The Greatest Side Hustle Of All Time

Imagine starting a side hustle, completely replacing your nine to five in five months. Rachel Goga Phillips did exactly that. From working a big tech corporation to a goat yoga side hustle business that now makes $200,000 a year. She's retired from corporate America at 27. Let's find out how. If you're feeling more pent up than a goat behind a cage, you should subscribe to this YouTube channel. What do you exactly do at Goga?

Honestly, I'm a glorified poop scooper. I clean up goat poop. This is bougie goat yoga. We keep it clean here, so we've got to clean up that poop.

So in one sentence, it's basically yoga plus goats plus Instagram moments, Correct? Is that what it is?

Yes.

I love it. And the wild part is how much money you guys can actually make doing this. What are you guys gonna make this year, you think?

I'd guess around 200,000.

That's amazing. How many days of the week do you work and how many hours of the week do you work in here to hit 250k?

I don't like to tell people this, but usually most of the month, honestly, I work less than one hour a day just answering emails and stuff, doing customer service things.

Why a goat yoga business?

So I went to meet my now mother in law for the first time. First started dating my husband. Three months into it, went to meet Roxy, the crazy goat lady. We had kind of joked about goat yoga that day. Then Hurricane Harvey happened. I had a lot of co workers that were like, very impacted by it and it kind of broke my heart. And I was like, this is what I want to do. I want to raise money for Hurricane Harvey. Somehow I told my brand new boyfriend, like, hey, let's call your mom and do a goat yoga fundraiser event. He's like, yeah, whatever. The next day I was like, no, I'm serious. I think we need to do this. We planned this event for six days later that we had like, no location, no teachers, no idea how to do a fundraiser, anything like that. We started having thousands of RSVPs. And my husband was like, turn it off. Make it stop.

We're going to have too many people.

And I was like, no, no, no, it's fine. Not everyone will show up. I made an event, Brightlink, where people could donate to save their spot. And that sold out in seven minutes. We made the local news, we raised like a thousand dollars and we donated it to the Humane Society in Houston. Everyone was like, when's your Next event. We were like, oh, it's next weekend. Definitely next weekend.

And that's where the business started.

It was the epitome of like we jumped off the cliffs and figured it out on the way down.

Yeah. Built the plan as well.

No location. We did it on the rooftop of the parking garage where my husband was living at the time in his apartment complex.

Amazing. So basically you hands a full, full time job at this time. This is just.

And some side hustles going on.

Wow. Okay. And all you did was come up with this idea, find some goats. Luckily from your mother in law, throw up an eventbrite, steal a parking lot rooftop, and then where'd you post it? How did thousands of people even see the Facebook event?

I made a Facebook event. I made a really, really terrible logo in paint.

So just naturally, because there were goats on it and it was weird, so. And Facebook has a self search feature. People found it.

Yes.

So it's not like you're out there with a huge Instagram presence.

No. Oh, no, nothing. No.

Wild. What were you doing for work at the time?

I was doing product marketing at HomeAway.

So nothing to do with live events?

No, no.

Totally outside your wheelhouse?

Yeah.

At what point did you decide, whoa, this isn't a side hustle? Like, I think there's a business here.

I think three months into it, I was like, I'm making twice as much money in one day at Goga as I am in like two months at my regular job. So I think it's time to spend my time here. And it was a leap of faith for sure, because everyone, I mean, even we thought it was going to be a trend that just lasted a year and that was it. But I was like, you know what? Even if I just get some good business experience, see what happens, and run it for as long as I can, at least I'll have some invaluable knowledge to go back to work with if I have to do that someday. Here we are seven years later.

How long did it take take from you starting the business to quitting your 9 to 5. What was that timeline?

So we started in September of 17 and I left in February of 18.

Whoa. So we're talking five months?

Yeah, I started getting a lot of like, media attention and. And there was a local news station who wanted me to come do their morning segment with them. So I did before work one day and you know, I showed up to work at like 10am and so it kind of came up in one of my performance reviews and I was Just like, okay, time, time to go.

Did you always have this like little rebellious streak?

I recognized from a young age that I wanted out of the corporate world. I just wanted that freedom. My grandmother is dying and I watched her in the hospital for two weeks. And this is, this was kind of the moment for me. I watched all my extended family and they'd like have to come in after work to spend their last moments with her and then get back to work on Monday and then fly back Monday to a different state to go back to work because they had no more time off or no more bereavement or whatever. And that was. And I sat there a lot by myself with her in that room and just watch everyone like, you know, just slaves to their jobs. And I was like, that's not for me. I don't want that. So that's kind of when I decided. And then I didn't think that it would ever be this much fun. Right.

That's a beautiful story. Thank you.

Yeah, I'm kind of a workaholic. So I always thought it was going to be like hustle, hustle, hustle, you know, work, work, work. And then this happens and it's like, oh, I get to do this instead. This is so much better.

You hit it, you're like, you try a bunch of things, then one of them starts to get this wild momentum. Then the moment that it does, you pour some gasoline on the fire to it. And if you find that idea, that is a perfect mixture of the things you're good at, the thing that you're kind of oddly obsessed with and what the market wants. You have a business that you don't have to work every hour in because you get to work on the business and the business works for you. So I don't think anybody would say business is easy, but it's definitely not as hard as employers tell you.

Sure, sure.

Number of classes that you have a.

Month during our busy season, we'll have between six and eight.

What does it cost per class?

$35.

Number of members in each class, typically.

Between 30 and 40.

Woo. That's amazing. Okay, I'm doing some girl math right now. And $35 a person with 30 people in a class is 1,050 bucks for every single class she does, she does two of them a day and she has anywhere from 30 to 40 people in it, which means she's making somewhere from 2000 up to $4000 a day for 45 minute classes. Hanging out with little buddies and a bunch of yogis. Not Bad. How many days are we working a month just on these classes? Not your private events where I know you're doing some shlp.

Yeah, two.

You have a lord.

Well, then we just do it two Saturdays a month.

Oh, right. Because you stack all the classes so they're back to back.

Right.

What do you do with this place? The rest of.

I rent it out to a dance studio over here.

Ah, Another upholstery that you don't have to fulfill. That's brilliant. How much do you make doing that?

Usually it's a few thousand dollars a month. Yeah, they just rent it for a couple hours in the evenings for their dance classes.

What does this place cost you?

I'm actually on a percent of sales deal with them because retail's just struggling.

So they're basically just saying you make X and if you make X, we'll take a percentage of it.

Yeah. And we had the cash to do the build out. Normally you get tenant improvement dollars. We didn't get those. We paid for the build out ourself. And then we also just drive foot traffic right to somewhere that really downtown might not come.

How did you come up with these ideas? Were you like, I just want to do it cheap. So I'm going to be. I'm going to just be common sense about it. Because you've never done anything like this before.

Yeah. I mean, again, we thought it was a trend that wasn't going to last very long. So we didn't want to get too deep into it and invest too much money and time thinking that it was only going to last us a year. Right.

Let's talk about privates, because I bet there's a lot of money we make there. How much does it cost to do a private goat yoga class?

So for us to go off site to someone's location, it's a minimum of $2,000.

Love it.

Often our big corporate events get up to like 6 to 8,000.

Nothing says corporate bonding like goat yoga.

That's right.

How many of those do we do a month?

During our busy season, I'd say two to three a month is a good number. During our slow season, it could be none. It could be one smaller one here and there. We also do offer privates at the studio. Those are a minimum of 800 for a smaller group.

But the nice part is you try to make sure that you don't rely on these to cover your monthly costs because there can be variable come and go. Yeah, we want to have something that's a little bit more consistent, but Then this is probably where you make a lovinger margin.

Sure.

Yeah. Amazing. Love the business. I go to yoga all the time. Granted, not always with goats, but I love how you can practice mindfulness while also keeping my body moving. But it can be hard to shut off my brain. So I've partnered with Better Help. The sponsor of today's video therapy isn't just for working out major issues. It can help you add tools and tips to regulate your emotions and declutter your brain after any kind of day you have. If you go to Better Help site, they'll ask you a couple questions. They'll match you up with one of their therapists who is best suited for your needs, big or small. Every single one of their therapists is licensed, has a master's or doctorate degree, and has spent over three years working with thousands of people like you. And if the first match doesn't work, that's okay because there are 30,000 therapists in their network you can switch to at no additional cost so you can find the right fit for you. It can get tough out there. So if you want a little Support, go to betterhelp.com Cody Sanchez or use the word Cody and sign up for a special discount. Because when I get a deal, you get a deal. Now let's get back to the video. Let's do rapid fire. What does it cost to build out a goat yoga place? What about that thing that was free.

It was already here from a retail store. Signage that was like a hundred dollars on etsy. What?

Okay, 100 bucks. Amazing. And we've got some live Laugh Love yoga version.

Yep, exactly.

What are these costing?

Oh, Amazon. I don't know. 30 bucks, maybe. Yeah.

Benches filled out here.

Husband built those because I asked him to.

Let's call it another couple hundred bucks maybe.

Yeah.

Plus some favors later.

Sure, sure.

Okay.

Hey, his mom's here.

Oh, yeah, we're sorry.

I'm just kidding. The big money thing was moving this wall back. It was right where you're standing here. And so we moved it back a bit to give us more space in here that was, I want to say, $5,000.

What about pen and all that?

So we had bought all that when we first started. When we first did our first event, we spent a couple thousand dollars on, like, yoga mats, fencing, a couple tables, tutus, an outfit. Yeah, those.

Call it a couple hundred bucks, too.

Yeah.

And then the cleanup stuff. So probably on a monthly basis, you're going through a couple hundred dollars in cleaning gear.

Yeah.

Love it.

Now, flooring was Expensive. The bathrooms were expensive. This is got to be 10k something. Yeah.

Okay, that makes sense. So all in. You're probably looking at 10 to $30,000 for startup cost for a space for.

The studio build out.

Yeah.

Which is wild.

But you did the smart thing and you were like, I'm not going to spend money until I'm making money.

Right.

So your very first event, what do you think it cost you to throw that hurricane event?

A few hundred dollars.

Maybe it's just yoga mats and like, ask for fencing, not permission.

Yeah.

With the location.

Right.

And then a free event.

Right, right.

Love the mvp. And then you sort of slowly scaled up your costs.

Sure. Well, yeah. And we, like I said, we were on the rooftop, another rooftop, for a year and a half. So we had no real overhead. And we did that for as long as we could. So initially, our startup costs were like maybe one to two thousand dollars. And then once we saved up enough cash, we got up to the studio and just paid cash for the reno.

What does it cost you to buy one goat that's a female?

So if you wanted to buy a goat from roxy, girls are 450, boys are 350.

Nice. And these are. Because they're like kind of these special bougie.

They're small. They're gonna stay small.

You get one goat. How often does a goat breed?

Roxy waits every two or so years to make sure that they really have time to recover. The problem is, though, she's gotta not keep them and actually be willing to sell them. Cause a lot of the time she has a girl and she's like, oh, we might have to keep this one. So. And then they come. They part of the Go Go Gang.

For that would be my problem.

Yeah. I breed to have five to six mamas that deliver every month. You know, we usually don't have any horns because they're pets.

Yeah.

Just started out with one goat, and here we are 100.

What happened? How did you become a crazy goat lady?

Well, like I said, I started with one. Somebody gave me one. I kind of had rescue issues, so I rescued things. And then nobody told me that one goat, it's a herd animal, can't be by itself. Okay. So I went and got two more and then a couple more, and then I bred them, and I had babies. So I put them on Craigslist for $75, and they sold in 15 minutes. And I was like, whoa. So I had a friend that had some little ones, and I said, let me kind of play with this. And I Put it on Craigslist for 200. They sold in 15 minutes. And I said, we need a Facebook page, we need a website. And that's how we got started. And then, you know, now they're 450 and 350. And I mean, I could go up and they would still sell. And I don't sell, sell one single goat because of my experience and what happened. I used to. And then in about three months, they would call me and go, hey, this isn't working out. I'm like, no, it didn't bond with your dog. Shocker. You know, So I don't sell one goat and they get mad at me. And I always tell them, you can find somebody that'll sell you one. It's just about the sale. Yeah, that's not my deal.

Wow. How much do you think you guys make from selling goats a year?

Probably close to 100,000 a year.

That's incredible.

Yeah.

And so then you use that and you think about different ways to make money from goats.

Right.

And it's probably not that much. How much money do you think you spend on the goats?

Like, do you break anything?

No, that's. I used to know. I used to keep up like per. Now all of my herd was born at my place. I pay way more for my hay than most people. It's a specialty hay because I am a breeding operation. I don't try to hide that. You know, this is what I do. I bleach their stalls every day in a climate controlled barn. Love it. So there's money involved in this and that's how I justify the price that I charge. You know, I would say, I don't know, I would say my private profit margin is easily 60%.

Love that.

And more, as you know, one mama will have seven or eight litters before she's retired. Beautiful at two to four.

Amazing. And then you get to snuggle them in the meantime.

Yes.

If you were talking to somebody who hates their job right now, who's in their 9 to 5 and wants to find their version of a side hustle.

Would you tell them for me? It happened when I stopped trying to worry about the money. Right. I was just trying to help people. And I think there's, you know, there's a quote about, like, the more successful you are is literally tied to the more people that you help. Even if it's something silly, focus on that. Like, focus on how you're going to bless as many people as possible. And I think that the money comes second.

Yeah.

First you give Then you get. We call it the 10x rule.

Yeah.

So for every dollar that you get, you better be serving the community by 10x, otherwise you don't have a sustainable business. And in fact, you take it.

You're not given. I love that.

If you were going to talk to somebody about how to start, what would be the, like, three tips you gave them? It doesn't have to be goat yoga. It has to be starting whatever their next side hustle is.

Sure, ask for help. That's hard for me, but I. I had a lot of help getting started, and I don't know that I would have been so successful so quickly had I not allowed these people to help me and reached out to people to help me. So, yeah, definitely ask for help. Yeah. And accept it too.

Yeah.

That part's hard.

Part. Yeah. Okay. Number two, don't be afraid to jump and figure out the rest later. I'm kind of a perfectionist, and it's like, perfect is the enemy of done right. You're never going to get it done if you're so worried about just making it perfect ahead of time. So, yeah, just jump and figure out the details on your way down to an extent. Right.

What about the last piece?

Try to find something that you actually want to do, like, that you actually want to be there. Right. Like, I don't have to be at these events every time, but I am because I love seeing how happy everybody is, and I just love connecting with people and seeing them exceedingly experience this. So, you know, not all businesses and not all work is going to be this fun, you know, exciting thing every day. But just try to find something that, like, again, you're. You're helping somebody, you're blessing them in some way, even if it's something that seems silly, just want to be there.

I think there are certain type of people where they have this energy and you're like, I can tell this business is going to be successful.

Yeah.

Because you're not just trying to take all you can.

Sure.

That doesn't last. Pros to this business are kind of obvious, but this is one of them. An ability to have an adorable little nugget run around the entire time you have a business. If that seowag doesn't make you happy, I honestly don't know what it. What would. She likes me. Here's the other pros I see with this business. One is you're not going to have a ton of competition. Yoga studios can open all over the place. Having an ability to have something unique and differentiated like little goats. Brilliant business model. It means inherent marketing built into your business. Second, unfair advantage for this business is it has both reoccurring monthly membership if you want it. So come do yoga with goats all the time or come one time or do big group events that have a lot more income.

3.

One of the best pros of this business is just she was smart on structuring deals. The lease is typically the most expensive part of a business behind labor. And this lease is just a percentage of sales. So she really protected herself from having a huge overhead cost that she couldn't continue. The next thing that I love about this business is it doesn't seem to take very much time in order to make more than 30 to 40% margins, which is what you want in a business. So she's making anywhere from, let's call it 2000 to 4000 each weekend. Only with those two days you know she's making somewhere. Let's give her a little wiggle room between four and $10,000 a month just on these classes. And then if you add another six to eight to $10,000 a month with one off private events, she's got a beautiful six figure income for a business that she loves with guys like this.

Let's talk about the cons.

Every business has them. The first con of this business, hard to scale. You know you're going to need thousands and thousands of goats if you want to do this across the country. I don't think this is a scalable business that is okay. But it is important to know. Second in this type of business is you would have to do a lot of labor in order to get this business rocking in a bigger level. So you have to have your instructors at a low cost. You also have to have a couple of other people in the class planning up simultaneously with you. Plus you have to have somebody to take care of care of the goats full time. So there's some labor involved. Third part of this business that's a little bit tough is how do you make sure that like licensing is allowed for both agriculture usage and goats. I think a lot of places besides Texas would have different regulations for this. The next would be if you didn't have a breeding part of this business where you actually took the goats and you sold them. What are you gonna do with all those baby goats? Then you're like you're selling them for meat. I don't think that's gonna be over well. So they need to have that other component of the business to then go ahead and sell the baby goats. One of the other cons to the business is I don't think very many people are going to have transactional membership to a place like this, but they're not going to come back again and again and again to go yoga. So you have to constantly find new people to come in. Because while this is cool, I want a hot, hard yoga class more than I probably want to pet a goat three to four times a week. Last con if you want this sort of setup with foot traffic, this type of building is actually expensive to lease. You have to make sure that the lease for your rent is pretty low. Otherwise I don't think this business can make enough money for you to have a really expensive lease. You'd really have to watch that cost. People aren't going to come to goat yoga at 9am on a Tuesday. Saturdays are where you play Uncomfortable Truth. You can get rich doing just about anything. If you found anything interesting seen in this video, tag me on Instagram with the best thing you learned from this so that I can create more just for you.

Now.

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