This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, greetings and welcome. I'm Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to "Assata School School." This is our weekly recap, week number 11. Over here, I went to Los Angeles for "Assata School" workshop. I'm going to Denver on Tuesday.
On the show, we had a big week featuring a story of $100,000 in t-shirt sales, tango adventures in Buenos Aires, and more. Now, before we go on, I just want to thank you for listening and choosing to invest in yourself. I got a note from a listener the other day who said, "You know, I like the success stories, but I have a lot of struggles, and not every story is a success story. So what would you say to me?" And I said, "I totally understand. Like I have lots of struggles too, and always have." And I try when I tell the stories, at least a lot of them, to kind of focus on what went wrong or what challenges they encountered, what missteps they had.
Maybe it doesn't always come through because each story is different, but I really would say that false starts are normal. Those missteps are normal. So do be encouraged, you're not alone. And if you're new to the show, welcome. We're on this journey together.
A Sideresel is a project you create to earn money apart from your day job. And it's about creating more freedom for yourself, whether you hate your job, you're trying to make a big change, or you love your job, and you have no plans to leave. The common goal for all of us is more than one source of income, four greater security, four more options in your life, maybe to create a backup plan, or just because it's fun. So if you're new, go back and listen to the archives. It'll help you catch up with where we are.
All the episodes are short, most episodes less than 10 minutes long and actionable. Now, speaking of listener feedback, by the way, if you have questions, you can always ask them on the site, we'll answer a lot of them on the show. And today I have a great listener question for you, and then the recap of the past week. So let's jump right in. - Hi, Chris, Danielle here from Denver.
I have a quick question about Shanta's story. How did she get 800 subscribers to her email list in one week? As someone who has done this sort of side hustle thing for a while, I found getting over 100 really difficult. So what did she do to get over 800 in one month? I would love to hear her tips and tricks.
Thanks so much. - Hey Danielle, thank you for listening. Maybe I'll see you in Denver on Tuesday. And this is a great question. It refers to episode 43.
I think it was called "Miserable Day Job Turns Into $100,000 Side Income." This is all about a novelist who created a new writing course and saw that tremendous result. And I forget whether it was 800 subscribers in a week or a month, but whatever it was, I went back to her and I sent her this question. And here's what she said. She said, "I started posting weekly blog posts I called Ninja Writers Academy." If you haven't heard that episode, by the way, her market, the people she's trying to reach are aspiring novelists or people who want to write a novel. So weekly blog posts, they were just little lessons.
One thing about writing fiction in each lesson. I posted these on Saturday, invited people to do the work and then share it in a Facebook group I started. Then on Sunday, I held office hours where I was on the group for an hour answering any questions about writing. I ran a Facebook ad for my little Academy and sent people to a page on my blog where they could sign up to get the lessons in their inbox every week. I also had a little writer's planner that I normally sold for $20.
I reduced the price to $7 and added a link to it on my thank you page when someone signed up for the Academy. I sold two or three of those a day and I used that money to pay for the ads. It was a really perfect little loop. So there's a lot of information there I realized, but the short version is she's creating something that's valuable, these weekly blog posts called Ninja Writers Academy, little lessons about writing fiction. Then she created a Facebook group and is running Facebook ads to bring people to the blog.
There they sign up for the lessons. She has an inexpensive product that she created to help pay for the ads, so that either lowers the cost or makes it free. And then she's available to answer questions in that actual group. So it really is a fun little system that kind of all works together to bring her those subscribers without spending a lot of money. Thanks again for a great question.
I hope that's helpful. [Music]
All right, so let's look back briefly on some of the episodes this week. Just gonna feature a couple of highlights this time. If you wanna listen to the whole episode, of course you can. We started with a story of how a woman earned $7,000 in three days from selling glass nail files.
And I like this because often we feature teach what you know stories or focus on what you're good at stories, but this is a great example of someone just spotting an opportunity and following up on it. It's not like she had a background in nail files. She hadn't ever done reselling before, but she kind of figured it out and she went through the process and investigated where she could find a supplier and then played around with the price point, even adjusting it in real time during her first weekend at a farmer's market. I really do believe the most valuable hustling skill is being able to observe what might be a profitable idea and then follow through with it, just like Colleen did in that story. Episode 72 was about a college lecturer who makes money by helping other instructors teach better.
Megan had this love for pedagogy. This was very much a teach what you know story. And she found a way to transfer that, improve the lives of other teachers, improve their skills and by extension, improve the learning process for a lot of students. That was followed by a very popular story. Florida man earns $100,000 selling t-shirts with no inventory.
And we briefly mentioned Facebook ads and that question about Shanta from Danielle. Well, this is an entire side hustle that is built on Facebook ads. It's a very creative use of Facebook combined with Teespring, which is a print on demand t-shirt vendor. And over time, Benny, the guy featured in that story, kind of found the winning formula of fashion and was able to make a lot of money. Episode 74, Tango Adventures in Buenos Aires.
A woman from California falls in love with Tango and then makes it her side hustle. She continues her full-time coaching job, but it's put together tours that allow her to return to Argentina several times a year and show the experience where everything is paid for and share that experience with other women. Episode 75, the British pub manager who bakes pork pies for profit. That story comes with a challenge. Can you say it three times fast?
I know I was practicing and that's not the only challenge. I love the lesson of the story, how once you start a project, even if you don't have a grand ambition for it, you never know what's gonna happen. So in this story, Tom, that pub manager, he just started by baking bar snacks and making extra income from it. But then after a couple of years of doing that, having great success, he took things to the next level and opened his own micro pub, which is something that he may or may not have thought about years ago, but whether he did or not, it was the side hustle that gave him the confidence and the experience to move forward with something bigger. And lastly, yesterday's episode, all about a successful artist, Mark Johns, who adds $1,000 a month to his income simply by cross-listing some of his art, uploading his designs to a website called Society6.
And he was using Society6 specifically for iPhone cases. He had a lot of requests for people who wanted an iPhone case featuring his art. And he didn't wanna make that himself, but he found this site that would do it for him and was able to produce that great, reliable extra money to his monthly income. So a lot of great stories this week. Naturally, we have several more coming up next week, including some that I'm really excited about.
There's actually quite a range. Just give you a quick preview. We have a story of a Colorado bartender who makes tens of thousands of dollars after self-publishing a guide about the booming cannabis industry. Then we have a great social good story about a jewelry side hustle that helps disadvantaged women in Detroit, followed by a couple of days later, a story about worms, no joke, a worm empire that earns $420 a month for a guy who's really passionate about composting. That's right, you just have to hear it to believe it.
And this is what I love about the show. I can present these stories back to back and they actually make sense, which is of course pretty crazy, but that's how we roll at Side Hustle School. Now, lastly, before I go today, I wanna make sure you know that I'm not the only one working on this show. I'm the one that you hear on your earbuds or in your car or wherever you listen from, but I wanna give credit where credit is due. Side Hustle School is recorded on location at world domination headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
It is then magically transported and produced in Brooklyn, New York at the Panoply Studios. My production team is Jason de Leon, Casey Valdez, and Laura Mayer. Back in Portland, I am assisted by Whitney Karinek, who makes all of those wonderful show notes that you can see on the site. And we together, Side Hustle School, are part of the Onward Imprint, founded by my hero, Gretchen Rubin, who's the author of The Happiness Project, Better Than Before, and other books, and the host of Happier, one of the most popular podcasts of all time. Be sure you're subscribed to Happier as well.
And lastly, I want to thank you, the listener. This is a free listener supported show with just a single sponsor per episode. I like to say that I get paid in nice emails and reviews. So if you're enjoying the show, do let me know, do pass it on to your friends, and do take a moment to leave a quick review on iTunes as well. It really does help other people to discover it.
That's all I have for today, but there's much more to come. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. And you know that. Come by the website sometime. You can get a free Five Steps to Hustle email series.
That's at sidehustleschool.com. Hit me up on whatever social network has been invented this week. Be sure you're subscribed to iTunes or wherever you listen. New episodes go online every single day at 601 Eastern Time. I'm Chris Guillebeau.
I'll be back tomorrow. [Music]
