Serial Side Hustler Works from 180 Sq Ft Airstream

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

[Music]

Hello, what's up? Welcome, happy weekend to everyone, at least if you're listening on the weekend. You could be listening later, and that's totally fine as well, because everything we produce on the show, or just about everything, let's say 80%, at least, is designed to be completely evergreen, in the sense that you could listen to it at any time, even six months, a year or two years from now, and still learn something. That's our goal. Now, in real time, however, I'm off to New York City next week.

I'm excited to continue the second week of the 100 Side Hustles Tour. I had a great first few days in several different cities, and I'll be in several more cities again next week. So, lots of good stuff there, but let's talk about today's story, because that's why you're here. In today's story, a serial side hustler works from a 180 square foot Airstream trailer, building a blog, community, and business around personal finance. He doesn't start out with that as his goal, he's actually an engineer by training, but it's turning into something meaningful and profitable.

He's also got a bonus lesson that we'll throw in as well. It's a seven step guide to getting started in freelancing. That's something that helped him make a transition from a day job to the coaching and consulting business he's doing now. So, you'll hear about that in the episode, and I'll tell you about that bonus step-by-step guide at the end. All right, stay tuned.

It's all coming right up. [Music]

Nick True has had side hustles all his life. Throughout childhood, he sold homemade bread and candy bars out of his backpack. Later, he transitioned to teaching piano lessons and tutoring students for the ACT. When he went away to college, Nick took his love of the hustle with him.

He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and started working in the power industry, but he also started his first blog. It was called True Tightwad, a play on his last name, True, and a nod to another passion of his, personal finance and budgeting. While his friends growing up were dropping their allowance on video games and skateboards, Nick was focused on saving. Instead of pouring over graphic novels and comics, he devoured books on personal finance. So, when Nick realized he didn't actually love his new job as an engineer, he doubled down his efforts to save enough money so that he could eventually leave, and maybe even began an all-new career.

But although his goal was to share his knowledge with others, he knew deep down that teaching in the traditional sense wouldn't satisfy his desires either. You see, Nick and his wife Hannah had lofty travel goals that would make staying in one place difficult, and he didn't want to feel chained down by the constraints of teaching in a classroom. When Nick stumbled across the world of online entrepreneurship, he realized that maybe he could combine his passion for finance and teaching, all the while creating the freedom he most wanted. So, he started out writing posts about the day-to-day aspects of managing money, topics like building solid saving habits, planning for big expenses, and finding ways to simplify. While the focus was on personal finance, the tips he provided were more of a means to an end, that end being the freedom to live your own adventure.

In other words, money was a tool to experience all that life had to offer. To monetize the blog, he took advantage of affiliate marketing and display ads. Despite his best efforts, however, the blog income didn't amount to much the first two years, just pocket change, really. But what it did do was help generate finance-related freelance work, which was priceless in getting his foot in the door within the personal finance community. Freelancing was never his long-term goal, but it served as an ideal stepping stone.

It allowed him to build a business skill set, work with key players in the industry, and sustain an income that would support the early stages of his passion project. After transitioning from writing to making videos, and then roping in Hannah, a steady stream of subscribers brought in $300 to $400 in affiliate profits on a monthly basis. But more than the ad revenue, YouTube also generated a new income stream that Nick hadn't considered before, and that was coaching. Subscribers who followed the channel started requesting one-on-one assistance, making a budget that would fit their situation and lifestyle. While general advice was great, it wasn't always applicable to people with multiple jobs, anyone with a large family, anyone who gets paid on an odd schedule, owns real estate, or otherwise has some kind of unique arrangement.

So Nick and Hannah tapped into this market by offering coaching sessions that included a 90-minute one-on-one video call with screen sharing, a summary of the session, next steps that person should take, and unlimited questions via email. They set their rates at $225 a session and let their audience know they were available. By early 2019, mapped out money, they rebranded along the way, was bringing in $1,200 to $3,000 a month, split between YouTube ads, affiliate income, and one-on-one coaching clients. As Nick continued to do more coaching calls, he had the idea to create a group program. For the price of a one-hour individual coaching session, he offered a five-week beta group program for 10 people, bringing in an additional $1,500.

He modeled it after a college course with a live teaching session via Zoom on Monday, and then office hours where his students could ask questions on Tuesday. Being a personal finance guy, Nick tracks his business carefully in Microsoft Excel. He also follows a profit-first model that he learned from a book by Mike McAlowitz, where he immediately divides up any incoming revenue into specific accounts. 5% is set aside as profit to stay in the business, 20% is saved for taxes, 63% they pay themselves, and the remaining 12% goes toward the business expenses, as well as education from conferences and events. Since rebranding to mapped-out money, Nick was able to leave his day job, and he and Hannah had been living in an Airstream trailer, traveling around the U.S.

Staying true to their beliefs and values, their living space comes to a grand total of 180 square feet, and they travel with two cats and two dogs. They call themselves the True Zoo, another play on words from their last name. Over the next year, Nick hopes to build mapped-out money to a more sustainable level. While he enjoys working with several of his freelance clients, he'd like to give the side hustle to a place where freelancing work could be optional. RV life is fit with Nick and Hannah so well, they plan to continue on the road for many years to come.

The freedom to work remotely and control their own time will allow them to pursue other ambitions in the future, such as adopting kids, being able to visit their parents, exploring new places, and most of all, staying true to their values. [Music]

All right, so I mentioned that Nick has a step-by-step guide to freelancing, which he has graciously offered to share with our listeners. I'm gonna give you the first two steps here. As mentioned in the story, freelancing really helped him go from full-time job to what he's now trying to do in building the business. It was a really helpful bridge in that way.

Step number one is identify the names of people or companies that you'd like to work with as a freelancer. So brainstorm, think broad, create a huge list of 30 to 50 plus. Then step two, clarify the structure of your ideal day or week. The hours of the day, how much you wanna work, and your location all play into the type of freelance work you should pursue. Now, as I said, it's a seven-step guide to freelancing.

Those are the first two. Identify the names of people or companies you wanna work with, and then clarify the structure of your ideal day or week, which I think is so important. I'm glad he has that as step number two. The rest of the steps, three through seven, are available on the show notes page, completely free, of course, nothing for sale. I just don't wanna go through a list of seven things here on the program, but you can access that at sidehustleschool.com/889.

And Nick also mentioned that now he is tracking his time, which I thought was interesting. He says, "When you transition into being your own boss, "it's easy to let the time slip away from you. "I would think that I had all day to get something done, "and so I let it expand to all day. "These days, I track all of my minutes, "just like my financial budget, "and I make sure that I'm spending those minutes "in ways that are effective for the business. "I wish I would have done that for the past few years." So lots of good advice there, and also a good model to follow, especially that concept of transitioning from employment to freelance and then beyond.

Again, you can get all seven steps, as well as links to everything that Nick does, mapped out money, and so on, at sidehustleschool.com/889. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Thanks so much, my friends. I'll be back next week, a weekly recap coming up tomorrow, and much more on the way. My name is Chris Guillebeau, and this is "Sidasle School." [Music]

- From the Onward Project.