This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What's up, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Let's talk about hometown pride. All right, now personally, gotta confess something to you here.
I am not a big football fan. And when I say football, at least in this case, I'm referring to American football. So I'm not a big fan myself, but I am well aware of the tribalism it can attract. The tribalism and the tremendous loyalty, especially with college football. Now long ago and in what seems like another life, I used to live in Alabama for a few years as a kid and a teenager.
And whenever you met somebody there, maybe some of our listeners know this, whenever you met someone, it was almost like a litmus test to find out which football team they were a fan of, particularly when it came to the Alabama Auburn rivalry, which are the two big college teams there. And as I was working on this story, I remembered a store in the mall where I used to go as a kid. Now I spent a lot of time in the mall when I was a kid. I actually ran away from home once and slept overnight in the mall until I was discovered the next day. But that's a whole other story.
Let's talk about the one that relates to our episode. I just remembered that there was a store in the mall called the Alabama Auburn store. Okay, now these are the teams that are the rivals, but there was one store that sold items like jerseys and peanuts and posters and hats and all kinds of stuff, key chains. I mean, whatever you wanted to probably name your baby there. And this store sold items for both teams.
And they actually divided the store in half. And half of the store was for one of the teams and the other half was for the other team. And they had different colors on either sides. You could clearly tell there was this border. And when you walked in, you went to one side or the other.
Now, when I thought about this, I was like, man, when it comes to football rivalries, those guys, they are the real winners. The people who run that store who are like, we don't care which team you like. Whatever team you like, I'm gonna sell you a jersey. If I could go back and I wasn't a kid who was running away and sleeping in the mall and I wanted to get in this kind of business, that's exactly what I would do. Find a way to sell to both groups because you would almost actually play them off against one another.
When somebody comes to check out from the Auburn store and you're like, hey, the Alabama guy just spent more. He bought three things. You've only got two things there. Are you really gonna let that happen? Anyway, I'm not sure what happened with those guys with the store, with the mall in general.
But to the point of our story, it's all about a designer who makes a million dollars, not all at once, but over a number of years. And he's also bringing in consistently $5,000 a month in profit, month after month. And he does this by creating a series of sports themed penance and t-shirts that put hometown pride on display. This guy is from Alabama, has lived elsewhere in the South and migrates North to Boston. Then when he finds himself missing home, he starts this business and gives it what we'll call the old college try.
So there's the setup for you. Stay tuned and I'll tell you how he makes this happen. [Music]
Michael Whitson had spent his entire life in the South. He'd never set foot any further North than the Mason Dixon line, which is the line separating the Southern States from the North and the Midwest. By the time he got married, he felt he needed to experience something new.
He and his wife decided to pack up the car and head North, beginning a new life with his skills as a designer. They ended up in Boston. It was a world apart from what they knew, but they settled in well. Michael landed a job as the creative director with a large health company and they started a family. But although he had left the South, the South had never truly left Micah.
He knew that it was a part of his spirit, a piece that would be with him forever. But it wasn't until 2011 that Micah realized just how important that piece was to him. It was that year when some of the worst tornadoes on record ravaged the region, particularly Micah's home state of Alabama. Watching the devastation unfold from afar made him long for a connection to home. Where would he find it?
After thinking for a while, he was reminded of the types of flags and clothes people wore to their college football games. Those colors, taglines, and symbols could bring a sense of community. Then the penny dropped. He was a designer and he had a friend who was a printer. He decided he would create posters, pennants, and t-shirts that symbolized schools and towns of the South.
He'd recapture the magic of the old college football games. Their spirit and camaraderie would be on display in the designs of his products. It was his first side hustle. And as you'll hear, he turned this overtime project into a self-made championship. By the way, as we go along, some of my sports metaphors may break down because, you know, I don't know much about football.
I was like, it's gonna be extra innings. No, wait, that doesn't work. I think the word is overtime. He decided to call it the old try, named from the expression the old college try, which means to give something your best shot, even if the odds are against you. Coincidentally, the same attitude you need when starting a project like this of your own.
Micah also needed a series of designs that captured the heart and emotion of people from the South. To find these designs, he drew on his own experience. He lived in four of the Southern states and felt he could represent them well. So he took common phrases and images from the area and began to design posters and penance. Before long, he had a handful of designs he was proud of.
Everything was printed and made at his friend's shop in Somerville, just outside of Boston. And to showcase them, he built a website. With that site up and the designs ready to go, it was time to throw a Hail Mary pass and work on some promotion. Micah wasn't expecting much when he launched the site. He sent out a few emails to prominent bloggers to inform them of what he was hoping to achieve.
And as luck would have it, a small blog called Design Sponge picked up the story. Design Sponge is actually not that small. They receive over 700,000 daily readers. So things were about to get real for Micah and the old Tri website. That one feature resulted in over 20,000 page views, thousands of dollars in orders.
And most importantly, it was the kickstart he needed to fully dive in. Micah and his wife celebrated by inviting friends over for a packing party to get the first 100 orders out. Now you could put that launch and that blog mentioned down to luck, but Micah felt he had a concept that resonated with people. Again, a shared sense of community. Remember, this project started in 2011.
The site hustle was coming of age at the same time as Pinterest and Instagram. The types of products Micah was making were photo-friendly and likely to be shared. Over the months and years, some of Micah's posts have gone viral and have even been shared by celebrities such as Russell Simmons and Reese Witherspoon. This has helped to increase sales further and drive further growth. In addition, growth has been fueled by new designs and suggestions from customers.
People are passionate about where they come from and more than willing to email Micah ideas for new products. The feedback he receives influences what he will make next. In terms of financial success, the old try has won the Heisman Trophy. I think that's a trophy that people get for doing something in football. Since starting in 2011, Micah has generated over $1.5 million in revenue.
And after all, expenses generates around $5,000 in profit each month. This has all been built on a foundation of just $7,000 in investment and all while Micah has continued to work his day job. Looking forward, he sees a clear road to franchise expansion. The old try currently has designs for a small fraction of the total areas of the United States, around 130 different incorporated places. There are thousands more.
So an obvious growth channel is to expand that range, promoting hometown pride across borders. All right, so tribal identity, loyalty, a sense of belonging. People get really emotional, really passionate about these things. And how do you show your loyalty and shared identity, especially in the context of sports, but also in terms of your geographic affiliation or other affiliations? It's by putting that identity on display.
And you can put it on display either privately or publicly. So publicly would be like wearing the t-shirt, right? That's my favorite sports team. If I run into somebody on the street, he's like, "Yeah, go sports team." And it's really interesting because you could be traveling in a completely different city where you don't know anybody. But if you see somebody or somebody sees you and you're wearing something that kind of demonstrates this identity, then you feel this kinship with somebody that you've never known before.
And you can also put it on private display, which is like a poster or a pennant or something that you just have in your house. So it's not so much that anybody else is seeing it, but you're kind of reminded of it. And notice what all these things have in common. They all require you to buy something. There's really no way, at least in this context, to demonstrate that loyalty without making a purchase.
So conveniently, an e-commerce platform with these beautiful original designs is well-suited for this kind of project. And from there, it's just a process of iterating and improving because this guy, Micah, maybe he did get lucky with that design sponge mention, but what did he do after that? He went from those first 100 orders to thousands of orders by continuing to add designs and improve the process. So luck is something that comes or goes, but your consistency, your devotion to something, especially when you know it's working a little bit and you just want to make it work more, that's the key to going above and beyond, which in his case, $1.5 million in sales since he started and $5,000 a month in profit. Can't argue with that.
I would be a cheerleader for those results, just like I'm a cheerleader for you. That's the whole point of the show to tell you these stories so that hopefully it inspires something in you, gets you thinking, and maybe helps you realize that there is something you can do too. Even if you've never done anything like this before, like I said in this story, this was Micah's first side hustle. So good for him and good for you too. Thank you for listening.
Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/649. You can come and check out some of his designs, see his website and social media. And if you have a comment or question for the show, give me a call on the Hustle Hotline 8449 Hustle 844-948-7853. You can also send me an email at podcast@sidehustleschool.com. I'll be back again tomorrow.
My name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
