This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Oh, hey, welcome back. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. I have an amazing story for you today, an amazing and most unusual story, let's say. In fact, today's side hustle story never intended to be a side hustle. It was in the beginning strictly a personal quest and a most unusual one.
Like all of the stories I bring you, this is a true one and it's also a crazy one. So let's call it a crazy true story that results in life transformation, which was the main goal of the project. That's why he did this in the first place, the guy I'm gonna tell you about. But then along the way, as so happens from time to time, he started making money from it. Okay, now I'll go ahead and tell you what it is because there's no way in the world you're gonna stop listening.
Like you're gonna wonder like, what, how does that work? Is that even possible? So here's the deal. This story is about an Australian who spends a year eating nothing but potatoes. That is correct, nothing but potatoes.
And he does this to conquer his food addiction. Like stay tuned, I'll tell you about it. Along the way, he loses 121 pounds and eventually gains this money-making side hustle that I'll also tell you about. So you never know where you're gonna get on side hustle school. Today you're gonna hear a story of somebody who eats potatoes and only potatoes for an entire year.
At the end, I'm also gonna give you a tip on making videos. It actually comes directly from his story and I think it's gonna be helpful to a lot of people. Anyone out there who's like, man, I wanna make videos, but like it's so hard and you have to be so good at it. I don't have the tools, the technology or the know-how. Well, this guy figured it out and I think his lesson is gonna help somebody out there.
So stay tuned, all about potatoes and a bonus tip of making videos right after this quick thank you to today's sponsor. [Music]
For Melbourne native, Andrew Taylor, food addiction was a real problem. At 36 years old, the PE teacher and former junior Australian champion, Marathon Kayaker, found himself at his heaviest and unhealthiest. He wanted to make a drastic change to his life. So he decided to create a new year's resolution that would transform his health.
But he didn't adopt one of the usual diets or hectic gym sessions that a lot of us make on January 1st. He opted for something a little more unusual. Andrew wanted to treat his transformation not as a weight loss problem, but as an addiction problem. So he decided to remove food as a stimulus altogether and instead focused on eating one food only for the entire year. What food was that?
Well, that food was the mighty potato. How did potatoes come to be the sole object of his culinary affection? Armed with a degree in applied science and a fascination with all things nutrition, Andrew spent six weeks researching the perfect food before he settled on the humble spud. Now, despite the shunning and disrespect potatoes have received over the years as a result of their high carbohydrate count, they can also pack quite a nutritional punch. Andrew learned he could get all of the fat, protein, vitamin C and iron that he needed and the high fiber content kept him feeling full and sated or also satiated.
Sated and satiated, not the same word by the way, fun fact. So between January 2nd, 2016 and January 2nd, 2017, Andrew started what he called the potato only diet which would later go on to become a spud fit. Now, when I say potato only diet, that's exactly what I mean. 99.9% of his caloric intake would come from potatoes and the other 0.1% from seasoning. That's it.
And in fact, if you saw the film "The Martian" with Matt Damon, you know just how vital those seasonings can be to maintain this kind of diet. Again, only potatoes. To hold himself accountable and document his progress, Andrew kept a video diary on YouTube. He posted daily videos he recorded through his phone and uploaded them straight to his channel. There was no editing involved.
It was as raw and basic as possible just like many of those potatoes. This reduced any barriers to him posting his videos and made the process super simple. Now we'll come back to this, but if you're thinking of doing something with online video, well, Andrew's clips are a testament to the fact that people will watch simple and basic videos if the content is interesting enough. So in other words, don't wait to start documenting. It's important to note that Andrew never planned on turning spud fit into a business.
He just wanted a way to share his message with anyone who cared, which not surprisingly perhaps turned out to be a lot of people. His YouTube channel started to attract attention. And after just a few months, Andrew had developed an audience of devoted spuddies who tuned in to watch his progress. They were amazed by the results, losing 121 pounds over the course of the year and the thick skin he developed through his discipline. He also learned he didn't need much light.
He could be chopped and diced or boiled and mashed in all kinds of different ways. So many things he learned throughout the journey. Andrew was also never afraid to dig deep into the emotional aspects of his life and the challenge. He talked about dealing with depression, anxiety and addiction. This transparency and vulnerability deepened the connection with his fans.
Now all the while he was eating a lot of potatoes. He ate them waffled, fried, mashed and any other variation he could possibly think of. It wasn't long before the local media began to take notice. His story was picked up by broadcasters who wanted to know more about the crazy man living off nothing but potatoes. This led to his story going viral.
He was even mentioned in an episode of Saturday Night Live. That's when Andrew realized just how much interest there was in his quest. Now of course he had some criticism as well, but he shook it off and said, "Tater's gonna hate." When he wasn't eating potatoes, Andrew was marketing his business before he even realized he had a business. In fact, when he broke his year-long potato fast, he did it live on the morning TV show Sunrise, which broadcast his story live across Australia. To capture the attention he was getting and to ensure his story wasn't just a flash in the potato pan, Andrew created a website.
It was just a simple site. It told his story, it allowed him to add blog posts and eventually links to podcast episodes. Yes, there was eventually a podcast, but that came later. With that website in place, Andrew began to look at how he could monetize the attention he was getting. The first point was obvious.
Many of his followers wanted to know how to replicate this challenge or learn from Andrew himself. So he began to create the products that people were asking for. He started with sharing free potato-based recipes and detailed videos about the challenge itself. The goal there was to help him capture email addresses so that he could communicate with people over time. He did expand it into paid products, offering a $25 ebook to help people create their own SpudFit challenge as well as coaching services to people who wanted to meet with him one-on-one.
This eventually led to Andrew's SpudFit challenge community where people can join and become part of that community of other Spuddies trying to conquer food addiction. These products have taken Andrew and SpudFit to around $1,500 a month inside income. Not enough to retire on, but a pretty great amount of money for something that was never intended to be a business. Although most of the press coverage has died down, Andrew continues to grow this business through social media. He regularly uploads content to his blog, new podcast, Facebook, and YouTube.
There are now hundreds of other people who've undertaken their own SpudFit challenge or a similar challenge. Many of them for a shorter period of time, but some for the full year. Again, it's a true story, a life transformation, and a side hustle success, definitely not small potatoes. [Music]
Well, yes, just to be clear, this is a true story. This is not April Fool's Day, and even on April Fool's Day, I gave you a true story then, too.
I'm telling you guys there are all kinds of ways to make money, and of course, this story is more about life transformation than making money, but now he's got this passive income, this community, these products that kind of sell on their own, and he's earning more than $1,000 a month from it. So pretty cool, I think. I actually got to meet Andrew in Melbourne earlier this year, and he was at the event I was doing for the side hustle book tour, and I happened to mention, oh, by the way, there's this guy here who only ate potatoes for a year, and of course, the entire audience is like, what's that about, how'd that work? So it's the kind of thing that it immediately attracts curiosity and attention. So good for him on seeing it through and losing more than 100 pounds, incredible.
Also, I mentioned a quick little tip on making videos, and you might have caught it in the story itself. The thing is, there certainly is a place for these amazing, well-edited videos that all of us have seen. I think that's fantastic, and people who have that skill, my hat's off to you, I think it's amazing. But I would also say, for those of us who don't have that skill, with the right kind of project, like what Andrew was doing, nobody cared that the videos weren't well-produced or well-edited. He just took them from his phone, uploaded it straight to YouTube, and there was something about that raw, organic nature of it that made it interesting to people, and a lot of people went and subscribed.
So I think maybe the lesson is, not for everybody, but for at least somebody out there, if you've been thinking about doing this, if you've been thinking about sharing your work, let's even go beyond videos. Let's say, if you're thinking about sharing your work in some way, but you're worried that it's not well-produced, you're worried it's not well put together, you look out and you see, oh, so many other people are better at this than me. Well, there can be a lot of value just in developing the habit of sharing, in developing the habit of saying, you know what, I'm working on this thing, I'm gonna document it, I'm gonna upload it, and there might be somebody out there who's interested in learning about it, or just kind of following along. That's why Twitch is so big. If you haven't seen Twitch, it's this online platform that people watch other people playing video games, and not just playing video games, you can also watch other people code for six hours at a time, or do all kinds of other stuff for extended periods of time, things that a lot of us would say, why would anybody want to watch somebody do that for hours on end?
But it seems the answer is a lot of people do. Okay, so at least one person out there, probably actually a lot of people out there, need to take this to heart and start their project too. In fact, I would say, as I close for the day, even if you get off to a bad starch, right? Like your losses are small potatoes. So just keep going.
Thank you for listening, I hope you get spud fit. Don't forget, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes, including links to everything I mentioned, are at sidehustleschool.com/481. I'll be back tomorrow, so much more is on the way, I'm cheering you on. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
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