$1K/Day Profit by Sending Letters⏐Ep. #274

Chris Koerner (0:00)

As of right now, how many customers did you say you have?

Hannah Gustafson (0:02)

4,100.

Chris Koerner (0:03)

Oh my gosh. Almost $50,000 a month recurring. Yeah.

Hannah Gustafson (0:08)

About-

Chris Koerner (0:08)

Oh my goodness.

Hannah Gustafson (0:09)

It's the most rewarding thing. It's absolutely crazy.

Chris Koerner (0:12)

In less than six months, you're making tens of thousands of dollars a month in profit.

Hannah Gustafson (0:16)

Yeah.

Chris Koerner (0:16)

Doing something that you love. What could be better than that in life?

Hannah Gustafson (0:18)

What could be better, seriously?

Chris Koerner (0:20)

Yes, business is hard. I'm not gonna tell you it's easy.

Hannah Gustafson (0:22)

Yeah.

Chris Koerner (0:22)

It's a grind, but it is worth it, and it's absolutely doable. Even if you end up hating it and you go back to your job, fine. But just learn for yourself if it was for you. If you're curious, answer the question.

What a story I have for you today. This is Hannah down in Austin. She's been running this business for six months, and she's making about $30,000 a month in profit. Her startup costs were next to nothing. You know the story, guys. She wouldn't be on this podcast if it wasn't an amazing story. This is a business that anyone, male or female, could replicate in their own niche with their own passion. And if you want to copy this business, it is a great business to copy. And at the end of this, we talk about specific other niches that you could launch this exact same business with. And of course, most importantly, how to find a bunch of customers. It just says everything. It has all the elements. It's a lot of money in a short amount of time with almost no investment up front. And she found her customers organically, no paid media whatsoever. Please enjoy. So why don't you just start by telling us who you are and what you do?

Hannah Gustafson (1:22)

I am Hannah, and I'm, I guess, the founder of The Tiny Project, which is a culmination of a lot of things. But most importantly, I think to me, it's trying to encourage people to start tiny. I guess a year ago, I had just quit my job and had started my own small tutoring company. And I was just so burnt out by working in corporate America and just the grind of it all. And I was like, I'll take a major pay cut just to be able to I don't know, like have autonomy over my life. I started working with students in executive functioning, which is where my background is at. And for the first time, like in such a long time, I had all this capacity again, where I was like so inspired. And I was a very creative person when I was younger, but I never gave myself really the time to do that as I grew up. And so I just started getting creative again. I was making jams in my kitchen. I was really craving this community and connection with my neighbors. And I kind of had a moment where I was like, if I'm going to complain about not feeling connected to my Austin community that I'd grown up in, I'm not doing anything about it. So let me try to do something about it before I was going to move basically. I was ready to head out. And this was kind of my last stitch effort at Connection. And I started selling jams in my front yard in my East Austin neighborhood.

And it was silly. It kind of looked like a lemonade stand. And I called it The Tiny Farmers Market. But in those first three hours in my yard, I had met more of my neighbors than I had in the three years that I had lived in that house. And it just completely sparked something inside of me. And I decided I would be really consistent with it and just show up every month on a Saturday. And I put up flyers in the neighborhood. And I would just say, hey, I'm here. I have free drinks for everybody. We can come hang out and other vendors started to reach out. I started to post it on social media and other very small business owners. I mean, at the time, they weren't even businesses. They just had hobbies and they were like, maybe I could sell. And I was like, absolutely come on out. And it just started to blow up. And we have now we have 33 vendors that normally pack into the front and backyard of my house. And we always we stick with the free drinks. We now have like live music and face painting. And it's just like a really fun way to connect with the community. And then we always give back to a local charity or nonprofit. And so that's been something I'm also very passionate about. And while this was all happening and I was posting about it on social media, I was getting a lot of comments being like, oh, I wish this was near me or I wish that I had this in my community. And obviously, I can't bring the Tiny Farmers Market to other communities maybe in the future. But for now, I was like, I can't bring it anywhere. But maybe I could start some sort of newsletter or extend the community and connection further than my front yard, which was the goal of the whole thing. And so I started The Tiny Post, which was a snail mail club. And I just put together my art and a recipe that I was working on with my jam.