This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Welcome back. This is Side Hustle School. I'm your host, Chris Guillebeau. Here we are in episode number seven and our first weekly recap. So every day on the show, there's a new episode.
And once a week, every Sunday, I'll post a recap featuring highlights from some of this week's episodes. I'll also be answering listener questions and sharing some bonus tips. So even if you've been listening to every episode, you may want to catch this quick recap as well. And since this is the very first weekly recap, I want to go back to where we started on episode number one. And in that episode, I talked about the whole purpose for the show. And I mentioned
my ideal listener. So if you're out there and you are my ideal listener, you are, first of all, very busy. You have a lot of stuff going on. You work at least one job, maybe more than one job. Maybe you have a family, relationship, some kind of hobby, commitment, service work, all kinds of stuff that takes a lot of time. So you don't have a lot of time to spare,
but you also want to invest in yourself. Like you believe in this process, you know that a side hustle will be good for you. So you're willing to put in some amount of time, but you also need some guidance because your time is limited. So you're willing to do something, but you need some help along the way. And if that's you, I don't think you're being served very well.
I don't think there's a lot of existing resources out there for you. There's a lot of stuff that's telling you to quit your job and be an entrepreneur. And I don't actually think everyone should be an entrepreneur. I don't think everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, but I do believe very, very much that everyone should have more than one source of income, which is exactly what a side hustle can help you do without a lot of risk, without a lot of uncertainty. It's something that you create to earn money apart from your day job. It's about creating more freedom for yourself. And whether
you hate your job and you're trying to make a change or you love your job and you have no plans to leave, everybody should have a side hustle. And so that's what the show is all about. And after that introductory episode, where I talked about the vision for the show, we went straight into the stories from episodes number two through six. And that very first story was about a British man who earns $700 a month writing fish tank reviews. Now, you're going to hear a lot of quirky stories like this. And on the surface, they may sound kind of strange, but if you look a bit closer, you realize
it actually makes a lot of sense. In this story in particular, number one, do people buy fish tanks? Well, sure. Number two, are you going to buy something expensive without checking for reviews? Well, of course not. You're always going to go and look for reviews if you're buying something
that costs a fair amount of money. And then lastly, is the fish tank review business a highly competitive market? Probably not. That's why this was a really good hustle idea. I want to emphasize that a side hustle is not necessarily meant to always be easy. I use the words easy and simple
sometimes, I realize, but it's meant to be worth it. It's meant to be valuable for you. And in this case, Max, the British guy, he was successful because he chose a topic that was fairly obscure, but also had a dedicated audience. And then lastly, he was passionate about the topic. He wasn't just coming to this with no sort of knowledge, awareness, or background. And that
passion shone through the reviews that he wrote. And that's what's allowed him to years later have $700 a month on average coming from his good friends at amazon.com without him doing anything for it at all. Now the next episode story episode three about the candy heart hustle, it contrasts a bit with the previous one, because this one went on to become a six figure seasonal business. This was the candy heart hustle that turned into the six figure second income. And I want to make sure you know that even though it's pretty cool to make $700 a month, it's also possible for a side hustle to grow into a very substantial sustainable income, which is exactly what we saw in this story.
And what I noticed as I shared this story with people, the thing that people found most interesting was it wasn't just that it made a lot of money. It was that in this story, Sarah chose to remain in her current job. And she chose to keep that job, even though this hustle was doing really, really well. And it also affected her relationship with her employer in a very positive way. So she talked about how her employer actually values her more, because her employer knows that she's going to work because she wants to be there. You know, she doesn't have to be there, but she's motivated,
she likes working with the team, she believes in the company's goals. And now her employer actually respects her more, you know, because she has the ability to leave if that was better for her. So what a great situation to be in. And you'll hear some more stories like that. As we go along, sometimes a hustle really can grow into something quite substantial. And episode four was
the story of Gabby in Pennsylvania, who mastered the art of curating photos on Pinterest, and eventually building a following of more than 1 million people, despite the fact that she's not a celebrity of any kind. And she doesn't have that kind of following on any other network. Instead, she started early. And she noticed what worked. She noticed how people kind of responded and engaged to different pins on that social network. Pinterest is a very female dominated market. And
there's also a clear aesthetic of what kinds of images tend to work best. So Gabby paid attention, she noticed that, and she followed up on that. And now the campaigns that she does bring in at least $1,000 a month on average, she does this, you know, even though she has a full time job, even though she's also a yoga teacher, has a family does a bunch of other stuff. As I said, I don't know how she does it all. But this particular hustle is really great because now that it's set up again, she doesn't have to spend a ton of time on it. And the episode after that
episode five was about how one man used $100 microphone to make more than $8,000. This is a fun story that referenced a platform called Fiverr. And Fiverr is spelled F-I-V-E-R-R.com. Fiverr, I guess. And Parker, the guy in that story, he was smart about how he used that platform to go from making minimum wage, which is not that hard to do on that platform, to getting paid several hundred dollars at a time for his projects, much more than minimum wage. And, you know, we'll
come back to this as well as we go throughout the series. Because if you want to kind of play entrepreneurially, if you want to dip your toe in the side hustle world, sites like Fiverr or like Etsy that we talked about briefly, or Creative Market that you'll hear about later, and several others, they're not bad at all. I'll be featuring more of these sites. But the goal is to go from kind of entry-level hustling to next-level hustling, where you're not just making minimum wage, you're not just kind of trading time for money, but you are actually creating value and creating an asset for yourself. And that really is the key to building a sustainable side hustle. Yesterday's story compared owning a restaurant to making your own calendar. It's
about a single mom who makes $15,000 from an astrology calendar. So obviously, there's some real benefits to owning a restaurant, but there are also some very real negatives and lots of stressors. So Julie, who's featured in that story, is pretty happy in the transition that she's made. And this project came about from another common theme that I introduced this week, and we'll see over and over throughout the year. She wasn't satisfied with the existing astrology calendars on the market. So she thought, "Hey, maybe I can do better. Maybe I can make something that's not
just better for myself, but other people will also value it." So as you listen to each episode, as you kind of go on throughout your day, pay attention and ask yourself, "Hey, what is missing from something that I enjoy or something that I use all the time?" Or, "I have this hobby and something is not right about it, or it could be done better. What am I dissatisfied with?" This is the key to unlocking lots of different hustles. It's not about going back to school. It's not about going out and mastering some all new skill. It's the fact that you already have skills, and we're going to find a way to transition those skills or transform those skills into something that can make money apart from your job. Again, that's what a side hustle is all about.
So it's been really fun for me to start this week. I hope that you have enjoyed it as well. We have a big week two coming up with another story every single day. This week has some really fun ones. There's a cruise vacation, a couple that goes on a vacation on a cruise, and they come home and they actually start a $3,000 a month side hustle writing about that vacation and answering questions. There is a specialized cookbook that accidentally brings in $1,000 on the first day,
a San Francisco commuter who gets frustrated with the lack of traffic information, and he makes an app for it that is still going strong six years later, making a very substantial amount of money, and even something about saddles for pet chickens. Saddles for pet chickens? Yep, that's right. Stay tuned. As I said, quirky topics that actually turn into successful hustles. So I'm really excited
about where we're going. If you're subscribed, the episodes will come straight to your phone, tablet, or computer. That's the easiest way to make sure you don't miss an episode. You can do that straight on iTunes, very easy. And also, I haven't asked this before, but if you're enjoying the show, you like the direction that we're going in, we'd be very grateful if you would leave a quick rating in iTunes. It just takes a second. And if you want to go above and beyond and being awesome,
you can also write a quick review for me, and that will help other people discover the show. You can also say hi at sidehustleschool.com. If you have a question, comment, feedback for me, I'd love to hear from you. And I want you to set a goal for yourself. Lastly, and most important, the goal is to use these lessons as positive reinforcement for your own hustle. In every
single episode, I mentioned how inspiration is good, but action is even better. I really want you to take action. I want to feature your story on the show before the end of the year. So I look forward to doing that. And I will see you tomorrow and every day this week with more fun stories and ideas. Episodes are uploaded at 601 AM Eastern time. I'm Chris Guillebeau. This
is Side Hustle School.
