did next. He was from Pennsylvania, and it made perfect sense that his first cutting board was fashioned in the shape of his home state. However, after some extensive research, he realized there are actually a lot
of other states. In fact, Pennsylvania is just one of 50 states. So, the very obvious expansion was to make cutting boards for all the others. Now, naturally, this brought him a lot more customers, as well as a more diverse market base throughout the country. He continued to play with the project during nights and weekends, and the next expansion was to make boards for several other countries. So, he's already done boards for all 50 states, now he begins to go
internationally, and after that, he went into different product lines, such as coasters, ornaments, house numbers, and even earrings, all made from this reclaimed natural material. When Andrew and I talked, he was on track to making more than $10,000 from the side hustle thus far. And as a side benefit, he never has to buy another birthday, wedding, or housewarming gift again. He just makes a custom slate piece for the recipient. So, this was $10,000 that he didn't have before, and all of this has happened while bootstrapping, working on limited time, and without making any real investment until he felt confident in the project's success.
And here's one of my favorite parts of the story, which well illustrates why side hustles are so important. It's not just about the money. Andrew told me that his division of GE had recently been transferring a lot of work out of town, and they asked him to relocate to Chicago. Now, at the time, he didn't want to leave his home in Pennsylvania, but of course, it's scary to say no when your company makes such a request. That's exactly what he did. He made it clear to his employer that he
liked his work, he was happy to stay, but the relocation was not good for him personally. So, if that's what it came to, he would turn it down. So, this kind of security is extremely valuable. Andrew is excited about the future and even has an ambitious plan. The next goal is to replace his full-time engineering salary. What can we learn from this great story? Well, first,
this is a hustle that naturally lends itself to expansion. If you design and handcraft a sign, or cutting board, or some item for one state, why wouldn't you do the others? And Andrew mentioned an interesting fact. He said a lot of his orders are actually going to different states than the order itself is for. And his theory about this is that people are ordering them as a memento of home. And then, in addition to the expansion of "I'm doing one board for one state, now I'm going
to do all 50 states," then he expanded it to different products. Those coasters, ornaments, house numbers, earrings, not every one of them took off. He was just experimenting and seeing what people liked, what they valued, what they were willing to pay for. And this is how it works often. You have this idea and you wonder if other people are going to like it. And the only way to
find out is by offering it, which is exactly what he did. He knew how to make different items with the slate. He was having fun. So therefore, he decided to try the coasters, the house numbers, et cetera. And when you do this, it can be really interesting because often what you think people are going to like is not necessarily the same thing as what they really respond to. And the only way
to find out, as I said, is to experiment. And it's not just that people have to like it. This is another common mistake that new hustlers make. I'm going to make this thing. They go out and ask people like, "Do you like this?" The person says, "Oh, I like it." But it doesn't matter if someone likes it. Are they willing to pay for it? Do they like it so much that they're willing to kind of
raise their hand, get out their credit card, and actually pay for that item? And Andrew found that for some of the items, people very much were willing to do that. And for others, they weren't. So naturally, he focused on the ones that were selling. Now also, Andrew is now beginning to focus on his own website and building traffic there and generating repeat customers, which is really smart. I'll link that up in the show notes if you want to take a look. But he started by
selling on an existing platform. And that was really smart. Because in doing so, first of all, there's very little complexity in terms of getting up and going. He didn't have to worry about how to build a website and all that. But second, maybe just as important, by using an existing platform, he's able to reach a wide marketplace of potential buyers. And if he just started this
project on his own, he would have had the same great product, but far fewer people who might want to buy it because they'd never see it. So that's why platforms like Etsy and several others, I talk about them throughout the year, can be really great, especially when you're just getting started with something like this. In the long term, it's usually better to shift toward trying to draw people to your own website, which is exactly what he's doing. But that can happen over time. And if you want to test something out quickly, it's easier to do it on an existing platform. Your story is your own. It will develop in its own way. But if you listen to these stories,
you begin applying them to your own hustle, you will see results. Remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. If you want to find the show notes for today's episode, hear more about Andrew's Hustle, go to psilosolschool.com. And also speaking of websites, if you need help getting your first website up and you're looking for a reliable company to host it, there's an offer on the site for a $5 a month reliable web host. You really don't need to spend a lot of money on hosting. But if you look everywhere else, if you just kind
of go online, you'll see that usually costs much more. So if you'd like to save money and get a reliable service, check out psilosolschool.com/website for that offer. I'm Chris Guillebeau. This is Psilosolschool, and I'll see you tomorrow.
