She Established a Six-Figure Business Discussing Goats - Side Hustle Nation

She Established a Six-Figure Business Discussing Goats - Side Hustle Nation

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      Is it feasible to establish a genuine business centered on a specific animal? Deborah Niemann has been doing precisely that for almost two decades. She manages ThriftyHomesteader.com, a media outlet centered around goats that includes a podcast, a YouTube channel, six online courses, and a paid membership comprising 150 members. This October, she is also embarking on her inaugural overseas goat tour to Portugal, where many of her most dedicated followers are paying to accompany her on visits to goat farms.

      Deborah didn’t initially set these plans in motion. She moved to the countryside in 2002 to cultivate her own food, made numerous beginner mistakes, and began hosting classes on her farm to help others avoid similar pitfalls.

      Listen to Episode 757 of the Side Hustle Show to discover:

      - How Deborah combines six revenue streams in a niche market.

      - The reasons her course sales declined while her membership grew.

      - How a simple switch of ad networks increased her income from $1 a month to $100 a month on video.

      How Deborah’s Goat Business Began

      It started on her farm, where Deborah raised and sold goats while offering buyers a free class to guide them. Eventually, more people wanted the class than goats, leading her to create paid on-farm goat classes. She also documented her experiences on an online journal from 2006 to 2016, describing all her and her family's activities, including sheep, goats, cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and even llamas. This blog caught the attention of a publisher, who discovered her via a link on the Mother Earth News Fair website. They saw her speak at the fair in 2010 and offered her a chance to write books.

      Why Writing Books Didn’t Yield the Expected Earnings

      Deborah accepted the book deal when the publisher asked if she could produce an 80,000-word manuscript within three months. She worked relentlessly for seven days a week, putting in 12 to 14 hours a day. Her best-selling book, Homegrown and Handmade, saw the first print run of 5,000 copies sell out in approximately nine months, much to her publisher's delight. However, upon calculating her earnings, she realized she received about $1 per book sold, with an advance of $3,000. “I could have earned more working at a fast-food restaurant," she remarked.

      Her other books include:

      - EcoThrifty

      - Raising Goats Naturally

      - Goats Giving Birth

      Altogether, she has sold roughly 25,000 copies. Although the books led to speaking opportunities from Washington State to Virginia, the financial return wasn't substantial based on the hours invested.

      Evolving a Book into an Online Course

      After three books in three years, Deborah sought a more lucrative method to monetize her passion. In 2013, she began teaching online through the University of Massachusetts, where students paid $1,500 for the course, although her earnings were still minimal. By 2015, she noticed several people creating their own online courses and planned to use her goat book as a guide. However, she quickly realized she had much more to convey than could fit in a single course.

      In her book, the nutrition chapter was about 15 pages, while her goat nutrition course expanded to seven or eight hours, including two hours devoted to copper alone.

      Her First Course

      Deborah launched her first course, Goats 101, in early 2017 to an email list of 2,000. A few hundred people purchased it, resulting in roughly a 10% conversion rate. She credits Jeff Walker’s book for this strategy: keeping her audience informed about her progress. For about six months, she updated her list about a course that faced several delays. When the enrollment opened, 75% of buyers jumped in immediately.

      How People Discover Her Content

      Deborah advises to "be everywhere." She has accumulated over 700 articles, 800 YouTube videos, and around 180 podcast episodes. Her YouTube channel and podcast are both titled For the Love of Goats. Her articles address the actual questions goat owners search for, such as the daily feed requirements for goats, how to manage an overweight goat, and when a goat may require a C-section.

      The Impact of Google AI Summaries

      Around two years ago, Google introduced AI summaries at the top of search results, allowing users to get responses without clicking through. This caused Deborah’s traffic to plummet from 110,000 monthly visits to 40,000 nearly overnight, though it has since recovered to about 60,000.

      Lead Magnets and Email Follow-Ups

      Website visitors

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She Established a Six-Figure Business by Discussing Goats - Side Hustle Nation She Established a Six-Figure Business by Discussing Goats - Side Hustle Nation How Deborah Niemann established a six-figure goat business through courses, a membership program, display advertising, and farm tours — along with her best tip for building an email list.

She Established a Six-Figure Business Discussing Goats - Side Hustle Nation

How Deborah Niemann created a six-figure goat business through courses, a membership program, display advertisements, and farm tours—along with her key tip for building an email list.