This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello friends, hello listeners, hello community. What's up? This is Chris Guillebeau with Side Hustle School. So excited to welcome you here to the weekly recap. We have just finished week number 23 of season three.
The days, the weeks roll by, but as Gretchen Rubin reminds me from time to time, the years are short. The days are long, but the years are short. That's something I think about from time to time as I look up and see the calendar and I'm like, where did the month go? Where did the first half of the year go? But of course there's so much happening from day to day in my life, in your life, in everyone's life.
And that's why it's so important to be focused on doing the right things. In the midst of all the busyness, the craziness, make sure you're doing something for yourself. Make sure you're building something that you can be proud of. You can look back on and say, with all the other stuff that was going on in my life, I was still able to do this, and that feels really good. That thought is gonna connect to a couple other things I wanna share with you here today.
But first, this week featured a juice bar owner who sells weighted blankets. He's actually earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Designer who leads guided sailing tours in the Mediterranean. And I actually wanna go and sign up for this, like I really am looking at it. And a personal finance blogger who works from a 180 square foot Airstream trailer.
And of course, much more. A different story every day. I have also been on the road. Week number one of the 100 Side Hustles book tour. I'm so excited to be able to share stories with a live audience once again.
I'll have more lessons and highlights from that as we go along. And also on my Instagram, 193 countries, 193 countries. Next week, I'll be in New York City, Boston, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon. I'd love to see you somewhere. If you're not signed up, you can do so at sidehustleschool.com/tour.
[Music]
All right, two big things today. Got an audio update from someone we featured in year one. She's got some really interesting lessons. $2,000 that year, like that year that we featured her on the show, she just made $2,000. And I don't wanna say she just made because that was building a foundation for what came later.
You'll hear the whole story in her update. Short version is she's now on track for half a million dollars with 50% margins. Also have some comments on that last part. Their profit margins have gone down as they've ramped up. I'll explain why that's actually quite common.
But first, let's talk about insecurity. You're like, whoa, where did that come from? Insecurity, not profit margins, not product launching, not Facebook ads, but yes, insecurity, vulnerability, and what is known as impostor syndrome. These are topics I actually hear about all the time. I get questions pretty much on a daily basis about something related to that.
And I came across a quote from one of our stories this week that I wanted to share with you. And in fact, let me just jump into the quote without giving it a whole lot more context. This is from Tom in episode 887. Environmental marketer creates eco-friendly energy bites. And this is what he had to say.
I didn't include it in the episode itself. I saved it for this recap because I thought it was so important. I wanted to highlight it. Tom said, without further ado, I wasn't always the most confident kid growing up. I struggled with deep insecurity and shyness.
I found ways to live with fake confidence, but it was just a mask. And it wasn't until I started a side hustle doing what I wanted to do and not what society chose for me when I learned who I really am and gained a comfortable, quiet and authentic confidence. So listen, and maybe even actually rewind that if you need to hear it again. Basically, it wasn't until he found his side hustle that he was able to kind of embrace his own identity, overcome these feelings of deep insecurity and shyness. So if you out there relate to that, if you don't care, that's fine.
Just stay tuned, we'll go along. But if you relate to that, know that you're not the only one, first of all. Second, know that it's okay to feel that way. It's actually pretty normal. I've felt that way many, many times myself.
And also learning to do something for yourself can help a lot. That's what made the change for Tom. And I know we talk a lot about making money on the program. There's nothing wrong with making money. I think it's fundamentally good as long as you're doing something legal, ethical, et cetera.
But really the whole point of all of this is empowerment and being able to feel better about yourself, being able to be proud of what you're doing, being better able to provide for your family, perhaps, or just being better able to make your own decisions. And so there's not a magic answer to this stuff, feeling like you're not good enough or feeling insecure or having imposter syndrome. I can't just say like, oh, don't do that, don't feel that way. I actually think it's okay to feel that way, to understand and be able to say, okay, this is going on. I understand and acknowledge that, but I'm not helpless.
I can do something about it. And like I said, I've experienced this a lot myself, certainly in the early part of my career, certainly in the early part of my adult life in lots of different ways, but I continue to in different ways now. So don't take it from me, take it from Tom, perhaps, who now runs this growing business of, I think it's like a quarter of a million dollars a year. And his product is now stocked at lots of different stores. And as awesome as that is, probably the best thing is just what he said, I'm living the life that I've wanted.
I've discovered who I really am. I've been able to embrace that comfortable, quiet and authentic confidence. So I feel like somebody out there needs to hear that today. If it's not you, no worries. But if it is you, let it take root in you.
Don't just forget about it. Take it with you throughout the day as you plan your next steps. All right, let's go on to the audio update. Got some good stuff in this one too. We're gonna talk about a big success and also about profit margins.
So let's hear from Linda. - Hi there. This is Linda, creator and owner of Three Hearts in Houston, Texas. We were featured inside Hustle episode 355. We are a specialized handmade company that makes teething products made out of BPA free food grade silicone for babies.
Since mid 2018, when we were featured, Three Hearts is scaled to support three regional agents across the country, including but not limited to LA Market, Dallas Market and Atlanta Market. As our previous episode mentioned, we made in 2016 when I was still in a partnership less than $2,000 that year. In 2017, with my full time attention, we gross close to $100,000 in 2018. We gross close to $200,000. And currently we are on schedule to be a half a million dollar business in 2019 with the goal of having over 500 stores worldwide.
In December, we moved our new offices and production facilities to a new location. Part of our growing pains is to see our margin strength slightly from 75 to 60% due to the needs to scaling the business and developing our line. We are still super proud with the amount of production and product we ship out on a daily basis that we'll be able to maintain better than 50% margins and hope that in time, our systems become more and more firm that we will be able to get back to that 75% mark. This success in the past year is definitely due to an amazing staff and also amazing agents that believe in our product and mission. This growth in our expansion definitely reconfirms that it was the best thing to not go back to the legal field and trust in my ability to grow this side hustle to a million dollar business.
Awesome, thank you so much, Linda. Really appreciate you sharing that detailed report. It's fantastic to hear how you've gone from whatever it was, $2,000 that first year. We talked with you on up to half a million dollars projected for this year. And onwards to your goal of having a million dollar business.
So fantastic. Just wanted to mention briefly about that drop in profit margins. You mentioned something about how it was a 75% profit margin when you started. Now it's a 60% margin. I may have said 50% at the top of the episode.
The point is that you've had a little bit of a drop there. So listeners, first of all, 60% profit margin is pretty great. There's a lot of businesses out there that'd be very, very happy with that. Some businesses have a 10% or 20% profit margin. But still, even looking at a drop, as you scale, as you grow, it's only natural that you're going to have less profit per customer or less profit per sale.
That's usually just made up by having a lot more sales or a lot more customers. So as long as Linda or whoever it is out there is comfortable, says, okay, this is my baseline goal. I want to have at least an X% profit margin. Anything more than that is great. I wouldn't be too worried by a drop because obviously the bottom line continues to improve and improve.
That bottom line figure is probably the most important thing to pay attention to. So again, it's really great to see Linda's business grow so much. If you want to check out what she's doing, just go to threeheartsapparel.com. Threeheartsapparel.com, and as she mentioned, she's also in a bunch of different stores, 300 stores, including Hawaii and Singapore, in fact. So I believe you can find a list of those stores on that same website, which we will link up in the show notes as well.
[Music]
So as always, lots of stuff in the mix. I know that you're busy, too. I know you've got tons of stuff going on. It's my goal to continue to bring you different stories, little tidbits, tips, action points, strategies, perhaps, something to kind of get you going. And before we close out the week, I just want to say thank you to everybody who makes this possible.
And I'll try to be brief because I respect your time, but it takes a village. There's a whole bunch of folks out there, including, first of all, you, the listener. That's right, thank you so much. I said in the first episode, 889 days ago, that if you make the commitment to make this part of your routine, I commit to supporting you fully in your quest to create that new source of income, to gain that confidence, perhaps, if you struggle with insecurity, like what Tom talked about, or for whatever your goal is, your goal of creating more freedom and independence in your life, however that looks, even if you love your job, even if you're really busy, my goal is to help you make that happen as much as possible. Now, I'm not the only one working on this show.
I want to say thanks to producer Chuck Reed, also from Cadence 13, our backend network/business partner. Thanks to Nick Freeman, Sage Milgram, and Pam Kramer. Our content manager is Whitney Karunik, long-standing content manager. Thank you so much, Whitney, 889 episodes and counting. Community liaison, Jed Chang, Cat Herder, Tina Hart, and the official show cat, who's sadly not on tour with me, although it's probably good, since I don't sleep much anyway.
And when Libby's around, I sleep even less. But still, thanks a lot to the show cat, Libby Guillipo. We here at Team Sodasil School are part of the Onward Project. What's that about? Well, that is led by Gretchen Rubin.
I think I mentioned her at the top of the episode as well. Check out her mega popular show, "Happy Year with Gretchen Rubin," as well as "Happy Year in Hollywood," and the new program from Melissa Urban, "Do the Thing." I actually did an interview with Melissa this past week, so if you have come over from that program, well, welcome, awesome. And if you have not checked out Melissa's program, go and check it out, "Do the Thing." It's available in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Speaking of that, just a quick little ask here. It'd be so grateful if you would leave a quick little rating and review an Apple Podcast.
It just takes a second, super awesome. Also, if you have the new book, the "100 Side Hustles" book, I am super, super grateful and appreciative of anyone who takes the time to go and leave an Amazon review. That also just takes a minute or two, but I know your time is valuable. I don't take it for granted, but when you leave those Amazon reviews, it actually helps with discoverability. It helps other people see it and realize like, "Oh, there's actually something.
This is actually really interesting. I could get some value out of it." So if you have a moment to do that this week, I would be much appreciative. But most importantly, I hope you do something, as I said, for yourself. Inspiration is good, but action is even better. I wanna hear your stories.
I wanna hear how you're overcoming challenges, dealing with obstacles, the inevitable obstacles that come up, but you're finding your way through to the other side to make that project, to make progress on that project, to start that service or product, affiliate commission, whatever it is that you're trying to do. I hope that you will take that next step. I also hope you'll join me tomorrow and every day next week, more is coming up. Consider this a short daily investment in yourself. Our episodes go online at 6.01 a.m. Eastern time every day.
My name is Chris Guillebeau, and this is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
