Ep. 3233 - Q&A: “Where do I find my first paying customer?”
Side Hustle School
Chris Guillebeau / Onward Project
4.8 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One sale beats a hundred compliments. Let’s walk through a low-risk, weekend-ready plan that puts money in this side hustler’s hands within two weeks.
Side Hustle School features a new episode EVERY DAY, featuring detailed case studies of people who earn extra money without quitting their job. This year, the show includes free guided lessons and listener Q&A several days each week.
Show notes: SideHustleSchool.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you ever shop online, which, let's be real, who doesn't, you already understand how important |
| 0:05.6 | customer reviews are. You know this as a consumer, right? You always check the reviews before you buy |
| 0:10.1 | something and your customers are checking reviews as well. That's why if you run an e-commerce |
| 0:14.7 | business, reviews have an enormous impact on your business and you want to level up your business |
| 0:19.0 | to get better reviews. You can do that with |
| 0:21.1 | our longtime partner ShipStation. It is a fantastic service that has served so many of our listeners |
| 0:26.7 | as well. I highly recommend it while your customers and get rave reviews with cheaper, |
| 0:31.2 | faster, and better shipping. Upgrade to ShipStation today to get a 60 day free trial at shipstation.com |
| 0:37.2 | and use code hustle. No credit card or |
| 0:39.7 | contract required and you can cancel any time. That's shipstation.com code hustle. |
| 0:48.2 | Lemonada. |
| 0:52.8 | Where do you find your first paying customer? |
| 1:01.0 | A lot of side hustle stall at the phase where it's like, I've got this idea. |
| 1:05.1 | I've talked to my friends about it. |
| 1:06.6 | My friends love it. |
| 1:07.8 | But how do you go from free samples or just showing off a website to your |
| 1:12.1 | friends to the first strangers dollars? It's not about social reach. It's about putting the product |
| 1:17.6 | where the buying already happens. We have this whole series first $1,000 where we're like, |
| 1:22.6 | how does somebody go from idea to income? But for many of our side hustlers, many of our listeners out |
| 1:27.3 | there, |
| 1:27.5 | they really struggle with finding their first paying customer. And if you haven't had this |
| 1:31.8 | experience of selling something to a stranger or finding your first customer that's not one |
... |
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