This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hi to social school listeners. Welcome back, I am Chris Guillebeau. Longtime listeners may know that I promised you a ridiculous story that involves animals at least every two weeks. Okay, so as a little throwback, I will draw your attention to episode two, the guy who writes a blog about fish tanks and makes $700 a month. Episode 10 saddles for pet chickens, which really is a thing.
A woman in Colorado is making tremendous advancements in the world of chicken fashion. Episode 17 featured the Airbnb for dogs, a woman who hosts dogs in her home and earns up to $200 a day. And of course, episode 46, all about the amazing live cricket drop shipping hustle. Well, this is the latest installment. It's not about fish, chickens, dogs, or crickets.
Probably closest to the last one of those, it's all about a worm composting empire that brings in $400 a month. That's right, worms aren't just for fishing anymore. They are for micro enterprise. Get ready. [Music]
By day, Henry Owen is the executive director of the Nature Discovery Center in Houston, Texas.
Five years ago, he co-founded a nonprofit project in Charlotte, North Carolina, Growing Food at Community Gardens that would go to the local Meals on Wheels program. Along with establishing the gardens and growing food for the program, Henry and his team also composted all the food scraps that came out of that industrial sized kitchen. The kitchen was run by another organization called Friendship Trays. And Friendship Trays serves over 750 meals every day. And all of that adds up to a lot of onion skins, carrot tops, and zucchini stems.
In his quest to find the most efficient way to compost all those food scraps, Henry stumbled upon worm composting. This is a form of composting in which you feed your food scraps to red wiggler composting worms. In my research for the story, I learned that apparently some worms specialize in composting, others aren't really into it, so the red wigglers are the pros. After setting up the compost bins for work, Henry was then asked to teach worm composting at a local school. The kids enjoyed it, naturally, and many of them convinced their parents to let them begin their own composting station at home, which I'm sure the parents appreciated.
In order to reach more people, Henry created a website with a dedicated mission of teaching people how to do this worm composting wherever they are. He didn't really expect to make money from this important endeavor, but just in case, he set up a few potential income streams. He installed Google AdSense on his webpages, which is basically a program where Google will show targeted advertisements to the visitors on your site. And if those visitors click any of the ads, Google will pay you a portion of what they earn. Second, he joined the affiliate program from amazon.com, which is exactly how Fishtent guy made his money.
In this case, Henry would write reviews of various worm products, all the stuff that you need to get started with your composting. And if people click through to amazon.com to purchase those items, then he would be paid a commission. Now third, he also decided to write a guide called How to Start a Worm Bin. The promise of this guide is that people all over the world are turning their food scraps into nutrient-rich worm compost through starting their own worm bin. It's very easy to get started.
All you need to do is purchase this guide. He sold the guide for just under $10. And together with the Amazon affiliate commission and the AdSense payments, he had his own mini worm composting empire. That empire brings in over $400 a month. Henry has a global audience.
He says he enjoys hearing from people all over the world who are interested in his topic. Apparently people from Australia and Germany and other countries have the same questions about worm composting as people from Houston, Texas. It really is a small world after all. Henry loves his day job at the nature center. He has no intention of leaving it anytime soon or retiring young.
But what is more appealing to him is the idea of taking many retirements or sabbaticals in between jobs. So between the worm hustle and his other side projects, his goal is to build his collective side hustle income to give him the freedom to take a year off for adventure. He's also been working on a top secret project that is top secret no longer, an oversized refrigerator magnet with quick tips for worm composting. He's already pre-solved the idea to his mailing list of more than 2,500 worldwide worm enthusiasts. Can't believe I said that phrase correctly on the first try.
That's pretty amazing. And if you ever want to learn more about worm composting, well, thanks to Side Hustle School, now you know where to go. [Music]
So what are our takeaways here? I guess first of all, if you're trying to decide between worms and fish, maybe fish are better because the fish tank guy is making $700 a month from a project he set up years ago and hasn't done anything for. Whereas the worm guy is making $400 a month.
And he has to keep that website updated with all the latest worm composting trends. So that's the kind of thing that you only learn by experimentation. Maybe a more practical lesson for the rest of us who aren't going into either of these industries is that you really can make money with just about anything. I don't think most people listening to the show are gonna go out and invest in a worm incubator. Henry, I don't think you have to worry about people stealing your idea.
But still, it is pretty cool that he has found a way to share his expertise with the world and receive that regular side hustle income from it. Now, by the way, of course, we have show notes for this episode, like we do for every single one. You can always learn a lot about the person I'm featuring on the show, any resources I mentioned, sometimes a surprise or two. So these notes are at sidehustleschool.com/79. However, just as a side note, Henry's direct site is wormcompostinghq.com.
And I think it would be really cool if our entire Side Hustle School community would go visit that site. Like, I'm not sure how much traffic he receives on a daily basis. The worm enthusiast community is quite large, of course. But I just think it'd be really fun for him to wake up and be like, "Wow, who are all these people?" So go check out wormcompostinghq.com. I'm not a worm affiliate, by the way.
I just think it would be fun. Well, Side Hustle School listeners, don't let your great ideas wiggle away from you. Don't let them burrow into the ground. You have to take action on them. You have to set up your little website.
You have to find your crazy topic that maybe your friends and family don't really get, but it's something that you care about. You know there are other people out there somewhere who care about it. You too could have your own worldwide worm community, or maybe something a bit different. Whatever it is, I hope you do one thing today to get you closer to creating more freedom for yourself, more financial security, more opportunities to do whatever it is that you want. Thank you, as always, for listening.
I'm Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. And I'll see you tomorrow. [Music]
