A Chicago-based architect makes access to classical literature easier for readers, raising $50,000 on Kickstarter along the way.Side Hustle School features a new story EVERY DAY of someone who started a hustle without quitting their job. You’ll learn how they got the idea, how they overcame challenges along the way, and what the results are. Share: #SideHustleSchoolShow notes: SideHustleSchool.comTwitter: @chrisguillebeauInstagram: @193countries
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
This episode is brought. You buy brace,
If you ve ever felt compelled to design by a message from Canada,
had your spirits lifted, whether reward from wind outcome or
governor sounds from a sound cloud alert than you
sperience the power of brays.
leaning brands use praise to engage with over three point. Three billion active global users each month
marketing and start connecting with brace learn more
at Braised outcome that
be our Aisy tee thou com.
Recitals side, school friends, listeners and community welcome back when he mistress,
How about? I am your host got a great story for you today. That is all about reading, what's also about making money, because this is out of school. But specifically, the project involves encouraging people to read classical literature and by way of framing the story, I might ask, do you spent
it's time on your phone, I mean who would do such a thing in this day and age. I can't think of any body, except maybe half the population sometimes including me,
there is nothing wrong with technology, among other things that enables us to have these conversations every day. It enables many of the stories. I tell you every day to exist in the first place, but I also love to read: maybe you do too and even I sometimes read ebooks overall, I still prefer a print bucks, but this brings us to today story it's about a Chicago based architect who makes access to classical literature easier for readers
raising fifty thousand dollars on Kickstarter along the way things are changing the world of commuting, at least for a lot of people, one pocket sized book at a time. I bring you the whole story after saying, thank you to today sponsor
support. Recital school comes from three m from helping
I've vaccine and in therapy development with advanced.
Vacation technologies to
being an edge event that helps boost vaccine effectiveness. The research scientists at three m are delivering innovative healthcare solutions to Hell
today and prepare
Tibet or tackle. What's next learned,
three m dotcom, slash, improving lives,
three m science applied to life as a professional architect, Slash journalist, David Dwayne has always believed in the unique power of the written word as a lifelong fan of books and the ideas that come from their pages is no surprise that his passion for literature became his side. Us all David spend his work days, thinking about how to build ideas and bring them to live
design like many good ideas at the inspiration for his side, hustle came out of nowhere or, more specifically, it came out. He was riding the bus is snowy, slow bus commute in south side Chicago with the one place he could zone out during the day, at least for a few minutes. It was and still is, a route he takes at least five days a week and one particular trip was not unlike the rest of them
supper. One thing David looked around and notice that every single person on the bus was looking down at their phone every one that is except him. He was holding a pocket sized book in his hand with daguerre corners and more not pages from reading. Just then he got a text from a friend and took his phone out of his pocket. He noticed that the phone and book were pretty much the same size, their above easy to travel with and further
they both held worlds a possibility. The more David thought about it, the more he realized that just about everybody holding a fund was reading something, while some of them
had been playing angry birds but lotta Maria it there
already reading, while commuting or waiting in line at the grocery store or working out on the elliptical trainer at the gym. It wouldn't be hard to read something else. If it were within easy reach, you look around the bus again. Everyone still had their eyes glued to their phone. What if they had a real book in their pocket? He thought something that gave him a
and more gauging experience the just going through Instagram David wondered if they might be more likely to pick up that, but instead of their phone only some of the time. The idea to revolutionize classical literature and put a book in those commuters hands. Didn't he
overnight. First, there was an eight hour, workday, standing and David's way, but didn't pushed the idea side. The fire had been lit, and so, during his lunch break, David pulled a short story from the internet. Not take note, he didn't pull just any short story, because most recent books and stories are under copyright. The actually belong to the person who wrote them, but a lot of books that are much older, especially those published before night,
Twenty three are in the public domain, but basically means that anyone can use them. However, they, like even printing their own version of them for sale. So he took that story pasted into his Adobe software, made a few formatting changes and hit.
And he called his idea mouse books and he now had a prototype David hustled quickly. The pocket sized book went from idea to prototype to kickstarter success in less than a month
He first printed a limited run, a hundred copies for his friends at Christmas. Then he thought about how I could get the mouse books in the hands of other people. That's where crowd funding and specifically Kickstarter came it.
David took the lead and launched a campaign. It became a huge success raising over fifty
thousand dollars for more than a thousand backers. He took twenty
large, that money to print and ship the first run a mouse books. They invested the rest of the money to help prepare for the next instalment. He built a website hired a book designer and brought an editor on board to help create the books election. For some reason he couldn't keep using it
when are at work to publish thousands of books. So we also use some of that money to put a deposit down and help secure and ongoing relationship with a local Chicago base. Printer that campaign success was a huge turning point because it showed,
People wanted easy access to quality literature. They would spend time reading books if they had them in choosing his elections. He make sure that
aspect, doesn't take longer than ninety minutes. To read. That means that even the busiest people can find time to reach Jane Austen, Walt Whitman or France Kafka and bring it out
well we're in prose and big ideas into their day that fifty thousand are kickstarter campaign and then a follow up.
And they brought in twelve thousand dollars, have produced most of the revenue from aspects so far, but the nature of a crap on a campaign means that you can't do this all the time, unfortunately
aside from those David is now bringing in about two thousand dollars a month from websites sales and because of his big success on Kickstarter mouse books with one of the first projects invited to join the company's drip programme. I never heard this before myself, but the drip programme for Kickstarter allows backers to support creators through recurring monthly donations, not just one off pledges. Davis
It's like the love child, Kickstarter and patriotic. This brings in another five dollars a month for average monthly income of twenty five hundred dollars. The plans for a mouse books don't just end up with more books on campaign back or shut
He plans on adding an online but club. Some members can come together to explore the ideas they brought about. He also hopes to scale up production in order to expand into retail stores. Its ultimate goal is to continue publishing them aspects to be a gateway into more classical literature for rears, especially when a book can go wherever the reader does. Whatever happens next for mouse books is sure to be a real page turner. So what we take away from David Story is success with mouse books. I think it's a great project is obviously had on something that has resonated very well, and I recently gave a talked.
a roomful of small business owners and entrepreneurs, and I chose to focus much of that talk on the topic of emotional needs, because when you are making in marketing something even if it's something really practical, really basic, you not selling coaching or something that has this direct emotional connection,
I should think that, no matter what you're saying there is some emotional neither connect to it, not just the desire for whenever the product or service is when people make purchasing decisions just about every decision, maybe not for a commodity, but just about everything else. There is some emotional investment there, so people have all sorts of emotional needs from affirmation to validation to security.
feeling like your life, is worth something filling their contributing to something belonging, having a sense of being part of something bigger than themselves. There's a whole lesson ass. You think about your site. I saw you should really ask yourself like how is it going to connect with people on a deeper level, then just whatever the product happens to be so in this case, what is the emotional neither David pinpointed in pursuing this project and in particular by choosing the crop honey model to starting
I think it somewhat. A combination of nostalgia and rebellion stouter comes in the form of reading those print box and perhaps from an earlier time in which he would always carry a buck around with you, and now people just carry their phone around. This isn't a message of location.
throw your phone. I certainly not believe that a minute how a lot of us are connecting right now, but the rebellion does come in. I think, when phones in other technology kind of take over our life and become the default, and we stop investing our time in reading books or creating art so by connecting those emotional needs from what seems to be a large group of people with the product he's making these public domain bucks, which he has free access to download and format and set up in print himself. That's whites works well, especially platform like Kickstarter, which has explained before it is great to debut this kind of project. It's not great for everything, but for something like this it's ideal, so I ll leave you with that today. Think about emotional needs,
think about how your practical product or service can be someone's emotional needs and, of course, along the way that project is gonna meet some of your needs to its not only about helping others. It's also about helping yourself and building something for your own future. I believe you can do both of those things, but when I try to talk about every day, one way or another, so remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better.
if you wanna check out mouse books or learn more about public domain works or anything else I mentioned in this episode just come to satisfy school dotcom, slash, four zero, eight there's our show notes. You can also pick up a free five steps to hustle course for, of course, you could tell your friends about the shell only if you like it, of course thank you so much listing today, I'll be back tomorrow. I'm critical about precisely school.
Transcript generated on 2021-10-12.