← The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
The Credit Card Side Hustle No One Talks About - Ep. #300
00:39:00
Loading summary
Transcript111 lines
- [00:00]
A
Meet Colin, 26 years old, running a business that most people have never even heard of. What does he do? He helps and shows business owners how to squeeze more out of money they're already spending on credit cards that they already have. He charges 875 bucks for a single phone call. And he made $231,000 doing it last year, his first full year. And guess what? A few months before he started this business, he knew nothing about the space. But a couple hours in ChatGPT later, he's an expert. So if you like helping people, working from home, prompting AI and making a bunch of money, you're going to love it. Hey, please just take half a second and hit subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this right now. It would really mean a lot. All right, Colin, well, why don't you tell us who you are and what you do?
- [00:42]
B
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'm super excited to be here. I'm Colin Stroud, and I am the founder of a business called Go Somewhere. And effectively, I'm a. I'm a credit card rewards consultant. That doesn't mean a lot to a lot of people. What I tell my grandma is that I am a travel agent for people with points. And I spend all day, every day, doing two things. One, helping business owners create credit card strategies or earn a ton of points. These people that are spending a ton of money, I help them put together credit card strategies. Number two, I help people book trips with these points that they're sitting on. I meet people every day sitting on millions of points, and I help them turn those points into pretty awesome trips. That's what I do full time. Been full time about a year and a half now and having so much fun doing it.
- [01:28]
A
Okay, what were you doing before this?
- [01:30]
B
Yeah, I'm 26 years old. Before I was doing this, I was trying to figure out my career. I was bouncing around. Started in insurance and then had two jobs in nonprofit fundraising. None of those I was a bit, like, super passionate about. It was just kind of. I needed a job. I was married young, had a baby, and needed to figure something out. And so this started as a side hustle for about maybe 15 ish months before I was able to go full time into this.
- [01:55]
A
Okay, now what did you see out there in the marketplace to tell you that this actually could be a side hustle?
- [02:01]
B
It was very clear to me that people love credit card points, Credit card rewards, it's this massive industry. And it was also very clear that people are so confused about how to use them. I mean people have so many points and there's all these nuanced fancy things you can do with them. It's kind of like extreme couponing almost. And I just kind of started talking to people about it and realized, oh, people have no idea all this cool stuff you can do, all these amazing deals that are out there. So maybe I could help them and maybe they would pay me something. And I was right about that. And there's, it turns out there's really just a huge market for that, in my opinion.
- [02:36]
A
Are you paid in cash or in points or how are you compensated?
- [02:40]
B
You know, I've asked for points before from people and they've almost always said no, but yeah, almost always paid in cash for all my services. I charge flight flat fees. So I say, you know, okay, this is what you want, this is exactly how much it costs. I keep it really simple.
- [02:53]
A
Okay, why don't you just like break down what your average customer looks like with regards to who they are, let's say a small business owner. I'm assuming how many points they have and what you charge them and what you're able to do for them for that fee.
- [03:07]
B
Sure. So like I said, the two main offers, I'll just break those two down super quickly here. Offer one is basically a business owner consulting package. I charge $875. It's a one time package. So we sit down for a 75 minute consult call, we look at their personal spending, their business spending, put together the an optimized credit card reward strategy that can be kind of detailed, kind of complicated. I write that out for them and then I help them implement it either just through email, text support, and that stuff's pretty simple. And then I say, I'll plan your next big trip for you. So they earned a bunch of points and then they call back in three months and they say we want to go to Italy, we want to fly in business class. Can you find us a deal? I go and find it for them and that's the end of our engagement. So it's very simple, just a one time fee. And then the second part of the business is simply just that trip planning portion. Anybody on the Internet in the world could come to my website, fill out a form and it's free to fill out the form. And if we can help, we charge them a small deposit to get started. And, and they say we've got 500,000 points, we want to go to Italy in business class. Same example, we'll help them find a deal and help them book it. Once it's booked, we charge a flat fee that's typically 3 or $400. For more custom stuff like complicated multi city trips, we'll do maybe 500, 600, but it's the average fee is there about three to $400.
- [04:33]
A
Okay, so your main offer, 875 bucks. Here's a plan on how you can best utilize these points and then I'll plan one trip for you as part of that fee with your points.
- [04:45]
B
Correct? Yeah, that's, that's kind of my bread and butter main go to offer right now for business owners.
- [04:50]
A
Okay. So I have like dabbled with credit card. You call it like hacking credit card hacking or churning.
- [04:57]
B
You know I stay away from those two words. One hacking because I do have affiliate links with the banks and they don't really like that word. And so it's more, I use the word strategy more. And then churning, I'm actually pretty not doing that. So I only really, I'm talking to business owners who are spending at least $20,000 a month. So there's no need for them to get seven credit cards. They just get one. And if they're spending 60k a month on lumber because they own a construction company, they're going to earn plenty of points. You don't need to keep getting sign up bonuses. That's not really something I do. Is that churning game.
- [05:30]
A
Okay, did you see someone else doing this as a side hustle and charging something similar or did you kind of invent this pricing yourself?
- [05:37]
B
There's not a ton of people doing this, but I certainly didn't invent it. I was on LinkedIn. That's where I get all of my clients. That's how I got started. And I was bored in my insurance job and I saw this guy who was doing this. He was doing cohort education and one on one consultations and trip planning, the exact stuff I'm doing. He seemed like he was making decent money. He was doing as a side hustle and doing this credit card thing and I thought oh my gosh, that's such a good idea. And he was going viral. I felt like. And all these people were saying this is amazing, I need this. I'm so confused. And so I mean I essentially copied him and this did exactly what he was doing. And I think there's plenty of fish in the sea. Like there's plenty of market share for the both of us and there's a few other people doing this out there. But it's not, it's not huge for sure.
- [06:23]
A
So you get all of your clients from LinkedIn today, correct. Is that right?
- [06:26]
B
Correct. Yeah. Referrals now? Some, but yeah, that's from day one. Really how I've gotten all my clients, I've almost never done any kind of outbound marketing. It's been 100% inbound, organic, just from content. So I'm posting one two times a day, six days a week. And LinkedIn has been my, my, my best friend for sure. It's been absolutely life changing for me.
- [06:48]
A
Break down your numbers. What are you making per month? Per year in both revenue and profit?
- [06:53]
B
Sure. So just to give a little background because I'm still new ish here, so in March 2024, I made $1,000 for the first time in one month, which I was thrilled about.
- [07:02]
A
That's basically all profit. Are there really any costs?
- [07:05]
B
Yeah, I looked back at my numbers, it was like $100 in software, subscriptions, cost, things like that. So almost nothing.
- [07:11]
A
Okay. And you're still working your full time job, correct?
- [07:14]
B
Correct.
- [07:14]
A
Okay, so from March 24 to today, last two years, how's it gone?
- [07:19]
B
Yeah, it's been rocket ship since then. So from March 2024 to November 2024, which is when I quit my job November 2024, I made $13,000 that month.
- [07:30]
A
Holy cow.
- [07:31]
B
Again, mostly profit. I had a good start to the month and I thought, okay, I'd already done pretty well in October 24th and I thought, I'm done with this job. This is just going crazy. And I actually had a baby on the way. It was due in two weeks, but I, I still quit the job. So then 2025 was my first full year in business. So I quit the job end of November. That old. Just Forget December. So January 2025, you might say, was my first full month of like doing this full time. And 2025 was, was pretty big. So the exact numbers, 2025 gross revenue was $231,000 for the year. I'm on track this year to, to surpass that. So year to date revenue today, which is April, April 30th is $89,000 year to date for 2026.
- [08:19]
A
Wow. And then what percent are your costs on that? 240,000.
- [08:24]
B
I think I ended up having about $40,000 in expenses. And that was software, some travel, and then I did hire some contractors and that became the biggest thing. So this trip research service I've talked about that is now 90% handled by two guys I hire who are awesome points experts who do most of that work for me on behalf of the Go Somewhere team as what we call ourselves.
- [08:52]
A
So let's call it six months in. You make your first thousand dollar month. Six months after that you have your a $13,000 month, mostly profit.
- [09:00]
B
Yeah.
- [09:00]
A
I'm guessing you helped like 20 people that month. Is that like 20 consultations, give or take?
- [09:05]
B
Yeah. I can't remember the exact breakdown, but around that and then other different things started popping up. Like, like credit card affiliate links, if you're not aware, are extremely lucrative. So I mean you can, if you get someone to sign up for a premium credit card, you can easily make $400 per card and that stacks up quickly. So once I started realizing that that, that has become a definitely a, a key part of my revenue is sharing affiliate links to clients in my newsletter and, and even on social media.
- [09:34]
A
Okay, so then first full year you do about 200,000 in net profit. Net to you. And this year you're on track to beat that, right?
- [09:43]
B
Hopefully, yeah.
- [09:44]
A
Okay, that's incredible first of all. Second of all, has your pricing always been about the same or have you evolved over time?
- [09:51]
B
It's definitely evolved a lot. It's gone up. I was definitely still doing what I say, quote unquote, normal people like helping those people. And now I've transitioned with the consultation work to only doing business owners spending at least $20,000 a month. So that's been a relatively recent like in the past nine months change where I'm really just focusing on those people. Well, no, I, my first consultation I think was like 75 and it's gone up from there. So then I was averaging probably more in the 3 to 400 range per consultation and now it's more in that 800 range. Typically for when I'm actually sitting down for a one hour call with somebody.
- [10:28]
A
So for 875, how much of your time is being taken up by that?
- [10:32]
B
Yeah, it changes a little bit per client, but let's say 45 minutes prep. After I sell them we do a 20 minute discovery calls. 20 minute discovery call, 45 minutes of research prep, an hour and 15 minutes on the call, 30 minutes for a follow up email. That takes a lot of thought I would say. And then helping them with their trip which could be six months later. Not always. We don't always know or sometimes they don't reach out at all. Quite frankly that trip can be a lot. It could be 20 minutes, it could be four hours. So it depends. So sometimes my hourly rate is amazing. And sometimes it's painfully low when you, when trip help starts to stack up a little bit too much.
- [11:11]
A
Yeah. I would think some people pay the 8. 75 and then they either never take a trip or they forget about you or they're gone. And you just bank that as profit.
- [11:18]
B
Correct. And I wish that wasn't the case, but I understand that the trip is not always the number one thing for people. Like I think the number one issue that I'm helping with that people feel is I am leaving money on the table. I spend, I hear this every day. I'm spending so much money I can't even believe it. And I feel like I'm not getting enough out of my spending and, and so I can come and fix that and, and help them get more. And then they're. They're happy. They're satisfied with that. They sometimes don't even need to take the trip to be satisfied. Like they're satisfied once they go from earning 1% returns to 2% or 2.5 or whatever we end up finding. So yeah, you're right.
- [11:55]
A
Yeah. So how would that happen? What would that case look like if they go from 1 to 2%? Are you just recommending a better card for what their use case is?
- [12:04]
B
Yeah. So to give a good example, like my parents were my first ever client business owner client. I was doing this beside and I realized that they were spending about $40,000 a month on credit cards for their small business. And I was blowing business medical. So they own a private medical practice. They own it together.
- [12:23]
A
Okay.
- [12:23]
B
And I was born. Okay, dad, can, dad, can you let me like look at this for you? And so my dad was spending 40k a month on a local bank 1% cash back credit card. So he's getting 1% back. And so I come in again. This is stuff is not rocket science. I think I'm really helpful and I think I'm smart. But I'm not saying I'm solving hunger here. Like it's, it's not that hard. But a business owner like my dad just does not care and doesn't have time to think about this. So then I come in. I know every credit card on the market. I know all the different options. And I set him up with a capital one and Chase strategy. 50 50. He's got two entities, 50% with capital one and 50% with Chase. I combine that with a really cool offer that Chase was having on a personal card that doubles your points at the end of the year. That's not going on anymore. So anyway, my. Yeah, my dad ended up earning well over a million points his first year and. And then ended up going to this ridiculous resort with, like, a butler. Oceanside, you know, oceanfront room in Cap Cana in the Dominican Republic. It's like a. Ended up being like a $9,000 trip they got for nothing out of pocket. So, yeah, it's. It was awesome. So I just came in and I said, these are the two cards you need. Here's how to implement them and here's what to do with the points. Here's, like, some of the stuff that you can do and you should be thinking about. Call me in a few months when you're ready to take action on that. We did it. And so, yeah, he's. He's definitely been one of my best success stories. I just helped them get business class flights to Europe for a cruise they're doing in a few months here. So it's been so fun helping them and obviously tons of other business owners, but it's my parents, so it's really fun, you know?
- [13:53]
A
Yeah. Listen, I need more people like this to interview on my podcast, so if you know of someone with a side hustle or a business that's unique and cool and super profitable, email Molly M O L L y@co founders.com that's one word. Co founders.com Mollycofounders.com, tell her your story and we'll give you 100 bucks if we end up interviewing them. Let's do like a quick mock consultation with me, if you don't mind. I'm curious how you would handle this. So this is all real. I've dabbled with points, hacking points or whatever over the years between Capital One Venture, which is just 2% on everything. I've gotten the Southwest card a couple different times because they have the signup bonuses for free flights, a couple other things. But in the last year, I did an Amex Business Gold because there was a $200,000 bonus. And I run a lot of Facebook ads, which is four times on points, right? So I spend like 40, 50 grand a month on that Amex Business Gold. And most of that, call it 60, 70%, is through Facebook ads. So a lot of points. And then just like a month ago, I signed up for an Amex Business Platinum because they had a another $200,000 signup bonus. So I've never spent any of my points, but I've only been using this, these AMX's for like nine months or so total. And I've got like 1.2 million points now and I just like don't, I don't know what, like, I'm afraid to use them because I'm, I'm afraid that I'll use them wrong. You know, I don't want to do like the, like the statement credit because I know that's not optimal and I'm booking flights. I, we, we book some trips, you know, call it four to seven a year. We're not huge travelers. But I don't really want to use my points for travel because I don't know if it's optimal. I, I'm kind of like, I am with my Chipotle and Chick Fil A points. Like I hoard them. I'm just like hoarding them forever and ever and I just like seeing the number go up and I never want to spend it. But I, I, I want to spend them. Right. So what would you tell me to do? Oh, and also I'll add a caveat. If or when I do go to use these, I probably just going to go to Claude Opus 4. 7 and say, and just have this conversation with it and like what's the best way I can use these points? I'm, I'm going to Europe. I don't want to use them on business class if it like, if it's uses way too many points. I only want to use it on business class if it's like an efficient use of my points. Right. So tell me like what you would tell me and how you are different than Opus 4.7 or any other AI.
- [16:19]
B
That's great. Yeah. Maybe start with the AI thing. I guess I'll be completely candid. One worry is that as time goes on, I am no different than Opus. But I would say the argument for me is the exact same argument for every professional service related. A lawyer, a financial advisor, I mean maybe a doctor.
- [16:36]
A
You're a human. Like humans are superior. Like people just want to interact with humans. You know. I'm with you.
- [16:42]
B
I'm with you. Yeah. So I think you get that. But Claude has been, you know, an amazing help for sure. One thing I think it still does. It's frustrating. Is it? It will give you best case scenarios like you can get to Paris for 100,000 points round trip in business class. And while that may be true on one day of the year, it's like, yeah, it's not actually going to happen. And so it does give people some false hope. So yeah. So that, that's, that's how I'm A little bit different there. I think ultimately a lot of these business owners, they're busy. I'm mostly talking to like blue collar people too. I'd say where we are still today, they just want a human to talk to. And the people who are AI power users, they're never going to talk to me anyway. They're not going to probably talk to anybody. And I'm okay with that. So, so figuring all of that stuff out, but going back to what you said here, so there's, there's so much there that you touched on. And don't take this the wrong way. Nothing you said is unique. That's something I haven't heard like a hundred times, which is confirmation that everyone has the same problems. But the first thing is earning points. So it's cool you're focusing on the signup bonuses or you're not focusing, but you talked about that. Yeah, those are really lucrative. Without question. The return on spend is amazing. But you're spending so much money on ads. That's where like that's your biggest earning engine. So here's this, this is a super small thing that most people don't know. The Amex business goal does earn 4 points per dollar on advertising, but it's capped at $150,000 a year. After 150k, you only earn 1 point per dollar. So your earning rate on that card is pretty bad because you ca, you max that out really quickly. Some people can get multiple, but a lot of people don't know about a relatively newer card. The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business is a newer card, came out, I don't know, less than a year ago. It earns uncapped unlimited 3x points on ads. And so right now you're averaging more like, you know, 1.2, 1.5. I don't know what you're, I couldn't do the math in my head. You go to that card. Yeah, you're, you're getting 3x on every single ad purchase. So just like that, I mean, I don't know your exact situation. Maybe you have seven AMEX Gold cards. Some people do, but. But just like that, that could be a massive increase in your earnings. So that's number one. Number two, you talked about kind of hoarding points. That does seem to be a fun strategy with Chick Fil A and Chipotle maybe. But like, you know, like inflation is a big problem in America, obviously, like pointsflation is a huge problem. What Hilton charged for the Waldorf Astoria Maui a year ago is way less than what Hilton charges for the Waldof Astoria Maui today. So by you sitting on your points, not going to the Waldorf Astoria and Maui and you are last year, today you're going to pay 20% more. What, what? I don't know the number. It's, it's actually might be worse than that. Every single one of these programs continually devalues year over year at a much worse rate than the US dollar is, is devaluing. And so holding points is a generally terrible idea. You should, you should earn them and burn. People say so.
- [19:37]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [19:38]
B
So the last thing then is how to use them. And that's where it gets honestly pretty complicated. So my sales pitch for people on these kind of like when I'm doing calls with them is just let me handle that for you. Because it's a lot. But right. You know, you can, you can book through Amex Travel and get a value of one penny per point. It's not the end of the world. Transferring points to airline and hotel partners is the way to get more value, to get 2, 3, 4, 5 cents per point. But it's annoying and it's frustrating. Doesn't always work. There's blackout dates, there's limited availability. I know you've got a lot of kids. Like there may only be three seats available, not six. Whatever you need. So that's an issue. And that's where you just kind of, kind of have to lean in and do it or hire somebody to do it. But there's tons of potential out there. But I still think at the end of the day, if the answer, if the question is don't use your points or use them at a mid tier value, I would still say use them. And, and if you can't get your head psychologically around that, you know, at your spending level, maybe it does make sense to switch to some cash back where you're just forced to use it because otherwise you're just earning this asset that's going down in value really quickly.
- [20:42]
A
Yeah.
- [20:42]
B
So yeah, that would be my initial thoughts for you.
- [20:44]
A
That's a great, that's really good. I mean I had never thought of it devaluing like that, but it makes perfect sense to me. Like it, it's almost like insurance. Like that's how the insurance business model is built. You, you go shop around for homeowners or auto insurance and they will just keep raising your rates, just not expecting you to churn. And if you want to not spend too much on insurance, you just have to always be changing carriers because you'll get the best introductory rate and then six to 12 months later they're going to go up 20 to 50% and you got to switch again. It sounds like that's how these cards are. Like they lure you in with the sign on bonuses and like look, you can get this Marriott for 15,000 points and then six months later the same room is 22,000. Right.
- [21:24]
B
It's real, it's. They keep doing it. It's very frustrating. But yeah, we can't control that. So the only way to control it is with knowledge and flexibility. So you just know what's going on and you can take advantage of where the good deals are and stay away from where the bad deals are. But that can be, that can be a challenge for sure.
- [21:40]
A
So if I have these points in amex and I live in Dallas Fort Worth, which is a big American Airlines hub, should I transfer them to American if I want to use them on flights?
- [21:49]
B
Ideally yes, but Amex does not transfer to American Airlines. It's really frustrating.
- [21:53]
A
Oh, that's great.
- [21:54]
B
The only domestic airline Amex transfers to are JetBlue and Delta. The only bank that transfers to American Airlines is Citi and they don't even really have a good business credit card. So yeah, it's a bit annoying. So you can transfer to America now. You can book American flights through amex Travel and you can book American flights through One World Partners. So like you could log into British Airways, which is a transfer partner of, of amex and book an American flight from Dallas to London or Dallas to, even Dallas to Phoenix. But now you're booking through a partner and so availability can be sparse and it can just be hard. So yes, you see how it gets frustrating quickly.
- [22:34]
A
Yeah.
- [22:35]
B
But yeah, so I mean there's a million cool things you can do. That's what I say is like you can do so many things, you just can't do everything and you sometimes can't do the exact thing you want which, which does frustrate people but excites me because it's, it makes me be creative in how I travel is to follow the deals because there's some incredible deals out there. Without question.
- [22:53]
A
Yeah. So am I not your typical client then? It's more of a blue collar or a local business owner as opposed to like an Internet business owner.
- [23:00]
B
I would love to talk to more Internet business owners. It's just kind of who has found me. I feel like is, is blue collar people. It's not an exact hatter. I just feel like those are the people a lot of them Specifically in the construction world. I have no connection to that world, but I think they're just good. They're perfect clients because they spend a ton of money on cards and they're not necessarily world travelers. Like those kind of people don't always come to me because they kind of feel like they already know what they're doing. Whereas these people, I mean, maybe they might be making a million dollars a year, spending 2 million and they've never left the country and they see my post and it's like, wow, could this be possible? Because their brain isn't there. And so yeah, those kind of people have been an awesome, perfect client for me. I would, but I do. At the end of the day, I still talk to all kinds of people. Talk to some San Francisco fancy tech people too, occasionally, but they haven't been my favorite clients because they know everything already.
- [23:54]
A
Yeah, yeah, of course. How do you use AI in your business today?
- [23:58]
B
Couple different things with my points research service. That entire thing is built on lovable right now, which is awesome. So the back end of that, we're managing 35 active trips right now. So custom CRM, custom dashboard, really, really cool. So in terms of delivering that service, it's all done through AI by humans. So AI is not really doing it, but it's hosting it, if that makes sense. That's been awesome to implement. I'm trying to implement it in more just simple processes and things like that. But for now, the thing I have been selling in terms of the consultation work is a human voice. So it's going to be a lot of handwritten stuff by me. It's going to be sitting on a live call with me. I've considered and toyed around the idea of, of, of having like a free AI agent, you know, a chat bot type thing to talk, ask credit card questions to. But honestly, Cloud is so good, or all these models are so good, I don't really see why they need one from me. So figuring out ways that I want to do that. There's Seats Arrow is my favorite award search tool out there. Seats S E A T S Aero. They have an AI assistant. It's ChatGPT with Seats Arrows API, which means they have access to all of the best flight deals out there. So you can talk to it and say, you know, I'm sitting on 800,000AmEx points at Dallas Fort Worth with four kids or whatever. Find me the best business class deal to Europe in September. I only want to fly nonstop and I don't want to pay more than 200,000 points per person and it will do that. So I'm not going to try and go beat that tool because it's already pretty good. And I use that every single day, multiple times a day. So that, that's a, that's a great tool and that's one of the main things I'm using right now.
- [25:37]
A
That's a good tip. What other tips do you have for people to maximize their points or to get more points in the first place? What's like some secrets that you have?
- [25:48]
B
I feel like one of the things I tell specifically business owners every day is, is stop focusing on the benefits of your card and start thinking about how much it's earning every day. I have some guy sit down spending 60,000amonth on his Amex Business Platinum and I say, you know, you're only getting one point per dollar. And he says, oh, but the perks. I get the lounge and I get the travel insurance. And I said, awesome, man. Yeah, that's great. That has nothing to do with how much money you're spending. You could spend $0 on that card and get all those perks if you switch to XYZ Card. Maybe Capital One, maybe something else, maybe Amex Gold, maybe Chase. Like for your example, you could be earning 2x points for $3x on advertising. And that's kind of a light bulb moment for a lot of people. So you've got to earn more points because most people are earning far less than they could and then most people are redeeming them. They're just not getting enough value. So, like having a first grade level of understanding how transferring points works, you're already, you know, more than 90% of America and you have an option to get some amazing deals and then the next level after that is getting some of these tools to do it for you. So back in 2016, people used to go to search like 14 different airline websites, one after the other to find a deal. Today there's scraper tools, seats, Arrow again is my favorite. But there's other great ones out there. And you can go and it'll search 25 airline programs for you at the same time. So you can just search Dallas to anywhere in Europe. It will search every single program you have access to. Most people don't know that stuff exists and, and when they do and see some of the deals that are available, it's awesome. The last thing I'd say too is I do feel like there's this thing where people only think of points for flights. And I think the Hotel game is pretty competitive and pretty awesome. Like you're on, I say like sometimes you're on a flight for four hours, but you're in a hotel for 24 hours. So I care more about the hotel now. I've got little kids. I think you do too. So it's like I kind of like the Airbnb thing now, which is a separate topic. But for those people who are staying in fancy luxury hotels, there's some huge arbitrage opportunities to be found there. Some of these really ridiculous places that, that I couldn't afford.
- [27:54]
A
How much do you think this business, your business specifically, could scale? Like with more marketing, more promotion, bigger team, et cetera? What's the ceiling?
- [28:02]
B
I actually just looked at my April revenue, which is my biggest month ever in terms of the consulting. I don't believe that can scale the one on one consulting on myself, but I could hire people under me and I've thought about that, but I'm not focused on that right now. What I'm most focused on scaling is the research service guys.
- [28:18]
A
Tkowners.com that's my community where people are building businesses. I do AMAs, Q&As every week live. You can ask me anything you want. You can have accountability partners. It's about a thousand people in there building, starting, growing businesses. Check out tko as in the current office tk owners.com so I have two
- [28:36]
B
guys, I just had one hired a second. We got 35 active trips right now we're helping people with. I think that that could scale and we could do a hundred trips a month. I've done zero advertising for that. I haven't even turned on the meta ads or Google Ads stuff. I was actually just watching one of your tutorials on that yesterday. You know, I think that, that there's huge opportunity there. I'm not quite ready today because I just think we got to get our process a little bit more streamlined. But if and when we want to push on that, I think that we could be doing a hundred plus trips a month because I think there's almost unlimited demand for higher income people with lots of points to get good deals from their points. It's, it's mind blowing to me. The amount of people who have well over a million points, they're just, they're everywhere.
- [29:21]
A
It feels like, what do you charge for the research service? Again?
- [29:24]
B
It's a $50 deposit to start and then it's going to be between 2 and $500 based on the scope of the work. So economy flights for two is cheaper than business class for a family of six.
- [29:34]
A
Okay, so that could be 50 grand a month. I mean 30 to 50 grand a month just in research, service revenue.
- [29:41]
B
Yeah, it's not anywhere near there. This, this month it's going to be about $6,000 of total revenue with this past month, April. But yes, I agree. I think it could be there. And I, it's just, I just gotta figure out how to do that. I've never done that before. This is all new. This is my first ever time being an entrepreneur. But yeah, I believe in it for sure. And so that's a focus for me.
- [30:00]
A
If people want to start this. What tips would you have for them to be successful?
- [30:04]
B
You gotta get educated. And I think, I mean, I really believe you can make money doing in any business helping people go from zero to one. And so if you, if you spent a weekend with some of these blogs and Claude, you would know more about credit card points than 90% of people in the world. I mean probably 99. And then you can help people go from zero to one. So you can go find my dad, that business owner spending on 1% cash back cards. I mean you could do that today. Anyone can do that today and maybe charge them $400 to, to help with that. Now more complicated stuff. Maybe you're not qualified on day one if you know nothing about points. Like maybe you want to hold on actually helping people book trips. You could just talk about credit cards. But yeah, I think anyone can do it. You just need a bit of education and practice. Luckily you can practice on yourself. Like you can, you can go book fake trips basically. Like you can get all the way to the booking stage and stop. Like, you don't need to have clients to get good at this stuff. I mean, I have not traveled that much, to be honest. I've been to 13 countries, which is kind of a lot. But I meet people all the time, been to 60, 70, you know, and so I've never been to a lot of the places I'm sending people to. You don't have to do that. I've never even transferred points to a lot of the transfer partners I'm helping my clients transfer to because it just hasn't made sense for me. But it doesn't matter. I know how to do it and so I don't have to necessarily have done all of it myself. First.
- [31:24]
A
I like the idea of practicing by just like doing some research and quote unquote, booking some trips without actually hitting pay just to see like, wow, I got this trip to Jamaica for a family of four for, you know, 23,000 points. That way you can even, like, use that as a case study. You know, like, found a trip for 23,000 points, even if you never, like, fully went through with it and paid for it because you did the research to learn about how it works, and then you did all the transfers or, you know, hypothetical transfers, and it could have been an actual trip.
- [31:55]
B
Yeah. So my one month into starting posting on LinkedIn, barely even had a business. I spent, like, five hours trying to figure out how to get this crazy deal that was available through Turkish Airlines to fly in United to Hawaii. And I did it. I didn't book it. I got on the phone with the agent. I was on hold, like, an hour. And anyway, so I figured it all out. I actually, like, I'm doing. I did exactly what we're talking about here. Not for a real client, just for me. Didn't book it. Posted about it. And that post went, like, viral for me. It was, like, almost 100,000 impressions, and I had, like, a thousand followers max. And that was really the moment I thought, okay, this is legit, because there's interest in this. Well, one I was able to prove to myself I can find these deals and almost book it. Not actually, but also show there's interest. So, yeah, that, like, this exact strategy is what got me started. And that viral post, I would say, probably sustained me for a few months because the energy was just so electric from that that I was like, I got to keep pushing. I think there's something here. Even though I was only making, you know, $300 a month or something. So how much.
- [32:57]
A
How much money would you say you. You brought in just from that post?
- [33:01]
B
Oh, I don't actually think that post made much money. I think it just got me excited and some attention. I probably got a few bookings from that, you know, and at the time, it was only $75 to talk to me. And so, yeah, it wasn't much, but that was more of like a just a moment for me. Okay. This. This is a validating moment that people care about the stuff.
- [33:20]
A
Yeah. I mean, you. You went out there.
- [33:22]
B
You.
- [33:23]
A
You did actual legwork for five hours. You got on a. A phone. You got on the phone with, you know, someone that was probably pretty annoying to talk to. You did all this work. You found, like, alpha. You found an edge somewhere. Never even bought it. That's fine. You posted about what you Learned. You got 100,000 people looking at that post and a bunch of People reaching out. Like, and you hadn't even started the business yet. I think that's, that's, that's the whole playbook. Like, you start by learning and then you ramp up your learning by actually putting, putting the legwork in, calling, researching, Googling, prompting, whatever. And then just post about what you've learned. That's it. You're not posting lies. Like, I just booked it. Like, here's what I just did, here's what I now know you're building in public and you send people to, you know, your DMs.
- [34:07]
B
Yeah, I remember dreaming I could post actual client stories. Cause I was just posting like fake stuff I found. And now I only post client stories. But it was just like, maybe one day I'll have, you know, real testimonials. And so it feels great to do. But yeah, you, you don't need that to start though, for sure.
- [34:22]
A
For the average person listening to this, you know, half business owners, half aspiring business owners, what are like the three best cards out there today? And I know this may change.
- [34:31]
B
Yeah. For business owners who are spending a fair amount of money. I am, I am a fan of, of Chase. So a lot of people have the Chase Sapphire Reserve. On the personal side, you can get the Ink Unlimited, which is a cash back card. But that cash can become points if you have the personal card and it earns flat 1.5x on everything. So that's great. If you're spending on ads, the MX Gold like you mentioned, and then the Sapphire Reserve for business earning 3 or 4x on ads is huge. You know, Capital One Venture X, their transfer partners aren't as strong. People love them because they earn two points per dollar. So I do like that one. I'm just generally not someone who wants to encourage people or myself. Pay these mega annual fees, I know they can be worth it. But like, you don't need one of these premium cards. They can be good. And don't get me wrong, like, a lot of value there. But if you're a new business owner, like, don't feel like because your buddies have Amex Platinums, you need that. That's $895 a year. You could probably put that money somewhere else that might be better. Serve you, your family, your business. So you don't need a fancy card to get good value. The Income Limited card I mentioned is $0 a year. It's free, and it comes with a $750 cash bonus. So especially if you're smaller, that's a, that's a Great one. That's what I run my business on right now. Yeah, there's a lot of options and it keeps changing. It's. It's frustrating to keep up with. That's one of the things that's my job, though, is to keep people updated on. On what's going on. Changes.
- [35:54]
A
If LinkedIn disappeared tomorrow, how would you continue growing this business?
- [35:58]
B
That terrifies me sometimes to think about. I've got 7,000 email subscribers, so I think I could sell there.
- [36:04]
A
Do they come from LinkedIn?
- [36:06]
B
Yeah, they've all come through LinkedIn. Almost all through LinkedIn. I've started posting on X. It hasn't really gotten much so far,
- [36:12]
A
so I would keep at it. I would keep at it for sure.
- [36:15]
B
X is like, I want to be there. I feel like it's actually a better place to find clients than LinkedIn.
- [36:20]
A
Yes.
- [36:20]
B
Yeah, I don't have a great answer to that. I'm really hoping LinkedIn stays around and I. Because it has been, I mean, the easy button. I don't do any effort to find clients. They show up in my inbox every single day. And that has been basically been that way since the beginning. It's just increased in volume. I have no experience doing outbound sales. 0. I want to do that, but I don't need to. So I haven't leaned into it, you know, I mean, so trying to figure that out.
- [36:45]
A
So your verdict. I mean, you're, you're biased. We're all biased. But do you think this is a good side hustle for someone that could scale for an average person that knows how to use the Internet?
- [36:54]
B
Yes, I think it's a good side hustle. As side hustles go. I did as a side hustle. I took my calls early morning, lunch breaks, late at night. You don't have to leave your house to do the side hustle. And you're definitely going to make more money than, you know, doordashing or something. That's the only side hustle. It certainly can scale, like any side hustle, I would say. And it's certainly learnable to anybody if you're someone who. One of the thousands of thousands of thousands of people who already know a decent amount about points. Well, like, you should really think about doing this if you know nothing. I'm telling you, it's fun.
- [37:24]
A
Yeah, it's fun to learn.
- [37:26]
B
It is. I only knew about points a few months, like before I started doing this. So, you know, you might be behind me there in a sense, but if you know nothing, you still could totally Start this as a side hustle. Just you gotta spend the time to learn. It's all out there. The Daily Drop, Frequent miler, the points guy. There's so many great blogs. One mile at a time. Unbelievable amount of resources. It's not even funny. It's all free. You can learn so much.
- [37:48]
A
Any other resources people could check out besides those blogs you just mentioned? Seats, Arrow, Anything else out there to help people skip the line?
- [37:56]
B
I've got my newsletter and my LinkedIn content. The Daily Drop is actually my favorite email newsletter. It's in the Points world and they have a free course on their website as a video and text. You could just read course. I think it's one of the best ones out there. Anybody interested in starting something like this should start there. Anyone interested in about learning more about Points and Miles, I would say start there. I have not created something myself that compares to what they've done. So it's really, really good. Really respect everything they're doing. They're the Points and Miles arm of Kara and Nate, which is a huge YouTube channel. People have heard of them.
- [38:29]
A
Okay, and where can we find you and your info?
- [38:32]
B
My business Go somewhere. So go somewhere.world w o r l d.com was like $11,000. So I haven't done that yet. Oh my gosh. And LinkedIn. So Colin Stroud 1L and Colin on LinkedIn you can find me there. I'm posting every day. You'll see info about my newsletter. I got like some free guides on there you can take. So yeah, Go somewhere world and collinstrad on LinkedIn. I'd love to love to have you there.
- [38:55]
A
I know you're not asking for advice, but if I were you, that Go Somewhere dot com, I think that'd be worth it for. Like if you're going to keep doing this and scaling this and growing your team. It's hard to like attribute any success in the future to the dot com. But it's just like next level legitimacy branding. Like especially for what you're doing and the type of people that you're working with. I think it'd be worth that money and you could any domain name for whatever it's listed for. Those sellers are used to selling them for 10 to 80% off because they'll sit for months and years. And so if anyone comes by that's interested, they have to run through their head like, all right, it's listed for 11. He's offering five. I can sell it for five now. Or it's probably going to be listed for another three years. You know what I'm saying? Like, I would lowball the seller of that domain and try to buy it if I were you, but I know it's a lot of money.
- [39:45]
B
That's good advice. No, I, I, I thought about, I'm new to domains. I couldn't believe how much it was when they first, like, I talked to a domain broker who told me and I was blown away. So, yeah, that's, that's good advice. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll go after that.
- [39:55]
A
My partner and I bought co founders.com and it was listed for 100 and we paid 65 grand for it. So, yeah, okay, that's good enough.
- [40:03]
B
That's a good deal.
- [40:04]
A
Colin, you're awesome. Thank you. This is really cool and everyone's gonna love it, so I appreciate your time.
- [40:09]
B
Awesome. Chris, thank you so much. Really appreciate you.
- [40:11]
A
Hey, guys, if you're still listening to this, it's probably because you haven't had a chance to take your AirPods out. You're still mowing the lawn, you're still driving, what have you. If you're still here with me, I would really, really love and appreciate a five star review on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcast. It would mean a lot. If you want to go the extra mile, share this episode with a friend that might have an interest in starting a business. It would mean a ton. Hope you have the best day of your life today.