Latest / The Side Hustle Career Podcast with Fexingo: Second Income, Freelancing While Employed / How a High School Teacher Built a 12K Side Hustle in Curriculum Design
Transcript
- Lucas: I've been looking at a side hustle that's quietly growing in the education space. A high school science teacher named Maria in Austin built a twelve thousand dollar a month side hustle designing curriculum for EdTech startups. Luna: Twelve thousand a month? That's serious money for a teacher. What kind of curriculum is she designing? Lucas: She focuses on project-based learning modules for middle school science. Think hands-on activities that align with the Next Generation Science Standards. Each module she creates is essentially a mini-unit with teacher guides, student handouts, and assessment rubrics. Luna: And she charges how much per module? Lucas: Between two and five thousand dollars, depending on the complexity. She started with one client she found on Upwork, and within six months she had three ongoing contracts. Now she's turning down work. Luna: That's a fast ramp. How does she manage it after teaching all day? I'd be exhausted. Lucas: She's disciplined about it. She treats it like a second shift — two hours every evening, plus Saturday mornings. She also learned to batch her work: she'll outline five modules in one week, then write them over the next month. It keeps her from burning out. Luna: Batching makes sense. Do you know how she landed that first client? Upwork can be a grind. Lucas: She actually targeted EdTech startups that had just raised seed funding. She looked for companies that were building science curriculum and pitched them with a sample module she'd created for her own classroom. She didn't wait for a job posting — she cold-emailed the founders. Luna: So she used her classroom experience as a portfolio. Smart. Lucas: Exactly. She also made sure her modules were tied to specific state standards. That's a huge selling point for schools, and it justified the higher price. She's not just writing lesson plans — she's creating something schools can adopt immediately. Luna: What about non-compete issues? Most teachers have contracts that restrict outside work. Lucas: She checked with her district. Her contract doesn't prohibit freelance work as long as it doesn't conflict with her school duties. She also doesn't use any school resources — no district laptop, no school email. It's all on her own equipment. Luna: That's a smart legal boundary. I imagine the hardest part is the time crunch. Any tips she shared on avoiding burnout? Lucas: She swears by setting a hard cutoff. No work after nine p.m., and she takes Sundays off completely. She also uses a simple productivity method: she works in ninety-minute sprints with a fifteen-minute break. And she eats the frog — tackles the hardest module first thing in the morning before school. Luna: Eating the frog before school — that's dedication. But it must be tough to stay motivated when you're already tired from teaching. Lucas: She says the variety actually helps. Teaching is all interaction and improvisation. Curriculum design is solitary and structured. It uses a different part of her brain, so it feels refreshing rather than draining. Luna: I can see that. It's like a creative outlet that also pays. But I'm curious about the market — is there really that much demand for custom curriculum? Lucas: Huge demand. EdTech startups are constantly creating new courses, and they need content that's both pedagogically sound and aligned to standards. Many of these companies don't have educators on staff, so they outsource. Maria says she could easily double her rates if she had more time. Luna: So the bottleneck is her own capacity. That's a good problem to have. Lucas: Right. And that's something we hear from a lot of successful side hustlers — the ceiling is often time, not demand. Which brings up an important point: if you're going to do this, you have to be careful about protecting your primary job and your health. Luna: Absolutely. And that's exactly why we keep this show ad-free — to focus on real strategies without interruptions. If you find value in that, consider supporting the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small way to keep this resource free and focused. Lucas: Exactly. We deliberately don't run ads, so listener support is what keeps it going. And every bit helps. So if you've gotten a career tip or a side hustle idea from us, that link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah. And now back to Maria — one thing she mentioned that I thought was clever: she uses a decision journal to track which modules are worth her time. After each project, she notes how long it took, how much she earned, and how much she enjoyed it. That data helps her decide which clients to keep. Lucas: That's a great practice. It's easy to say yes to everything when you're starting out, but a decision journal forces you to be honest about what's working. She told me she dropped a client that paid well but required endless revisions. That freed up time for a better-paying, less stressful project. Luna: So it's not just about earning more — it's about earning smarter. And that applies to any side hustle. Lucas: Absolutely. Maria's story shows that with the right niche and a little strategy, you can build a significant second income without leaving your day job. The key is to leverage what you already know and find a market that values it. Luna: What would you say is the one actionable takeaway for a teacher listening who wants to try this? Lucas: Start by creating one sample module that showcases your best work. Base it on a topic you love and align it to standards. Then identify five EdTech startups that serve your subject area and send them a personalized email. Don't wait for a job posting — create the opportunity. Luna: Simple but powerful. And if you're not a teacher, the same logic works: think about the skills you use every day and which industry needs them. Lucas: Exactly. That's a wrap for this episode. Thanks for listening.