So I have seemingly been into hustling and entrepreneurship going back to the mid 1980’s.
I did the classic lemonade stand, having worked with my father to build one with some old plywood and sky blue paint that was leftover from painting my room one summer. The lemonade did not sell. Not a ton of traffic. So we began to offer rice krispie squares, and other baked goods that summer. Those sold really well actually.
I later found myself blocked from being able to buy a bow and arrow by my parents. I was 9 or 10, looking back it probably made sense, but I’m a stubborn guy…. So I set off to raise some cash by selling candy and gum to kids at school in fifth grade and in the neighborhood after negotiating some discounts at a local convenience store known as Bullis’ in East Barre. After a few months, I managed to raise the necessary cash to buy the bow and arrow.
Fast forward a couple more years, and I found myself reselling Nintendo NES and Sega Genesis cartridges that you could not get at our local Kay Bee toystore. I lived in Barre, VT then, and it was not the bustling metropolis to have the most sought after games. However, I had the hookup by securing a mail order game resell and game rental connection somehow, as I do not remember exactly how I managed to find these guys.
Keep in mind, this was all pre-Internet and way, way, pre-eBay. Soo, I would take orders from classmates and generally get the games at $5-$10 off of retail if Kay Bee actually could get the game, and many times they did not. Also, many times the guys that worked at Kay Bee would cherry pick the best games before they ever were put out in stock on the shelves. So by hooking up my friends at school, they were getting the games they really wanted at a slight premium, and I was making a decent amount of cash each time I helped them out. I also setup a resell/used games syndicate for those that wanted to flush their old games – I’d make a dollar or tow on the backend of this as well.
Right around this time of 7th and 8th grade – I began to read Fortune magazine for a variety of reasons. I had dreams of becoming a true businessman, a guy that would wear suits each day to work, and I would own my own business. So naturally, I gravitated towards the stories of franchises, of family run businesses, and of various ways to launch a business. Now while the articles were many times informative, many times I found myself flipping through the classifieds at the tail end of the magazine.
It was somewhere in the end of the magazine that I discovered yet another income stream. I began to sell stickers. Not just any stickers, but ‘security system stickers’ that made it look like a home or piece of property were being monitored. I still remember the sticker colors – it was a pea soup green with some gross yellow offset of a sticker design. I remember running numbers thinking if I could get 1% of the stated circulation to order my stickers, I’d be raking it in! I had been able to purchase these stickers for something like $4 per package of 5 stickers, and I was going to sell them for $10 for a package of 5 stickers – more than doubling my money! I ran the numbers to place the ‘tiny little classified ad’ ( there was some informercial guy back then that stressed the tiny classified ads thing) – and I figured I could get 1% conversions and I’d be set!
Now I do not remember how much the two line classified add cost me , but it was not much. I believe I got my money back after the third month. I placed the ad to run for a total of six months, and I recouped my advertising budget by the end of the third month – now it was going to be pure profit. That gravy train was looking incredible for a young kid dreaming big from my blue bedroom in East Barre.
Well, I never ran that advertisement again. I got some more orders even after the ad stopped running. I probably made $100 from this sticker side hustle, which back in 1988 was a decent amount of cash for a kid my age. I spent much of it on video games and comic books – both of which were passions and side hustles as well.
So what the hell is the point with all of this memory lane skipalong sing song?
Well, I had a guy continue to order those stickers for another 4 years, every couple of months – he would mail me a check asking for another batch of stickers. He was from out of state, and rarely wrote a letter or note. I had his address, and his money – I would just mail him the stickers based upon the check he sent in. This went on for another 4 years or so every couple of months. Truly bizarre. Eventually, I did get a letter from the guy stating that he would no longer be ordering any more stickers as he was liquidating his rental properties and property management business. He went on to say how much he appreciated the stickers and that his tenants also really enjoyed the apparent safety that they afforded him.
I was shocked. I really had no appreciation why this random guy continued to persist in giving me his money for something I had no interest in selling him any longer. Yet, he kept coming back in spite of me not really wanting to do the sticker business anymore. The fact that he cared enough to write a brief note outlining how he found them valuable was not something I had anticipated.
In many ways, this 84 days of blogging is similar. I am writing for myself – absolutely, yes! I am doing this journey for a variety of reasons. I am not doing it for the results I anticipate today nor the reactions from you that I’ll get tomorrow. No none of these immediate reactions and feedback are truly why I’m doing this.
I am doing this writing as I believe many of these articles will not only become part of my legacy, online and otherwise, and they will continue to receive circulation over the upcoming years. I was just listening to a Tim Ferris podcast while on the elliptical the other night, and he was regaling the attention he’s getting on Amazon for the 4 hour work week. He wrote the damn book over 11 years ago. Talk about a slow burn, and it is very likely hotter as a book today than it was any preceding year.
This is where a bunch of these posts are headed, as I believe more and more of you will share the content from this blog and some of my other soon to be shared online projects. As this happens, the prior content – including this 84 days of bloody knuckles series will be picked up by the broader online world as something worthwhile. Certainly not every article, and hey perhaps it will be just a handful of the 84 posts that end up getting noticed.
Regardless of the volume of notoriety – I am ready to wait on having the content uncovered and valued as some of you have already shared with me.
This online project is a ‘long game’ that I will continue to build upon over time. I am very interested in your feedback on this approach.
I absolutely love reading your blog…. as you know, I have 100% recreated my entire life in the past year and the journey has been the best part. Don’t get me a wrong, I have a very clear vision of the future and where I want to be, but it all revolves around happiness and freedom to be ME and pursue my passions in life. I love that you are doing the same thing…. proud of you!