This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Oh, hey, what's up? We have just finished week number 41 of season two. My name is Chris Guillebeau your host. So what did you do this past week? Did you run a marathon?
Did you go out and rent a chicken? I was looking at the website for Rent the Chicken as featured in Monday's episode. They are in so many different locations. You can get a chicken all over North America. I even thought it would be kind of a fun gift for someone.
It's just about 400 bucks. Somebody you really love, give them a chicken, give them actually two chickens and a coop and all the food to take care of them for six months. Although to be fair, it's probably not the best surprise gift. You probably want to check with someone first to make sure they're up for raising chickens in their backyard, but still, but who knows? Maybe somebody would be into that.
So over here in my world, I am recovering from the marathon I mentioned. I was running last weekend that was in Long Beach, California. Thank you so much for your notes about that. I got lots of notes from wonderful listeners. You guys are awesome.
You can see more about that on my Instagram. I don't want to spend too much time on the show talking about things like that, but I do feel fortunate to know that there is such an amazing community out there. I am grateful. Now I'm also going to San Francisco this week to host a private event that will be part of a live podcast recording. That event is sold out now, but if you're not going to be there, you will hear that episode at some point before the end of the year.
So I'm excited about that. We're going to have a very special celebrity guest with us. We're going to talk about bold ideas, but let me not get ahead of things because we have to actually do that first, put together that event, and then I will bring it to you. I look forward to it. Let's see, last announcement here, WDS tickets for WDS 2019, the 2019 World Domination Summit are now on sale.
And if you have not been to WDS before, or if you have been, but it's been a while, or if you've been coming for years, I would really love it if you can join us next year. We're only going to do two more years of WDS. This is an event that I have put together for eight years now with a remarkable team. And we announced this past summer that we've had a wonderful run. We love what we're doing, but we want to go out on a high note.
That's why we're planning for two final years of WDS. And if you would like to come, it's an annual gathering in Portland, Oregon. You can watch an awesome video, read more about it, see how the whole thing works, and see what other people have said about it. Just come to sidehustleschool.com/wds. Those tickets are on sale for a limited time only, sidehustleschool.com/wds.
All right, let's now jump into our featured content. I want to talk a little bit about treating your side hustle like a business. And the inspiration for this came from an interesting note I had from Micah, who was featured in episode 649. This was the designer who earns $1 million giving it the old college try. Something I didn't mention in the episode, and this is where the inspiration comes from, in all of our conversations with him in the interview and the back and forth.
He said something that I really liked, and I wanted to pull it out and save it. He said, "If you've got an idea, "figure out what you need to make it real." For me, I knew I wouldn't treat my business as legit if I didn't make it legit. So even though I was working a full-time job, we incorporated an open-to-bank account and trademarked our name and logo and got business cards. In fact, I spent 70% of our startup dollars just on apparatus that made it seem like a business. I was sitting there looking at $5,000 worth of legitimacy and knew that I needed to justify that by creating something great.
When I read that in the notes, I thought, "Wow, there is a lot to this. "This is really gonna help somebody. "I really wanna highlight it." So first and foremost, you don't need to spend $5,000 to create that kind of legitimacy. There are other ways to do it. I'm gonna give you a couple of tips in a moment.
But even if you do spend some money like you did, making the LLC, getting your name trademarked, all that kind of stuff, maybe it would help you just as it did for him to treat it more seriously. Maybe if you do have some skin in the game, which as I said, can be more than just money, can be your time, can be some other resource, but if you do have some skin in the game, perhaps you'll be more motivated to make progress. And I know from hearing from so many listeners and talking to people as I travel the country and travel the world, that this is something people struggle with. They struggle with momentum. They struggle with getting started or taking the next step or just moving forward for whatever reason.
So I'm all about whatever you can do to modify your environment or whatever else to position yourself for the success that you want. So if you've been stuck for a while and you haven't moved forward, maybe there's something you can do to create that kind of legitimacy that you then need to justify. And when I say justify, I mean to yourself, not to anybody else, but to yourself. Maybe there's something like that you can do that will guide you down that path, even just a bit more. So a couple of notes here.
I often encourage people to create a space of your own to work on your side hustle. Now you can do this even if you don't have much space, but if you're fortunate to have space, like if you've got a house or if you've got a larger than normal apartment or whatever it is, if you can carve out some space, could be a whole bedroom if you have that option, it could just be a little corner or cubby. Some people choose to pay maybe a couple hundred dollars a month for access to a co-working space where they know that they can go and get some private work done. Or maybe there's some other space that you can go to. Now, if you're a city dweller in a tiny little studio apartment, even if you go to the same coffee shop on a regular basis, if you say, okay, here are the hours that I'm gonna work on my side hustle, it's pretty limited.
But every Saturday from nine to 11, let's say for example, every Saturday from nine to 11, I'm gonna go to my corner coffee shop. And as long as nobody's sitting there, I'm gonna sit in the same table because that table is my side hustle table. And that is my coffee shop that I go to only to work on this project. The point is whatever you can do to create a space of your own to work, even if it's a small space, even if you have to modify or get creative, like I just explained, that would be good for you because then you're gonna build that pattern and going to that space and doing nothing else besides working on your side hustle there. It's also great to open a separate bank account.
And this is something I actually encourage people to do from day one. You do wanna keep your finances separate, your personal finances from what will ultimately become your business finances. So a lot of banks will offer free checking accounts or credit unions are also a great resource. Worst case scenario, you'll pay no more than 10 to $15 a month for this. And in lots of cases, you can get it free.
But it's just great to have that separate bank account, one for bookkeeping, but two, again, for legitimacy. Again, to justify to yourself, hey, I've got a business bank account now. I've got a business bank account, so I better have a business. Next idea, promise yourself that you'll do one thing every day. That's part of why I produce this daily podcast because I want people to do something every day, even if it's a small thing.
So maybe get a journal, maybe have an Evernote or a Google Doc or whether it's analog digital. The point is again, you've got somewhere that you're tracking these tasks, these steps. And every day, even if you just have a very short amount of time, there is something that you're gonna do. And my last tip to help you treat your side hustle like a business, guide it toward more legitimacy, just like Micah did, and he ended up doing pretty well with this plan. My last tip is to give yourself a deadline and tell people about it, all right?
So give yourself a three month deadline, a one month deadline, a one year deadline, maybe if it's a really big project. I mean, one year would be like the longest. The point is give yourself some kind of deadline. I really think you can do most of these small projects in four to six weeks, at least get them up like the basic, basic minimum version, the iteration number one. Give yourself a deadline and make that deadline known, whatever you need to do.
So create a space of your own, open a separate bank account, promise yourself you'll do one thing every day and give yourself a deadline and tell people about it. I really believe there is a lot of power in committing. There's a lot of power in saying, "Okay, I've had this idea for a while. Now I'm actually gonna do something about it." It's not just gonna be an idea, it's going to be action, right? Idea to action, that's the whole point.
And the subtitle of my last book was idea to income in 27 days. And just to wrap up this segment, I do this myself, like I try to walk the walk here. I mean, that's part of why I wanted to make this show every day. I told people on January 1, 2017, this is gonna happen every single day. And at the time I really did not have a plan as to how it would unfold.
Like I knew how the first two weeks were gonna go, but I wasn't sure after that. I just knew that making that public accountability was gonna help me and it really, really has. And of course, as I said at the top of the episode, our community has come along and helped so much since then as well. And same thing with the marathon, by the way. When I told people last week I was running a marathon in advance, I really did not wanna do that.
I wanted to just go and run the marathon and then say afterwards, "Oh, I ran a marathon." But I thought, you know what? If I tell people in advance, if I go on the podcast and say to all the people listening, "Hey, I'm running a marathon tomorrow," it's not that I expect everyone out there to care. Like I know that's not why you listen to the show, I get that. Point is, then when I'm actually running the race and if I'm struggling, if I wanna quit, if something goes wrong, if I don't feel like doing it, whatever it is, I'm gonna think, "Well, you know what? I told everybody I was gonna do this." So if I quit now, that's really gonna suck.
I don't want that. So there is power in committing. What will it take for you to commit to your idea? All right, I hope that encouragement helps someone out there. Now let's do our little blast from the past segment, which we've been doing for about six weeks now.
Looking back on some of our featured case studies of days, weeks, months, or even now years ago, which is crazy, we are, what, 652 episodes into the show. Looking back on some of those people we featured long ago and doing a little check-in, how are things going? So let's hear now from someone we featured way back on episode 54. - Hey there, this is Morrie McCoy from Austin, Texas, creator of Penny Portraits, a side hustle that was featured on episode 54. Since that time, a lot has happened.
We've created a brand new website along with a blog, but probably the most important thing is we've added a few vendors. Notably, the U.S. Mint has now a customer. We have Penny Portraits on display, actually, in both the Denver and Philadelphia mints. So that's a little different for us.
We've never actually created a Penny Portrait for people to display, but the U.S. Mint gift shops were kind of a marquee customer with thousands of guests coming through there, all interested in pennies and penny-related things, so we thought that would be a good thing to try. And actually, it's worked out really well. They've been flying off the shelves, so much so that the U.S. Mint is actually going to feature our product at their booth at the National Money Show, so that's pretty exciting.
That's coming up later this month. In other news, just keepin' on, keepin' on, trying to find more unique vendors. Just reached out to Ripley's, believe it or not, museums, so our fingers are crossed there. But you can check our blog for the latest updates on what's going on, but otherwise, we keep pushing Penny Portraits, and business is good. Awesome, thank you so much, Maury, I appreciate that update.
Now, if you missed his original episode from 600 days ago, which is perfectly reasonable if you did, how did that happen, by the way, 600 days, it is a DIY crafts project where you can assemble a model Abraham Lincoln portrait consisting entirely of pennies. He sells this for about 20 bucks. I think it's $22 on Amazon, or $20 direct from his website. Then you need to provide 846 pennies of your own to complete the project. I guess if you're ever short $8.46 in the future, you can disassemble the project and cash in on your penny portrait.
Anyway, good work, Maury, I'm glad to hear that things are going so well on display at the U.S. Mint. How about that, that's pretty awesome. Fingers crossed for the Wax Museum and everything else. I just wanted to draw attention to Maury's frequently asked questions page, which I don't remember if I'd looked at long ago, but I went to take a peek at his website, and I think he has a great frequently asked questions page.
You gotta check this out, I'll link it up in the show notes. But on his page, he does something that I really think is a missed opportunity for so many other people. So many other people's fact page is just super boring. And he has a lot of fun with the questions and the answers, so I'm gonna give you a couple of examples. Question, I'm lazy, do I need to glue pennies to this thing?
And his answer is not at all, the poster is a unique work of art as is. Also another question, what's the best place to get pennies? And his answer is grandparents. If that doesn't work, your neighborhood bank will be happy to sell you some. So for everyone out there with a website, let this be a lesson to you.
If you're not doing something interesting with your frequently asked questions page, it is a missed opportunity. So learn from Maury, learn from other people who've done something like this and update your page. And of course you can check out this project for yourself at pennyportrait.com. More of these to come. And of course, if you have a question or a comment, we'd love to hear from you too.
Couple of different ways you can do that. For the past couple of weeks, I have been mentioning the Hustle Hotline. I'll give you that number in a second. But I also want to mention, you can just go to the website, sidehustleschool.com. On the about page, there's a really simple way for you to record your question using the microphone in your computer.
It will automagically go to us. Okay, so if you don't want to actually use your phone to dial, which I understand, because who uses the phone to make phone calls these days, then you can just go to the website and do it. But if you do want to call, that number is 8449 Hustle, also known as 8449487853. You can always email us at podcast@sidehustleschool.com as well. [Music]
Briefly looking back on the week and looking ahead at what's to come.
All kinds of good stuff. I mean, again, rent the chicken. I could just go on and on about that, but I'm going to force myself to stop. In addition to that episode, which will go down in history, at least the Side Hustle School archive history, we had a really interesting story the day after episode 647 about a UK sales manager who calls the shots with his photographic film shop. Thought this was a really interesting little niche business he's building, an e-commerce business that he's now shipping products all over the world.
I would not be surprised if we look back in one year and this shop has really, really blown up. By blown up, I don't mean exploded, just to be clear. I mean that in a good way. Like his sales go way up. His sales just like take off, like that, but not bad.
Now, as I said, that was an e-commerce business. We also had a food tour guide business, which is a service business, right? So a product versus a service. And the food tour guide business, which is episode 648, also a side hustle turned into a full-time project. What started as a side hustle became a full-time project.
That one has a passive income component because the person in that story was really smart about how she built her business. She's not actually leading all the food tours herself. She has designed this brand Sabre Denver. So if you're ever in Denver, go check it out. She has designed this brand to where she can employ other guides, other part-time food tour guides, and she can go off to Mexico, which is I believe what she is doing this winter.
So good for her, $100,000 profit while you're running that business in Mexico or wherever else. Can't complain about that. And of course, so much more, including an episode 651 that was hosted by our very own Whitney Karenik, our content manager, thank you so much again, Whitney, for jumping in and helping me out there. Both Whitney and myself and our writing team and the rest of our team got a whole village of people working on side hustle school these days. We are working on a bunch of stuff coming up, including a seven-figure success story.
That's right, a seven-figure success story coming out soon. And speaking of stories that really take off or blow up, we'll also be debuting a new featured series all about going big. And these are additional episodes, a new additional episode that's gonna come out once a week in addition to the daily episodes. It's gonna be an eight-episode series all about side hustlers who have turned their part-time gig into a full-time business. And in this case, specifically focused on people who sell physical products.
All right, that's it for me. This is gonna conclude our weekly recap, although I wanna say a couple of quick thank yous to people. Really appreciate everyone who makes this show possible. As I said, it takes a village. I wanna say a special thanks to our senior producer, AC Valdez, content manager, Whitney Karenik, as mentioned, our community liaison, Jed Chang.
He's also in charge of trucker hats. And of course, the official show cat, Libby Gillibow. Last but not least, in fact, probably first, I wanna thank you, the listener. One more important thank you. That is you, the person listening in your AirPods or headphones or in your car at the gym or wherever it is you listen to shows.
I'm so grateful you're out there. I really do enjoy making this show every day because I know that there are people out there who are not just listening and enjoying it, but a lot of people out there who are actually taking action on it. I truly do feel grateful to be able to make this show every day because there is an active community out there listening and sharing it, telling their friends. Really appreciate that when you help spread the word and when you give us a quick little rating or review, five stars would be great. I mean, six stars would be awesome, but you can only leave five.
So I'll settle for five in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to shows. But that's all I will say about that because our focus is on bringing you more stories. I'll also have some other announcements soon, some other ways to participate, some other ways that we would like to connect with you so that we can understand what your greatest needs are. And then of course, craft the show and all the resources and everything else we do around those needs. That's my goal and I hope you'll keep listening next week.
We got an episode every single day. Those episodes go online at 6.01 a.m. Eastern time. Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
