This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
A hyper-fluent language service translates into profit. Hey friends, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. Chris Guillebeau here, your host. Been making the podcast for you every single day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
We just don't stop 'cause we wanna give you more stories, case studies, examples, actionable ideas you can use in your quest to create or grow an income generating project. So in this week's first $1,000 segment, we're gonna hear from Ava Rosales. She is the founder of Hyperfluent. The consultancy offers lots of different services, all focused around language acquisition and translation. She has taken a skill and learned to adapt it.
There's lots of ways she could make probably a small amount of money from this skill, but she's found a way to make more. And so I love that. Kind of ties into the whole principle of this segment, which is once you begin to earn some real money, the steps required to go to the next level from $1,000 to $2,000, even to $5,000 or $10,000 a month and so on are often easier than that first real paycheck. That's why I thought it'd be cool today to hear from this case study. She is the founder of Hyperfluent as mentioned.
We first featured her back on episode 1494. That was many, many days ago, 1500, 1800 days ago or so. But what about her first $1,000? How'd she make it happen? What did it feel like?
What did she learn? And also she's got some detailed advice on pricing your services, especially if you offer more than one. So I thought this is gonna be really helpful to somebody out there. Let's pass the microphone. I'll be back at the end with a few words of wrap up.
[Music]
Hi, my name is Eva Rosales and I'm the CUN founder of Hyperfluent. I was featured on "Side Hustle School" episode 1494. Today, I'm gonna talk to you about my journey to making my first $1,000. While I was doing my bachelor's degree in minor and French and Portuguese, I started helping my friends with their language classes. I remember I charged them $18 to $20 per hour and at that time enjoyed having lunch with my friends and getting paid to help with something I was passionate about.
Languages for me were never just about grammar, literature and rules, but how I came to express myself and most importantly, learn about others' journeys in their own language. I guess you could say languages became friends who helped me develop who I was as an individual. Whether my personality became more romantic or more direct, languages made me into the person I am today. After finishing college, I dedicated more time into learning about what kind of price structure I wanted to have for my consulting services. Something that I never thought about was diversifying my price structure by blending in different services targeted to different audiences.
For example, what would I charge a company versus an individual? What if someone wanted tutoring for an extended time? And not just for a month or a couple of weeks, but say five to six months. I think the scariest thought was thinking, am I charging too much or too little? It's hard to put an estimate to how much you should charge when you first start.
People always tell you, well, if you have a lot of experience, you can charge basically whatever you want. But I think you just have to be a bit more flexible and see the potential to working with a client, not just one time, but for a longer period. This is the best scenario for when word of mouth plays a huge role. After pinning down a price scheme with diversified services, I could not stop asking friends to let me know if they knew of anyone who wanted to learn a language. Friends of Friends started contacting me and what was once just charging $18 to $20 an hour quickly became four to the 50, 60 to 70, and up to 250 to $300 an hour for a particular service.
More important than understanding your market is getting to know your client. What his or her needs are and offering something so personalized that he or she knows they can't get anywhere else. This differentiates you from the masses and plays a bigger role in solidifying the value you bring to the table. One day, a friend of mine put me in contact with a friend of hers who happened to be the personal assistant of an NBA player. I remember getting my first check of $1,200 and thinking, "Wow, this check made out of paper is worth a trip back and forth to Europe." I remember clearly that it took me three months when I was 16 selling Cutco knives to be able to make $2,000 to travel to Europe in 1999 by myself, and here I was earning half of it in one day in a matter of hours.
In German, we call that Wannzen or craziness. That was the moment I first thought to myself, "Where do I fly with the money?" What I learned about this experience were three things. Jot down what you offer and be true to yourself as to what you bring to the table. Walk away elegantly when you're counter offered or asked and told to lower your price to something ridiculous that you know you should not accept and believe in the power of positive thinking. Finally, I want to highlight that part of being successful is also paying it forward.
Look into volunteering your skills as a consultant who takes time to do pro bono work for an organization. I personally owe much of my success to putting out as many positive vibes as possible in the universe. [Music]
Hey, Eva, thank you so much for sharing the story. Sounds like she has come a long way from selling those Cut Co. knives.
Well done, good work. Keep putting out positive vibes. Listeners, I hope you enjoyed hearing Eva. She's got a website, hyperfluent.com, just showing how she provides, I don't know, a bunch of different services. And I liked hearing her advice on pricing different services when you're offering more than one.
That's something that can trip a lot of people up, especially when they are new. So I hope that is helpful today. Listeners, let me know if you have questions, comments and update about your sidehustleschool.com. You can access notes pages for every single episode we've ever made, 3,300 plus. And of course, the new episodes come out every day.
Wherever you like to get your podcasts, you can listen there, subscribe or follow. Give us a little five-star rating. If you don't mind, definitely helps other people discover the show. I'll continue to be out there and I hope you will too. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
