This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, what's up? Welcome, this is Sidus Will School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. We have just finished week 13 of season three. Feels like only yesterday we began this exploration of real people all over the world who are starting little businesses without quitting their job.
And without going into debt, without going to business school. It's a whole new way of life that so many people are pursuing. And even though it feels like yesterday, it was actually 819 days ago, because here we are at episode 820. Now this past week featured tarot cards, an art blog, pins for cocktail lovers, and a woman who solves a highly personal problem involving shapewear and going to the bathroom. All in a week's work, right?
Like I say, sometimes you never know what you're gonna hear on the program. I never know from week to week. When I get the notes for the stories, I'm like, wow, we got a lot of stuff going on. People are doing all kinds of things. There are all sorts of ways to make money.
So in this action packed recap, I'm gonna bring you some further reflections from one of this week's case studies, in addition to an audio update from a previously featured side hustler. But first, I wanted to mention, at least for anybody listening in real time, today is the very last day to sign up for the 30 day landing page challenge. If you're listening later, a lot of us will be doing this challenge over the next 30 days, all throughout the month of April, 2019. It's all about helping you start or grow a mailing list of your own. The challenge is completely free.
There's a lot of training. There's nothing for sale. And there will be more than $5,000 worth of prizes for the winner. So all you need to do to sign up is go to sidehustleschool.com/challenge. And if you're listening to this later, well, maybe you can still check that page because perhaps there could be something up there.
Who knows? [Music]
So a few days ago, episode 817, I told you the story of Rin, Rin McMurdo, who originally set out to make and sell chocolate. It was some specific kind of chocolate. And she was actually doing pretty well with it. Like she actually had her chocolate in different stores.
She figured out the packaging. She figured out everything except the fact that she didn't actually like to make the chocolate. She liked having the chocolate made, which is kind of how I feel a lot of people are about books. A lot of people don't wanna write a book, but they like the idea of having written a book, which I do understand. But if you're gonna be an author, I think it's important to actually like the process of writing a book.
If you're gonna be a chocolatier, you should probably enjoy the process of baking. So anyway, she completely changes her business model. She's not afraid to walk away from something that's working and goes into tarot cards. Now it's not entirely unrelated because she discovered that, you know, while she was figuring out the packaging for her chocolate, she did these really fun illustrations. She built this whole brand that she essentially transitioned, you know, from one to the other.
But I like something that she said, a couple of things she said. One quote I did mention in the episode, I think at least, she said, "When it's a side hustle, "you can take more risks because it's on the side "and it's not your main source of income. "So take some time to really drill down "which marketing efforts are working for you "and lose the rest. "Don't be afraid to hit the delete button "on the ones that aren't supporting you." And that was in reference to her choosing to not only transition the whole business, but also to walk away from Instagram. Because she thought she was putting too much attention on it, it wasn't actually bringing her a lot of sales.
Now there's something else she said that I didn't mention in the episode that I liked, and I'm actually gonna use it as the title for this week's recap, Treat Your Business Like It's Alive. And it comes from this extended quote from her. She said, "A business is a concept that acts "very much like a garden or a living being, "and it's best to treat it that way. "The old adage, it's not personal, its business, "is outdated in this highly integrated world. "Treat your business like it's alive.
"It needs to be fed, inspired, loved, "and it needs contact with others "in order to grow properly. "It also needs to be watched for signs of trouble." I'm not entirely sure what she was referring to with some of that in terms of watching it for signs of trouble, but I completely get the concept. I totally understand. I think a sign of trouble is when you're just cruising along and things are going okay, but then all of a sudden something starts to dip, and there's a downward trend. There's always been an upward trend, but then it kind of plateaus, and then there's some kind of downward trend, or you're getting some feedback from people that you just kind of ignore.
Because everybody's got an opinion, and maybe that one customer wasn't satisfied, and that's true and normal, but if you start hearing the same thing over and over, that's kind of a warning sign, the sign of trouble. Or if just no one cares, people stop caring. Apathy can be worse than criticism or dislike. If nobody cares, then you've got a problem. So your business is essentially a living thing.
It's not really a living thing, but in the sense that it's constantly changing, and it's not just that it's changing, the environment is changing. Your competitors are changing. Your customers are changing. The way people interact online is changing. I've been doing online business for 20 years, and I've seen it change over and over.
It pretty much has like a, I don't know exactly what the life cycle is, but maybe 18 months or so, 18 months to 24 months when people are kind of using a certain paradigm or a dominant model, and it begins to shift, and it goes to something else, and it's all an evolution. You can trace back what's happening now to what was happening two years ago and two years before that, et cetera. And if you're smarter than me, maybe you can predict where it's going next, 18 months from now or whatever the timeframe is. But the point is, these things are not static. They are dynamic.
And as I said, they also interact with other variables. So just like Ren encouraged us, pay attention. What are you paying attention to? What matters? What's the number one metric you're trying to watch?
And what are your goals? What do you hope to do with this side hustle one month from now, six months from now, a year from now, and so on? I could say a lot more about that, but hopefully you get the point. You know, the business is alive. Treat it like it's alive.
All right, let's go to our audio update. Today's featured a blast from the past segment from someone we featured long ago. I believe this is going to be Nellie, and she is joining us from, well, hold on, and I'll let her tell you. Here's Nellie. [Music]
Hey, this is Nellie from Amsterdam in Holland, and my side hustle is Bundleboom, and it was featured on episode 216.
Since then, I've quit my day job, and I went all in with Bundleboom. I found my dream co-founder, and we're now sitting in a very cool office in the Red Light District with a team of eight employees. Since our episode aired, we've had some serious ups and downs. Everything from running out of cash to having a monthly growth rate of 32%. And during this time, we discovered the importance of having a well-structured cash flow statement as it could determine the future of your company.
My advice for everyone is don't quit your day job before you have a well-validated concept. Get to know your customers to the bone, and don't hire too many employees in a short period of time, especially if you don't need it. We're currently raising our first big funding round on an equity crowdfunding platform called Eureka. We will spend the investment on scaling the company, building and implementing a styling algorithm, and on supply chain. Thanks.
- Thank you so much, Nellie. I appreciate you calling in. For episode again was number 260, Dutch Personal Shopping Service for Kids Measures Up. For all of our European listeners, maybe you want to check it out for yourself or for someone you know. And I really appreciate her advice.
Don't quit your day job, great advice. I've mentioned that every day to somebody by email or some other fashion. And get to know your customers. It sounds like she is getting to know a lot of her customers as she's experiencing this just very rapid growth and things are going super well to the point where they're now looking at how to scale. So congratulations to Nellie.
And if you want to see what she's up to or follow along perhaps, just go to bundleboon.com. You can also check out the original show notes page, again, episode 260 to learn more. More of these to come. And of course I'd love to hear what you're up to as well. We've got a whole community of people out there starting projects, working on projects.
We have a membership community, Side Hustle Society. I should bring you some updates from them at some point. They're all doing some interesting things of their own. But wherever you are out there, I'd love to hear what you're up to. You can always write in from sidehustleschool.com or you can call it the Hustle Hotline 8449 Hustle.
That's 844-948-7853. [Music]
Coming up on the show soon, we've got something about multicultural paints. We've got something about Sasquatch Mustard. We've got something called Bee Blend. We've got the YouTube graphic designer.
And what is this here? Factory 43. Oh yes, I remember that. Artistic Duo sells 8,000 t-shirts in one year. That's gonna be the day after tomorrow.
If I'm not mistaken. And of course, many more episodes, many more stories, ideas, tips, all kinds of stuff coming up. And we are really excited to bring it to you. And when I say we, who am I talking about? Well, I am the host of the show.
I'm the voice that you hear, but there's actually a whole crew that makes this possible. I don't even list all of them every week. I just tell you the main team members, we've got other people working behind the scenes. But I do wanna say thank you today to producer Chuck Reed, content manager, Whitney Karinek, editorial review, James Johnson, community liaison, Jed Chang, Cat Herder, Tina Hart, working with me on the new 100 Side Hustles book comes out June 4th. We'd love to see you on tour somewhere.
It is now available for pre-order. And of course, the official show cat, Libby Gillipo, not featured in the book, but she does her part. This is a free listener supported show. If you're enjoying it, I'd be super grateful for your quick rating and review and Apple podcast. I would also be grateful for you telling your friends about it.
The community has grown because of people who spread the word and say, hey, there's this crazy show that every single day there's a different story and you hear all these different things that you never thought you could make money with. And the cool thing about it is they're not entrepreneurs necessarily, they're just regular people with jobs who have real responsibilities. They're not trying to raise millions of dollars in investment capital. They're just trying to create more security for themselves and they're doing it in lots of different ways. And of course, the whole point is to teach through storytelling so that you are listener and our other listeners can do the same thing or do whatever is best for you, pursue your own goal, create whatever security and freedom and confidence you're looking for yourself.
Oh, and before I sign off, of course I've got one more important thank you. That thank you is to you. Thank you so much for being part of this community. Thank you for listening to the show. Everything that we do is for you.
I do truly, truly hope it will be helpful and valuable in some way. As we move forward in season three, we're gonna continue our theme of leveling up. I also hope you'll join me again tomorrow and every day next week for more stories and ideas. Consider this a short daily investment in yourself. Episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern time every day.
My name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
