Rent the Chicken! An Egg-Cellent Idea Clucks Into Cash

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

[Music]

What's up, friends, listeners, and community? My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School, and I am excited to welcome you to a new week. Now, as we kick off a new week, I've got a wonderful story for you today. It's an excellent story, as you will hear, and I'll just say by way of quick preface, stories like this are why I make the show, why I think it's been so entertaining and informative for so many people, because as you may know, I'm talking about all kinds of ways to make money that most people have never heard of. And that includes me, because I had no idea that some of these things were possible, including what I'm gonna tell you about today.

And here's the setup. Have you ever wanted to keep a chicken as a pet, but weren't sure you were up for a lifetime commitment? Well, today's featured story has just the solution for you. No need to buy chickens when you can rent them. That's right, the crowd-sharing world has come to the hen house.

These rentals include a coop and everything else that you need. Water dishes, enough food to last up to six months, a Netflix subscription to keep the chickens entertained while they roost. What else could I say? You have to hear this one. So here's a quick thank you to our sponsor, and then we'll peck our way into the story.

[Music]

How many people think, when I grow up, I'll make a living by renting chickens? But that's exactly what Phil and Jen Tompkins are doing for their side hustle turned full-time business, which now serves hundreds of households from their Pennsylvania headquarters and across the nation. Let's start back at the hen house. Before they made a big lifestyle change, Phil and Jen lived on the outskirts of Baltimore, Maryland. Phil was working in IT, and Jen was working remotely for a research study.

When Phil was laid off, he started doing contract work. At that point, neither of them had to report to an office, so they realized they could live anywhere. And they chose to move to Western Pennsylvania to be closer to Jen's family. That's where they had an idea to start what became an excellent side hustle. The couple had been raising chickens in their own backyard for years, long before urban farming was trendy.

They'd also seen friends and relatives try the same thing, but with less success. In fact, a host of unwanted chickens from city dwellers was becoming a major problem in cities across the country. You parents know how it is, your kid asks for a pet, and you're like, okay, here's a chicken, as long as you take care of it. And then, you know, a day later, it's your problem. Well, with the rental chicken business, which we're coming to, when hen curious customers discover after the fact that they're actually terrified of birds, which does happen, or if they just decide to chicken out, it's not a problem at all, because the birds are loners to be returned with no questions asked and no penalties.

If the opposite happens, if a customer falls head over heels in love with Janice or Michaela or Lady Gaga the chicken and decides that they're ready for a lifelong commitment, they can opt to buy the chickens at the conclusion of the rental period. You can think of it like poultry layaway. Last but not least, if a chicken comes to the end of her life through natural causes while being rented out, Phil and Jan will replace it free of charge. A priest, pastor, or rabbi to conduct services are an optional upsell. So how does it all work?

Well, as I alluded to at the top of the episode, Rent the Chicken provides customers with two hens, a portable coop, food and water dishes, and enough food to last through the rental period. Delivery, setup, and a quick tutorial are also included. Standard rental packages start at just $350. As a side note, I think Rent the Chicken should sponsor the show because I would love to record ads for them. I was just practicing this morning on my own.

Just go to rentthechicken.com/hustle for a special deal. I'll tell our ad partners to get in touch. Now, startup costs were $2,000, much of which went toward buying coops, their biggest expense. They began in 2013 with one unpaid rental, just getting started. The next year they had 50 rentals, this time paid.

And four years later, listen up, four years later they're managing rentals of more than 2,000 chickens. Roosters are also available upon special requests, although note that in many cities it's actually illegal to own a rooster. So the laws are less clear on rental roosters. Better check that out first, if that's what you wanna do. And you may be thinking, these aren't rabbits.

How do they multiply so fast? 2,000 chickens last year? Well, here is what's really smart. Phil and Jen began franchising. Now, this is key.

They've got their area of Pennsylvania on lockdown, but they can only be in one place at one time. So for a while, they tried their best to fulfill requests to nearby states like New Jersey, Ohio, and Maryland, but they had more business than they could handle, and calls were coming in from the rest of the country and elsewhere as well. So they began working with local partners in different cities all across the US and Canada. Now, if you visit rentthechicken.com, again, free shout out, no charge for that one, you can sign up right there. And Phil and Jen aren't physically delivering each chicken.

Instead, the local franchises handle that, and the local franchises keep much of the money. Phil and Jen just take a 10% cut. With their partners out and about, as well as all the deliveries they manage themselves, it is a money-making chicken rental empire. Their coops are filled with stacks of cash, which is difficult. At the end of the day, you gotta clean things up.

Actually, that's not true, they take credit cards, which is also pretty cool. And they are indeed now making a living renting out these chickens throughout North America. So hey, when you're feeling lonesome, you need somebody to keep your company, Rent the Chicken is at your service. [Music]

Oh my gosh, what could I possibly add to the Rent the Chicken story? It just kinda squawks for itself.

Now listen, from time to time, I hear from the occasional listener, not most of our listeners, but the occasional listener, who thinks we're having too much fun on the show and complains about the puns and says, can't you just tell us the story without making it awesome? And I'm like, hey, we're just trying to have some fun around here, okay? Don't get your feathers ruffled. If it really bothers you, you can unsubscribe, you can fly the coop, I'm not offended. Because I'm gonna keep making this show for all of our awesome listeners, tens of thousands of daily listeners out there who appreciate a little foul humor.

And speaking of that, I wanna give a shout out to my Twitter followers. If you're not following me on Twitter, it's just my name, Chris Guillebeau, C-H-R-I-S-G-U-I-L-L-E-B-E-A-U. Because this morning I asked, if you had a pet chicken, what would you name it? I was looking for some ideas as I finalized the story, and I got something like 84 responses in just a few minutes, lots of creative names out there. So some of my favorites, just to give you a little rundown, some of my favorite names for possible pet chickens submitted by listeners are Popcorn, Marty McFly, Clucky, Nugget, Penny the Henny, Tofu, KFC, which is not nice when you think about it, Cluck Norris, Gregory, as in Gregory Peck, Mother Clucker, very creative, Cadbury, and Benedict, as in Eggs Benedict.

Amazing job, you guys. Thank you for the crowd-sourced chicken contributions. Now I do actually have a quick business note about this story because that's what we do on the show, in addition to all the other awesome stuff. My advice is that 10% is too low of a cut. These guys have developed the Rintha Chicken model.

All of the leads are coming into them, which they have been passing on to the franchises. So it's great that they're giving the franchises so much of the money, but it could be 15% or 20% for them. And I think the franchisees or the homesteaders, as they're called, I think they would still be happy with that. Because when I think 10%, that sounds more like an administrative fee. And since this is actually their business model, I think it should be a little bit more.

Just a suggestion, as always, thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this one. If you didn't enjoy this one, you're probably not gonna enjoy the show. I mean, let's just be real here. Every day showing you a different way that people can make money, even building a chicken rental empire.

Where else are you gonna hear these things? Nowhere. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/646. That's it for me now.

I'm gonna go off and roost for the rest of the day, but I will be back again tomorrow, and I hope you'll join me. Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau, and you are listening to Side Hustle School.