This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Side Hustle School listeners, welcome back. My name is Chris Guillebeau. We have just finished week number 13. Wow, and I wanna say hi to a lot of new listeners. Definitely had a lot of new folks coming into the show and that is because of you.
There is no big marketing campaign behind Side Hustle School. I'm too busy recording episodes to do that. So whatever growth we have is because people are telling their friends and that makes all the difference in the world. So if you're new, this show is not about jumping off a cliff, taking a huge risk, quitting your job. It's not about being a quote unquote entrepreneur.
It's about helping you create more freedom in the life you already have. So this show is for busy people, most of whom have regular jobs, but want to start a Side Hustle, an income generating project and they're very limited free time. So that's what I focus the entire show around. It's about economic empowerment, helping you build security, a backup plan, and of course, extra income. So every day there are true stories on the show of someone who does exactly that.
And I want you to think about something today. Yesterday we had the April Fool's Day episode, which was not a joke at all. It was actually a true story, as I promised. I was looking at my notes for that story and I wanted to highlight something. At a certain point in this process, where this guy is kind of building a little woodworks hustle, he has to make a decision to take on a $15,000 debt to buy a laser engraving machine.
Now, I just said that Side Hustle School is not about jumping off a cliff. Most of the stories you hear don't require much financial investment at all. But in this case, he was already seeing some initial success. So it was just a choice of whether to invest further. And he thought it would be a good idea, but he wasn't certain.
So there's something he said that I want you to listen to. He said, "Instead of letting fear stop me, "I asked myself and my wife, "what's the worst thing that could happen? "I realized that even if I failed, "I wouldn't lose my house, "I wouldn't put my family on the street. "So instead of always wondering what if, "I decided to go for it." Well, listen, that is a great question to think about. When you're thinking about whether to pursue an idea, ask yourself, what's the worst thing that can happen if it doesn't work out?
Most of the time, the answer isn't something terrible. So I want you to go away with confidence today. Let's jump into some listener questions and a couple of observations from last week. - Hi Chris, this is Natalie from San Francisco. I'm a big fan of the show and it's inspired me to start my own side hustle.
I've been working on it for about four months now and I'm ready to take it live and start promoting it to the world. My question is, now that my site is up and running, what is the best way to go about increasing traffic and spreading the word about my site? I'm currently experimenting with boosting posts on my Facebook page, but I'm not sure if this is the best strategy. I'm also reaching out to other thought leaders in this field, some of whom I know personally who have large networks and may be able to help me spread the word. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
- Thanks so much. - Natalie, awesome question. Thank you for listening and congratulations on your new side hustle. This is something that a lot of people have been asking. So once a month on the show, I have this extended cut episode that goes a bit deeper into a specific topic.
I have at least one, if not two of those episodes focused entirely on marketing coming up because there's definitely a lot we could say about it. Just in short though, I think your second approach might be more fruitful than the first. So you mentioned boosting Facebook posts and trying to connect with thought leaders and other people in your space. I know from time to time, I tell you guys a story about someone who makes $100,000 using Facebook ads. I mean, those stories are awesome.
They're all true, of course, but I would say it's far, far more common for people to have success through referral, through word of mouth, through connecting with people more naturally. And that's pretty much how I've always done it as well. Whether it's through my blog, my books, other products I've made now with the show, I try to focus on making something that's quality, that's legitimately helpful, and then on doing more things to encourage sharing, reaching out to people as you suggest, offering to help them, but also asking them if they think it's valuable, would they consider sharing it? That's totally a normal request. To go back to our question at the beginning, what's the worst thing that can happen?
Well, they'll say no. You say no problem, thanks for considering. So as I said, we could talk about it a lot more, but in general, Facebook is very good at asking for your money and taking your money. And so if you are just getting started, it might be better to focus much more on the product and the service itself, and then on connecting with people more organically. Good luck.
- Hey, Chris, this is RJ from Monroe, Connecticut. Thanks for all you do. I've been getting a lot of great nuggets from the show. I have a side hustle where I now want to start to create an app. What's the best way to work with a developer if you're on a budget?
I've considered a few different options, but I'm a little bit overwhelmed, thanks. - Hey, RJ, thank you so much for listening. So first things first, when people come and say, oh, I want to make an app, my first question is, are you sure? And this is not to discourage them or you or anyone, but if you are not a developer and have a lot of technical skills, making an app is not the easiest thing to do, and to do it well does usually require some significant investment. So it's kind of like if all ideas are equal, you're trying to decide between making an app and doing something else, maybe look at the other stuff first.
But if your idea specifically is like, no, I have to make an app because here's why it's the best way forward for me, then don't let me stand in your way. Couple of things you can do, assuming you don't have a best friend who's a developer, there are several different platforms you can go to to search for developers for hire. I will link all of them up on the show notes for today, but two of the most common are odesc.com and freelancer.com, which used to be called Renocoder. Now you can go to these sites and people will bid for your project. You can also search directly, find all kinds of different people, often working in countries where it might be a lot cheaper than hiring someone where you live.
Now that's the good news. The downside of doing this is there can be kind of a quality control issue, especially with something like making an app, because when you make an app, it's not just about making it, it's about supporting it and maintaining it. Even if you're very happy with how your app turns out, then it goes online in the iTunes store or for Android, but what do you do when it breaks the next week or a major update is needed? You really need to be able to make a plan for the longterm, not just the development and the launch. And it's probably for that reason alone why I've never made an app, because I know I wouldn't be good at it.
So if you're hard to set on it, absolutely pursue it, check out those sites. TopTol is another one, toptal.com. It focuses on higher end or higher end talent, which is great, but obviously it's gonna come at a higher price as well. [Music]
So when we look back on the week, I just wanna highlight a couple of things. Definitely encourage you to listen to each episode.
They're all really short. And I wanna talk briefly about the most popular episode of the week, which was about the college student who earns $20,000 a month cleaning houses. He doesn't actually clean houses himself. He started an agency that facilitates the house cleaning, but still $20,000 a month as a college student and then a recent graduate. Isn't it interesting that a boring industry can be challenged like that?
And if you've been listening to the show, you know there are lots of fun, quirky stories too. Now I love to tell those stories about writing a blog for hockey goaltenders or making your own candles or whatever, but you can also do something that solves a pretty basic problem for people, just like Christopher Schwab, the guy in the story did. And also by the way, it's not too late. If a college student can come into the cleaning business, which probably had a hundred or more different services in the Washington DC area and create this kind of success, well, there's something out there for you too. So it's not too late.
There was another story this week about a guy named Pete Abilla who created a directory of tutors and more than 100,000 tutors have created profiles or otherwise signed up on the site. Now here he's solving a pretty basic problem as well, just like Christopher. The problem that Pete is solving is the problem of overwhelm. When you're a parent and you go to look for a tutor for your child, or maybe if you're a teenager or a college student going to look for yourself, it wasn't that there was no information out there, there was too much information. So Pete's directory was all about introducing simplicity and reducing what felt like unlimited choice.
So there's all kinds of problems out there waiting to be solved. Think about that, focus on that as you plan your own hustle. Coming up next week, another set of great stories, including an Instagram project that makes $9,000 from someone who had never had an account on Instagram before she started this hustle. There's also a clothing store salesman who ends up creating a product that brings in six figures a year. And my favorite social good story that we've had since starting the show, this is all about someone who's doing good and doing well for themselves.
It will be episode 94, and I'm very much looking forward to sharing it with you. Now, before we close things out, I am not the only one working on Side Hustle School. Every week in the recap, 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 transported across the airwaves to Brooklyn, New York for production at the Panoply Studios.
My fabulous production team is Jason de Leon, A.C. Valdez, and Laura Mayer. Back in Portland, I'm assisted by Whitney Karinek, who works far too hard, keep trying to give her a day off. Thank you so much, Whitney. Shawna Noah is our tour manager for the Side Hustle School workshops.
Jolie Gilibow is the voice of reason and fixer. My cat, Liberia Gilibow, is in charge of listener complaints. The show, Side Hustle School, is part of the onward imprint founded by Gretchen Rubin. I also wanna say, check out Radical Candor, another show on the imprint. It's all about how to not hate the boss you have and not be the boss you hate.
You can subscribe for free on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Last but definitely not least, in fact, most important of all, I wanna thank you, the listener. This is a free listener supported show. I like to say that I get paid in nice emails and reviews. So if you're enjoying it, let me know.
You can always say hi at chris@sidehustleschool.com and please take a quick moment to leave a rating or review on iTunes as well. That really helps a ton in terms of discoverability for other listeners. You are the reason I make this show. If you're subscribed, the episodes will come straight to your phone, tablet, or computer. In every episode, I mention that inspiration is good, but action is even better.
I want you to take action. I wanna feature your story on the show. I want you to have a success like the ones you hear about every day. So I look forward to that and I will see you tomorrow and every day next week with more fun stories and actionable ideas. Episodes go online at 601 a.m. eastern time every single day.
You are awesome. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
