This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there friends, listeners, and (indistinct) school community. Welcome back. My name is Chris Guillebeau. We are kicking off a brand new week here. This is episode 506.
Now we're gonna talk today about food trucks or food carts. In particular, a mobile eating fan who creates a $60,000 part-time food truck empire. Now, when it comes to food trucks or food carts, I don't wanna sound like a snob because I'm certainly not a food truck snob or connoisseur or expert, but I have spent most of the past decade living in Portland, Oregon, which I don't know if it's the origin of food trucks, but we certainly have a lot of food trucks and food carts there. And my opinion on them is that some of them are great and some of them are not so great, just probably like a lot of things in life. But I've noticed sometimes when I travel to other cities, like I get out a lot, I'm in lots of different parts of America, lots of parts of other countries as well.
More than once I've had this experience at an event or something when the organizers or just somebody who's around says, "Hey, we've got food trucks here. "At the event tonight, we're gonna have food carts." And I'm like, "Okay, great." And then I realized they're really, really excited about this. And so I'm like, "Oh, is there anything special about these food carts? "Do they have really great food perhaps? "Is it like a really great value?" And I realized that in those experiences, it's almost like those factors are secondary, like they're just really excited about the concept of having a food truck.
And that's cool, but to me, it's kind of like you go to a city and they're like, "Hey, we have food here. "We have a restaurant in our city." I'm like, "Great, it's good to eat." But for me, it's not so much about just having a restaurant or a food truck. It's kind of funny 'cause it reminds me in a way of when eBay was new or online auctions were new, people were so excited about online auctions just for the sake of online auctions. They weren't even concerned necessarily about getting a great deal. They just thought the whole concept by itself was exciting and the details or the specifics were secondary.
Didn't matter as much. Anyway, I thought about that while I was working on this episode. Today, the story, the guy, he actually creates a blog and podcast that earns $60,000 in a year. He does this part-time. And here's the fun part, without owning an actual food truck, okay?
So this guy is the foremost authority on food trucks or at least one of them, yet has never owned one of his own. So how does that work? Well, I will tell you, of course. So stay tuned. Let's say a thank you to today's sponsor and then on with the show.
[Music]
Brett Lindbergh in Southern California has always been interested in business opportunities that are low in cost and can be run flexibly. His money-making hobby started seven years ago when he began a blog on remote control airplanes. When that crashed to the ground, he started a drop shipping e-commerce site that sold adult diapers to senior citizens. This project worked better, at least until his supplier cut him off because he was competing directly with their company. Searching for the next business idea, Brett decided to try something a little different.
His initial thought was to start a food truck, but as he did his research, he realized he didn't really know how to make it happen. Online information was scarce. That's when he thought, "Hey, what if there were other people also looking for information on food trucks?" The best way he could think of getting information was to call up food truck owners directly. Getting into contact with these owners was not that difficult because most of them were on Facebook or Twitter. Brett tracked him down and sent them a quick note asking if they'd be willing to have a phone call.
Most were happy to talk. Brett was a fan of podcasts such as John Lee Dumas' Entrepreneur on Fire show. He thought to himself maybe he could start a podcast too. Combined with blog posts and maybe an information product one day, this could be his next side hustle. He called it food truck empire.
In his conversations with truck or cart owners, he focused on specific detailed plans of action. For instance, he would spend an entire session talking about how someone could come up with their business plan and then provide listeners with detailed show notes. Still, despite his diligence, Brett didn't get much traffic to his podcast or blog for the first six months. Having had some experience building sites in the past, remember that adult diaper drop shipping hustle, Brett wasn't surprised. A podcast on something as specific as food trucks would naturally appeal only to a small audience.
However, once a listener signs on, that person most likely being a current or potential food truck owner, the chances of him or her staying around would be really high. Therefore, while going niche or going small might be a disadvantage in the short run, it becomes an advantage in the long run. Even with this knowledge in mind, Brett sometimes thought of throwing in the towel. For the first six or seven months, he got little traffic and almost no income. It was difficult to justify putting in the work without visible results.
In fact, he says the only reason he didn't give up was because he didn't have a better idea. Still, he would produce and publish a podcast episode each week, regardless of the number of listeners he got. That consistency would help his site gain authority in the eyes of Google as Brett built up a trove of articles. By the end of the first year, Brett had managed to make $5,000 in advertising revenue. This came in the form of two sources.
The first was Google AdSense, which was easy to set up but didn't contribute much to the bottom line. The second was for advertising on a directory that Brett had created on his website, which linked to food truck-related resources. As Food Truck Empire grew, Brett diversified his revenue sources. In 2014, he wrote a $14 e-buck, your first 365 days on a food truck, and it sold modestly. But he still wasn't satisfied.
Before starting his site, he had already decided that he would have a premium course that would be set at a higher price point. Now let's pause to consider a big problem with this story so far. While researching and documenting all that information on food trucks, Brett hadn't actually started his own. It was difficult to justify charging a higher price point for that premium product when he didn't have firsthand experience of starting his own food truck business. It was like someone advising on dental surgery after going for a teeth cleaning.
So to overcome this hurdle, Brett partnered in the course with an actual food truck owner that he had interviewed. By splitting the revenue, Brett was not only able to instill confidence in potential customers, but he also gained a deeper understanding of the concerns of food truck owners. At $297, the course wasn't cheap. However, Brett understood that his customers had invested much more than that in their food truck. To make it a no-brainer, Brett's course was also much more than just a recorded lesson.
Students could call in, and Brett and his new partner would actually run through the entire process with them. After five years of work, Food Truck Empire now has more than 30,000 subscribers. In the past year alone, Brett has made $60,000, with the revenue coming equally from the course and ebook, affiliate partnerships, and advertising. The best part is that he's still able to hold down his day job while putting in around 10 to 15 hours a week into the blog. As the empire continues to grow, Brett hopes to scale his content creation and increase the number of partnerships he has.
He attributes much of what he's accomplished to podcasting. He also operates on the principle of give what you can and teach what you know. That's how he created Food Truck Empire. Maybe that's also the way you can carve out your own empire without quitting your job. [Music]
Awesome, well, this is a classic example of the knowledge economy, sometimes called information publishing.
And in the history of the show, like we usually feature some kind of episode about this at least once a week on average. Just recently, we talked about this guy who started the drone education side hustle. He's teaching people how to use drones and everything about that business, the industry, the licensing and so on. And that project has now grown to multiple six figures. If we wanna go back a ways to episode 311, this is a guy who's a construction inspector and he starts this side hustle teaching people how to pass various courses, other people in his industry, to get the certifications they need.
And this project made $200,000 last year. As I recall, that guy still has his day job or at least he did until recently. And then one of my favorite examples of all time, that story that I tell often, episode 237, about this woman who teaches people how to make sourdough bread. And she creates all these online courses and also does something like $80,000. So there are all kinds of ways to take specific knowledge and then package them in some way and profit from it, while you're also helping people.
While you're also like, in this case, showing people how to start a food truck and showing people how to save money, showing people the pitfalls, things to be aware of before you even go into that business. In fact, there's probably a lot of good reasons not to go into that business. So hopefully he highlights that through some of his education. And so what you see through these examples, like all four of those, the drones, the construction industry certification, the bread, and then this story about food trucks, it's all really specific. It's all really niche.
Like nobody's gonna listen to the Food Truck Empire podcast who doesn't want to start a food truck or at least is not interested in that. Nobody's gonna pay for a construction industry certification prep course, who doesn't have a direct interest in passing one of those tests. But that's okay because in these markets, people know exactly what they want and they're looking to experts. They're looking to people to kind of guide them along and help them achieve their objectives. Now I also wanted to mention, if you have a limitation, you just have to compensate for it somehow.
Okay, so in this story, Pret's limitation was that he wasn't an actual food truck owner, which I still think is kind of funny, right? Like he's the authority on food trucks, but he's never actually owned one. Now he's not hiding that fact. It's not like he's pretending to have owned, you know, a fleet of food trucks across America. He just went out and did all the research and he is interested in that industry.
And he did get to know like lots and lots of people. So he found a way to basically compensate for what might be considered a natural weakness, you know, in this kind of business. So if you have a limitation, it doesn't mean you can't proceed. It just means you have to be aware of it and compensate for it somehow. In fact, he says through the process, he realized he didn't want to operate a food truck as a business, but he loved the process of putting out a podcast and interviewing food entrepreneurs.
So that's why he kept going. All right, whatever you are up to, I hope you keep going. I hope you keep learning. And I hope you keep applying what you learn. Don't forget inspiration is good, but inspiration with action, that's a better way to go.
And today's show notes are online at sidehustleschool.com/506. You'd like to learn about the food truck empire or food trucks in general. Come and check it out. Come say hi. You can also get a free five steps to hustle course there.
We've got much more coming up for you tomorrow and every day next week. I hope you'll join me. My name is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
