What It's About
A Utah man discovers a way to make money without sacrificing his time.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
Try lots of different things but make sure that you abandon the ones that aren’t fruitful.
Remember the principle that better or higher results don’t usually require the same amount of effort as initial results. In other words, Caleb was able to go from $200/month to $1,000/month without working 5x/hard. This is why if you haven’t done this before, you want to get to $200 or $500/month or similar as soon as possible—so that you can then focus on what comes next.
Fun Fact
When Caleb created a course on Figma.com, he was excited because there wasn’t a course on Udemy at the time. About halfway into making the course, he was bummed to find that someone else had already made the course and figured it’d be difficult to reach the top. He released his course a month and a half after the other course was out, and quickly surpassed it, earning the best seller badge in a week. That was because he gave the course away for free in the relevant groups and asked for reviews which brought in paying students. This is his highest income course so far.
Notes from Chris
Episode 413
Today’s story comes from Caleb Kingston in Salt Lake City, Utah. By day, he’s a UX designer. For his side hustle, he created two online design courses. In his first month, his course generated $200, but four months later, his courses are consistently bringing in an extra $1,000/month. What did he learn along the way that made a difference? Caleb did not have a traditional high school or college education, so he mostly relied on online courses and tutorials to help him learn his trade and skills. And one area that he found that he excelled in was UX web design—basically helping companies design their websites and online stores to be more helpful to their customers. His wife recently had a medical emergency that set them back financially, so he wanted to find a way to pay off the bills and also to save for the future. After attending an event for the Side Hustle book tour, he decided it was time to create and launch his own course. The course took him about 5 weekends working from his home office, continually telling his wife he’d be finished shortly. The long nights and time away from his wife are the hardest part of Caleb’s side hustle. By the end of the year, Caleb hopes to get 10,000 students (he’s 20% of the way there), get his site traffic up to 1,000 visitors per day, have five courses, and increase his side hustle earnings to $5,000 a month. He’s thinking about creating a design product he can design and hire a team of developers to bring to market—something small to start out with that he can grow over time. He’s paying off those medical bills, and even better, he’s building something for his family’s future.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- App Design Tips: Learn more about Caleb's online design courses on his website, and check out his page at Udemy!
- Figma: The first platform that Caleb used to create his design courses
- Lynda: The platform that Caleb used to get inspiration for his courses
- ScreenFlow & Camtasia: A couple programs that Caleb used to edit his videos
- College Student Hacks Into $40,000/Month Side Hustle: When he found himself in need of making car repairs, this student bought a $25 microphone and recorded a course in “ethical hacking.” The course has now served more than 80,000 paid customers
- Published Author Adds Income Source; Makes Additional $21,000 Her First Year: A successful novelist teaches an online course about productivity for writers, reaching 3,700 students in year one
- Woman on Food Stamps Earns $86,000 Teaching People to Bake Bread: In the face of adversity, a woman creates a series of online courses teaching the art of baking sourdough bread. Stop loafing around! If she can do it, you can too
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Resources
CREATE YOUR ONLINE STORE
Create your online store with Shopify using an exclusive discount for Side Hustle School listeners. For a limited time, get a free 21-day trial and a 10% discount for a whole year.
Many Side Hustle School listeners are building sites using Shopify's easy-to-learn platform. Try it free today!
Learn More
GET YOUR FIRST 1,000 EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS
Social media is nice, but building an email list is still the single best way to get customers and clients for your hustle. It's not hard to get started—sign up for a 30-day trial and join the list-building challenge! You’ll be up and running in no time.
Quote of the Day
Sponsors & Gratitude
Create a Stunning Website With Wordpress
Today’s episode of Side Hustle School is brought to you by Wordpress.com! Whether you’re looking to create a personal blog, business site, or both—you’ll make a big impact, when you build your website on WordPress.com. 💻
Get 15% off when you build your website with Wordpress.com—use promo code PODCAST when you check out.
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To infinity and beyond,
