This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Oh, hello there. What's up? This is Chris Guillebeau. So glad you made it. You're listening to Side Hustle School and we are here with the weekly recap. I've just finished week
number 23 of season two. I want to talk today about an important subject. The subject is getting paid your first $500. In case you didn't know, every single story that we feature on the show makes at least $500 a month from their side hustle. A lot of them go on to make a lot more than $500 a month, but I want to set that as a goal, like a baseline of saying, "Okay, nobody is on Side Hustle School that's not doing at least $500 a month because my goal is for every listener, or at least for every active listener, let's say, everyone who's serious about doing this for themselves, that they're going to make at least $500 a month." So why is that so important? Why do I spend so much time talking about how people
make money for the first time? Why do I choose to focus so much on the origin story or the genesis as opposed to what comes later? Well, I'm glad you asked. There are three reasons, and first, before I tell you the three reasons, I should just note or just remind you who I'm making this show for. We have all kinds of people who listen, and that's great. But
when I make this show, I'm thinking about that person out there who is really busy, doesn't have 40 hours a week to spare, probably doesn't have 20 hours a week to spare. They've got a limited amount of time. They already have a job. They've got other responsibilities. Maybe they have a family. Maybe they have other commitments and so on, but they are
attracted to this idea of investing in themselves and despite the fact that they're so busy, finding a way to create a new source of income because they recognize that the way they're going to solve that short-term problem of being busy is by creating a long-term solution for themselves. They don't necessarily want to be entrepreneurs, but they understand the world is changing and they need to look out for themselves. So that's why they're doing this. So with that in mind, why is it so important to get paid your first $500? Well, number one, it shows you that you can do it. Listen, I hear over and over, this is a very common
theme in my inbox on the road when I'm doing events or book readings. When people talk about the first time they get paid apart from their paycheck. So I'm talking about something that's different from your employer. I'm talking about all the projects that I talk about on the show. It shows you, you can do it, right? You're like, okay, I've been on the outside
looking in for a long time. I hear some of these stories. Maybe I've read some books about entrepreneurship before, but I've been frustrated because I just didn't connect to those themes or I didn't really relate to the idea of taking out a loan or thinking about angel investors or my first 20 employees or whatever. Like that's not me. But when I set up this really simple website, maybe using one of the platforms we talk about or offering a service for sale and some existing platform per se, and somebody takes you up on it, a stranger out there on the internet sends you money. You really do feel different
when that happens and it's very empowering. So for our listeners who have experienced that already, if you think back, you can probably say, yeah, like I do remember, you know, when I first started getting paid this way, it felt great. And this leads to my second point, the money itself feels different. $500 a month, you know, is a substantial amount of money. It can pay some real bills. It's a car payment more than that for a lot of people. It can
help pay off debt. It can save toward vacation and so on, but you can't live off $500 a month, at least not for most people. Still, even if it's not what you need to live off of or it's not a huge amount of money, it just feels different. Like this $500 is worth more than the $500 you get paid from your job. I totally understand this may be a perception thing, but perception is reality, right? Like if you feel this way, then it's true for you.
And I would say in my experience of doing this for more than 20 years now, I still feel that way. If I start a new project, a new business, I might open a different bank account for it. And when the money starts coming into that bank account, even if it's a relatively smaller amount of money than what I'm getting from my other stuff, for some reason I just look at it and feel really happy. I'm like, wow, look, I made it happen. So number one, it shows you you can do it. Number two, that money itself feels different. And number three,
once this happens for the first time, it's really hard to go back. I'm not saying you're going to quit your job and go out and do this full time. That's not the point for a lot of people, but I will say it's hard to stop. Okay. It's hard to go back. Like once you've
got something that's working, you don't want to give it up. Or if that thing stops working, you want to find something else. So I really believe if you haven't experienced this yet, if you're in that group of listeners that says like, yeah, it sounds great, but I haven't done it yet. I really encourage you to get to work because as I said, there aren't many people who start this and do it for a while and are successful at it. And then just completely stop. You might stop that project. You might go through seasons in life where you focus
more on one job or one part of your life than others. But I don't think you're ever really going to let it go because it just contributes to that sense of independence, autonomy, agency, and empowerment. That's why I believe regardless of what your other goals are, like whether your goal is to eventually replace the income from your job or whether you are just trying to pay off debt, or if you're just exploring this world, whatever it is, get to that feeling. Get to that point of being able to say, okay, I made my first $500 and I'm different now than I was before I made this happen. All right. Let's go to our listener voicemail.
I believe we have a question from Tyler in Hawaii. And by the way, if you have a question or a comment, I'd love to know so that we can feature it on the show. To send that in, it's really simple. You have a couple options, actually. You can call the Hustle hotline, 844-9 Hustle, 844-9 Hustle, or 844-948-7853. Or if you prefer, you can also use your phone
to make a voice memo and email that to podcast@sidehustleschool.com. Or of course, you can just type an email to podcast@sidehustleschool.com. We really do like to feature other people's voices, especially in the weekly recap. So if you've got something you're wondering about or just something you want to share with us, don't hesitate to call in. All right, here is today's caller.
Hi, Chris. I really love the show. It's taken over all the other podcasts that I listen to. I have a few questions about starting at my side hustle. I just got into veterinary school.
I'll be starting in the fall, and I was wondering if I could create a mentorship resource for students that want to get into veterinary school. I don't know if people will think I'm credible if I'm not a veterinarian, just a veterinary student, or I was thinking of making an organic chemistry animation service to help students with organic chemistry. I was really good at that, but I don't know much about animation. Any tips would be great. Thanks so much. Bye.
Okay, Tyler, first of all, congrats on getting into vet school. That's awesome. I want to focus on the first thing you mentioned, your proposed mentorship resource for other students who want to get into vet school. Right there, there's your key point. You got into vet school, and the market for this potential product is students who want to get into vet school.
There is your credibility right there, at least as long as the product or the resource is positioned toward those students who want to get into vet school. If your idea was to provide resources for other vets, I would say you're less credible. You have a claim to credibility because this is the field you're entering. It'd be very different than if I was to create something like that, but it is of course a little different because you're just beginning this career. Whereas for other students who want to get into vet school, your credibility is timely because in some ways you're actually more of an authority on the subject of getting into the right program than a vet who's been practicing for a long time. They might be better at practicing veterinary medicine because they've had all that experience,
but you have just gone through the process of preparation, application, everything that you have to do to get in. Yes, you're credible, you're also relatable, and the market is specific. People who are hoping to get an advanced degree, especially in the field of medicine, broadly speaking, includes a lot of people who are willing to pay for help. They pay for tutoring, standardized test prep, probably some other stuff. If you can, first of all, reach them, and second of all, make them a compelling offer, they should respond well. I think it's
a good idea. Good luck. Let us know how it goes. Just a couple quick comments on a couple of episodes from this week. This week's stories featured a range of different kinds of side hustles like we usually do, and also a range of different entities. What do I mean by that? I mean that a lot of them were sole proprietorships,
a couple of them were partnerships. I believe at least one was an LLC, or a limited liability company. I get a lot of requests to talk about the best legal structure for your business. I don't usually talk about it a lot, at least not in detail, because A, I'm not a lawyer, and B, your situation may be different from mine, which may be different from the story you heard yesterday, the one you'll hear tomorrow, and so on. However, I would just say, generally speaking, the simpler you can make it, the better. Most people, if it's just your idea,
you're going to do this on your own. In a lot of cases, at least, again, I can't advise you specifically, but in a lot of cases, just starting that up as a sole proprietor is totally fine. It is A-OK, and it's probably the best situation or the best choice for a lot of people. If the business takes off, you can definitely get more advice, get more specific counsel, you can change your structure later. Again, if it's just you and you want to change to something later, that's not too difficult. If it is a partnership, then you might want
to get more specific advice earlier on, because that can create some complexity, and there are a few different ways that a partnership can be structured. It's really important when you're beginning a partnership to make sure you have a common goal. And again, speaking of general advice, so not true for everybody, but generally speaking, if you don't have a compelling reason to have a partnership, then don't manufacture one. Just because you like doing stuff with somebody is not a good reason to start a business with them. Most of the time, over time, one person is going to be more interested and motivated about the business than the other one is. Even though you get along fine now, you may not always
get along. So if it is your shared vision, the common goal, and you can clearly decide who's doing what, all that kind of stuff, then that's great. Otherwise, just do it yourself. Oh, and by the way, your two favorite episodes this week, at least as best as I can tell, were episode 521 and 523. The first one was about the guy who earns $100,000 serving clients on Fiverr, basically selling his services, $5 at a time, eventually earning $100,000, and the Danish Pastry Partnership, which makes up a series of events. So right there, you
have a contrast, a sole proprietor, and a partnership. Coming up next week, we got another set of strong stories. I'm really excited to tell you about a garage-made vodka side hustle. This vodka is actually good, by the way, which is a story of its own, a vodka that's worth drinking. And my favorite, I think, I'm looking forward to recording this one for you. It's called Emoji Designs, which leads to $10,000 a month passive income. Alright,
so somebody who's making $10,000 a month from Emoji Designs. Emojis are the new PayPal, apparently. Before I sign off for the week, I'd just love to say thank you to everybody who makes this show possible. Our production team features senior producer, AC Valdez, as well as Sarah Barrett, and sometimes some other folks who fill in. On the other side of things, show notes, content management, and host wrangling, that's by Whitney Karinec. Community management,
and sometimes cooking, is managed by Jed Ching. And my cat, Liberia Gilavo, is on the team, but doesn't manage anything. She doesn't even manage herself very well sometimes. Finally, I want to thank you, the listener, for joining me and a community of amazing people all over the world for Side Hustle School. And what this very diverse, very disparate community has in common is the desire to create more freedom for our lives, our desire to do something meaningful, our desire to create independence, to create that additional source of income, which involves making money. Like, of course, I want every person to be able to make more
money. That's what I led with at the top of this show, talk about it every day. But I also believe it's connected to a deeper sense of purpose or a greater sense of meaning, however you like to think about it. I really do believe this is important and good to do for yourself. That's why in every episode, I always say inspiration is good, but action is better. And I hope you'll join me tomorrow and every day next week with more stories
and actionable ideas. Our episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern time every day. My name is Chris Guillebeau, and this is Side Hustle School.
