As solopreneurs often our motivation and inspiration come from our hobbies. But how do we turn those hobbies into healthy, profitable businesses? A man who has done just that is here to share his story and his secrets on today’s edition of The Solopreneur Hour.

Nick Gray, founder of Museum Hack, is on the show to talk about his entrepreneurial background and where the idea for his latest creation came from. All of that and more on the 230th episode of The Solopreneur Hour.

More About This Show

Nick Gray inherited his father’s “entrepreneur” gene and has always been a hustler. He used to hustle baseball cards as a kid and spent father-son bonding time selling BluBlockers at the state fair. His first business was a web design company that became a web hosting company. It morphed into a hosting company because his clients all needed a host. He saw the opportunity and seized it, and it paid his way through college.

Because he moved around a lot as a child, Nick didn’t have a lot of close friends and became very interested in computers. He even chose his college based on the fact that they gave laptops to all their students. This was in the year 2000, when not every college was handing them out.

Being his usual solopreneurial self, Nick noticed the college-issued laptops didn’t have great speakers and yet all the students really needed them. He bought a bulk order from China and resold them to the incoming freshmen the next year for a tidy profit. He attributes his ability to see opportunities as simply being someone who understands where there’s a need and also someone who takes the initiative to fill that need.

The Finer Details of This Show Include:

* Where did Nick’s entrepreneurial fire come from?

* What type of restaurant was their family business?

* His parents served in the Armed Forces – what branch?

* What was his favorite part of living in India?

* How has he dealt with expanding and growing his business?

* And so, so much more!

After graduation, Nick had another entrepreneurial inspiration: he was going to run a software development company based out of India. He thought he could find solid, reliable and talented developers there for a fraction of what he’d pay elsewhere. He pursued that vision for a few months until it became clear the landscape of India wasn’t ready for start-ups. Though it didn’t pan out for his business, he loved the cultural experience of living there.

He moved back home to help his parents and to give his dad support while he developed another business in the private aviation world. But one day a young woman took him on a romantic date at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, otherwise known as The Met.

Nick had never liked museums or art before that tour, but after he was smitten. He went back every weekend for the next year! He learned everything he could about the museum and its pieces and their history. He poured over article on Wikipedia, did as many audio and guided tours as he could and immersed himself in all things The Met. With that knowledge he started giving his friends free, guided tours.

And when a blog wrote about his tours it was the start of a new chapter in his life. He received a thousand emails asking him to give personal, guided tours! With the help of his executive coach, Nick realized he loved being at museums and would spend his free time at the best museums in the world if he could. He then realized he was on to something and from there Museum Hack was born.

On today’s show Nick shares with us the mistakes a...