This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there friends, listeners, Side Hustle School Community. It's Chris Guillebeau here with you today. I really like the story I'm gonna bring you in this episode. It's a big success from someone who coordinates races for runners. So if you've ever done a marathon, half marathon, 10K, 5K, or anything like that, you may wonder how they work.
Who makes these things happen? How do they get paid? And if this was your hobby, whether running or doing bicycle races, triathlons, whatever, how could you create your own race for fun and perhaps for profit? Well, that's exactly what today's featured case study does. And we'll focus the story on marketing because after he and a friend create their first big race, they realize they would need to build critical mass in the form of enough first year racers.
The race is only gonna succeed and be able to grow if enough people are there to kick it off. So naturally he hits the ground running to get the word out. I'll tell you how this came to be and how he turned it into that big success right after this quick shout out to our sponsor. [Music]
Six years ago, avid runner, Kerry Lower, was sitting on the beach with a buddy talking about the relay race they had just finished. The race hadn't been a great user experience and Kerry uttered the phrase, "Surely we could do better." Well, famous last words.
They talked about it off and on for a while over the next few months, fantasizing about putting on their own race until one day Kerry was at his day job at Xerox in downtown Portland, Oregon. And he read about a new section of paved path that was being opened in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge. The state parks and highway division were working together to put in a bike trail. And Kerry thought this was the perfect opportunity to try a race on a new course. He and his buddy thought if they could just get five relay teams, they could scope out the course to see if they could put it on for real the following year.
So Kerry charted out an initial route and then posted the idea to Facebook to get a few teams together to run. As an experienced runner with a lot of runner friends, the post quickly circulated and he ended up getting a bunch of interest. In fact, his hopes of getting five teams were quickly surpassed when he had 40 teams express interest. At that point, he realized he needed to shut it down. So in fall 2013, with those 40 teams signed up for this free relay, Kerry and his friend did some basic prep to get ready for the course.
They distributed a map to all the teams and made it clear that they were responsible for their own food and water. They also made sure the teams knew that if anyone official approached them, they were to say that they were just a training group, not a race, because Kerry didn't actually get any permits for this free race. They printed up some eight and a half by 11 signs and slipped them into Ziploc bags so they wouldn't get wet and posted them the day before along the course route. They also sold t-shirts at the finish line for anyone who wanted to help offset the minimal costs incurred for this first race. In that first race, that relay was a success.
The runners loved the course and Kerry saw that he had a great route to work with. The next year, they decided to raise the stakes. They also decided to get all those permits, which was no small task. The relay route was 60 miles long and it went through 10 different jurisdictions. With that many municipalities involved, Kerry joked that he needed a whole year to just line up the permits.
They also gave the race a name based on its beautiful route. They called it the Gorgeous Series. They used PayPal to collect the $70 per person registration fee, kept up with all the registration manually using a spreadsheet and ended up with around 80 teams. At an approximately 50% profit margin, Kerry and his partner came away with a bit more than $10,000 in income. Not bad for their first official race.
Kerry attributes the success of that first relay to the format they picked. Instead of the multi-day experience that a lot of races opt for, they decided to make theirs a one-day event. They coined the tagline, "One day, one van, one gorgeous relay." They also emphasized how at the end of the race, participants could sleep in their own beds. They also didn't time the relay and this did two things. It created a friendlier atmosphere among participants and it also helped to keep the cost down since more organization and infrastructure is needed for official race timings.
This was just a side hustle. Kerry didn't plan on making it into a real business until one day on a quick weekend trip to Bend, Oregon, he was hanging out in a running store and realized that this small city filled with lovers of the outdoors didn't have a marathon. He talked to the owner about why that was. Apparently there had been marathons in the past, but they weren't well advertised and the routes weren't that great. Kerry thought this was a tragedy since Ben was such a gorgeous locale for a race.
So he reached out to the tourist office. They steered him to the mayor and the city council. The local government was reluctant at first, but eventually got on board and gave him all the permits he needed. Suddenly he went from putting on that one informal relay race to putting on a marathon. And because a lot of marathons also include a half marathon, he added that too.
Putting on a marathon is a marathon endeavor. First, Kerry had to design a race that started and ended in downtown Bend. Then he had to deal with getting everything approved. With the relay races, he didn't have to have the streets shut down in higher security, but with a marathon, entire sections of downtown had to be closed. For that to happen, a traffic flow plan had to be submitted and approved by multiple departments.
And then of course, they also had to get enough runners to come to a brand new marathon. Kerry and his partner hit the marketing hard. They blasted their email list writing to every regional runner they knew and some they didn't. They printed over 5,000 flyers and handed them out at the Portland Marathon. They posted to their personal Facebook profiles, their Facebook page.
They bought targeted Facebook ads. They hit up running stories in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and Bend. They contacted the running groups associated with each store. They marketed to other running groups that were created to help runners complete 50 marathons in all 50 states. Encouraging them to come to Bend for their organ race.
They attended running expos in different cities and went to any other races where they could manage to hand out flyers. In other words, they hustled. All of this took about a year to develop and fully implement. The whole time this happened, both Kerry and his partner were still working full-time, but in the final months leading up to the race, Kerry realized that one of them needed to devote their full attention to it. So he took a leap of faith and quit his job to make sure the Bend Marathon was a success.
Fortunately, it was a success. That first year they had 1200 registrants. This time, instead of a spreadsheet, they used special software to keep track of everything from the $85 registrations to timing, the route tracking, and the overall plan. With the additional costs associated with putting on a marathon, it cut their profit margin down a bit, but with so many participants, it was still a profitable endeavor, earning more than $40,000 after expenses. With the first year the marathon completed, they realized this was gonna have to be a regular part of their race calendar.
And since Kerry had quit his job, he was going to need to add another race to the calendar to increase their profits. While he was at it, he also added another revenue stream by bringing on sponsors. By the third year of producing races, Kerry and his partner had a friendly cooperative split. Kerry was now full-time and wanted to turn this into a real business, but his friend just wanted to do it as a side hustle. So that partner decided to bow out, and it just so happened that Kerry's wife, Tracy, had recently taken a sabbatical from work.
Since she could always go back to her nine-to-five job, she decided to try managing operations, including all those pesky permits, while Kerry focused on marketing and course development. With two people now working full-time, the next year they were able to put on three relays, plus the marathon, and plan for a fourth the following year. In 2017, they also added their ambassador program, which they call their Gorgeous Gurus. These runners promote the races in exchange for apparel and free registration. It's an easy way to help them get the word out in the running community via runners that have experienced and loved the races.
They also do a free pub run each month, which gives their sponsors some visibility while bringing in new runners. Between these and other marketing strategies, Kerry and Tracy steadily grew their brand and total number of participants. In 2017, they had 1,800 registrants for the marathon and 80 teams for each relay. And while they put a lot of thought and effort into the marketing, Kerry also attributes their success to taking the time to understand what makes runners register and then return for races. He said it's easy enough to start a race, but it's hard to be successful because there are so many races that you have to differentiate yourself.
With the Gorgeous series, we did something different by being a one-day relay in absolutely beautiful locations. Putting on these races started out as a labor of love, but Kerry now can't imagine doing anything else. In his previous life in corporate America, he was hired for one task only. He had his little department, his area of responsibility, and even if he saw something that could be fixed in another area, it wasn't under his control and he couldn't take care of it. But now with his side hustle turned full-time business, he gets to utilize his entire skill set and also broaden it.
It's challenged him to grow in a way he didn't have with his job. What's the next step? Branded merchandise. So far, they've only given out T-shirts to participants that have completed the races. But just as they saw when they first approached sponsors, there's an entirely new source of revenue with branded apparel, from T-shirts to hats to water bottles.
So that's their next business goal. And now that this is his full-time work, Kerry wants to also focus some of his time on unrelated side hustle ideas because everyone needs more than one source of income, even those whose side hustle becomes their main thing. [Music]
Well, in 395 episodes, I don't think we've ever talked about this kind of athletic event, putting on a race for runners. So I thought the topic was pretty interesting. I've been to a number of races and ran some marathons.
Without knowing all the details, I know that there's an incredible number of logistics and behind the scenes things that need to happen. So I have a lot of respect for Kerry and his original partner and now Tracy for truly investing their time and effort into something they were passionate about. And of course, finding a way to make it profitable and sustainable, which is not a small thing. And my favorite part of the story was how they first gained critical mass for putting on that first marathon in Bend, Oregon. 'Cause basically they realized it wasn't just about the permitting.
It wasn't just about making the decision and getting approval. For that race to be successful, they really had to have a lot of people sign up for the first one. Otherwise they wouldn't have a momentum to do it again. So like I said, they really got out and hustled. You know, they did the email blast thing.
They wrote to every regional runner they knew. They printed those flyers, 5,000 of them and handed them out at the Portland Marathon. So they really went all out because they believed in this. They knew it would take a village to make it actually happen. And it did.
So be sure to check out the gorgeous series if you're interested in running an unconventional relay race, which does sound beautiful and fun, at least if you like running. And as always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. If you'd like to learn more about the series or just how this all came together, come and check out the show notes for today's episode. Those are at sidehustleschool.com/395. Wherever you are in the world, I hope you're having a gorgeous day.
Thank you for listening. May the course be with you. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
