AI transcript
0:00:06 Today’s guest built an $80,000 a year side hustle around a fairly obscure hobby, and
0:00:08 today is breaking down the steps he took to get there.
0:00:12 This is the Side Hustle Show, where we’ve been helping people make extra money since
0:00:13 2013.
0:00:15 If that’s what you want to do, you’re in the right place.
0:00:19 Today, you’ll learn how to build an audience from scratch and build enough trust to get
0:00:21 strangers on the internet to pay you.
0:00:28 From KinzerCoins.com and the Ancient Coin Hour on YouTube, Dean Kinzer, welcome to the
0:00:29 Side Hustle Show.
0:00:31 Thank you so much, Nick, for having me on.
0:00:35 Huge fan of the show and hope to contribute and hope to teach somebody something today.
0:00:42 Well, I love me a hobby-based business or turning a hobby into an income stream, and this is
0:00:47 a really unique one around ancient coin collecting, like biblical era, Roman Republic type of stuff,
0:00:49 where it’s like, I guess it makes sense.
0:00:49 It’s metal.
0:00:50 It doesn’t necessarily go away.
0:00:53 These things still exist, and you can trade them, and you can sell them.
0:00:56 And so where does this thing start, or how’d you get into it?
0:01:02 Well, okay, so the reason I named it KinzerCoins is my dad was a coin collector and a collector
0:01:03 of many things.
0:01:07 He also was a coin dealer and a baseball card dealer on the side.
0:01:11 So we used to, as kids, go to shows routinely with him.
0:01:17 As I grew up, he started, me and him kind of, I grew up and moved on and stuff, but when
0:01:22 his health started failing, I had to work through his estate, and I started working through his
0:01:22 estate.
0:01:29 And I got to these coins, like a tribute penny of Tiberius with Livion the reverse, and it
0:01:32 just really didn’t make sense to me that I would just be selling this.
0:01:34 This is 2,000 years old.
0:01:35 It’s not like a wheat penny.
0:01:37 This means something.
0:01:41 So instantly, I’m like, how do you find out more about this?
0:01:44 I knew a little bit, but not from when I was a kid.
0:01:46 I was interested in Americans.
0:01:51 So I ended up joining a Facebook group, one of the best medieval and ancient coins.
0:01:53 It has about 10,000 members.
0:01:54 And so I started connecting.
0:01:59 And really, the journey began as soon as I started connecting to people on Facebook.
0:02:02 And so I began to learn about the coins.
0:02:08 Ancient coins are a very interesting subject because Americans largely don’t know about
0:02:08 them.
0:02:12 Europeans are active because it’s Europe.
0:02:13 That’s where they come from.
0:02:18 But Americans, it seems like once they cross the pond, it stopped being a part of their kind
0:02:20 of lexicon or their understanding.
0:02:25 And so my whole goal is to take these ancient coins and make them relevant to Americans.
0:02:29 And that’s the idea behind the side hustle.
0:02:31 So full-time, I do operational work.
0:02:39 And part-time, I try to educate and sell ancient coins that are readily available and probably
0:02:42 one of the most interesting hobbies that I’ve ever been a part of.
0:02:43 Yeah.
0:02:45 So you’re making money in a few different ways.
0:02:47 You have coins for sale through the site.
0:02:51 So I imagine you’re making a margin on those and whatever you’ve been able to source.
0:02:53 We can talk about that.
0:02:57 The YouTube channel has grown quite a following, 40,000 plus subscribers on YouTube.
0:02:59 So I imagine you’re making money from that.
0:03:04 Real quick, do you mind sharing the additional revenue streams or how this business works?
0:03:06 I play in retail, so I sell coins.
0:03:10 The reason that I have a podcast is because what I noticed, and a lot of your listeners
0:03:15 might notice, is that when you have hobbies of this nature, the information that’s out
0:03:18 there, particularly in digital form, is slow or none.
0:03:25 So when I went to YouTube to look about ancient coins or went to just anywhere, there wasn’t
0:03:29 a lot of information and it wasn’t in a way that I could understand it.
0:03:35 And so I created the podcast for beginning collectors so that they can understand A, what ancient coins
0:03:41 are about, B, who to buy them from and who to trust and C, not to get tricked because a lot
0:03:42 of people get tricked by ancient coins.
0:03:48 There isn’t a quick and dirty way to find out if something’s real or not, but over time
0:03:51 and with some learning, we can definitely teach you.
0:03:51 Yeah.
0:03:52 So I do that.
0:03:58 And then I do auction representation, which is another way of people getting involved in
0:04:02 auctions that don’t necessarily want to lift the paddle or don’t feel strong enough about
0:04:05 their interest that they know what a good deal is.
0:04:09 And so they’ll come to me and ask me to auction for them or to buy something at auction for them.
0:04:12 So those are really kind of the three services that I offer.
0:04:16 Okay. So auction representation, meaning you will go out and try and source coins for other
0:04:17 collectors.
0:04:22 A lot of times collectors will have an idea of something, but they don’t know how it is
0:04:25 in actual person, like what that coin is.
0:04:26 Like I want an Alexander the Great of this.
0:04:28 So I’ll do the research.
0:04:29 I’ll hunt it down.
0:04:30 I’ll give them options.
0:04:36 And then I will represent them at the auction, either in person or online to help them get
0:04:37 that at the best possible price.
0:04:38 Okay.
0:04:40 So yeah, that’s absolutely what I do.
0:04:40 Yes.
0:04:42 And you just charge a flat fee for that?
0:04:43 You take a percentage of…
0:04:43 Just a percentage.
0:04:44 Yep.
0:04:45 Small percentage.
0:04:45 Okay.
0:04:46 Yeah.
0:04:48 5% or something small, whatever it is.
0:04:49 How much do these things cost?
0:04:50 Like what?
0:04:54 I’m trying to think of like, well, 5% of 50 bucks or 5% of 5,000.
0:04:54 Okay.
0:04:58 So ancient coins are interesting because they come in all shapes and sizes.
0:05:01 One of the great things about ancient coins is they can be very affordable.
0:05:05 For example, if you’re interested, coins from the era of Constantine the Great, what they
0:05:13 call late Roman bronzes, about 300, 400 AD, around the time of the legalization of Christianity
0:05:15 through Constantine and all that kind of stuff.
0:05:17 They made most of their coinage through bronze.
0:05:18 Okay.
0:05:25 And because there are, they made hundreds of thousands or millions of each one of these types.
0:05:27 So there’s an abundance of bronze coins.
0:05:33 So you can buy a coin of Constantine the Great for $20 and it’ll be in good condition and
0:05:35 you’ll be very happy with your purchase.
0:05:43 Or you can buy a coin that Brutus celebrated his killing of Julius Caesar in 42 BC that retailed
0:05:46 for about two and a half million pounds or $4 million.
0:05:48 So that’s really the stretch.
0:05:50 You can get really cheap or you can get really expensive.
0:05:56 You can buy the coinage of Alexander the Great cheaper than you can buy a lot of American coins.
0:06:02 It’s just a really interesting kind of imbalance almost in terms of historical value.
0:06:05 But there, I love them so much, I can’t stop talking about them.
0:06:07 Yeah, it’s super interesting.
0:06:12 And it sounds like approaching it from the perspective, I know a little bit about this.
0:06:16 My dad was involved, but I’m not the world’s leading expert on this stuff.
0:06:20 So it’s kind of this learning alongside the audience in a lot of ways.
0:06:20 That’s right.
0:06:25 So going back to this Medieval Coins Facebook group, what’s going on in there?
0:06:28 Like, were you trying to build up a reputation?
0:06:32 I’m trying to think of the person who might be in a similar boat who’s entering a different
0:06:36 niche, but they’re kind of like, I know a little bit about it, but I’m not confident enough
0:06:39 to stand up on the podium and say, hey, everybody, listen to me.
0:06:44 Well, the great thing, okay, so this Facebook group, and I’m sure there’s all kinds of these
0:06:45 for different hobbies.
0:06:45 Yeah, yeah.
0:06:51 The Facebook group that I found is like this eclectic group of lawyers, doctors, scholars,
0:06:54 you name it, gas station attendants, whatever it is.
0:06:59 And it’s this huge group of people that have expertise in all of these different areas.
0:07:01 So you can reach out.
0:07:06 And I got to tell you, ancient coins, they covered about half of the world over 2,000 years.
0:07:08 So there’s a lot of different types.
0:07:10 There’s a lot of different meanings.
0:07:16 And so, fortunately, you have a place where you can find those types of people that know
0:07:18 about it, because everybody kind of has their own specific niche.
0:07:23 And so even within ancient coins, there’s people that only collect Roman provincial coins,
0:07:28 only collect Greek, only collect a certain emperor, only collect all the emperors.
0:07:28 Okay.
0:07:30 So there’s a bunch of different ways to do it.
0:07:34 It’s like the state quarters, except for emperors.
0:07:34 Yeah.
0:07:40 One thing that’s interesting is there’s already a little bit of an ecosystem built around this
0:07:46 in the fact that you found a Facebook group that had 10,000 members versus coming in completely
0:07:50 cold and trying to shout into the void of the internet, hey, I think this stuff is cool.
0:07:51 Anybody want to follow me?
0:07:52 Anybody want to pay attention?
0:07:58 Does the podcast, YouTube channel happen in parallel to this initial Facebook group stuff?
0:07:59 What’s going on there?
0:08:03 So I went to the Facebook group for a couple months, and once I found out that there was
0:08:08 no point of reference for me learning, other than just the historical aspects of it, that’s
0:08:10 when I decided if there’s a void, I’m going to try to fill it.
0:08:15 So actually, I partnered with somebody who’s been in numismatics much longer than me, Josh
0:08:20 Benevento, who’s my guest host, also a Grammy-winning opera singer.
0:08:21 So talk about unique.
0:08:21 Okay.
0:08:27 But the combination between us, he’s more of a technical expert, and I’m more of a talking
0:08:28 head.
0:08:32 But between the two of us, we’re able to get a lot of information out.
0:08:38 And the other thing that we do on the podcast is we bring in authors, we bring in people that
0:08:44 own auction companies, people that own dealerships, so that they can explain their perspective and
0:08:47 the ways to deal with them in a way that’s helpful to a new buyer.
0:08:51 Somebody who’s new in the industry, we’re trying to connect you to the people that maybe you
0:08:56 wouldn’t find for a couple of years and get their perspective and some of the things that
0:08:58 they think are beneficial for you to learn.
0:09:01 So in a lot of cases, we’ve done some legwork for you.
0:09:05 And that’s the point is to teach you about this thing so you can get involved.
0:09:08 Describe the first few months of the podcast.
0:09:10 Is it crickets?
0:09:12 Is it an instant hit?
0:09:16 Is there a moment where you’re like, hey, there’s there’s clearly an audience for this?
0:09:18 You know, we’ve really tapped into a nerve here.
0:09:23 Well, the first thing I noticed was that nobody would watch, even the people that I know in
0:09:27 the business, so it took a little bit of time and you really have to figure out what purpose
0:09:28 are you trying to serve?
0:09:34 You know, if you’re trying to talk to an existing community of collectors, that’s going to be a
0:09:36 totally different discussion point.
0:09:42 So there’s another guy in the business who does a podcast that talks mostly about auctions and
0:09:44 that’s what he cares about and that’s what he’s involved in.
0:09:46 So those people will learn about auctions there.
0:09:51 But to me, it’s hard to continue down that path when you don’t know enough about the business.
0:09:55 So that’s why we focus on training or we’re teaching people.
0:09:59 Are you primarily targeting people who somehow came across this hobby, but are just like seeking
0:10:04 education or like, yeah, you’re trying to like sell people on, hey, you should have ancient
0:10:06 coins as part of your investment portfolio.
0:10:07 That’s right.
0:10:07 That’s right.
0:10:08 Who’s the audience?
0:10:10 He said, well, you got to figure out what purpose do you serve?
0:10:11 Yeah.
0:10:15 So I’ll flip that around and say, what purpose does the podcast serve for you?
0:10:20 So in terms of people that love history, there is an abundance of that, right?
0:10:25 I mean, there are channels on YouTube that have millions of subscribers and a huge following.
0:10:30 You know, one of the things that you can do with ancient coins is you can hold the history
0:10:31 in your hand, right?
0:10:33 Ancient coins don’t need to necessarily be in a slab.
0:10:34 You can hold them.
0:10:40 So to me, the natural connection is all of these history lovers who collect something that’s
0:10:47 not related to it, Pokemon, Funko Pops, whatever that is, and try to translate it to connect
0:10:51 their history love to something that they can physically and tangibly hold.
0:10:52 And that’s the point.
0:10:53 Got it.
0:10:55 So there’s already point collectors in the world.
0:10:56 There’s already history lovers in the world.
0:11:02 Like, how can I get at the center of that Venn diagram and help them learn about it?
0:11:02 Right.
0:11:05 There’s tons of dealers that already kind of deal to collectors.
0:11:07 I want to deal to the new collectors.
0:11:09 I want to find new collectors.
0:11:11 So you’re doing the show.
0:11:12 You’re starting to engage in this group.
0:11:16 At what point does the business make its first dollar?
0:11:19 Like, do you have that, you know, first sale story?
0:11:19 Yeah.
0:11:21 So it was surprising.
0:11:27 So really what, like most collectors, your collection turns into your inventory to sell.
0:11:29 And that’s really kind of the thing.
0:11:38 And so I actually opened up a store, and probably two weeks after, I sold Mithridides VI Tetradrachm.
0:11:42 Mithridides VI is famous because he’s the poison king.
0:11:43 There’s a book written about him.
0:11:46 He ingested poison every day for his whole life.
0:11:50 And then when he was tracked down by the Roman army, he tried to kill himself with poison,
0:11:53 and he had built up such a tolerance that he couldn’t.
0:11:55 Sounds like straight out of The Princess Bride.
0:11:57 It’s such a great story.
0:12:00 He fought three wars against the Romans, died with an Amazon woman next to him.
0:12:02 Just a really neat, really neat story.
0:12:08 But I sold his coin, and it was, when they’re really nice, they’re really nice, $12,000.
0:12:10 And it totally caught me.
0:12:12 I had no intention of selling it.
0:12:14 Somebody, I put a price on it, and somebody bought it right away.
0:12:18 I shipped it off to him, and I’d never heard a thing from him since.
0:12:19 Okay.
0:12:21 Was this one of your dads?
0:12:22 How did you come into possession of it?
0:12:24 Oh, I bought it independently on my own.
0:12:26 I found a really good deal.
0:12:28 That’s another great thing about the Facebook marketplaces.
0:12:30 There’s a Discord.
0:12:33 There’s a lot of different places where you can acquire these coins from different collectors,
0:12:35 and sometimes that gives you an advantage.
0:12:39 Having that inside scoop, rather than paying retail like everybody, helps you get a little
0:12:43 bit of margin if you’re interested in selling, which is a helpful use.
0:12:43 Yeah.
0:12:48 Could you tell if it was somebody who was a follower of yours from the YouTube channel?
0:12:50 I mean, it’s only three days into putting up the store.
0:12:55 I don’t know where they came from, but it was probably about the happiest day I’ve ever
0:12:58 had because it was so surprising.
0:13:02 I assume it came from YouTube, one of the few followers at that time.
0:13:02 Okay.
0:13:05 They were from California, so they would have no tie to me directly.
0:13:05 Yeah.
0:13:15 More with Dean in just a moment, including the low-risk way he’s sourcing inventory and
0:13:18 how he puts himself in position to make lots of sales right after this.
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0:15:37 Okay, so almost building your own miniature eBay of sorts or your own mini Facebook marketplace
0:15:39 specializing in this stuff.
0:15:41 And so there’s a sourcing component.
0:15:43 You mentioned, well, I could source on Facebook marketplace.
0:15:48 Like any other places that you like to go to, you know, buy low and then sell high through
0:15:48 your own site?
0:15:53 Yeah, so what I would say is, first of all, for anybody who’s like, I’m going to get into
0:15:57 ancient coin collecting, I’m going to go straight to eBay and buy a bunch of stuff.
0:15:58 Do not.
0:16:02 That’s lesson one of one that I teach on the podcast.
0:16:04 Now, there are great dealers on eBay.
0:16:07 You have to get to know them, but eBay is fraught with fakes.
0:16:12 And so that’s pretty much the starting point, because even as a new collector, I bought fakes on
0:16:12 eBay.
0:16:14 So we steer people away.
0:16:17 There’s a couple of different marketplaces that are great places.
0:16:22 One of the things about ancient coins that people should recognize is that if you buy from
0:16:25 a dealer, they should give you a lifetime guarantee.
0:16:31 Meaning if somebody found out this to be fake over time, you’re able to return it for full
0:16:33 price at any point during your ownership of the coin.
0:16:37 So that’s a steadfast reason why you trust them, right?
0:16:39 And there’s a couple of marketplaces.
0:16:43 One that comes to mind, BeCoins, which is a marketplace for collectors.
0:16:47 They have something like 250,000 people that participate on that website or something.
0:16:52 But that’s a marketplace in which you can try to find and investigate.
0:16:56 There are other companies that just do shows.
0:17:01 And so in that case, these companies are inactive during the non-show time period.
0:17:07 So they will offer or give you an opportunity to sell their stuff while they’re not at shows
0:17:07 and consign.
0:17:09 So you don’t even have to buy the inventory.
0:17:15 So like a drop ship or something like that, there are places within the ancient coin business
0:17:17 that will work with you to do that.
0:17:20 So you don’t even have to do the upfront investment.
0:17:21 Okay, interesting.
0:17:26 So yeah, a drop ship or consignment relationship with other distributors, other dealers, you
0:17:30 could just rip this page out of the playbook and pivot to almost any other different niche
0:17:35 if you have the chops like Dean has to build up your own traffic sources.
0:17:37 You just slap up a page, nobody’s going to find it.
0:17:41 But if you can build up a little bit of an audience and a following and some relationship
0:17:45 and trust building and all this other stuff that’s really hard to do, then you can start
0:17:49 to drive your own traffic and not have to have that upfront inventory risk.
0:17:49 That’s right.
0:17:55 The best recommendation I can give to anyone who’s trying to do this is network, get to
0:17:59 know people in the industry, even if they’re not somebody that you would normally be friends
0:17:59 with.
0:18:05 Always just try to get an understanding, try to get involved because a lot of this stuff people
0:18:09 have tried, a lot of the stuff people have made mistakes on, but a lot of people would
0:18:12 really help you succeed if you gave them the chance.
0:18:16 And I have found that more often than not, that people are willing to do what it takes
0:18:18 to help you get ahead sometimes.
0:18:18 Yeah.
0:18:24 I remember as a kid begging dad to take us to this like baseball card show that was at the
0:18:25 mall at the next town over.
0:18:31 And it sounds like these things are still going on for pretty much any kind of collectible,
0:18:33 but including coins.
0:18:37 And so you guys have just like your own little wing, your own little section of like the general
0:18:40 coin show exhibition hall type of thing.
0:18:42 And here’s my ancient coin people.
0:18:50 So like in a major show like the ANA, which is in Chicago, it’s in Rosemont at their giant
0:18:50 theater.
0:18:51 Right.
0:18:53 So there’ll be, you know, a thousand dealers.
0:18:56 So we’ll be kind of put in the corner.
0:18:59 Ancients are kind of a niche in coins.
0:19:03 So they’re not like upfront or anything like that usually goes to Americans and shipwrecks.
0:19:07 But yeah, we definitely have a section that’s usually by world coins.
0:19:07 Okay.
0:19:11 But I’m trying to bring us to the front because I like us the most.
0:19:13 Okay.
0:19:18 The reason I bring it up is like somebody gave this bit of advice, like if the industry or
0:19:22 the niche is big enough to have its own convention, then it’s big enough, right?
0:19:25 If it has multiple, like, you know, maybe it’s too big, right?
0:19:25 How do you niche it out?
0:19:30 And so it’s interesting to see like, oh no, if we can, and then these types of events attract
0:19:31 buyers as well.
0:19:35 So you’re selling through there, your existing inventory and collection.
0:19:40 So there’s this physical product, you know, buy low, sell high component to the business
0:19:41 that is pretty interesting.
0:19:42 Yeah.
0:19:47 And I will tell you that ancients do only have one show on their own in New York and
0:19:51 the rest of the year, there’s, they’re just a tag along for the main conventions.
0:19:56 So when you’re playing retailer, either through these events or through your own website, is
0:20:00 there, I mean, you’re, you’re dictated by what the market value is and market prices, but
0:20:04 like, is there a target margin that you’re shooting for on each transaction?
0:20:05 Yeah.
0:20:05 Yeah.
0:20:09 So the great thing and the interesting part about ancient coins is American coins, for
0:20:15 those people who know, are very regimented and very detailed collecting.
0:20:17 So they are very specific on grades.
0:20:21 They know exact quantities that were produced, how many are in each grade.
0:20:25 They know a lot and they know how much it costs.
0:20:28 There is no such thing as a price guide in ancient coins.
0:20:28 Yeah.
0:20:31 Well, you’re, you’re kind of building it or you’re, you’re building it as you go.
0:20:32 Right.
0:20:37 And so there, there are certain forums that you can look at that give you auction history.
0:20:42 There’s a couple of different places where you can kind of average out what, what you think
0:20:43 when an auction and stuff like that.
0:20:49 But to me, the, the market is more about what you can get for something, especially in ancient
0:20:53 coins, because a lot of times you’ll have one of only a handful.
0:20:58 So it’s more about how you marry the customer to the product.
0:21:02 In certain instances where it’s just like straight runners, anybody will buy it.
0:21:07 But like, if you found something very specific, like, you know, let’s, let’s say a Jake Paul
0:21:11 or somebody came up to us and said, I want a coin of the Alexander the Great, you know, that’s
0:21:14 certainly something you would do very specific to him.
0:21:16 You try to find something meaningful.
0:21:20 And that’s really the, the great part about it is because there’s so many opportunities for
0:21:24 people to connect, whether it’s through religion, whether it’s through spirituality,
0:21:28 astrological, whatever it is, there’s ways to connect people to these coins.
0:21:33 And so kind of the higher end stuff, I always look to marry to a customer, something that’d
0:21:38 be meaningful to them, something that, that represents something powerful to them.
0:21:38 Okay.
0:21:41 So what I’m hearing is there’s no blue book value.
0:21:45 There is, there is, there’s lots of price elasticity or price flexibility rather.
0:21:46 There is.
0:21:51 And this is another reason why it’s so interesting is because it’s what you get for it.
0:21:52 Yeah.
0:21:56 If you can craft a story, this is another baseball card story related to dad.
0:21:59 You’re looking up at the Beckett magazine to be like, and I’d be like, dad, look, this
0:22:00 one’s worth 15 bucks.
0:22:03 He’s like, you show me somebody willing to pay you 15 bucks for it.
0:22:04 Then you could say it’s 15 bucks.
0:22:05 It’s like, fine.
0:22:08 Just, you know, go around bursting kids’ bubbles all day long.
0:22:09 That’s right.
0:22:11 But yeah, there’s still, baseball cards are still a big deal.
0:22:13 I mean, I like the, uh, what’s it called?
0:22:18 The substantialness, the, the, you know, the heaviness of gold or silver or something about
0:22:18 it.
0:22:19 That’s magical to me.
0:22:19 Yeah.
0:22:23 And people trying to fill out a collection, almost by definition, it has some sentimental
0:22:28 value to them where even you look at some of these, oh, people auctioned off, you
0:22:30 know, a Michael Jordan jersey.
0:22:30 It’s like, that’s right.
0:22:32 Was that worth $3 million?
0:22:36 Well, it was to the person who bought it and they’re hoping somebody else will, will pay
0:22:38 that much down the road or not.
0:22:40 But they’re just like, well, I want to hang this up in my man cave.
0:22:45 One of the things that people really get excited for, and I always caution people against this
0:22:48 is they try to collect every emperor from the beginning.
0:22:50 They think that’s a good way to collect.
0:22:55 I will tell you that over the 1500 years of the empire, it is very hard to collect all of
0:23:00 the emperors, particularly when some of them have died in very short order, pretty much
0:23:02 after they took the crown.
0:23:02 Yeah.
0:23:05 Not a lot of coins were minted in that window.
0:23:07 So go back to the margins.
0:23:09 Like, you know, if you doubled your money, is that a win?
0:23:11 If you 10 extra money, like, is there a sweet spot for you?
0:23:16 For my business, generally, I like to gross margin 30, 40 percent.
0:23:19 That’s just based on my business expertise.
0:23:23 You know, it probably, as I fool with it, it might adjust up or down.
0:23:28 But that’s always kind of where I felt like you take home enough after that to feel good
0:23:28 about it.
0:23:30 So that’s about where I’m at.
0:23:31 Okay.
0:23:31 That’s helpful to know.
0:23:34 Not necessarily trying to hit a 10x home run on these flips.
0:23:35 Oh, no, no.
0:23:38 You’ll sit on inventory forever if you try to do that.
0:23:39 Absolutely.
0:23:39 Okay.
0:23:40 Let’s talk about turn.
0:23:42 What’s the inventory look like today?
0:23:47 Is there a rule of thumb, like, oh, I want to have a two-month supply or something like
0:23:48 that?
0:23:48 Right.
0:23:52 So inventory is a very interesting subject with this hobby because there are certain things
0:23:55 that move quick and certain things that don’t.
0:23:58 I would say that for beginning collectors, I have a lot of packaged items.
0:24:04 So, like, somebody can get a box of four Constantine coins, the whole collector set.
0:24:05 And those tend to move.
0:24:11 And then kind of the single one-off coins tend to move, meaning like a cheapy Constantine-era
0:24:15 coin for $60, it’ll move pretty quickly.
0:24:22 As you start to get into the more expensive silver and gold items, they don’t move as quickly.
0:24:26 So my recommendation to anybody that’s interested in this is start small.
0:24:31 You can definitely make bigger margins on some of the higher-end stuff, but you’re going to
0:24:31 sit on it.
0:24:33 And you’re going to sit on it for a while.
0:24:37 That’s just because this particular buyer has a certain interest.
0:24:38 Maybe they’re Sicilian.
0:24:39 Maybe they’re not.
0:24:41 Maybe they’re from, you know, Macedon.
0:24:41 Maybe they’re not.
0:24:45 There’s a lot of different reasons that people find interest in coins.
0:24:48 But you generally stick to the ones that move.
0:24:53 So, like, Athenian Owl, Alexander the Great, and then some of the package stuff moves.
0:24:57 But then as you get into more, I guess, elite territory, you have to be careful because,
0:25:01 like I said, unless you have a buyer direct, you can sit on it.
0:25:03 And that hurts, especially in a small business.
0:25:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:25:06 You’ve got all this cash tied up in inventory.
0:25:06 Yeah.
0:25:10 The one thing that I’ve always learned in my full-time jobs is cash is king.
0:25:13 And that’s, you can’t buy more inventory until you move that one item.
0:25:18 And so, you might be inclined to sell something at cost or below to get cash.
0:25:23 And that’s one of the drawbacks of having high-end stuff, is that you still have to have cash,
0:25:24 no matter what, to buy the next thing.
0:25:27 Yeah, this was a huge issue in the car business.
0:25:32 That was my one and only corporate job and going around to these parts departments at Ford dealers.
0:25:36 And, of course, the dealer owner, you know, wants to play this balance of taking care of
0:25:41 their customers, like having that part on hand, but also not having every part on hand.
0:25:44 Because it’s like, well, not anybody’s going to come in and request this thing today.
0:25:50 So, it’s like, you know, this balance of keeping the inventory that turns quickly and all this.
0:25:55 I remember talking with Rob, the flea market flipper, and I was like, how much, you know,
0:25:58 how much stuff do you have sitting in the warehouse or in the storage unit right now?
0:26:02 Like, just waiting to be listed or, you know, waiting to be sold.
0:26:04 And it was hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory.
0:26:08 But it’s like, yeah, you got to, at a certain point, you got to move it and go on to the next,
0:26:09 go find the next thing.
0:26:15 You either got to find a capital investor and prove that you can move material out of fat,
0:26:18 or you’re going to have to fund it yourself, which is really hard and expensive.
0:26:20 Tell me about the YouTube channel.
0:26:24 So, I don’t have the, you know, podcast stats, but I can see from the YouTube channel,
0:26:26 we’ve got 40,000 plus subscribers over there.
0:26:29 But the most popular videos are only like 1,000 views.
0:26:31 So, it’s like, you don’t have to go huge.
0:26:36 Yeah, I feel like because they’re longer, longer form, I do better on shorter videos.
0:26:38 Longer form takes a long time.
0:26:42 And it’s an investment to listen to somebody talk about ancient coins for an hour if you don’t
0:26:45 have anything off, you know, if it’s not a direct tie.
0:26:48 But definitely, when we launch, they definitely come out.
0:26:50 I definitely get a lot of comments and stuff.
0:26:53 But it’s been spread out pretty thinly.
0:26:57 But we’re hoping that we have another real breakthrough coming up here soon.
0:27:02 Like I talked about with networking, you know, the key is to get to know the players in the industry.
0:27:07 I talk to whoever I can to try and figure out how to make this thing work.
0:27:09 Because if you’re on your own, you’re never going to make it.
0:27:11 You got to talk to people.
0:27:13 You got to get to know what works and what doesn’t work.
0:27:14 That’s the key.
0:27:19 Has that been the primary growth driver of the show and the channel is guesting to the extent
0:27:23 that there is like other ancient coin podcasts to go and hang out on or other channels to
0:27:24 collaborate with?
0:27:26 No, but I’m trying.
0:27:31 So, basically, what I’m doing is I’m taking my buddies in the Americans and the world and
0:27:32 we’re trying to combine.
0:27:35 So, there’s a bunch of podcasts on American coins.
0:27:37 There’s a bunch of podcasts on world coins.
0:27:41 So, what I’m trying to do is try to marry those as well.
0:27:46 There’s not like millions of people lining up to watch American coin podcasts, but strength
0:27:50 in numbers, I think, helps us out in this kind of endeavor.
0:27:52 So, I reach out to everybody.
0:27:54 Yeah, yeah, I love that strategy.
0:27:57 If it’s like, hey, you’re talking about, would your audience be interested in one episode
0:28:00 on this divergent thing?
0:28:02 It’s like, it’s on the shoulder of what you’re already talking about.
0:28:04 We can have an interesting conversation.
0:28:09 I mean, that was one of the things that really helped drive growth of the Side Hustle Show
0:28:12 was guesting on all these personal finance podcasts.
0:28:15 Hey, at a certain point, all these podcasts about saving money and budgeting and investing,
0:28:16 there’s only so much you could save.
0:28:18 Why don’t we talk about making more money?
0:28:20 You know, so it was like a natural fit.
0:28:21 Hey, have you done a Side Hustle episode?
0:28:23 Have you done a small business episode?
0:28:26 And so, that was kind of what helped drive the growth of the show.
0:28:29 So, I think that makes a lot of sense in this case, too.
0:28:30 Yeah, and same with history.
0:28:34 I mean, you just got to find stuff that, well, I did a podcast maybe last week with a, it’s
0:28:37 called Antiquity Side Quest or something like that.
0:28:43 It’s just a history podcast, and so they asked me specific questions about history and then
0:28:44 ancient coins and how they tie together.
0:28:49 So, you know, a lot of times I’ll just do these kind of Q&As about ancient coins from people
0:28:51 that like history and want to know about it, you know?
0:28:53 Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense.
0:28:57 Go where the audience already is or go, maybe this is a Charlie Munger thing.
0:28:59 The first rule of fishing is fish where there’s fish or something.
0:29:01 It’s like, oh, okay, this works.
0:29:06 More with Dean in just a moment, including his quest to be the quote-unquote tallest in his
0:29:10 niche, his paid newsletter strategy, and what he might do differently if he were starting
0:29:11 over from the beginning.
0:29:14 All that and more coming up right after this.
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0:31:36 Anything going on on the social media side?
0:31:38 Did you end up starting your own Facebook group?
0:31:42 You know, I see there’s some of the short form stuff that’s getting traction.
0:31:43 What else is going on there?
0:31:49 I’m on every platform except X, and as I get more time, I’ll dedicate more specific videos
0:31:52 to like TikTok where they’re specific to TikTok.
0:31:54 But yeah, I’ve been covering all the socials.
0:31:58 I have, as an entrepreneur, I’ve experimented going out.
0:32:03 I have outsourced social media for periods of time and then insourced because you’ll find
0:32:07 that of all the things you’re doing, that probably takes more time than any of it, whether it’s
0:32:09 the editing or anything like that.
0:32:13 And so you only have so much time and you’re probably not a professional editor, so you probably
0:32:13 have to outsource.
0:32:19 But to me, in this world, and that’s why I jumped on Ancient Coins is because the social
0:32:23 media presence is so low that it’s easy to become the tallest person.
0:32:28 So that’s why I’ve been gung-ho trying to get the message out there because I’m the one.
0:32:31 There’s other people that are trying, that’s for sure.
0:32:36 But that’s my main goal is to try to get as much exposure as possible and hopefully make
0:32:37 some sales in between.
0:32:38 Yeah, that’s an interesting line.
0:32:39 I want to pause in that.
0:32:43 Pick a niche where it’s easy to become the tallest person or the most visible person.
0:32:44 Yeah.
0:32:48 And you might find you’re going to have to go one or two layers deeper than what you initially
0:32:48 thought.
0:32:49 That’s right.
0:32:53 But if you can be, like John Lee Dumas has talked about being the best, worst, and only
0:32:58 in your niche, you know, when he started the worst daily entrepreneur podcast, but also
0:32:59 the best because he was the only game in town.
0:33:01 I’ll give you a listener’s idea.
0:33:03 I can tell you that there’s nobody doing stamps.
0:33:06 If you want to be the first, do stamps.
0:33:07 You’ll be the first one.
0:33:08 Do the same thing for stamps.
0:33:09 Okay.
0:33:09 Okay.
0:33:10 It’s a challenge.
0:33:14 That hobby is very, it’s really gone small.
0:33:17 I mean, it’s real small now, but it’s kind of like this.
0:33:18 Maybe you can bring it back.
0:33:19 Maybe you can make it survive.
0:33:20 Yeah.
0:33:24 Niche within a niche of collectibles, ancient stamps, probably not so much a thing.
0:33:25 Those didn’t survive.
0:33:30 But the one thing I will tell you is, is that with these hobbies and, you know, having experienced
0:33:32 it firsthand, there is a generational gap.
0:33:35 People from my era kind of moved on and didn’t do that.
0:33:38 So there’s like a whole series of people that are aging out of this interest.
0:33:43 And so the, the kind of key people in this industry are aging out.
0:33:47 So that not only gives you the opportunity just in social media, because that’s not what
0:33:50 they’re into, but also in the sales because they’re aging out.
0:33:54 And I, this can’t be the only opportunity like that for sure.
0:33:57 Do you see that as a, as like a longevity risk for the business where it’s like, just
0:34:01 I’m riding this like slow downhill wave in interest?
0:34:02 No, I want to turn it on its head.
0:34:07 I don’t want it to die because history is the most important thing to me.
0:34:11 And I feel like this is an area where I can plant my flag and hopefully prevent that kind
0:34:12 of thing from happening.
0:34:17 Because so much of this is in people’s heads, this history, this great knowledge.
0:34:19 And as time goes on, those people disappear.
0:34:22 And so it’s, it’s incumbent on us to keep it alive.
0:34:23 Yeah.
0:34:25 The only fear there is, oh, let’s be an equal.
0:34:30 I want to ride a, a trend that’s increasing versus one that fewer and fewer people are looking
0:34:31 for.
0:34:31 Yeah.
0:34:32 Yeah.
0:34:33 Well, we will, we’ll make it increase.
0:34:34 That’s the point.
0:34:35 Let’s make it increase.
0:34:36 With a subject like this.
0:34:38 I don’t know how you cannot.
0:34:42 That’s why it’s so crazy to me because as somebody who’s been involved in collecting
0:34:46 for so long, there are certain things that are like, yeah, that makes sense.
0:34:47 And this makes sense.
0:34:54 It just makes anybody that loves history, who loves iconography, who loves any of this stuff,
0:34:59 all the money that Americans spend on collecting to me could be almost better served in this area
0:35:02 because it’s such a fascinating and incredible area.
0:35:04 I mean, it touches everything.
0:35:05 Architecture.
0:35:07 It’s just everything.
0:35:07 Sorry.
0:35:08 I get excited.
0:35:10 No, that’s, that’s okay.
0:35:11 That’s why, why you’re the guy.
0:35:13 You doing anything to collect emails for this?
0:35:14 Oh yeah.
0:35:15 Yeah, absolutely.
0:35:20 And I do send out a subscription email and I do offer a subscription service because some
0:35:22 material I get is first to the market.
0:35:26 And so it gives collectors, particularly high end stuff and opportunity.
0:35:33 So that, that’s another avenue that I’ve experimented with or trying because the demand for high end
0:35:35 goods that are hard to find is pretty high.
0:35:39 So that’s, that’s an opportunity that I saw in that field.
0:35:40 We’ll see how that plays out.
0:35:40 Sorry.
0:35:45 So there’s, there’s a free email newsletter and then there’s like a paid tier, like a subscription
0:35:47 notification service.
0:35:47 Yep.
0:35:54 And so I, uh, I get a occasional group of 10 or 15 hard to come by coins and I’ll release
0:35:58 them to the subscription for service first before I release them to the general public.
0:36:01 So they get advanced notice because some ancient coins are so desirable.
0:36:03 They don’t even last one second on the website.
0:36:10 There are people that will fly halfway across the country to find a specific coin that day.
0:36:13 I mean, they’re very passionate about it for sure.
0:36:13 Yeah.
0:36:18 If you can find such a passionate audience to serve, I think that’s an interesting place
0:36:18 to be.
0:36:21 How much do you charge for the subscription or the notification service?
0:36:24 I do $9.95 a month or all at once.
0:36:26 I also include a discount in that.
0:36:28 So that way you make it feel like it’s worth it.
0:36:33 So I give you a discount over all your purchases, but it’s nice to have the advanced cash, but
0:36:38 you just have to make sure that you come through on the subscription side or people will get upset.
0:36:41 I’m sure if they get nothing in return for their expense.
0:36:44 So that’s probably something you have to pay close attention to.
0:36:45 Yeah.
0:36:47 How many takers on that?
0:36:53 A handful so far, but I just released my second list of 20 coins to the public to let them
0:36:54 know what’s available.
0:36:57 So hopefully I’ll see some subscribers after that.
0:36:57 Yeah.
0:37:00 This is always the, what do you keep behind the paywall?
0:37:03 How do you give people a sneak preview without giving away everything?
0:37:08 Or you’re like, if you like more of that, then come on in and pay for it.
0:37:10 Well, and it’s hard when you, it’s a side hustle, right?
0:37:14 Because then you not only have a regular social media, but then you have a secondary social
0:37:18 media where you have to keep those people who are paying happy on top of it.
0:37:20 You know, that’s additional, but it’s worth it.
0:37:21 I think.
0:37:22 Yeah.
0:37:24 This is an interesting, the paid tier.
0:37:29 We’ve done episodes on paid newsletters and it is like, there’s this element of curation.
0:37:33 Like that’s the value add in a lot of cases where it’s like, let me filter out everything,
0:37:37 all the, all the noise for you and just send you the signal.
0:37:40 And it’s like, Hey, look, I’m, I’m Dean.
0:37:41 I’m the ancient coin guy.
0:37:43 And here are my 10 best finds of the week.
0:37:46 Or here’s something unique that, that we managed to source.
0:37:47 That’s right.
0:37:47 Yeah.
0:37:51 And I’m going out and hunting these down in advance so that nobody else in the marketplace
0:37:52 can get them.
0:37:56 That I think adds value because most people will buy the higher end stuff.
0:38:00 It shows, uh, but if they don’t go to shows or they don’t go to all of them, they miss
0:38:01 and they miss a lot.
0:38:07 One of the guys that I’ve worked with sells out like 80% of his stock when he comes in and
0:38:12 people will fly in the day before just to see what his stock is before the show, get a pre-screening.
0:38:15 So that’s how popular that stuff is, you know?
0:38:19 And do you find you have sellers now reaching out to you directly because they know you can
0:38:19 move it?
0:38:20 Yep.
0:38:20 That’s right.
0:38:22 That’s another great aspect of it.
0:38:27 So, so if they find somebody that’ll sell stuff for them, you’ll find that you’ll get more
0:38:30 inventory than you won’t know what to do with, but you don’t have to buy it.
0:38:30 Right.
0:38:31 And that’s the best part.
0:38:35 The, the, the, the expense on your side can be really challenging.
0:38:39 So if people are interested in signing to you, that’s, that’s a good sign.
0:38:39 Yeah.
0:38:41 No, this is, it’s really interesting.
0:38:42 It’s ringing bells.
0:38:46 We had a woman who was, she became known as like the go-to person for this like collectible
0:38:47 doll.
0:38:50 I forget the brand, but that was, that was her business.
0:38:56 I, if you have these dolls, I’ll sell them for you on eBay and send you the 70% and I’ll take
0:38:57 my 30%.
0:38:59 It was, it sounds very similar.
0:39:01 Like if you have these ancient coins, I’ll help you sell them.
0:39:04 I’ll help you monetize them and I’ll send you your percentage.
0:39:04 That’s right.
0:39:06 Yeah, that’s right.
0:39:07 It works really well.
0:39:10 What’s the email service that you’re using for that email list?
0:39:12 I have everything through Squarespace.
0:39:17 So then I have my email service through that domain, which I will tell you, you know, as even
0:39:21 as somebody who’s done a few podcasts, having your own domain, your email address with your
0:39:24 own domain probably makes you look a little bit more official, I think.
0:39:25 Oh, for sure.
0:39:26 In some cases.
0:39:26 Yeah.
0:39:28 So I recommend that.
0:39:28 It’s cheap.
0:39:32 And Squarespace is running the e-commerce side of Kinzer Coins too.
0:39:36 I found that I was pretty able to make a pretty nice website without trying really, meaning
0:39:38 I didn’t need a whole lot of education beforehand.
0:39:43 It took me three hours to put together a workable website that, yeah, that’s great.
0:39:47 I mean, and it’s so, it’s cheap, you know, we’re, we’re old enough to remember when people
0:39:51 would spend a month putting together a website and spend a hundred thousand dollars or whatever.
0:39:53 And now it’s so cheap.
0:39:53 Yeah.
0:39:54 Yeah.
0:39:55 These tools, these tools make it easy.
0:39:56 So that’s good.
0:40:01 What is like starting over a couple of years into this Kinzer Coins journey, anything you
0:40:03 would do differently to accelerate the journey?
0:40:04 Yeah.
0:40:09 So despite all my business knowledge of working my full-time day job, I didn’t figure out
0:40:12 the consigning thing until I had invested my own money.
0:40:16 So I will reiterate that for those of you who want to start a business.
0:40:19 It’s better to spend other people’s money than your own.
0:40:22 And that can kind of help, especially as you’re launching.
0:40:27 Now, if you make enough profits spinning, then you can really start to buy some fantastic
0:40:31 inventory, but I would not invest all of my money in my own stuff.
0:40:34 I would try to figure out ways to work with people to get that.
0:40:38 I think I probably would have not spent as much money on ads.
0:40:43 I might’ve gone with an outsource option or I might’ve been just more thoughtful about
0:40:43 it.
0:40:47 Both are spends when you don’t really have a lot of spend in the business.
0:40:53 Those are probably your two biggest and they probably are, if they’re mismanaged, you can
0:40:54 go underwater pretty quick.
0:40:55 Yeah, totally.
0:40:55 Yeah.
0:40:55 Yeah.
0:40:57 Keep things lean for sure.
0:40:57 Yeah, that’s right.
0:41:00 And there’s people out there that are willing to help.
0:41:02 Like I mentioned before, you just got to find them.
0:41:05 And if you don’t know who they are, ask the person that does, you know, I mean, you never
0:41:07 hurt anybody’s feelings by asking questions.
0:41:08 That’s right.
0:41:10 People love to help you out.
0:41:11 What’s been the biggest surprise?
0:41:12 It’s harder than I thought.
0:41:14 That’s shameful as I say that.
0:41:17 It is hard, but not in a way that you can’t do it.
0:41:20 It’s just, it’s, sometimes it’s like, oh man, I wish this would work.
0:41:23 And sometimes it doesn’t, but it makes the wins even that greater.
0:41:24 So it’s a challenge.
0:41:25 It’s a battle, right?
0:41:30 You, you battle in your head, you battle these ideas, but I mean, it’s so fun.
0:41:34 I mean, you know, I get a lot of satisfaction out of ancient coins because it lights people
0:41:39 up in a way that most things don’t, but connecting people to stuff that they really want is very
0:41:39 satisfying.
0:41:44 You know, to me, I love that so much that, that it’s really worth it.
0:41:48 I mean, you know, I wish I, I wish I had thought a little bit more about that at the beginning,
0:41:50 but I think that’s the best part, honestly.
0:41:54 There’s part of me that wants you to be like, oh, it was super easy.
0:41:57 I put up these three videos and boom, boom, boom, you know, I was off to the races.
0:41:58 I wish.
0:42:02 So there’s another part of me who really appreciate you sharing, like, look, it’s work.
0:42:03 It takes real work to build a business.
0:42:04 I’ll decide.
0:42:04 There’s both sides of it.
0:42:05 All right.
0:42:06 Where do you want to take it?
0:42:08 What’s next for the business this year?
0:42:11 I would like to partner at the very least with a museum.
0:42:13 I hope that I get the opportunity.
0:42:15 I’d like to do another event.
0:42:21 We had an event last week at South by Southwest where I was a pop-up, believe it or not, coins
0:42:23 at a pop-up at a cool hangout.
0:42:25 But the host wanted to try it, and I think it was successful.
0:42:27 I may do that again.
0:42:32 I think there’s an event in Miami at the F1 that I might go to to do something like that.
0:42:34 But more outreach, more ideas.
0:42:37 I’d like to, you know, cross six figures.
0:42:41 Can I pause you and say, like, what do you mean by in-person events?
0:42:44 Like, how do you get on the agenda at South by Southwest or something like that?
0:42:47 Well, that’s networking.
0:42:52 I got found and was put on a podcast, and then I’ve just been harassing them until they make
0:42:54 me a part of the traveling team.
0:42:57 And that’s really what it was.
0:42:58 Okay.
0:43:00 So what did that pop-up look like?
0:43:00 What did you do?
0:43:04 Oh, I created a—there was a little space, so I put up tables.
0:43:09 I invited two of the premier coin dealers down to meet me there, and we created a space with
0:43:13 ancient coins, with Japanese samurai coins, and with shipwreck coins.
0:43:18 So people would come in, and they would be surprised, and what is this?
0:43:21 And then we would tell them stories about stuff, and people ate it up.
0:43:22 They loved it.
0:43:27 You know, we have a series of coins that are from Bactria, which was modern-day Afghanistan
0:43:28 and Pakistan.
0:43:32 We had a lot of people from Pakistan that came there and were super interested in those coins.
0:43:36 You know, a lot of people who were interested in Julius Caesar and stuff like that.
0:43:41 But it’s an interesting place, but people found it very comfortable and really got into it.
0:43:43 So that’s another opportunity, right?
0:43:44 Yeah.
0:43:49 Is that something you sell tickets to, or this is just like, how do I piggyback on—there’s
0:43:53 already thousands of people at this event, so I just want a little table on the side to
0:43:54 try and bring a few people into my world.
0:43:55 Be a vendor.
0:43:56 Talk to people.
0:43:57 That’s how you get them in the door, right?
0:43:59 You got to reach out and talk to people.
0:43:59 Okay.
0:44:01 And then you mentioned museum partnership.
0:44:02 Do you have anything specific in mind for that?
0:44:10 Well, a friend of mine did a get-together with the Chicago Art Museum where they did sculptures
0:44:11 and stuff like that.
0:44:16 And that’s a space that I think is a really neat collaboration because a lot of these
0:44:18 museums have—they have their own collections.
0:44:20 They have their own ancient pieces.
0:44:25 And to tie that together with collectors, I think, is a valuable experience.
0:44:30 So I would like to be in the business of trying to arrange those kind of things to get people
0:44:32 in and interested in the hobby.
0:44:34 It’s just another avenue in which you can.
0:44:39 You know, obviously, like at the Met, they have an incredible coin collection.
0:44:42 Some of the most rare coins on display.
0:44:45 Well, they obviously have coins that are not on display.
0:44:49 And so there’s opportunities, you know, to showcase some of the stuff they don’t have
0:44:54 on display or do a study based on something that they’ve found.
0:44:56 Just a lot of—it’s neat.
0:44:57 Part of history, right?
0:44:57 Okay.
0:45:00 That gives a little more context of like, well, no, no, no.
0:45:02 People might already be on this museum’s mailing list, for example.
0:45:04 Well, they’re obviously into history.
0:45:09 If I could get the museum to promote a little pop-up, even if it’s just like an educational
0:45:14 talk on like 10 stories around coins that are still in existence today, like that makes
0:45:17 a lot of sense as a way to get in front of more of the target audience.
0:45:18 So very cool.
0:45:24 Ancient coins touch a lot of places because so much of the work is handmade and it’s a sculpture,
0:45:29 essentially, that’s made and made by some of the artists that made the same—made the
0:45:30 sculptures back in that time.
0:45:32 just incredible artists.
0:45:38 So it falls in really a really neat area of art and, you know, numismatics or the collection
0:45:39 of coins.
0:45:41 So it brings an eclectic group for sure.
0:45:47 The Ancient Coin Hour on YouTube and, of course, the Ancient Coin Hour podcast.
0:45:49 You can find Dean over there.
0:45:51 KinzerCoins.com is your home base.
0:45:56 If you want to see what kind of coins are available and at what prices and the stories behind those,
0:45:58 cool website to check out.
0:46:02 Let’s wrap this thing up with your number one tip for Side Hustle Nation.
0:46:05 My number one tip is network, network, network.
0:46:06 Get involved.
0:46:07 Get to know people.
0:46:11 Try—don’t isolate yourself because you’ll do better in business if you connect to people
0:46:16 and connect to Nick and connect people in the Side Hustle Nation, all that kind of stuff.
0:46:17 There are people out there to help you.
0:46:18 It’s so true.
0:46:22 This shirt is a little bit faded, but, you know, it says, you know, collaboration over competition
0:46:25 and I think that’s the name of the game here.
0:46:25 It’s like, how do you—
0:46:26 100%.
0:46:28 How do you become the tallest in your space?
0:46:32 Well, you know, he’s going to have to stand on the shoulders of others if that’s eventually
0:46:33 where you want to go.
0:46:33 That’s right.
0:46:36 A couple takeaways from me before we wrap.
0:46:40 Number one, you know, we often talk about filling demand versus creating demand.
0:46:44 It sounds like in this niche, there’s a little bit of market education in creating demand and
0:46:48 that fuels the content and the interest and so it plays really nicely.
0:46:54 We talked about going where the buyers are, fish where there’s fish, you know, to these coin
0:46:57 shows, these collectible shows, even to these museums or other events where there’s
0:47:01 thousands of people, like, how do I get, you know, on that agenda?
0:47:05 And even if it’s just a small display or an educational talk, talked about lots of different
0:47:10 ways to monetize the business through the consignment sales, staying lean, how do we do
0:47:11 this in a low-risk way?
0:47:17 And then the old JLD line about being the best, worst, and only, like, how do we niche down to
0:47:19 be the go-to voice in a space?
0:47:22 I think that’s something that Dean is doing really well.
0:47:22 Thank you.
0:47:25 If you are new to the show, thank you for tuning in.
0:47:25 Welcome.
0:47:30 We’ve got hundreds of actionable episodes, just like this one, in the archives to help
0:47:30 you make some more money.
0:47:36 If you’re wondering where to start, I want to invite you to build your own personalized playlist
0:47:37 at hustle.show.
0:47:42 How it works is you answer a few short, multiple-choice questions about your side hustle interests,
0:47:43 your side hustle goals.
0:47:45 You can do it right from your phone.
0:47:46 It takes just a couple minutes.
0:47:50 And then we’re going to recommend eight to ten episodes that are going to be most relevant
0:47:50 to you.
0:47:52 You can add those to your device.
0:47:55 Tune in when you’re on your next drive or when you’re out walking the dog, you’re at the gym,
0:47:56 whatever it is.
0:48:00 Again, that’s hustle.show for that custom curated playlist.
0:48:03 Big thanks to Dean for sharing his insight.
0:48:06 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:48:11 You can hit up sidehustlenation.com slash deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors
0:48:12 in one place.
0:48:15 Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show.
0:48:16 That is it for me.
0:48:18 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:48:21 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen.
0:48:22 and I’ll catch you in the next edition
0:48:23 of the Side Hustle Show.

When you think of side hustles, flipping 2,000-year-old Roman coins probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.

But for Dean Kinzer, what started as a nod to his dad’s hobby turned into a $86k/year side hustle, one built around history, storytelling, and a very specific type of collector.

Dean runs KinzerCoins.com and The Ancient Coin Hour on YouTube, where he shares his love for ancient coins and educates others who are curious about the space.

Here’s how he did it.

Tune in to Episode 668 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

  • how Dean turned a collector’s passion into real income
  • why ancient coins are the ultimate niche product
  • the low-risk strategies he used to build an $80k side hustle

Full Show Notes: How I Built an $80k/year Side Hustle in an Obscure Niche

New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here!

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