This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Hey there, what's up? Welcome. My name is Chris Guillebeau. I have the privilege of bringing you Side Hustle School, a daily podcast all about creating new sources of income without quitting your job. Now this is the weekly recap. We're going to look back on the week.
It's also post Thanksgiving week in the US. And over here in my world, I'll admit that I took a nap the other day. It's a true story, confession, because I knew I had to be home for Thanksgiving. It's one of the few holidays I really like. But in the three days before, I went on a 36 hour trip to Dubai. Now you might be aware that Dubai is actually not
next door to Portland, Oregon the week before I had been in Minneapolis, Chicago and New Jersey, which is a little bit closer, but really not by much. But I was asked to speak at this really big entrepreneurship summit there. When I looked at the dates, I was like, wow, this is kind of tight, but I think I can actually make it work. And so I did. I went to Dubai, flew out from JFK last Sunday night, arrived Monday night local time, all day Tuesday was this event, I gave a keynote, did a small little workshop, I got to meet with a lot of students, which was fun. And then Wednesday morning, 8am, Dubai, Seattle, 14 hours, then
hopped a little connection to Portland to be home in time for Thanksgiving. I tell you that not because I have any complaints at all, I don't actually had a lot of fun. But it is true that I was a little tired after that. Coming back strong with full energy this week, I will be in Los Angeles tomorrow, if you happen to be listening in real time. And Santa Barbara the day after that, we'd love to see you if you're nearby, you can just go to sidehustleschool.com/tour. And we're also in the midst of adding a few dates
in the second week of December. Most likely I'll be in New York City again, and possibly hopefully DC or Philly. We'll see. All right, so today I've got some good stuff for you. I've got some detailed updates on the bouncy house guy from Monday. That was episode, what,
324. And in that episode, you heard about this guy who's making six figures, in fact, multiple six figures, drop shipping, bouncy houses, or bouncy castles, or apparently bouncers is the technical term. Fun fact, our listeners had a bunch of questions about this. And I did too, because in that episode, he talked about how he had a hundred ideas and he narrowed down his list of a hundred to the one he finally chose. So I went back and talked to him some more because I think there's a lot we could learn. I'm going to give you some updates
on that. I've also got a listener question from someone who's wondering about the Amazon associates program. And of course, we'll look ahead at what's to come in the next few days. But first over the past week or so, I've been thinking about this conversation I had recently at one of my events. I always do a detailed Q and a session, which is usually almost half of the event. And it's really fun to hear people's different stories and to hear what
people are working through and even some different perspectives sometimes. And at one of the events recently, somebody asked something like, well, how many of these stories that you feature, like actually go on to scale up and get investor money and ended up becoming like a real company. And I was like, well, some of them do like throughout the year, we've had a number of stories of people who've done that, who've started their project completely as a side hustle, like while they're working a full time job, they did it with their own money without taking a lot of risk. But then eventually they did become very financially successful to the point of hiring employees and doing that scale and perhaps seeking investor money. So there are some stories like that, but that's not really what we focus on with side hustle school. I'm not that interested in companies, I'm interested in people. That's
my purpose with this show is to help regular people out there create a bit more freedom in their lives so that they can do what's important to them. But then there was a followup and the followup was something like, well, for all the ones that don't do that, like for all the ones that don't scale, what do you think they're doing wrong? And I was like, wow, interesting. I don't actually think they're doing anything wrong. I think a lot of people don't want to go down that path of full on entrepreneurship, hiring people, getting investor money and scaling. In fact, again, that's the whole
point of my mission with the book, with the podcast, with the tour, everything else I do, probably a large majority of the people I'm speaking to every day, they don't want that Silicon Valley, Shark Tank, Dragon's Den model. That's not what they're trying to do. And I don't think they're unsuccessful if they have alignment in their life and they like their job, but they're also doing something to create freedom, which is what a side hustle can do for you. And maybe later on, they'll choose to grow that business more. But if not, I think it's still a pretty significant success to have built it to the point of profitability, especially in the stories where people are really creating an asset that can work for them. Like earlier this week, we had a story of a software engineer, who's also an artist,
and she creates these nerdy playing cards based on Disney, based on the legend of Zelda, etc. I believe she's made something like $64,000 with this project. I mean, that to me is kind of a success. So I tell you this story to remind you that success is what you define it to be. Not everyone should be a full time entrepreneur, not everyone wants to run a company.
So let's figure out what's best for you. And then let's work on making that happen. That's what I try to do every day with these stories. I hope that makes sense. Let's now hear from a listener who has a question about Amazon.
I noticed in doing research on your website regarding Amazon Associates, that it's a program where you click through from your website to Amazon on items that you recommend. However, I don't have a website, but I do recommend books and titles on Amazon, including yours, to clients. Is there a way for me to get some sort of credit with Amazon, similar to Amazon's smile, about having a website? Thanks a lot. Can't wait to hear the answer.
Hey, Heidi, thank you so much for listening and for your question. Yeah, so Amazon Associates is probably not a way that most people are going to get rich. But it also falls in the category of not that complicated to do if you're ever referring books or resources or anything else to people, just like you mentioned, because even if it's small money, why not stop and pick it up? Like I have a friend who's pretty successful and he has this phrase he uses, "I still pick up pennies in the street when I see them." But in this case, you're right. You do need to have a website to be approved for Amazon's Associates program. The good news is it can
really be pretty much any kind of website. It doesn't need to be fancy. It doesn't need to have a ton of content. It will need to have some, like it will need to have a homepage and about page, maybe some descriptions of the resources that you're recommending, but they really don't look at it that carefully. And I guess since you have clients already, I wonder why not have at least a simple website. I mean, a lot of the stories that we have
on the show, they're setting up something that is definitely not elaborate or complicated or expensive. They're using platforms like Squarespace or Wix or WordPress.com, or just setting up a simple blog using the web host that I recommend, which you can learn about at sidehustleschool.com/website. So I don't mean to send you down a rabbit hole, but I just think it could be less than a weekend project to get that up and running, and not just for the Amazon thing, but it could have potential for your next steps and other things that you're working on. Just my two cents, of course. But if you see those two cents in the street, might as well pick them up. Thanks and good luck.
All right, just a reminder that I would love to have your questions as well. A couple of different ways you can get those to me. We have a hustle hotline. It's 8449-HUSTLE, also known as 844-948-7853. Give me a call, leave a short message. If you're on the go, you
can also use your phone to just record a little voice note and email that to podcast@sidehustleschool.com. That works too. Now, as we look back on this week, I want to focus mostly on the Bounty Castle guy. Once again, title that episode number 324, the $300,000 Bounty Castle drop shipping hustle with no inventory. How about that? So if you haven't heard that, go back
and listen to it for sure. But as always with these stories, it's not just about highlighting someone else's success. It's about understanding how they did it and thinking like, what can you learn from this? What can you take from this as you explore different options for your side hustle? Now in that episode, obviously we'd ask him like, how in the world did you come up with Bounty Castles? And he said, well, I had a hundred ideas and then I narrowed
them down according to these factors. And the factors were actually really important. The factors were things like I needed a product that was hard to find in a brick and mortar store. The average price point was over $400. There were more than five manufacturers or suppliers and there wasn't a lot of competition. So there was a lot we could take from that.
And I talked about it a bit in the episode, but it also raises the question, where do those hundred ideas come from? And I wanted the same thing because I often talk about the power of observation, developing your curiosity. It's one of the most important skills you can develop as a side hustler. And I loved what he said. So I went back to him and I was like, man, like how did you get the hundred ideas? And here's what Renee
said, I literally just wrote down any and all items that crossed my mind throughout the days. I was traveling a lot for work. So I'd stop into the airport magazine stands and look through various magazines to get product ideas. For example, I remember picking up an aviation magazine and seeing an ad from a lifeboat manufacturer. They were expensive and I didn't think you could buy them at brick and mortar stores. So it made my list. I found
products in bicycle magazines, home improvement magazines, while I was just driving down the road looking at stuff and so on. You'd be surprised how many products you can come up with just throughout the day. I'm traveling for work again. And while I'm answering your email, I'm sitting in a hotel lobby. I can see a couple of items that might be worth considering.
I can see an electric fireplace, a commercial coffee maker, a chandelier. So if you listen to that, you can kind of see where he's going with it. And I think it's so smart. I actually did something very similar many years ago. I would go to the bookstore and look at these hobbyist kind of magazines because there's a magazine for everything. Like I used to
check out cat fancy. He mentioned aviation, home improvement, lots of different stuff in the health and wellness world, like many, many different specialties and niches there. So using that model and then just paying attention as he kind of went through life, that's where his big list of ideas came from. Now, also I had another question. I was like, okay, you had a hundred ideas. Was there a runner up? And he said, yes, I did have a runner
up and that item ended up becoming my second store. In the episode on Monday, I said he didn't want to mention what that was yet. But when we talked more, he said, actually, I'd be happy to share. So the runner up was indoor golf equipment, things like golf simulators, launch monitors, putting greens, nets, et cetera. And guess what? That project is now
off the ground and running. That store is called shop indoor golf or shop indoor golf.com. It's also quite profitable. At some point we might actually go back and do a whole episode on that one. But the interesting thing is that the seasonality is the inverse of the bounce house store. So now, you know, as the leaves fall from the trees, days of winter
approach, demand for bouncy castles is slowing down, but it's the opposite for indoor golf equipment. Now that's really picking up. So basically this guy's a genius. I was super impressed. And if I wasn't busy doing a couple other things at the moment, I might explore this world too. Lots of other episodes this week for you to check out. If you haven't
had a chance to already, we had an environmentalist couple who sells online courses in beekeeping and permaculture, a special Thanksgiving day episode, of course. And because you can make money in all kinds of ways. And I know that's why a lot of people listen to the show because they're tired of hearing about the same things all the time. Well, side hustles can really be anything in an episode three to six. I talked about these guys in Canada who have created a six figure side hustle selling pubic oil. And if you didn't hear that episode,
it is in fact exactly what I just said. If you're curious, you can hear all the details in that story. Coming up this week, got a story of someone who creates a baseball lifestyle apparel company. I've got a business analyst who turns a weight loss problem into $130,000 side hustle solution. I've got somebody who has CrossFit and sells gym equipment, also doing very, very well with that one. And once again, because you never know what you're
going to hear on the show, I've got a woman who makes $3,000 a month removing toads from people's homes. Yes, you heard that right too. We're going to create a new category of side hustles. We've got products and services, you know, affiliate coaching, education, etc. Going to add a new WTF category, which that one will probably fit right into. But of course
it is a true story. It is real money. I'll tell you exactly how it works. But before I sign off for the day and the week, love to say a couple of quick thank yous. I could not make this show on my own. I have a wonderful production team on the Panafly
Network. That team is led by AC Valdez also features Vera Carruthers and doing all our show notes, scheduling the episodes, keeping up with me, and a bunch of other things. My wonder assistant back in Portland, Whitney Karinek, as well as the official show cat, Libby Gillibo, back in Portland. You know, I came back from Dubai the other day and she was like, "What'd you bring me, Dad?" I'm like, "I didn't bring you anything from Dubai. I provide for your life. I bring you food every day. I buy furniture that apparently
you think is for scratching." Cats are awesome, but not known for gratitude. This show is part of The Onward Project, led by Gretchen Rubin. Check it out at theonwardproject.com or search happier with Gretchen Rubin in Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to shows. And last but not least, I would love to thank you, the listener. Not only do you allow the show to be possible, through your support of the sponsors, through spreading the word, telling your friends, leaving little reviews for us. All of that makes a huge, huge difference,
but I also want you to know that you're the reason I make the show. As I go around the country and around the world, I'm meeting lots of people who are listening and taking action on their projects, or at least brainstorming their ideas and thinking about their next steps. That is so encouraging, so motivating to me. If something helps you through this process, I would love to know about it. But mostly I hope you know that I am cheering you on from afar. In each episode, I always say inspiration is good, but action is better. Listening
to Side Hustle School is an investment in yourself. Our short daily episodes go online every single day at 6.01 AM Eastern Time. I hope you'll join me for them next week. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
