Afford Anything - Making Money as an Uber and Lyft Driver, with The RideShare Guy Harry Campbell

Episode Date: March 21, 2016

#17: Harry began driving for Uber 2 years. Now he's making 6-figures sharing tips for how to maximize time and profit with Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and PostMates. For Harry's rideshare money-making tips, visit https://affordanything.com/episode17 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yeah, and Harry went on to blah, blah, blah. Oh, did he? I wasn't aware of that. He went on to blah, blah, blah, blah. Welcome to the Paula and Jay Money Show, a podcast about growing wealth and financial freedom. Your host, Paula Pant, is a world traveler who built financial freedom through real estate investing. She runs the website, afford-anything.com. Host Jay Money is a husband and father of two, striving for financial freedom. He hates real estate but loves to blog for a living over at Budgets Are Sex

com. Which one resonates with you? Grab a beer and find out as you listen to the Paula and Jay Money Show. If you've ever wondered, how much money does an Uber driver or a lift driver make, and what goes on behind the scenes in that job? You're going to love today's episode. Our guest, Harry Campbell, is a former aerospace engineer who, in his spare time, just as a side hustle, began driving for companies.

like Uber and Lyft, and then later for additional companies like Postmates and DoorDash. He also began blogging about his experience at therideshare guy.com, and he launched a ride share guy podcast. And this dude is awesome, and he makes over $200,000 a year. Yeah. That's my little input to grab your attention to what Paula said, did it yet. So exactly. Harry was so successful that he quit his engineering job to focus full-time on the ride share industry. He's a fascinating interview subject, really smart guy, and I'm excited to talk to him. Before we do that, though, let's take a moment to thank our sponsor, the people who keep this show on the air, Digit. Digit. I was trying to redo your jingle. D-I-G-I-T. There it is. Nice. Jay, tell our listeners a little bit about Digit.

Yes, so Digit is a free service you attach your checking account to. It automatically pulls the money every couple of days and literally, banks it into a savings account for you. So if you're real lazy or you suck at saving money in general, you can sign up. Again, it's free. And then it'll just, you know, at the end of the month, you'll start seeing money in there. It can be $5, it'll be $50 total. But it's just an easy, quick way to start banking money, which is awesome, obviously. So you can sign up for free at the money show.co slash digit. That's themoney show.com slash d-I-G-I-T. So that being said, let's talk to Harry about all the juicy details that go on behind the scenes when you're driving for Uber or Lyft. Is this a viable side hustle? Who's it right for? Who's it not? And what

are some of the crazy stories that come out of this? Yeah, let's talk about debauchery. Yeah. Harry, take it away. Yeah, dude, so thanks so much for coming on. I was funny. Paula actually told me she came across some of your stuff last week. I was like, Jay, we got to get Harry on the show. Reach out to him. I said, all right, all right, I will, I will.

And then like randomly out of the blue, you emailed me about the show. And actually, I want to quote this for our listeners because I think this is why we had John within like 24 hours of you emailing. Like you wrote, I'm just going to quote you here. I actually quit my job as an aerospace engineer to do the blog full time a year ago and the ride shirt guy has really taken off. On track to gross $200,000 this year with over 500,000 pages last month and I just hired my first full-time employee. Dude, congratulations, man.

Thanks. Yeah, I was hoping that would be enough to make the cut. Yes, yes. That is fascinating. And we've covered Airbnb and other sharing type stuff on the show. Yeah, definitely. And Paula was mentioning earlier, like, this is something that a lot of people either use Uber or you've heard of it. You're like, oh, maybe I can do this, right?

Like, everyone thinks these kind of things. Yeah, that was actually the episode I listened to the other day, too, the one with the couple and the Airbnb and eBay business stuff. Yeah, and that's what I think is so fascinating about what you do, you know, with making specifically in terms of making money on as a driver with Uber and Lyft. If you're wired like me and you're an entrepreneur, every time you use an Uber or a lift, you think to yourself, huh, how much money are they making? Could I do this? Is it worth my time? Is this a viable hustle? If so, what do I need to know?

And you're actually doing it and you're doing it really well. So that's really what we want to talk to you about for the sake of any listeners who are having those same thoughts. Yeah, why don't she start from – because you did. I did a guest post on my site like two years ago when this stuff started getting really hot. Can you tell us like how you got started? Sure. Where you are now, how much you drive versus blogging, all that kind of good stuff. But just for like an average person that doesn't know how to get started. Yeah, definitely. So I mean basically, yeah, it was about two years ago that I actually first signed up to be a lift driver. And at the time, I was working full time as an engineer. And I think a lot of people

kind of thought it was funny or weird that I was doing this little side hustle. where I was an Uber driver by night and engineer by day. But for me, it was just something, you know, I'm like a side hustler, kind of like you guys, right? Just always trying to find ways to make a couple bucks here and there that, with frankly, things that are pretty easier, things that I'm passionate about. And so that's what it was really about. It was just kind of I thought it would be a cool idea. And it seemed like it was the right time to get in because drivers were kind of telling me how much money they were making.

People were telling me they were making like 30 to 40 bucks an hour. And I was like thinking to myself, hey, that's more than I make in my day job. I mean, you might only be able to work a few hours and make that amount, but still, if I can get that, that's pretty cool. So that's kind of why I signed up and I quickly realized that there was some pretty good earning potential, especially at the beginning. And I mean, when these services first launch, obviously drivers are in super high demand. So they're paying big bonuses and paying guaranteed rates and higher rates. So, I mean, pay has obviously come down over time. But I mean, when I was first starting, I was pretty easily making 20 to 30 bucks an hour, just driving kind of almost.

whenever and wherever I wanted. And then once I really started optimizing around the best times and places to drive, I mean, I had one weekend where I drove over July 4th weekend. And I actually averaged over $50 an hour that whole weekend, which is pretty crazy for just driving people around. And I mean, I think that those weekends, you know, those kind of like big events or holidays or New Year's Eve are obviously far and few between. But at the same time, it still does provide you the opportunity.

If you only wanted to work New Year's Eve once a year, every single year, you could do that as an Uber driver and that's pretty crazy. So that's kind of how I got into the whole whole whole driving side. How much would you make if you just did that one time? I know it varies depending on the city. But are we talking like a few hundred bucks like in one night just if you just did that? You mean as far as like on a big night or? Yeah, like a new year's or. Yeah. I mean, definitely. I mean even today honestly like this New Year's was quite profitable for a lot of drivers. I would say a lot of drivers went at least a few hundred to maybe even six, seven hundred bucks a night on those really big nights. I'd say, you know, like a more reasonable goal for a lot of drivers

who kind of do it part-time or on the side is like about $1,000 a month. And, you know, that won't be like working here and there. But you'll definitely have to put in some hours to get there. But at the same time, I think that's like probably a pretty reasonable goal if you're going to do it part-time, you know, 10, 15 hours a week. Just to clarify, so 10 to 15 hours a week would be roughly about $1,000 a month? Today, the pay has come down a bit because, I mean, there's four or 500,000 drivers. Everyone likes to do it. I mean, it's super flexible, right? So, of course, everyone wants to do a job that's really fun and flexible. So pay has gone down, kind of basic supply and demand. I'd say today the pay is a little bit closer to 10 to 20 bucks an hour, depending on where and

when you drive. And the other thing to really consider is that there's a lot of income variability. And what I mean by that, in like a normal job, right, when you have 10 people start on day one in the same exact job, they all get paid the same amount, right? But as an Uber driver, if you have 10 drivers start on the same day. Some drivers are going to be a lot better than others. Some are going to be a lot worse than others. And actually, a better driver can actually earn a significant amount more than a worse driver just because they can really figure out like all the strategies and tips and tricks, a lot of which I talk about on my site. Okay, well, let's talk about those right now. Like, what is a better driver? How do you define that and what qualities make a better driver? As far as when it comes to

earning more money, I'd say the first thing that the better drivers are doing is that they realize that this isn't the type of job where you can go in and go out on a daily basis and do the same thing every single day that worked for you yesterday. I think just like with this type of industry that's so new and innovative and changing every day, if you have like a very set schedule that you try to do every single week, you're probably going to find that that might not work from week to week to week. You really have to constantly be trying new things, trying to find new times, new places, and really like working, especially now. I mean, the biggest thing in the past year is that there's a lot more drivers. So there's still plenty of rides, but there's a lot more drivers. So in the past,

I would always tell drivers, hey, Friday, Saturday nights are the best place to start because we call those the party hours, right? Everyone wants to. I miss those hours. Yeah, Jay, you got a kid now. So, you know, you're probably not out too much on Friday, Saturday nights. But those young people, you know, those young people are all out with a fury, right? Burn it off steam and doing all that good stuff. And I mean, that's when typically we see the highest demand on the past. And I'm, you know, side for rides. But what we've seen over the past years that there are a lot of those weekend warriors who are trying to make the most amount of money and they know they can come out Friday, Saturday night. And in turn, that's also made it so that there's a high supply of drivers. So there's

a lot of requests on Friday Saturday nights now, but there's also a high supply of drivers. So it's not quite as profitable as it used to be. But like the most savvy drivers are now looking for times when maybe passenger demand isn't at its highest, but when driver supply is also at its lowest, right? Because when driver's supply, at its lowest, you'll get more requests, you have more of a chance for surge pricing, which is when Uber actually raises the prices and you can get 2 to 3x or even higher at times on the same exact ride. So that's kind of like an example of what the savviest drivers are doing. Just continuing with this for a while, what would be an example of a time that there might be

low driver supply? Good question. And so probably one that I'd kind of discovered over the past year and I've been telling a lot of people about it, but not everyone is willing to work it as early a.m., we call them airport runs, because if you think about it, like most bars close around two, three, maybe four in New York City. And from about 3 a.m. to 6 a.m.

or 4 a.m. to 6 a.m., there's really no one out, there's no reason to be on the roads unless you're going to an airport. Right. For like an early morning flight, I'm sure we, you know, I've gotten up here and there. I mean, the airport's all open at like 5, 6. And so whenever people are traveling internationally and, you know, most big cities have like a pretty big international airport.

And so what we've kind of found was that in the mornings, there's no traffic. So you can get to passengers really easily. You can transport them because, I mean, drivers don't get paid, they get paid a lot more per mile than they do per minute. So traffic is kind of like an income killer for a driver. So drivers, you know, that's the kind of the example, like doing these early AM airport runs, there's not a whole lot of drivers that are willing to be up at 4 or 5 a.m. Right?

There are a lot of drivers basically don't drive during that time. And there aren't as many passenger requests, but when you do get one, they're usually going from the suburbs all the way to the airport, right? A lot of airports in many cities are 20 to 30 minutes outside of the city. So you can imagine you're just zipping back and forth and doing these really quick, you know, 20 mile rides, 15 mile rides. And those can be pretty lucrative. And, you know, one other example is, so we talked about the party hours. But what happens the morning after, right? When all these drivers have stayed out pretty late and then you have the walk of shame rides.

So we call those. Those are the fun juicy topics to blog about rides, I would imagine. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, it's kind of funny because I have all, and honestly, no one else calls it this. It's just me. But, you know, so the walk of shame rides, as you can imagine, all these people go out partying. And in the morning, they got to get to their cars. They got to get home.

And most drivers aren't out at that time. So that's kind of another area where it's very similar to those airport runs in the sense there's no traffic. Your passengers will just get in, be very quiet, sit in the back, give them a water. You'll be like, you know, a king to them. So those are kind of testing rides too. And so how much could you expect? And I know this is like ballpark and it varies, but for something like the 4 a.m.

airport ride or the Walk of Shame ride, how much at an hourly rate could you expect to earn? I think $10 to $20 an hour is a pretty good average since there is just so much variability. I mean, you know, so that's usually what I tell people. Right now, that's about what drivers are making 10 to 20 bucks an hour. And, you know, in cities like L.A., San Francisco, especially cities like San Francisco, So the earning potential could even be higher. And the other thing to really consider that a lot of drivers may not do, which I think is kind of holds a lot of parallels to business and why you see a lot of Uber drivers who are

basically entrepreneurs and kind of starting things on their own, being an Uber driver is really good practice for kind of owning your own business because not only do you have to think about income, you also have to think about your expenses, right? If you're not one of the best drivers and maybe you're only making 10 to 15 bucks an hour and you're also driving a car that's super inefficient, maybe it's like an SUV or something that doesn't quite qualify for like the next level of Uber service. So you're still getting paid the regular Uber rates and it's old and it doesn't get good gas mileage. You can imagine that your expenses are going to be a lot higher than someone who's

zipping around and like a three-year-old used Prius that they bought for all cash, right? So that's the other thing that you really have to consider when you kind of take your income and subtract your expenses. You will really want to be on the high side of the income and the low side of the expenses in order to really maximize your profits. What about, I know like years ago, I don't know if things are changed, but there was like a bare minimum you need. Like, I have an old decrepit 20-year-old Cadillac DeVille, which, you know, is pimped to me, but I don't know if like Uber would accept me, right? Like, what are the main, like the simple requirements for anyone to be started?

So generally in some cities, some of the bigger cities, Uber requires 2001 or newer. And then in most other cities, it's 2005 or newer. So usually every year they kind of raise requirements by one. And it's a little bit city to city. It's pretty easy to email, find out. You can actually just email support at uber.com, and they'll be able to tell you what the age requirements for your vehicle are in your city. But the cool thing now that we're starting to see is that a lot of these delivery companies, on-demand delivery companies, are starting to pop up and get pretty well funded. So the two biggest examples are DoorDash and Postmates.

And the nice thing about those is that your car doesn't matter. You can drive a scooter. You can drive a motorcycle. You can drive a 20-year-old Cadillac because obviously you're not transporting passengers. You're just transporting food. So that's another thing kind of interesting. Nice. Wow. Interesting.

Once have even occurred to me to go that route. Yeah. Yeah. When I lived in New York City, man, 15, 20 years ago, like right after 9-11, actually, I remember like everyone is trying to do something. Like, especially in New York City, it's like a little bubble, right? But I remember there'd be people like biking at 2 a.m.

And delivering like, I don't know, like a stapler or like people just ordered random stuff like in the middle of the night. But I remember thinking like, oh, this isn't going to catch on. Yeah, definitely. Well, and I probably didn't catch on, but now it's kind of making this resurgence. And I mean, you even have, you know, DoorDash, for example, has in certain cities, they allow bike couriers. So you can actually be a bike courier in certain cities, you know, that obviously like it probably wouldn't work too well in L.A., but somewhere like San Francisco or Seattle, where downtown is a lot more centralized. They actually have bike couriers. So you don't even need a car at that point. So there's definitely more and more options kind of catering to different levels of service and different requirements for people. Yeah. And where did you start? Like where were you physically driving? Because you're out in California, right? Yeah. So I actually lived in Orange County, which is just about an hour south of L.A. And that's where I kind of hone my skills as a lift and Uber driver. And now I live in Long Beach, which is technically part of Los Angeles County, but it's on the southern border. So that's kind of where I am now. Okay. And do you think, like I live right outside of Washington, D.C., and the further you go down south along the coast and not Richmond, but all the little towns around. And then,

There's no Uber or Lyft, at least in the last couple years that I've seen. I always wondered if it's a really smart move to be like the only driver there. So you like own that like empire and you kind of branch out. The big fish in the little pond. Yeah. Or if it's stupid because there's like no one ever there. So that's why they don't exist. But like if you see the future of it going that way, like because I guarantee a lot of people listening to this don't live in like big city.

That's right. So is it worth at least testing for like a month or trying to like get your name and. and blog and everything out there. Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing is that especially over the past year, Uber has really started moving into basically every city, even if it's super small. I mean, they're moving into cities with its few as 100,000 people.

That is a good point because there are a lot of different challenges for small markets. And kind of like you said, I mean, if there's only a couple drivers, that seems like it might be a good thing. But on the passenger side, if there's only one driver driving around serving the whole town, Uber's not a very reliable service at that point. So they're probably not going to use it all that much.

So there's kind of like that chicken and egg problem in a lot of these small places. And I'd say that the big thing that we see with in the smaller towns is that weekends are still okay. Weekends can still be profitable because people still go out and do a bunch of stuff. But you just don't have as many as much kind of flexibility during the week. It's a lot tougher to find rides and drivers might sit for 20 or 30 minutes in smaller towns. So there's definitely some unique challenges to driving in a small market. And I mean, I would say just general advice for any of these services, really, whether it's Uber or Lyft or Postmates or DoorDash, is that they kind of tend to provide the most opportunity at the beginning when they first launch and you kind of are one of those first movers. If you're one of those first drivers, they treat you the best because they kind of have to. They'll pay you the most because, you know, they frankly need drivers and just basic supply and demand. As they get more and more drivers, you know, they can lower prices and pay drivers less because there are more people willing to do it. And I think the number one thing, that people probably may not realize just how flexible being a driver is that if I literally,

like if I wanted to leave this interview right now, I could go and probably get an Uber ride in three to five minutes, drop them off and then come back and finish an interview if you guys didn't mind waiting. That's awesome. And then I could not drive for a week or a month or two months and then come right back. So there's definitely that flexibility aspect that I think is probably one of the, probably the number one thing that people value. And, you know, when you get a lot of flexibility, you sometimes have to give up.

something in regards to income. Yeah. Now, going back, now, humor me here. Let's say you picked a Rinky Dink City and there's no Uber or Lyft around, but you're like, I know this is going to be big, right? Could you, in theory, start your own, like tell everyone, go to the bars, let everyone know like you're like an Uber, but you're not, you know, and get started. And then if Uber comes, you can then take control? Like, could you physically do that if you wanted to, or have you heard of anyone kind of recreating it because these services haven't come out yet? Yeah, you know, the problem is that the one big thing that passengers love about Uber is kind of being able to open the app, call the ride, and do everything from that one kind of centralized hub. And obviously,

Uber at this point has this huge network effect that no matter what city you go into in the U.S. And even now in the world, if you're traveling to somewhat big cities, Uber is there. I mean, I was just in Lima. I was just in Mexico City. They're all over the place, right? And so that's kind of the thing that I think is a little bit tough. I mean, passengers have really shown that like they're very price sensitive, the lower the prices go on Uber, the more they take it. You know, they're very happy with that service kind of compared to a taxi or even, I mean, there are people, I mean, there are drivers who I've interviewed on my podcast who have kind of gone out and sort of started their own service on the back of Uber, right? Kind of like almost soliciting

clients a little bit from Uber, kind of like poaching clients, I would say. And also kind of just creating their own service because, I mean, the big thing as a driver right now, as an Uber driver right now, it's really hard to distinguish yourself, right? If you're a 4.95 star rated driver and you're out there killing it, you might make some more money, but like that rating doesn't really get you a whole lot more, right? A 4.95 star rated driver will get paid the same amount as a 4.65 star rated driver, right? And that's kind of a pretty big difference. So some drivers have kind of taken it upon themselves to really like go above and beyond and try to solicit private clients. You sort of run into some issues with commercial insurance there, so you have to be a little bit

careful and it's a kind of a different topic in itself. But there's definitely some people out there trying to do it for sure. Yeah. Can you explain a little bit about how your ranking, your star rating, affects your income? Yeah, definitely. So the big thing is that it really only affects your income in one way. If you drop below about a 4.6 and it's not like a hard cutoff, but it's around 4.6, you'll actually be deactivated. So that's how it affects your income. You won't make any. Wow. Wow. So this is a zero-sum game. Yeah, and that's why, like, there is some frustration on the driver's side because, well, first of all, I mean, if you're on Yelp and you see a four-star rated restaurant, that's probably something you'd be interested in trying, right? Four-stars is a pretty good rating. But whereas with Uber, four-stars is actually really bad and you'll be deactivated for that. So, I mean, a four-star rating for a driver is kind of telling them that they should be deactivated almost. We're a four-star rated podcast. Yeah, we're going to shut down. Yeah, if this was an Uber podcast, you guys would have to shut down.

And it's four out of five, I'm assuming, right? Yeah, yeah. That's why you'll never see, I guess, zeros or ones or twos or threes or even fours at this point. They're all going to look awesome, I guess. Well, so generally when drivers first get started, they're given some flexibility, some kind of lenience. I mean, they have 30 to 50 rides and they kind of kind of like a 30 to 50 ride grace period where if they dip below, you know, if they're only a four star or 4.5 or whatever, they'll have some leniency. But after 30 or 50 rides, you kind of have to get it up there.

And that's kind of, you know, it's a really passenger-friendly system because you're able to really keep the drivers in check and they're not going to be talking on their phone, right? They're not going to be doing anything they shouldn't do because they know that they'll be rated. But at the same time, Uber hasn't done the best job kind of communicating that feedback, right? As a 4.5-star rated driver, you don't always know what you're doing wrong because Uber doesn't do a great job giving you feedback. And so it's kind of hard to figure that out. Like, hey, I'm not doing so well, but how do I fix this? And that's luckily where my site comes in because I kind of provide a lot. of that information off of just kind of research and talking to different people and drivers.

But yeah, I mean, so the ratings are definitely, you know, it's not the worst thing in the world, but it definitely provides sort of a challenge for drivers because they just have to make sure that they're over that kind of 4.6-ish cutoff. Okay, so then for the listeners who are listening to this right now, what advice would you give them if they're in that predicament, if they're getting low rankings, but they're not sure what they're doing wrong? What are the major ones? My first piece of advice, which is a pretty simple one, I think.

and it's something that I kind of would do no matter what arena of life I'm in is, is to just try it as a passenger. And you'd be really surprised that not many drivers, majority of drivers that I've talked to and when I survey them and things like that, they actually haven't taken a ride as a passenger. And it would seem to me that it's like pretty intuitive. Like, hey, if I'm going to go even apply for a job at Uber or work for this service, I should at least try it out from the consumer side, right,

before I go and sign up to be a driver just to see what it's like, maybe talk to a driver, see what the driver does well. I mean, because you'll get instant feedback. You get into the car. If you're in with a 4.9 star rated driver, you can study them, see what they do or more importantly, what they're not doing. If you get into the car with a 4.5 or maybe a 4.7 star rated driver, you'll probably learn a lot too about what they're doing. I mean, maybe they bombard you with a ton of questions, right, when you get in and it's kind of annoying. And they keep talking to you, even though you don't want to talk. There's lots of little cues that I think you can learn from being a passenger. And Uber and Lyft both even give you a first ride free. So, I mean, it's kind of a no-brainer to. at least check these services out since it's free and you can kind of do your due diligence. And beyond that, I'd say most complaints and most kind of low star ratings actually have to do with navigation. So what I mean by that is, first of all, passengers are like very picky, right? They kind of want you to take, I mean, I don't know if you've ever thought about yourself. Like imagine yourself in the back of an Uber.

If the driver like goes a route that you're not used to or even when you're just driving with your friends, right? When people are going routes that you're not used to, you're like, hey, why are you going this way? Why aren't you going that way? Right. And you kind of want to have, you know, those backseat driver types. A lot of people are like that, right? And Uber drivers, I think that they get a little too reliant on their GPS at times. And so they're kind of, you know, just following the GPS blindly. And I think that it helps to kind of know just a general sense of where you are in the city to practice your navigation. I mean, to be able to say, you know, when the GPS tells you like turn left and 800 feet, you want to know, how far is 800 feet if I'm going 30 miles per hour?

is it, you know, because sometimes drivers will kind of be like pulling up to the street, oh, wait, that's not it. Oh, wait, that's not it. And then, you know what I mean? Little things like that that really, if you really like think about it and practice it, and it sounds kind of silly to, like, go out and practice your GPS and practice your navigation. But those are the types of things that passengers, like, kind of don't like and, like, get a little bit upset about. Totally makes sense. Particularly given, as you stated earlier, that passengers are paying per mile rather than per minute. So if you take a route, they might, you know, I wonder if it's a longer route.

Yeah, exactly. What about people that like going back to like the drunk and the partying stuff? Like I would imagine like your memory obviously isn't in the best quality. And you always, you just get so irritated when you're drinking. Yeah. The most ridiculous things. So I imagine that's like a horrible thing for a ride, you know, a driver. Whether they're thinking something's bad when it's not or they're like throwing up.

You know, like I'm on my 21st birthday. I threw up in our limo. But when I wasn't painted, I didn't know that it was me. like, I remember sitting outside of the limo being like, oh, which a hole of my friends threw up in our limo? They're like, dude, it was you. Like, what's wrong with you? But, like, I didn't even know because I was so gone, you know?

Yeah. And like, so for me, like, I probably would have, if my friends didn't told me, I would have, like, rated something bad on the limo driver when it had nothing to do with the limo driver, you know. Is that easy to, like, weed out? Or is there, like, it's like, at certain hours, does that those ratings count different? Yeah, I mean, like, honestly, it's way tougher to drive during the party hours. I mean, at first, you know, so the first couple months, it's kind of fun. We call that, and it's funny, now that I think about it, I have, like, nicknames for everything.

So we call this, like, the honeymoon period. When you're first driving, you're, like, driving a bunch of drunk people around, they're partying. You know, listen to music. You're having a bunch of fun. And then, like, all these little micro pain points start wearing on you. Like, drunk people love to slam doors. And you can imagine that, like, the 20th slam of your door in the night, like, starts to get pretty annoying, right? The 50th guy who tries to bring in an open container into your car.

It's like not even funny at that point. You're just like, dude, really? Yeah. The 50th group of girls who try to squeeze in like six people into your four-seater car. You're just thinking to yourself like, man, this has got to stop. And I think that at the same time, though, so it really kind of test a driver's patience in that sense. But at the same time, it's also really important how you handle these situations because you are going to be rated. Right.

If you have a bunch of kids trying to come into your car bringing in alcohol, you can't be, you know, an a hole about it. You can't tell them, hey, get out of here, be kind of mean and angry about it. Sure, they throw out their beer. But then at the end of the ride, they give you a two-star rating and say, man, this driver was a jerk, right? He wouldn't let us bring the beer in the car. The thing is where, you know, a lot of drivers don't realize. I mean, most drivers aren't trained in customer service. Customer service is tough, right? Because, you know, there's that saying the customer is always right. No way. The customer is wrong. A lot, a lot of, lot of times. But it's the way that you tell them, right? I mean, if there's a policy that Uber has or even if it's

like a legal policy. Like, for example, something where, you know, like you don't want to ever transport someone who's drinking an open container. If you just tell them they can't do it, they're going to be angry. But if you kind of get angry at the system with them, like, man, I totally wish that this wasn't a rule. I wish that Uber allowed me to transport you with six people in the car, right? It's kind of like getting angry at the same thing that they're at. There's little things like that or even just like cracking a joke. Like, hey, if you guys are going to bring that beer in the car, you better have one for me. Yeah, I love it, dude. Oh, you're smooth. Yeah, I mean, so there's lots of little things like that. I mean, you know, people don't like to put on seatbelts and

see you tell them, hey, you know, you definitely want to put on a seatbelt. If you've seen me drive, you'll want to have a seatbelt. It's stuff like that that really it's such a better icebreaker than just being a d' about it and being like, dude, I'm not going to move an inch until you put a seatbelt on, right? It's really like the way you approach it and kind of the attitude you have towards your passengers. It's super important. Wait, let's go back to a whole bunch of girls trying to fit in your car. Like, I'm stuck on that. Like, I've listened to the last part, but Like, wait, that actually sounds like a really good thing. Is that what you're thinking?

Yeah, well, no, I just feel like obviously girl, I mean, as a guy, right? Like, and it works with the opposite sex too. But, like, sometimes they try to go out of the way to kind of convince you, right? Like, have you ever had any situations where they make an offer at you or try and, like, flash you or something to try to get you? Do you know what I'm saying? Well, we're married men. So, like, well, I think you're married, right? Yeah, I'm married.

Okay. Obviously, it doesn't work on us. Of course not. No way. Have you gotten, like, do people go to that extreme, like, as you would imagine, they did in cabs for, like, decades? Yeah. I mean, like, honestly, especially when I was first getting started, like, I was, like,

pretty easy to convince, you know, like, people would get in the car. They'd be like, oh, come on, dude. I'll be, all right, fine. You know, it didn't even have to be a group of girls. But, I mean, and that's actually, like, kind of where the lines start to blur a little bit because you are doing this really, like, friendly service, right? You're a driver, and you're kind of getting all these basically drunk people home and, like, providing the safe method of transportation for them. And often people are like very extremely

thankful, right? And because they don't have a way of getting home otherwise. And you're kind of preventing a lot of people from drinking and driving. So there are a lot of really like good aspects about driving these party hours. But at the same time, you do definitely experience those things where it's kind of, you know, a little bit of a pull, right? And kind of the drivers, I mean, like that's never personally happened to me. But yeah, I know that's happened a lot of times. I mean, many drivers have remarked stuff like that to me. And I mean, we actually just started a series on our blog called Driver Confessions.

Yes. So it's kind of a lot of those types of stories. The first one we shared was super, it was just super weird. It was like this guy ended up calling for an Uber but wanted him to drive him home in his car. And he had like a hatchet in the car. And it turned out he had like a big gun in the back in the trunk. And it was just like a really, really crazy story.

And it's almost like, you know, you would think that it's made up. But it's just these stories, if you do enough rides, it's just something weird or something kind of crazy is bound to happen if you do enough rides. Actually, wait, let me jump in there because it goes perfectly with something I wanted to ask about, which is driver safety. Yeah. Particularly for the listeners, I don't want to make gender stereotypes, but let's say that you are a female and short, like me. From Nepal. Yeah. And let's see you host a podcast.

No, so, you know, I'm 5'1, I'm a woman. Yeah. I live in Las Vegas where you have a lot of crazy drunk people. Definitely. If I wanted to be an Uber or a lift driver, how would I ensure that I was safe? I mean, it would be pretty easy to punch me out, frankly. Definitely. And I mean, so inherently with the system, there's some safety built in because every passenger

has to link a credit card to their profile. So obviously that's not foolproof, but I think that right off the bat you have a lot of people who basically, you know, their information is kind of on file with Uber and it's linked to you, right? Both the ride is actually tracked through the driver's GPS and the passenger's GPS on their phone. So there's some inherent safety there. But obviously, that's not foolproof. And as far as driver's safety, I mean, I think the big thing that you have to really keep in mind is that there's a reason why there's plexiglass screens in between passengers and drivers in a taxi cab, right? Yeah.

Clearly incidents and, you know, living in Vegas, I'm sure you've seen that. something has happened in the past that has warranted that, right? And dealing with drunk people, you do have incidents. There have been a couple pretty highly publicized incidents or caught on camera of kind of like passengers attacking drivers or kind of just going crazy amongst drivers. And I'd say the first thing is those instances are definitely few and far between because Uber's doing over a million trips a day. But you're right. At the same time, safety is an issue. I mean, you know, one of the kind of cheapest and easiest ways I think is a lot of drivers now are starting to have dash cams. So, I mean, you can get a pretty solid dash cam for, you know, 100.

150 bucks and I really think of it as like a super cheap insurance policy. It'll record anything that goes on your car. And more than anything, it also just like acts as a deterrent, right? It kind of keeps people in check if they know that they're on camera, if they know that all their actions are being recorded. So as a driver, there's certain precautions you can take. I mean, for me, I think that like proactive is definitely best, kind of like judging passengers before they get into the car. I mean, if you're dealing with someone who's super incoherent, you're trying to find where they are, they're not where they're supposed to be. They can't figure out where they are. They're just like extremely intoxicated, extremely wasted. Like you always have the option to not take them to kind of like, you always have

the option to cancel a ride at any time during the ride if you feel unsafe. But so I mean, let's say you're in that situation where you're starting to feel pretty uncomfortable or unsafe. You're not going to just want to just cancel that ride if you're on a dark, lonely highway, right? You're probably going to want to pull off in a well-lit public place. I mean, I know some female drivers who actually basically memorize like where all the police stations are in their city, just in case they happen, you know, an incident or something like that happens and they're feeling unsafe, they can pull over right in front of a police station. And you'd be surprised, police stations are actually everywhere if you really, like,

look them up on a map. And so there's drivers like that who are doing that. And I think the most important thing is just to take a proactive approach. You don't want to wait until you're in a situation where it's kind of like a safety, potential safety issue and then be like, oh, crap, where's the police station? Oh, crap, what should I do here? Yeah, that's what they say with Craigslist, too. I know a lot of women that sell a ton on there, and they always meet their people, their buyers, and in the parking lots of police stations.

And I guess that's like something that they do. Yeah, like it's a new thing. Actually, I think some police stations have even set up Craigslist areas like in the parking lot, basically. Yeah, I've seen a couple stories about that because for that exact reason, right, people want to be able to do these safe kind of transactions in a safe place. So definitely makes sense. I've sold stuff on Craigslist before and I would always have people meet me in the target parking lot. during the middle of the day because it was always super crowded there. Yeah, that's good. Hey, I have a dumb question. So with Uber, and I've literally only used it once because I was forced to at like Vincan conference. I mean, I like the idea of it. But you can't set your own rates, right? So you can't

have a competitive edge that way because Uber does everything for you. Is that correct? Yeah, that's the good and the bad. Yeah, drivers have no ability to set their own rates. It's all kind of whatever Uber says goes. How does surge pricing affect driver pay? So basically surge pricing works. when passenger demand goes up and driver's supply goes down, right? So you can imagine that like at 2 a.m. when the bar is closed, there's always going to be more people who want to go home than probably rides available, right? Because you kind of have everyone going out periodically throughout the night and then they all leave around the same time in that kind of like 30 minute to an hour window.

And so search pricing basically works. It'll double, you know, it can basically go anywhere from one to unlimited times the price of the ride. I mean, generally, it doesn't go above like two to four times the price. But I mean, on like big, you know, in certain cases and really big events or New Year's or stuff like that, I've seen it go as high as like eight or nine X, which at that point is pretty expensive for passengers. But for drivers, you know, surge pricing is obviously a good thing for drivers. A lot of drivers look for that surge pricing and try to find the times when surge pricing is at its highest because you'll literally do the exact, you know, if a normal ride is $10 and Uber takes their 20% cut, You get $8. On a 2x surge ride, you'd pay would double and you would get $16.

So it's pretty simple and kind of the math, how it works out. Yeah, yeah. That was what I was wondering was how much of that surge goes to the driver versus goes to car. So it's the same percentages regardless of the level of surge. And is it always around 20%? Like I know there's like Lyft and there's like four or five others that are popping up, right? Like is it all? So 20% is a pretty good baseline.

I think new drivers and a lot of Uber cities are actually at 20%. And they're even testing in some cities Uber, I know, is charging 30% for your first 15 or 20 rides. So it's always in that kind of like 20 to 30% range as far as their commission and then you get the rest of the fare. And then what about for Lyft? Is it approximately the same with them? Lyft is about the same. They have 20%. But Lyft does have a cool feature in certain cities that allows you the more you work. You actually, so if you work 30 hours a week, around 30 hours a week, you'll actually get 10% of your commission back. If you work 50 hours a week, you'll get 20% of your commission back. So basically paying no commission.

So they have some cool features like that. And is that one people like, I know it's always in the news and legal. Like people are, there's like this whole like weird like, like, hey, I work 50 hours for you, but I'm still like a contractor. Maybe I should, you know, get benefits because I'm working full time, right? There's this whole like huge debate and problem. And from what I hear, Uber keeps winning, you know, and people are still driving and people so everything's working.

But like, I'm sure at some point legislation or something's going to come and get a little wonky. Yeah, I mean, it's starting to get a little wonky because, I mean, these companies all use, they all hire drivers as 1099 contractors. And the problem is that there are certain aspects of the job that they control, like they set your own rates or they set drivers' rates, right? Drivers aren't able to set their own rates. You know, they tell you which rides you have to accept.

You have to maintain an 80% acceptance rate, right? So you can't not accept too many rides, right? You can't get somewhere and they're like, oh, I only want to go here. and you can't say no because you have to maintain an 80% acceptance rate. So there's definitely some aspects that they control, but also some freedom that they give you. So I'd say the lines are pretty blurred.

And it's probably going to be a super long and drawn-out court battle, but we'll know in probably five or 10 years what the result is like. Right. Plenty of time to have fun and make money in between. Speaking of what's the most you've ever made in a day? And then what's the farthest you've ever driven? Yeah. So I'd say the most I've ever made in a day

It was probably on that July 4th weekend. I mean, I think I probably went out and made like a few hundred dollars in one day. And I mean, for me, I've always been a part-time driver. So I don't even know if I've ever logged like a full like eight, 10-hour shift like a lot of drivers have. I've always done it part-time. So I've always done like three to six-hour type shifts. So I'd say my most profitable one was probably in that kind of $100 or sorry, a few-hundred-dollar range. I mean, for me, though, I was like really analytical when I was always looking at things and thinking about the most.

efficient way I could drive. So I was always, I generally looked at my hourly income on like a per hour basis because I was thinking to myself, hey, I want to drive when I can make the most per hour. And I think probably that July 4th weekend when I was first getting started when I made over $50 an hour, the entire weekend was probably my most profitable weekend. And then as far as the longest ride, I've never had a super long ride, but I did once have a ride. I was up in L.A. driving when I lived in Newport Beach, which is about an hour away, 65 miles or so. And I was planning and just driving around L.A. And then once I was done, I was going to drive back home. And about halfway, you know, maybe like a few hours into my shift, I got a request. And it was just this girl.

She got in the car and she's like, hey, I'm going kind of far. Is that right? I said, where are you going? She said, I'm going to Newport Beach. Nice. I was like, oh, perfect. Let's do this. That is awesome. 65, 70 miles, and she lived about five minutes from my house. So it actually worked out really, really well. That is funny. So switching over to like your hustling and just like the blog and the podcast and all that kind of stuff that you're doing. Like as I mentioned, like when you emailed me, like you're grossing $200,000 in one year, which is awesome, right? And I assume that all comes from the blog and podcast and probably like advertising and affiliates and partnerships.

Does any of that, and I want to get into that a little bit, but does any of that actually help you get more rides? Like, you're in a ton of press and in the media. Like, you've blown up, which is awesome, right? You're, like, known for, like, that's who you are. I mean, you're the ride share dude, right? Or the guy. Right sure guy. Come on, man. Messing up your brand. But, like, when you're out driving, like, can people request you or like, does that help you get more rides? Like, I want to go with Harry. He's a ride share guy. You know what I'm saying? Well, I mean, I'll be honest, like, at this point, especially now,

I mean, so about a year ago is when I quit my full-time job as an engineer to focus on the blog full-time. And I mean, since then, so now I spend basically almost all my time on the blog and kind of managing, you know, my team and doing all that stuff. I definitely still drive from time to time, but it's more a matter of kind of like keeping my credibility and like staying up to date with the app really. And like that's, you know, when I go out and drive is when I get article ideas. And frankly, I'm also like trying out new services now too because, I mean, one of the big things for me about on my blog is that I like to. talk about all these services from firsthand experience. So when I started writing articles about Postmates and DoorDash, for example, I had to go out, sign up, go to orientation, go out and do some deliveries with them and kind of just really go through it from a firsthand experience.

And obviously, I'm spending a lot of time now on my blog and my site every single week. And kind of that last thing I want to do at this point is go out and drive on my spare time because it's doing more of the same thing I've been talking about for 50 hours a week. So that's like a challenge and struggle I faced a little bit, just making sure that I'm still going out there and doing it. But at the same time, it's important. So no, not really. To answer your question, no one's really like requesting me and knowing me. And I would say, you know, even among the driver community, there's still a lot of drivers. There's so many new drivers coming in and there's kind of a lot of just so many drivers out there that there's always just like more people to reach and more potential customers for me. Yeah. Normal people, not online people can just go start driving and making money and doing their thing. don't have to have like a web presence or really any presence anywhere. Oh, no.

It has to be awesome at driving. Oh, no, not at all. I mean, like, yeah, the blog is honestly like almost completely unrelated to being a driver. I mean, you know, most drivers are just out there doing their thing because they can get all their rides from Uber. So that's kind of the nice thing because from day one, you'll be profitable. From day one, you just turn on the app and Uber's sending you rides. So it's definitely different than a lot of other businesses where you have to go out

and find customers yourself. And how does your blog make money? We recently did a show. We'll link to it in the show notes. in which Jay and I talked about how we monetize our blogs, or how we fail to monetize our blogs sometimes. What are the sources of income for the 200,000 that you're making through the blog? Definitely.

So I have a few main sources of income, and the first kind of biggest one is just like advertising, right? So I'm doing a lot of lead gen for these companies, right? I'm promoting Uber, Lyft, Postmates, and DoorDash. So basically just signing up drivers for these services. So I'll write about these services or put them, you know, links to sign up here. and there. And there's so many people that are, I mean, Uber is hiring tens of thousand drivers alone every single month. So you can imagine there's a lot of people signing up for these services, a lot of turnover too. And so there's just constantly new people signing up. And a lot of drivers

will do multiple services. So they'll go out and do Uber and Lyft and maybe throw in a postmates or a DoorDash. So you have a lot of people coming to me to learn about these services and then using my links to sign up. So that's kind of like basically an affiliate type program as driver referrals is lead gen. And then over the past years, when I really started expanding, you know, once I really started building my audience, I really didn't deal with a whole lot of advertisers. I wasn't trying to actively reach out to advertisers in that first year of my blog. I was just trying to build my community and build my audience. And over the past years, when I actively started reaching out to advertisers and basically doing direct ad deals with anyone interested in targeting on-demand

workers or Uber drivers, right? So right now, for example, we're doing a big campaign with Intuit and they're promoting their Quickbook self-employed product, which basically helps drivers categorize between personal and business expenses. Because all these drivers out there are 1099, right? So they're running their own business. They have to file a Schedule C when they go and do their taxes this year. And most drivers don't even know what a Schedule C is. So you can imagine that there's like some pretty big opportunities in that type of space. We started working with a bunch of individual insurance agents because you actually need a ride share friendly insurance. Basically, it's like a, it's, it's only cost of, you know, 10% more per month. And, you know, it's a very new thing. So a lot of,

well, no drivers basically have it. And a lot of, it's kind of required in a lot of states now and the options vary by state. And it's super complex. But long story short, we have a bunch of individual agents that we now work with that are listed on our site and sort of a marketplace. So that's kind of like how I make a bulk of my money off advertising. And then even, you know, in the past year, and especially in the past few months, we've really been ramping up. I created a video training course for drivers. So I, you know, I basically walk drivers through everything from getting set up with a series of videos, getting set up as a driver, figuring out who you should drive for. And then a lot of the strategies that we talked about earlier, like going really in depth about how to find

surge pricing rides, like how to find those surge rides and maximize your profits and really, you know, how to handle taxes and insurance and all those important topics that really affect your bottom line. How long has a blog been going? Like two years? Yeah. So it's about two years old at this point. Yeah. So like the most I've ever made and I've been blogging for eight years, right? So like four times you, the most I've ever made is 150,000. And it wasn't even just off the blog. It was off all my projects and consulting combined. And I only started going over 500,000 pages a month like a few months ago. So, like, you can tell, like, when you're on to something, like, your stuff explodes, right? And, like, it's just crazy how, like, I mean, it's awesome. Like, you found something you enjoyed. You did it firsthand so you could talk about it. Yeah. You know how to build a community. You like that you're super niche, right? Like, you, I mean, I was reading your story. You got into all this and you start, when you became a driver, you were looking for blogs that talked and help people. And you couldn't find anything but like Facebook groups. Exactly. You know, so you went and built it yourself. And after you are obviously super successful. But you're, but you're, you're You couldn't have ever, like, guessed a couple years ago.

Yeah, I know. And, I mean, I think the biggest thing, too, like, obviously, I've had many sites in the past, right? I've started, like, four or five blogs, and none of them really took off. But at the same time, I still went out and did it. And I still went out and learned a ton, you know, just about, like, you know, and networking. Like, obviously, that's how we met from one of my first personal finance blogs. And just, like, learning about the industry of blogging and just, like, creating content in general. So that I think that when I did discover this opportunity, obviously, I mean,

opportunities I think are everywhere and it takes some skill to like get good at recognizing these opportunities and you also kind of have to have the balls to go all in on these opportunities. So, you know, in that respect, I think that there's some skill there. But I'll also be the first to admit that I got very lucky. I mean, I started my blog at probably the exact right moment where there weren't a ton of other people doing it. But the industry was just starting to explode. I mean, maybe I would have had success if I started six months later or six months. earlier, but it might not have been as great. So it's definitely a combination of factors. And I think just kind of preparing, though, I mean, once I did it, I definitely went all in. I mean, I was working on

this 20 to 30 hours a week on top of my day job. And then obviously it was kind of a big leap to leave my day job to do this full time. But I think the results have obviously been overwhelmingly positive. And I'm definitely glad I did it because, I mean, it was also something I was just really passionate and interested about. I mean, it's never been a grind to like check my emails and respond to readers or or write articles or do podcasts. I still really enjoy all of it. So that's been a really nice part of it too. Yeah. I'm glad you talked about like your other sites too. I mean, you still have your PF Pro because, yeah, we met through personal finance blog. But that's good because I don't know how well it's doing or not. But if you went through four or five, let's just call them fails just

until you got to the big one. Exactly. You took what you learned and you failed and then, you know, you kept going. Honestly, I wouldn't even call them fails though because like they may not have And, you know, they were fails, but like, I would say I still like took something away out of every single one. And so I'd say that's the biggest thing. I mean, like, you know, one of the things I really learned early on is that with my personal finance blog is that there's a lot of competition, right? There are a lot of great blogs like both of yours that were more established that had been around for a while. And I was really covering a lot of the same topic. So it was hard for me to stand out without like with that first mover advantage or without niching down and like really focusing on a certain community of personal finance. that's, you know, people that were interested in personal finance. And when I started this site, the ride share guy, I think that that's one of the things that I really noticed was that, hey, there's no one else doing this. And this is probably a community of 100,000 drivers at the time that's growing pretty rapidly. And I think that they're all kind of looking for this information, right? Like I told you, or like you read in my story, I was looking for information. I was thinking

to myself, hey, I'm out here doing this, but there's got to be some other people who know how to do this better, right? I mean, I'm brand new to this. Like, who can I learn from? who's producing content and information about it. And so it was really kind of like scratching my own itch, right? Like there was no one out there doing it. So I said, hey, why not me? Why don't I be that person that people can come and learn from? And so that's what it's really developed into.

Yeah, and your brand, I mean, like I said, like you're everywhere, a marketplace, all these newspapers and fancy, like, shows. You know, like you've thought in this brand, which is great because you're known as, quote, like an expert or influencer. And now you are the one that everyone, quote, has to, like, compete with if they're going to try and start it. And you're right. Timing obviously helps to a degree, but I mean, this is all you, man.

And you took all those things from the previous projects and threw it into this one. And it not only did click, but it all just made, you know, it just made sense. Yeah, definitely. And I mean, I, you know, not to like undersell the work that went into all of it. Because, I mean, I think that obviously kind of building that base with those other sites was huge. I mean, when I started reaching out to media, I wasn't just kind of blindly reaching out to people. I mean, I was like really developing relationships with all these reporters on Twitter. doing like weekly roundups, which I learned from personal finance blogging,

and tweeting, you know, like just like how we used to do and like tweeting all of these reporters and kind of like boosting their ego a little bit. Like, hey, you were featured on my site, the ride share guy. Thanks for keeping us updated. And, you know, doing that every single week for two years. And so you can imagine all the relationships I built and reporters love Twitter, which I realized like really early on. And so kind of establishing that rapport and relationship with them and never asking for anything, but just knowing that in the future, I could reach out to them and kind of just let them know I was there and kind of this reliable expert. I mean, my story was something that they were really looking for. I was a driver.

I was an Uber driver. And obviously, if they're writing stories about Uber, they want the perspective of a driver, but they also want someone who's credible, right? They don't want just some yokel off the street. And if I have this website or brand behind my name, and then once I start getting featured here and there, I put up a couple media badges. And they're like, oh, Forbes has linked this guy or quoted this guy. He must be somewhat legit.

Now I'll do it. And so that's really kind of like that snowball effect that has really helped me because the media has definitely been a big part of my success, especially over the past year. Well, and I want to focus, too, just for people listening. Like, that's, like, one of the best things you can do, email someone and compliment them and just let them know because we love it, right? Like, who doesn't like it incompet? You don't ask for anything.

I used to do that for a year and a half. I emailed one new person every single day. Wow. That's a lot. Well, no, but it's just one person, right? If I sit down on Twitter, I'm like, oh, let me go email. It takes you, like, 30 seconds. Even to this day, like, A, I became friends with a lot of them.

You know, and you don't do it just to be, like, to grow. And, you know, you do it because you care. Yeah. But that one tip alone, like, it's the simplest thing. And like, they always respond because you're sending up something positive. That's definitely a good point. It's a lot more fun. I mean, like, I get a lot more excited about the emails that tell me how awesome I are

as opposed to the emails that tell me how much I suck. Right. You don't naturally, like, oh, I owe this guy back. You don't think that getting it. But for time, if you start seeing them, I mean, when you wanted to guest posts on my site, like I knew you because of the blog and I liked you and we had hung out, you know, even with this podcast, right? Within 24 hours of you emailing, all our past relationship, now we're on it. Yeah, that's a really good point, though. I mean, it's really like about establishing like a genuine

relationship with people because frankly, like, it's harder to turn someone down. Like, I mean, I'll use this podcast as an example. Like, since I know you, we've met in person. We've emailed back and forth many times, you know, like for you to turn me down would probably be pretty tough now that I think about it. I know, I'd have to have a damn good reason to, right? Yeah, you know, you have to be like, You actually suck. I don't want you on my podcast. Right. Well, Anne, like, I know the quality of your work. Like, I know by getting you on here. Like, I don't have to worry about if you suck at talking or, you know, you have your own podcast, right?

All these things you've done all come together and make it super easy to just keep blowing up, you know, once you're on track. And that's the hardest part for people, getting going, establishing. But, I mean, you'd be surprised how few people are willing to kind of like go and do that and do the dirty work. And, I mean, I'll give you kind of a quick example. Like, I, you know, so I get a ton of. emails. I mean, just like anyone else, I get a lot of emails, but I try to, oh, I do respond to every single email that I get. And sometimes people will say, hey, you know, I want, you know, can you take a phone call with me or do this or that? They'll just randomly, like, reach out to me.

Instead of emailing me once or twice or tweeting one of my, you know, they'll just ask for something. And it's so easy for me to say, no, this one guy, though, he actually was like emailing me, you know, occasionally, not too much. And then he, out of the blue one day, he emailed me. And he said, hey, you used my quote in one of your Forbes articles, you know, you, He kind of like established all these points about all this contact we've had in the past. And I recognized his name. And he said, I'm going to be in the L.A. area. Can we meet up for lunch?

And I was thinking to myself, I was like, man, I can't like say no to this guy. He's like a super fan, you know? And so I literally like met up with him for lunch. And it was like an awesome time. We met up and I ended up learning a lot about him. And I actually had him on my podcast because he had such an interesting story about what he was doing. And that's the only person who's ever done that, who's ever like asked me to lunch. after really showing, like, people have, like, asked me to meet up, but it's just like,

I've never heard from them before. I have no idea who they are. And it's super easy for me to say no. But this guy, you know, he didn't spend a ton of time. He'd maybe sent me five emails. I went into my Gmail and searched how many times that he emailed me. And it was maybe like five times. But, you know, he had helped me here and there. And he kind of like, pointed all those things out. He was like, hey, can we meet up for lunch? And for me, it was really hard to say no. And I'm sure he got a lot of out of it. And for me, it was kind of a cool experience. It just goes to show you what you can do. You'd be surprised what other people aren't willing to do. Right, right. Yeah, I will, I get a lot of those emails too from people. It's the first time I've ever heard from a particular reader. And right off the bat, they ask for something that's very time intensive. I actually just got one yesterday where someone emailed me. Well, the first email, he said, hey, I just want to see if this is really Paula. Yeah. So I wrote him back and I was like, yep, it's me. And you're like, I'm the woman, yeah. And then he immediately wrote me back and he was like, hey, I have some like financial questions that I'm

trying to figure out, can you take a phone call with me? And I'm like, no, you know, that's going to take like half an hour or an hour of my time. I mean, Jay, you and I've talked about this on the podcast before, you know, I especially I'm not going to do it for free. And that sounds terrible because, you know, when you phrase it like that, it makes it sound like, well, it's all about the money. I think a lot of people aren't cognizant of the fact that they are contacting a very busy person and asking for their most valuable asset, which is their time. Well, I mean, and that's actually one thing that I've worked on a lot in the past year is being, I call it being greedy with my time.

Yeah. And I think that, like, obviously, time is super precious. And they're, I like, I like working, but I also like doing lots of other stuff, like hanging out with my wife, friends, family, probably like a lot of other people. What I try to do now going forward, or just in general, is like, think about every activity that I do. it kind of almost has to have some type of benefit, right? And it doesn't always need to have a direct return on my investment of time, but it has to be doing something for me, to something to help build my brand. Even if I'm just responding to every email that people send me, it's still helping,

you know, because now people are like surprised to get a response for me and they enjoy getting response and really good help. So I really think you have to think about being greedy with your time. Like if a company reaches out to me and they're like, hey, we want to pick your brain. I basically know that that means they want to talk to me, but not pay me. Yeah. And those types of opportunities, are the ones that maybe at the beginning I would take and I was like oh this is cool this company wants to talk to me because they see what I'm doing

but those opportunities weren't really generating any type of return for me right it was just like I was helping them and then I would never hear from them again so it's like those type of opportunities that you really have to filter out and be greedy with your time and be thinking about like how is this going to help me and it's you know

sometimes it's you have to strike that balance because you don't always want to be thinking about yourself and sometimes it feels good to just give back for no reason and I do that at time But it's definitely a skill that you have to practice for sure. Well, speaking of time, we have a round of five, is it five lightning questions? Yes, ma'am. All right.

Some of these are easy and some you might have to think about. Let's do it. I'm just going to say the first thing that comes to mind. So hopefully you have the bleep button ready. Oh, I'll make up one then. Who's sexier, Jay Money or Paula Pan? Well, Paula definitely has a sexier voice, that's for sure. I can leave it at that, yes.

Okay. All right. Here we go. What was the last book that you read? The last book that I read was Snow Crash. It was like this crazy book about like a parallel universe with this pizza delivery guy. And it sounds really strange. But he like goes into the metaverse. And it's like, I think it was the guy's name like Neil Stevenson or something like that.

But it's called Snow Crash. It's actually a really interesting book. And I'm sure there's like so much more deeper meaning that I didn't quite understand. But it was like very interesting. and readable. I try to like interject fiction books in between like all the entrepreneur crap I have to read. All right. Good answer. Unexpected answer, but good ones. What are the first three sites that you look at in the morning or whenever you get online? I would say the first one is my own blog, the ride share guy. Make sure that it's up. Make sure that I'm not losing like hundreds of

dollars because it's down. And then I usually check the points guy because I'm a big like miles and points guys. I like to see what's going on over there in that world. And then I also check probably Facebook, but very begrudgingly because I don't like Facebook, but I have a huge Facebook page. And I have to go to the Facebook page. And then it forces me to see all my other notifications. And then I just start wasting time. Oh, oh, oh, Facebook news feed eradicator. That is how you solve that problem. It's free. Really? I can still log on to my ride sure guy Facebook page. Yeah. You can still access your business page, but it eradicates your personal news feed. Yeah, it saved me hours of distraction time. That's exactly what I need. I'm doing it. Thank you. Yeah, that's a good one.

All right. If you had to give up your car or sex for one year. Really? Car. See, it doesn't work as well because I thought you were still driving a lot for Uber stuff, so I thought it would affect you more. Okay, okay. I'm pretty sure even if I'm was still driving for Uber, I'd still give up a car. I'm not that old, Jay. Come on. I'm still a young man. What if it was your computer? Computer or... Oh, man, that would be really tough. I would say since my wife is in med school, maybe I'd give up

sex for right now since she's already so busy right now anyways. It's not like I'm getting to life. Thankfully, I'm pretty sure she's not going to listen to this podcast. She will if I find her email. Yeah. Who the hell is this guy emailing me? If I were to give you a $100 bill right now in cash, well, I guess it's cash. What would you do with it? I'd probably go buy some lunch or something.

I'd definitely spend it on food. Let's put it that way. Yeah, I'm a big foodie. I love trying new restaurants and doing different things with food. I love to cook. I love trying new restaurants. It doesn't even have to be like nice places. I just care about if the food's good or not.

That's really all I care about whether the food's good or not. I don't care about service, ambience, anything like that. Oh, that's interesting. That's actually all I care about is ambience and like service. And then the food's okay. It's all right. Well, you're more of a hipster than me. They tend to really care about, you know, like service and presentation, right?

Yeah, yeah. I'm very, like, emotional. So, like, it has to feel good. Even if it's, like, awesome food, it just, I can't, like, I have to feel good when I'm there. All right. Last question, and this paste ties to your personal finance blog. What is your favorite or one of your favorite financial tips that you've learned or that you give out to people? I would say that one of my favorite tips is to not sweat the small stuff.

And what I mean by that is like, honestly, like I'll buy a $5 coffee all the time. I don't really care about a $5 coffee. I care about like a $20,000 $401 contribution will compound to millions of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars over time. Those are the things I care about. I don't care about $5 coffee every single day. day because I think those a lot of those you know those small wins I look from like the low hanging fruits you know the big things that you can knock out and really focus on and you know not spend my time or energy on a lot of the small stuff damn good answer my friend yeah yeah thank you so

much for coming on the show this is always fun I'm glad we have a podcast so we could record it so other people can listen to definitely that was a lot of fun yeah I'm glad you have a podcast too because now I was able to steal an hour of your time I don't know if you would have got on the phone with me for an hour and listen to my story otherwise. That's right. Awesome, dude. Awesome. Well, thanks for having me on.

I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. We'd like to thank our sponsor, somebody. We finally got a sponsor, which is fantastic because it means that we can start paying our producer, Steve, in real money, rather than just cat food and kisses. Our sponsor is an awesome company called Digit, a company that helps you automatically save money. You link digit to your checking account and

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And number two, leave us a review. Thank you so much. We really appreciate listening. How much money does an Uber driver or a Lyft driver make? And what goes on with that job? But what is Beth?