Insult This! Witty Event Organizer Prepares You to Respond to Rudeness

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

Have you ever been insulted, as a jerk or a bully, ever said something rude and left you fumbling for a quippy response? You know that that person probably thinks they're cool or funny for hurting your feelings and it would be so satisfying to put them in their place by hurling the perfect insult or comeback at them, but you have no idea what to say. We've all been there, or at least a lot of us have, or at least I am, often. Instead of verbally crushing the bully with your wittiness, putting them in their place, you stand there frozen. Or even worse, you say something that sounds more like what a kindergartner would say.

Apparently, the response, "I know you are, but what am I?" has kind of lost its sting over the years. Or in the grown-up Big Lebowski version, you might say something like, "Well, that's just your opinion, man." Well, thanks to today's side hustler, your days of working with such an empty arsenal are long gone. We're calling it insult this, witty event organizer prepares you to respond to rudeness. And there's more. This is not just a cute story, it is a cute story, but also, as always, this person is making money, a lot of money, in this case, with this project.

She's making up to $8,000 a month with her Insult Response Generator website. It's a great story. When it came across my desk, I was like, "Wow, this represents what side hustle school is all about." So, stay tuned. Let's say a quick thank you to our sponsor. I have no insults, only praise for them, and then I'll tell you the whole story.

Brynn Conner of Vancouver, British Columbia had a mortifying encounter, but instead of letting it get the best of her, she aimed to find a way to fight back. Brynn had taken a trip to the local planetarium with her two children in tow when she encountered a bully. For some reason, people being irrational and stupid sometimes, this man decided it was his responsibility to attack Brynn. He went on and on in front of 20 other families about how her husband must have left her just because she had two children with her and wasn't wearing a wedding ring. Now, before I go on, let me just point out the obvious and say that's not just insulting, that is abusive, ridiculous behavior, never any good reason for something like that.

But to the point of our story, Brynn was stunned. She couldn't believe what had happened and in such a random way. All night, the scene played over and over in her mind. Not only did she feel embarrassed by what the man said to her, she was also upset that she didn't put him in his place. He had no right to talk to her or anyone else like that, but he didn't face any consequences for it.

It's not illegal to be a jerk. So if nobody puts that person in his place, he pays no price. The next two months flew by, but Brynn couldn't get what happened to her at that planetarium out of her mind. Instead of feeling embarrassed, however, she channeled her frustrations into what became a new side hustle called I Should Have Said, a library resource for people being verbally bullied full of snappy comebacks for all occasions. She knew that so many others experienced the same kind of situation she did.

There were even online memes about that moment when you think of the perfect insult two hours too late. She wanted to help people be prepared. So to start, Brynn created blog posts for every kind of insult she could think of on a WordPress site. There were comebacks for people of all ages, sexualities, genders, and races. Topics ranged from what to say when someone calls you ugly, to what to do when someone is being racist, to how to respond when people point out your gray hair, teenage insults, parental insults, relationships.

No matter the situation, Brynn wanted her audience to be able to come back with a snappy retort. As she was creating the site, she had another idea. Not only would she create this series of comebacks, she would also create animations to accompany each blog post. Well, at least she was planning to until one of her kids spilled water all over her computer. Her temporary laptop didn't have the capabilities for animation, so she tried creating polls instead.

This turned out to be more of a success. By switching to the polls, Brynn allowed her audience to be involved and feel more connected to other people who are also reading. She now understands that what you create can sometimes become very different than your original idea, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. In fact, it can be better. Alright, so she's got this fun website, she's got this growing library of comebacks and retorts.

Now I know what you're thinking, that's cool, but this is a side hustle school story, so where does the money come into the picture? Having and building a following is one thing, but actually getting paid for it is another. Well, here's how it works. After the first four months of growing her online community, Brynn decided to install Google AdSense ads. At the time, she was making about $20 a month from her hustle, solely from those ads.

Over time, her following began to increase. She continued writing and sharing her posts, but Brynn credits much of her success to her devotion to learning about SEO or search engine optimization, which we have talked about a couple times recently. This is the study of how to make your website appear at the top of the search page rather than be lost in the far corners of the internet. The better Brynn got at this, the more people would visit the site and the more money she'd make from ads. Google AdSense was okay, but the moment Brynn hit 350,000 page views in a month, she knew it was time to apply to an agency called Adthrive.

Adthrive would manage the whole process for her, find some more targeted ads, and potentially at least hopefully help her make a lot more money. The first month she switched, she went from making $20 a month to making $350 a month. Big improvement, she was elated. Not only was she making money, but she was making it from helping people in a way that spoke to her. She was getting emails from people who would say her writing her comeback had helped them shut down a bully.

It had also convinced some people who were thousands of miles away to seek help. The positive response and a few hundred dollars a month caused her to say, "Okay, what can I do next? How can I grow this even further?" So she knew that her audience was continuously asking for a way to access comebacks without having Wi-Fi. So she began to do two things. She wrote an ebook called Snappy Comebacks and created an app called Top 10 Comebacks.

She priced the ebook at just under $10 and the Top 10 Comebacks app at $0.99. So from $20 a month to $350 a month, now here's a big jump, combined with her advanced knowledge of SEO, her research and optimizing ads, and her new products, her profits skyrocketed. She is now making anywhere between $3,000 and $8,000 a month. This is, on the side, largely passive income, and she makes 65% of that money from ads, about 20% from her ebook, and about 15% from the app. Bryn can't quit her day job just yet, but making thousands of dollars a month from her Snappy Comeback website is nothing to laugh at.

Awesome. What a fun project. Man, I just love making side hustles for you guys, because this reminds me a little bit of this episode we had long ago. I'm actually going to put this story in my next book, which I'll talk about at some point. But the story of a woman who's making money producing YouTube tutorials, helping immigrants study for the US citizenship test.

And I love that story because she's helping all these people pass this difficult test. It's a test that most US citizens who are naturally born in the US aren't able to pass without studying a lot. She's doing that, making all this content for them, but she makes money through ads on YouTube so the people who are benefiting from it don't pay anything at all. Anyway, I love that story. I love this one too.

It just kind of speaks to the power of the internet and the world that we live in and just so many possibilities and opportunities, which is why I make this show. And by the way, if you have been bullied, if you have encountered somebody saying something ridiculous and absurd, like Bryn did that day at the planetarium, you probably already know this, but I just want to reinforce the fact that you did not deserve that. And that person probably has something going on with themselves and that's why they're projecting it on you. So not your fault at all, just to be very clear. And in terms of the business stuff here, just to get that out of the way, because I think that's important.

Also, why is this project different from other web-based projects? Lots of different websites that pop up and have an advertising model. Some come and some go. It's not to say that this one couldn't ever go away, but I almost think it's pretty entrenched. It's been around for a while.

She's got so much content and such good organic search results. It's the kind of thing where it's pretty hard for somebody else to come along and say, "You know what? I'm going to have a better insult response site. I'm going to set up all this user-generated content with these polls. And I'm going to write an ebook and create an app." Nothing is guaranteed, as I said, but I would not be surprised if this goes on for months and months and years and years, $3,000 to $8,000 a month.

Fantastic. Part-time, passive income, side hustle that's also helping people and making them feel more empowered. So what's not to love there? I think it's pretty awesome. I think you are awesome too, just as I said.

So I'm going to sign off for the day and leave you with this to ponder. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes, if you want to come and check out everything I mentioned, including the site, anything else that we have in our suite of resources for you, you can just come to sidehustleschool.com/608. I'm working on a bunch of other stuff that I'm excited to tell you about, but I don't want to get ahead of things. So signing off for the day, be sure you're subscribed.

Much more is on the way. My name is Chris Guillebeau and once again, this is Side Hustle School.