This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello and welcome back. You're listening to "Sydicell School." I'm Chris Guillebeau, and here we are with a brand new week. Over the next few days, we'll be looking at how a PE teacher creates a membership site and earns more than $10,000, a guy who starts his own quarterly retreat, a very unique and adults-only physical product, and maybe another surprise or two. So lots of projects in several different categories. And today we'll start off by hearing about a Microsoft employee who uses her spare time to earn extra pocket money of about $800 a month from hula hoop teaching.
And I'll tell you about that in just a moment. [Music]
Today's story comes from Corey Magnotta, a Microsoft field communication specialist and a hula hoop instructor living in a small town in Connecticut. Her side hustle started out like many often do. Friends that knew about her hula hooping skills would ask her to teach them how to do hoop tricks. She was always happy to share.
She soon realized that because it was not only fun, but also a great workout, maybe she had a marketable fitness class. She gathered some basic hula hoop tricks, tossed in a few dance steps, and her first hoop with Corey class was born. Or at least it was conceptually alive. She still didn't have any customers. Aside from those requests from friends and family, she hadn't done much market research, so she decided to start with an experiment.
She offered a free class at her local karate studio, and it filled up shortly after it was announced. Half from her group of friends, but the other half from people who'd just heard about it. They showed up, hula hooped for an hour, and left in a pool of sweat. Everyone who attended told her how much they loved it, so she knew she was onto something. Next, she struck a deal with the studio to use the space for free on an ongoing basis, which means she has almost zero operating costs for the class.
And she did have some startup costs, which I'll tell you about in a moment, but a free classroom space definitely goes a long way. You might wonder why the studio gives the space for free. Well, for them, they get an interesting, unconventional class added to their schedule, and they get introduced to a whole new clientele that might not have been interested in karate, but then learn about it when they come to Corey's class. Her classes are also offered during a time when no other classes are scheduled, so they see it as a net positive for them. At this point, all that was left to do was set up a schedule and tell everyone she knew.
Since she lives in a small town in Connecticut, she hasn't had to do much marketing, because as she says, everyone knows everyone here. People who enjoy my class spread the word for me. She did, however, have a bit of luck early on when she won the title America's Fit Misses, which is an online pageant which encourages teens and women to live healthy lifestyles. That got her a lot of free publicity, including a front page feature on the local newspaper and two live appearances on her local Fox and ABC stations. She took advantage of this free publicity and, like a good hustler, mentioned her classes and website on the air.
So as you can imagine, all this free publicity resulted in packed classes. While the hula hooping hustle has almost no operating costs, Corey did have to make some minor investments up front in order to get going. She wanted to become a certified hoop fitness instructor, which is a thing, and it cost her $300. And since not everyone that wants to take her class has their own hoop, she also needed to invest in a set of 20 weighted hula hoops, also for about $300. So for under $600, she was certified and ready to ramp up.
These days, she teaches two classes a week with at least 10 people per class. At $10 per person, that's about $800 a month for something she enjoys doing and has gladly helped people with for free before. Corey is a hooping evangelist who's eager to share the many benefits of this form of exercise with a wide audience. So at some point, she's planning to expand her class schedule to do things like offer classes for seniors and for children, and she's also getting hoop yoga certification, which is also a thing. So we'll have to circle back at some point and hear about that.
[Music]
So what does this hustle bring to Corey? Well, as I said, she loves helping people find a fun new way to exercise, but she also enjoys the extra cash it brings in as well. Now you can't live off $800 a month, but here's what's interesting about what that money means to her. As a mom with a young family, she says that she feels guilty spending money from her day job on herself, but she doesn't feel that way about her income from the classes. From her perspective, the day job money is their family money, but the money she makes from hooping is her money.
And she uses that money on herself, makeup, pedicures, other things she enjoys, and she says she does it completely guilt-free. She also says, "When I take care of myself, "I have more to give back to my son and husband." Corey's side hustle helps others and creates extra income that she doesn't feel guilty about spending on herself. It sounds like a hula hooping win-win. Side hustle school listeners, is there something that you know how to do that others might be interested in? That might be a good idea to explore.
As you go about your day and you think about what you're gonna work on to create more opportunities and possibilities or maybe just more pocket money for yourself. Whatever you do, remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. If you wanna see the show notes for today's episode, go to sidehustleschool.com/5757. I'm Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School, and I'll see you tomorrow with a special story that will be for adults only. [Music]
