Notes from Chris

Episode 375

Like some of our featured stories, Harry Campbell’s side hustling life began at an early age. For him, it started in the high school lunchroom. His mom made the best lunches, and the other kids would offer him money for them. So Harry started asking his mom for two bags of chips, two Snapples and sometimes even two sandwiches and he would re-sell the extra items to his classmates for a 100% profit. His best customer was a girl in English class who bought a bag of chips every day.

Later he became an aerospace engineer working for Boeing. The job paid well, and when Harry started driving for Uber and Lyft on the side, some of his friends and co-workers made fun of him. Why did he need to ferry people around?

Well, for Harry, it wasn’t so much about the money he earned for each ride, it was the idea and the opportunity. He also started driving in 2015, when the rideshare companies were desperate to sign up drivers and began awarding a lot of incentives for referrals.

In fact, the incentives were much more lucrative than the actual driving. He first signed up for Lyft, but then earned $500 for joining Uber and completing a single ride. He also hit the motherlode of incentives when Lyft ran a promotion offering new drivers $1,000 for doing one ride, and paid the referring driver $1,000 as well. In other words, they were paying $2,000 to acquire a driver who might only work for them once.

Harry spent three days trying to convince everyone he knew to sign up. People told him it sounded like a scam, but it wasn’t—he ended up referring 34 drivers and earning $34,000.

At first, the The Rideshare Guy site was just another side hustle. Harry made around $25,000 from it that first year which was a lot more than he was expecting. But traffic was growing, he was starting to get more media attention, and he figured that if he went full time on the site, the numbers would only get better.

That’s exactly what happened. In his first year of full-time work, the business made over $100,000 in profit and has only continued to grow.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• The Rideshare Guy: Get a sneak peek behind how Harry manages to make six-figures through referrals on his blog
• Wordpress: Harry used Wordpress to create The Rideshare Guy, and here you can learn how to install your own Wordpress site in 5 minutes

SEE ALSO:

• Junk Removal Service Owner Earns $22,000 A Year From Real Estate Referrals: An entrepreneur stumbles on a low-tech, high-yield side hustle through his day job, and brings in an extra $22K annually handing out business cards
• Soccer Fan Plays The Odds; Earns Affiliate Commissions: A British soccer—er, football—fan sets up a blog that refers visitors to bookmakers. He gets paid for every referral, making this a project worth betting on
• “Sign Hustle" Biz Produces $50,000/Year With No Expenses: A Tennessee man starts a low-tech, low-stress side hustle and creates a substantial side income working only on the weekend. No website needed!

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,