This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Got an interesting one for you today. Welcome to Side Hustle School. This is Chris Guillebeau. Now today's caller doesn't think I'm gonna feature his question, which of course, piqued my curiosity, right? Because when someone's like, "You're not gonna feature my question," I'm like, "Oh, well, I'll show you." You know, could be a good strategy for him.
And then he dared me to feature it. And I can't turn down a dare, of course. I mean, actually I can, so don't get any crazy ideas. But I did like the actual question, okay? So what is this guy selling?
He is selling Netflix passwords. Well, not quite like that. He's gonna tell you more about it. But he is selling what he calls black hat tips and tricks. So as he'll explain, it's information like how to share Netflix logins and other things that aren't quite illegal, but also aren't necessarily favored by big companies.
So is this a viable business? Hey, I'm happy to hear about anything, you know? No guarantee I'll be able to mention it or say good things about it, but I'm pretty open-minded. Let's dive in and hear from Craig, also known as Harry. You'll understand more when you hear his message.
[Music]
Hey, Chris, this is Craig and I've been following your projects for a while. I have a side hustle that's a little sketchy. In fact, I don't think you'll feature my question on the show, but I figured I'd try and ask. I like to help people with what might be considered black hat tips and secrets. Nothing illegal, but things like giving away shared logins for Netflix or Amazon Prime or showing how to return items to stores after the return window is closed.
There are many more, but I don't wanna say what everything is upfront. I wanna sell a guide to all these tips. I'm gonna call myself black hat Harry, even though my name isn't Harry. It just seemed like a good idea to protect my privacy. But speaking of protection, I worry that eBay and other platforms will remove my guide and maybe even keep my money after sales have been made.
Should I be worried? I'm not trying to go completely dark web. As I said, nothing I'm doing is illegal. It's just a little borderline. I dare you to run this question and tell me what you think.
Thanks. [Music]
All right, Craig, also known as Harry. As I said, I accept the challenge, did run the question. As for what I think, I mean, it's all in how this is positioned or messaged. And I think there's a broad spectrum of this kind of activity.
At first I was thinking of the old school anarchist cookbook, which was kind of this underground resource that was sold in different places for a long time. Maybe it still is, I have no idea. It's kind of pre internet years and things like that. They were kind of precursors to what later turned into Silk Road and the dark web and all that kind of stuff. And I think there's a, as I said, there's a spectrum here because pretty big difference in telling people how to make bombs in your backyard, which is what some of that stuff was about and how to share logins for streaming services.
Which is what Black Hat Harry proposes. So, you're not supposed to share your logins, but you're really not supposed to make bombs. So that's why I say, what exactly are you offering? What is the messaging here? But even if you're offering stuff that's, as Harry said, or Craig, just a little borderline, you still wanna be really careful because PayPal and other merchant providers, they cancel seller's accounts and keep all of the funds all the time.
It happens on a pretty regular basis. You see all these articles of, I saw one recently about PayPal that had just decided to keep $100,000 because they didn't like what the seller was offering. And I forget exactly what it was, but it wasn't something that sounded that bad to me. It was just like, PayPal's like, nope, not gonna give you that money, we're gonna keep it. So if I were selling a Black Hat Guide, even though nothing is illegal about it, I would worry about stuff like that happening.
And there's probably some other worries too, right? So I guess, there's always lots of ideas you could pursue. Why not pursue one that doesn't have these risks involved? And then finally, I wonder if instead of selling this as an actual guide, if there could be another way of distributing the info for mutual benefit. Again, I'm talking about things that might be a little bit borderline, but definitely not illegal.
So maybe a podcast could be a good medium for that. Though of course there, you might have some trouble attracting corporate sponsors. So there you go, Craig, that's my two cents on that. Take it for what it's worth. Don't show anybody how to build bombs.
And listeners, if you've got a crazy idea or just a normal idea, any idea, sidehustleschool.com/questions. Continue to feature them throughout the year along with updates from other listeners as they launch and grow their projects. So glad you're out there. Take care of yourself today. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School.
[Music]
From the Onward Project.
