This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Very interesting scenario for you today. A call from a listener. They have been doing so well with their side hustle. Their side project is so successful that an outside company now wants to hire them. Our listener made a coding test for programmers.
They'll share a little bit about it. Got a lot of attention as well as a job offer. But as you'll hear, that wasn't really their objective. They weren't trying to start a side hustle to go and get another job. So what should they do?
Like how should they handle the situation? Is there a way to leverage it somehow? And they're also just looking for some general advice on the project they made. So I will do my best to provide a quick yet still helpful answer, not just for them, but for everybody else out there as well. We have come to the end of a new month.
This is episode 3,346. Of course, the show goes out every day. Thank you for being out there. Today's question, I'm being headhunted for my side hustle. What should I do?
Detailed version and my answer coming right up. [Music]
Hey Chris, this is Josh. I've got an interesting question for you. While I was working in IT, I developed a simple coding test to measure the abilities of our junior programmers. I didn't do this for my job.
It was just a hobby I started working on for myself. Along the way, I realized I could sell it. So I created the MVP and posted it on Hacker News. The response was a huge, but it was favorable and I had a lot of downloads. Weirdly, however, a company reached out that wants to interview me.
I didn't even apply. I'm gonna talk to him 'cause I figured no harm can come from that, even though I probably don't want a new job. I just thought I'd share the story and ask if you've heard about it happening with anyone else. Also, what's your number one tip to grow this side project based on what you've heard so far? Thanks, I'm looking forward to your response.
[Music]
Congratulations, it is an unusual outcome, but that's what happens when you step out of your comfort zone and take a risk, start a new project and so on. Sometimes an unexpected outcome is not unusual at all. Like you never know what's gonna happen. It's kind of like this old saying about, like once you go down the road of adventure, you don't always know where you're gonna end up. You can foresee a couple of outcomes, but there's probably some other stuff that might occur along the way and that's fun.
So as for the first thing, I don't think I've heard of it very often. And for the second thing, let's see here, what's my number one tip to grow the side project based on what I've heard so far? So let's see, what did you learn or what did you hear from the Hacker News post? That seemed to have made some favorable response as you noted. What did you hear?
What did you learn? What were people saying? What is next? What's logically next in terms of development? What is logically next in terms of marketing?
I think if you have the answers to those questions, that will then guide your next steps. So my number one tip is to answer those questions, like what did you learn from this process? What comes next for development? And then not just thinking about the product, but also thinking about how you will talk about the product, which I think so many people don't think about until later. They're like, I just gonna spend all my time making the product and then I'll think about how to market it, but if you really want it to be successful, you need to think about both things.
Pretty much, you know, either simultaneously or at least not delegating the marketing to be something that is just kind of an afterthought. Those are my number one tips. One tip or tips as the case may be. Listeners, let me know what you think. If you have a question, a story, a comment, sidehustleschool.com.
As noted, we are at the end of the month, but I'm excited for all that is coming up. New episodes drop every single day. Seven days a week, always free. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You are listening to Side Hustle School.
[Music]
From the Onward Project.
