This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Greetings and hello. Welcome to Side Hustle School. I'm Chris Guillebeau. Have you ever been to a place and felt instantly connected? Like somewhere that's totally new to you, but you went there and you felt like you belonged.
Or that there was something to that culture, the people, the geography, just the way of life that you felt was missing from your life before. And then once you found it, you knew you would never be the same. Well, I felt that way through travel on many occasions in several different parts of the world. I go to Hong Kong several times a year, for example. It's always been a special place to me.
Whenever I go there, I feel strangely at home, even though I've never lived there, I didn't grow up there. I feel that way about parts of South Africa as well, a couple of different countries in Europe. And for me, even the world of travel itself is energizing. Makes me feel alive, makes me feel purposeful. And maybe you have a place like that or something you do that makes you feel that way.
Well, today you'll hear about a woman who travels to South America and falls in love, not with a person in particular, but with a culture and a particular dance that comes from Argentina. I'll tell you about that right after this. [Music]
Today's story comes to us from Buenos Aires, where Sasha Kagan is currently living and working. But she didn't start out there. To really understand how and why she ended up in Argentina, we have to go back to 2010 when Sasha first discovered Tango on a year-long wander around South America.
She was actually in Colombia, the capital of salsa dancing, but it was the Argentinian dance Tango that captivated her more. From the first time she saw Tango, then when she danced it, she knew there was something special that spoke to her. It didn't take long to find out just how much Tango had to teach her about confidence, equality in relationships, sensuality, and even how to get into the zone with her writing. So in 2013, she moved from California to Buenos Aires for a few months to experience Tango at the source and get a deeper experience of the whole culture. It was while she was there that she had a bolt of inspiration about how to design a week-long experience to share with other women what she had learned over the past few years of dancing.
So before she returned to California, she checked out hotels and found an instructor to teach the actual Tango lessons. Back in California, Sasha created an all-inclusive Tango experience that would facilitate this deep dive that she herself had experienced. It was valuable but not cheap. The fee she decided on was $2,195. That fee includes pre-imposed coaching sessions with Sasha, private lessons with the Tango teacher, several different dance outings, and a specialized workshop combining psychology and Tango that creates a whole body experience designed to help you reconnect to yourself and others.
She also included group outings to help build community. She had the idea of all the women going Tango shoe shopping together and sharing a couple of group meals. And once she had the logistics figured out and six months after she had that bolt of inspiration, she launched the offer. Her first group of five women came entirely from marketing to her own email list, from her main occupation as a life coach for women. In fact, that was the only marketing she did for several groups.
It was easy and effective. It didn't distract from the main work she was doing. After she'd led several tours, she started doing a bit more marketing beyond her own circles and began getting Tango clients from different sources. She's posted in meetup groups and recently started doing some Facebook ads. The money she makes from this Tango hustle isn't enough to live on, but it's definitely helped supplement her income and allowed her to focus on her writing.
Her setup costs of moving to Argentina have long been offset by the lower cost of living there, especially compared to California. And beyond the financial incentive, Sasha loves connecting with the women that go on her Tango adventures. They're smart, supportive women, and she feels she learns as much as she teaches. At some point, she may expand this Tango adventure further, but for now, she's happy to let things evolve organically and see how it unfolds with the rest of her life. [Music]
So what can we learn from Sasha's story?
Well, first things first, if you love something, make sure you actually love teaching it or helping other people experience it, not just doing it yourself, because these are not always the same thing. If you like to play golf, it's a lot different than teaching other people to play golf. If you like to knit, collect something, play a sport or video games, read books, whatever it is that you like to do, you should ask yourself what you enjoy about whatever those things are. And as I said, before you start creating a hustle around them, which often can be a good idea, just not always, make sure you would actually enjoy that process of transferring knowledge, not just enjoying the hobby yourself directly or on your own. Now, fortunately, this situation worked well for Sasha because she loved Tango, but she also loved sharing it with beginners and introducing it to them.
Now, I briefly mentioned that she experimented with Facebook ads. I just wanna touch on this for a moment because yesterday's episode focused on someone who grew their business entirely using Facebook ads. She's actually very successful creating a six-figure business. So far, Sasha's experience with Facebook ads has been a bit more normal, which is that she's gotten a lot of impressions, but she hasn't actually gotten the actual customers from it. And so I wanna point that out because Facebook ads are worth experimenting with, and you can do so without spending a lot of money, which is great, but before you do spend a lot of money, you wanna make sure you really know what you're doing.
It can often be more effective to start without advertising, which is what Sasha did, which is what a lot of other stories that you hear on the show do. But I do know some people are interested in Facebook ads, so I have a couple of friends that are much better at that than me with both free and paid resources. So I'll link them up in the notes if you'd like to learn more. Speaking of the notes, we have show notes for every single episode. If you wanna see any of them, you can just go to satasleschool.com, click on episodes.
You'll see a big, beautiful grid that unfolds. You can click any episode and learn more about the things that we talk about on the show. Now this is episode 74, so today's specific notes are satasleschool.com/74. And funny enough, you can actually find the notes for any episode using a similar naming system. Simply by adding the number after satasleschool.com/.
I hope that you are enjoying the show. Let me know on social media using hashtag satasleschool or just say hi from the website. I'm Chris Guillebeau and I'll see you tomorrow. [Music]
