This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hello and welcome. This is Side Hustle School. I am your host, Chris Guillebeau. Got a different kind of story for you today. It is definitely a bit unconventional.
We usually have pretty straightforward requirements to be on the show. If you've been listening for a while, you're aware of that. Everybody has to make at least $500 a month from their side hustle. Often they make much more, but that's the minimum. They usually have to start this project while they're working a full-time job or otherwise pretty busy.
And for the most part, they do it by using a skill that they already have. We don't feature a ton of full-time entrepreneurs or startup stories. It's really not what we're about at Side Hustle School. It's all about empowering individuals, not companies. Now that said, today's story is still very much about an individual.
It is about a side hustle, but it's different because this is the story of the business that became a job that became a side hustle. And you'll have to hear the story to hear a bit more about how that came to be. It's definitely something that when it first came across my desk, it was kind of scratching my head a little bit and thinking like, is this right for the show? But then I realized, you know, a side hustle can meet all kinds of needs. And people have all sorts of goals for their projects.
So from time to time, it is good to show you a different illustration or example of how people are creating multiple sources of income and using that to support their lives. So it definitely fits in terms of those criteria. And also in my notes about this guy, I saw that he has ADD and speaks of it as a strength, not a weakness. I don't know how much I've talked about it on the show before, but I also have ADD. I also see it as a strength, not a weakness, or at least it can be depending on how you manage it.
And I'll have some brief comments about that after the episode as well. So stay tuned for the business that became a job that became a side hustle. [Music]
Before we even talk about his side hustle, let's talk about Neil Vasavada's unconventional day job. He's the sales and operations manager for a company that provides equipment to major stadium tours and festivals. He works with big bands like Metallica and U2, major festivals like Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo, and big events like the Super Bowl, which is all pretty cool on its own.
But on the side, he runs a motorsports electronics company called Apex Speed Technology. It provides electronic systems to custom vehicle owners. And here's the interesting thing. Neil's side hustle was his day job as the owner of that company, but as the market changed and it became less sustainable, he got a different day job and then eventually turned his business into a successful side hustle. It's been quite a journey to come full circle like this, but he says he's having more fun and is more productive now than he ever was when it was his full-time focus.
Coming out of college, Neil had been hired to work for a different motorsports electronics company based in Torrance, California. As someone who is comfortable communicating engineering with less technically-minded individuals, he felt like the industry was doing customers a disservice in the way they operate it. Throughout the industry, he noticed that vendors saw product familiarization and training as a customer responsibility, not something that they should be doing. And that attitude led to poor product utilization and sometimes even an adversarial relationship between vendors and customers. Working with a friend, Neil saw the opportunity to start a customer service-oriented company.
They began that company, Apex Speed Technology, out of their three-bedroom apartment less than a block from Venice Beach in Southern California. As I suspected, there were plenty of people who had the financial resources but lacked technical resources to implement the kinds of solutions they offered. In the next few years, they had some big successes. They traveled the world working in multiple countries. They made it into magazines.
They even got a contract with the US Department of Energy. However, being service-oriented meant overheads were high. Finding and retaining employees or contractors who could be technically adept and deal with customers well was challenging and expensive. The margins on their product sales, especially with the rise of online resellers, couldn't cover basic after-sales support, which was the very element they wanted to focus on. Neil tried to diversify into more hardware sales by opening an online store, but as hardware manufacturers got a larger online presence, it was tough to compete.
Furthermore, as a recession came into being, hobbyists and amateurs had no money to spend with them anymore, which made scaling quite difficult. Instead of finding efficiencies, more business just became more expensive to service. Cash flow and credit issues hampered their growth. Neil was traveling 250 days a year, putting out fires and fixing quality issues. His business partner had enough and left the company.
Doesn't this story sound so inspiring? Oh, but just wait. Neil was also a personal mess. He was overweight, chain-smoking. He had a newborn son that he felt like he never saw.
He was constantly tense, and for what? The business was extremely busy, yet losing money. At its height, it had $2 million in revenue coming in, with $0 in profit. Not so great. Neil was ready to give it all up and declare bankruptcy when one of his customers called him to have a frank talk.
That customer was a successful bankruptcy litigator in New York City, and he wanted to help. Neil still had a lot of orders at that point, so together they concocted a plan to negotiate with suppliers and debtors, buying cash flow to complete the orders, and continue to manage Apex without declaring bankruptcy. Neil was skeptical at first, but the fact was they did have those orders, which was the foundation for all else, that they could only fix the problems. Of course, there was that big problem of cash flow, and typically in these situations, one of the ways to improve cash flow is to eliminate employees. Well, Neil was the most expensive employee, so he eliminated himself.
He decided that while he tried to fix the company, he would go back to work for someone else, and thanks to a friend's connection, he ended up with a job in music production. That's how he got to work with acts like U2 and Metallica, go to festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza, and his thought was that he would do that while he nursed the business back to life, or eventually just shut it down, but without going bankrupt. Then as he was rising in his career, Neil was given one of those gifts that don't seem like a gift at the time. His senior Apex employee got an opportunity of a lifetime with a competitor. At first, it felt like a punch in the gut, but after stepping back and looking at things, Neil realized that if he just adjusted his workflow, he could continue to service outstanding orders, at least if he focused and narrowed his client list.
So he stopped promoting the business entirely. He began doing only the minimum to keep customers satisfied. At this point, he expected that business to slowly fade away while he continued to work his day job, but instead, the more patient, more visionary customers with the highest standards kept coming back to him. They also accommodated him in ways he'd never expected. It turned out that people appreciated what he did, and customers became partners in helping Apex survive.
Neil said no to every project request that came in, except those that seemed really interesting, were personally exciting to him, and came with a high price tag. For this point, he has no employees, he's doing no marketing or promotion, and he's charging a high price. Sounds like a way to kill off a business, right? Well, here's one thing that didn't change. Neil didn't stop caring.
In fact, he started caring more about the customers, the vendors, his work. Since he only takes on a few projects, he says when he's interested in a job, he'll spend hours on the phone with a potential customer, discussing options and ideas. He doesn't try to monetize everything from the beginning. He really gives away advice whenever he can. And despite the fact that he's not cheap, he'll sincerely counsel his clients on how to save.
Now, here's the interesting thing. When that company, Apex Speed Technology, was more of a company with employees, with offices, and so on, as I said, it was doing up to $2 million in annual revenue, but not making any money. Now that it's just Neil, he's running it as a side hustle in addition to his challenging day job, Apex Speed Technology is bringing in $2,000 to $4,000 a month, but that money is mostly profit. What do you think is better? $2 million in revenue with $0 in profit, or something like $35,000 a year that's almost all profit.
Personally, I'd rather have that $35,000 situation. Now, to be clear, this has been a long and winding road for Neil, and not everything is amazing in this situation still. He says his day job has a lot of challenges. He has to be mindful of how he balances things. He's still working and traveling a lot, but he says he has a better relationship with his son than he ever did before.
He's healthier than he's ever been in his life, and he truly feels work satisfaction. But he never expected things to work out the way they did, with his challenging, fulfilling day job, and the side hustle that used to stress him out when it was a company that now brings him joy, a different kind of work, and actual profit each month. There's more than one way to hustle. [Music]
Well, like I said, there is more than one way to hustle, and this story kind of illustrates it. Definitely different, more unconventional than most of the stuff we feature on the show, but I hope you enjoyed it.
For anyone who's thinking of starting a company, kind of company that has employees, that does scale, if you have the vision to do that, great, good for you, just realize you don't have to do it that way. There are other ways to do it, and those other ways might actually be less stressful. Now, last but not least, I noticed in the notes for this story that Neil mentioned having ADD. He says he was diagnosed as a child, and he believes it's not a disability, it's his superpower. Just wanted to mention that for anybody else out there in that situation, I myself also have childhood diagnosed ADD.
I didn't pay too much attention to it as an adult until a few years ago, when I went through a period of struggle and not being able to focus, some pretty common symptoms of ADD, and I decided to start addressing it more directly. So I actually agree with Neil that it's not something that has to be a disability, it's something that can be a strength, or even a superpower, as he calls it. But if that's you, or if you're in that situation, it does help to learn a bit more about it, so you understand, okay, how can it be a strength? How can it be a superpower? Because for that to happen, you probably do need to learn a bit more about yourself and about that condition, so that you can work toward creating the ideal working situations that will allow you to thrive.
And if you don't have ADD, well, I want you to thrive too. However, your journey progresses, whether it's as long and winding and circuitous as Neil's journey, or it's more straightforward, I want you to thrive. I want you to be successful, to have whatever success that you're working toward, as you define it, to have more freedom that can come from multiple sources of income. My hope is that these stories will help you and support you in some way. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better.
Today's show notes are at situscleschool.com/348. That's 348. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back tomorrow. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
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