Zombie Apocalypse Prevention Podcast Earns $200,000/Year

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

[Music]

Let's talk about surviving the end of the world. Whether the end of the world arrives through the decline of Western civilization, a massive earthquake in the Pacific Northwest, some other climate change or geological event, a return to arms between major world powers, or of course, the biggest threat of all, the zombie apocalypse. Are you prepared? Do you have your first aid kit ready to go? Do you have enough canned food saved up?

And do you know how to make a traditional clay oven? Well, you learn all kinds of things here on "Side Hustle School." I am your host, Chris Guillebeau, so glad you're here. And just in case you're not into prepping, which is what today's "Side Hustle" success story is about, how about this? Today, I'm gonna tell you about a survival podcast that earns $200,000 a year, helping people prepare for any or all of those apocalyptic events. It is a wild story that includes a number of legit lessons for anyone hoping to nurture and monetize a community.

So to survive the end of civilization, listen to this quick shout out to our sponsor and then listen to the episode. [Music]

By most standards, Jack Spierko was thriving. He was a co-owner of a holding company that managed three individual businesses. These businesses were making a lot of money. All was well, except for Jack himself.

He had been living the high life of corporate success for years, but felt pulled back to his roots, the mountains of Pennsylvania. He missed the nature, the family dinners, and the self-sufficiency that drove it off. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, it became much more than a faraway goal. What he wanted more than anything was just to spend time with his family, because as the world had just experienced, you never know when disaster will strike. That's when the journey into the world of preparedness, or prepping, began.

Jack started teaching himself about topics, including permaculture, self-defense, and food storage. He paid off all his debts and learned everything there is to know about backup generators. Slowly, Jack became a master survivalist, but he didn't leave his job. One of his clients said they wanted to start up a new thing called a podcast. Now this was many years ago, remember, and nobody on his team knew how.

So Jack picked up the responsibility. He figured there was no better way to learn the ins and outs of this new thing called podcasts than to try making one himself. So he bought an $18 headset, a $30 Sony digital recorder, and began recording himself in the car on his way to work. He talked into the recorder about what he knew, self-reliance, getting out of debt, and prepping for the next disaster. There was no real script or agenda or performance.

It was just Jack being himself with grit and passion. He uploaded these raw episodes to his new website, thesurvivalpodcast.com, and started sharing them with friends. It turned out that he really liked doing this. It was fun, freely giving away his secrets to self-sufficiency, so he started recording a new show every day on his way to work. His few listeners, mostly friends and family, were eating it up.

Even in those early days, there were other prepper podcasts out there, but Jack wanted to be different. He didn't want to be just another doom and gloom guy. He wanted to put some positivity into the world. He wanted to teach real life skills that could help people achieve personal and financial freedom. To challenge himself to get to 1,000 listeners, Jack created an iPod giveaway.

Do you remember iPods? Again, this gives you some perspective on the timeline. That giveaway worked. New listeners began to show up and download the episodes without any focused marketing. Then, during a period of financial instability, a massive flood of new listeners found the site.

Jack quickly realized that the survival podcast could be more than just a hobby. People were craving the skills and insights he had been learning over the past seven years. He just had to figure out how to monetize. Right on time, he began receiving emails from companies, asking about sponsorships. It took about six weeks to fill up all his sponsor openings, but the emails kept coming in.

Not wanting to leave money on the table, he came up with a clever plan for a new revenue stream. He asked the companies if they'd be willing to offer a discount to his biggest fans, and 12 of them agreed. From there, Jack launched the survival podcast membership. For $50 a year, listeners could have access to those exclusive discounts, a couple dozen member-only videos, and a handful of ebooks on survival topics, like how to build top bar beehives and traditional clay ovens. He figured the discounts on products alone made the choice a no-brainer, and many of his listeners agreed.

That month, the survival podcast earned $20,000. It was unbelievable, far more than he'd ever made any other month from sponsorships or the occasional Google ad. The next month, he made another $15,000. He realized that the show could be his ticket to true self-sufficiency without having to work his corporate job, but that's when he ran into his first big disaster, and it wasn't an earthquake. He received an email from his web host, announcing that his account would be terminated.

Had he broken any rules? Nope. Had he hosted illegal content? Nope. His problem was he was too successful.

At that point, he was getting 10,000 daily downloads, and that was more than they were willing to accommodate. So in true self-sufficiency form, Jack didn't find another host. He bought a dedicated 100 terabyte box that could self-host his website. Later on, he added a second dedicated backup server, and all of this cost far less than he would be paying with a traditional host. Despite being a savvy marketer, Jack hasn't really focused much on marketing.

He occasionally creates a YouTube video to compliment the podcast, and he's somewhat active on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Other than that, it's actually his followers that do most of the sharing. In every episode, he asks them to share it, and it's not just tacked onto the end of the show. He explains why they should share it, because they want their friends and family to thrive, whether the economy collapses or not. And this is the real genius behind Jack's success.

It's not that he has the prettiest website. I can assure you it isn't. It's not that he has the best interview guests or the coolest giveaways. I don't think he's even giving away iPods now. It's that he is engaging, honest, and genuine on the show, and his listeners find this to be a breath of fresh air.

The podcast has been running for 10 years now, and it's bigger than ever. He recently celebrated his first day with 200,000 downloads, and he's been consistently earning multiple six figures for nine of his 10 years. Most of that comes from the site membership, which has now grown to include discounts from 70 brands. He also earns money from a daily featured Amazon.com product and other sources, including YouTube ads and an annual workshop. For him, the wild financial success isn't the best part.

In his corporate years, he'd already learned that money isn't the key to happiness. The true success is knowing he's helping thousands of people reach for their lifestyle and financial goals, and he's getting to achieve his own along the way. Awesome, well, lots of lessons to take away from this one. It's not really about starting a podcast, although, I mean, that's the specific topic, but really, I think the lesson is consistency. He's been doing this for 10 years.

Second, authenticity. He has kind of walked the walk in this self-sufficiency journey, and now he's sharing it with lots of other people. And then third, like I mentioned, his genuineness, his approachability, his habit of speaking to listeners and being both authoritative and relatable. I listened to a little bit of his show, and I could tell he often puts forward a lot of strong opinions, and it seemed like the kind of thing where if I listened to him, I wouldn't necessarily agree with everything he said, but I would still respect him, and I get the feeling that I could listen to him and might have a different take myself, but he would still respect me, and I like that. I think that's all too rare these days, so good for him.

Congratulations, Jack. Thank you so much for allowing us to share this big success story with our community. They too are an awesome community. That's right, listeners. I think you guys are amazing.

You are what makes Side Hustle School successful, and that's something I am mindful of every day. All right, I hope this was helpful. If you want to check out the show notes, learn more about Jack's podcast, anything else that I mentioned, just come to sidehustleschool.com/674. As we kick off a new week, I'm excited to bring you more stories every day. Be sure you're subscribed and keep coming back.

Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]