624: The 10 Most Profitable Side Hustles

0:00:03 The ten most profitable side hustles.
0:00:05 What’s up? What’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:00:07 Welcome to the side hustle show.
0:00:09 We’re part of the entrepreneur podcast network.
0:00:12 And this is the business podcast you can actually apply.
0:00:17 One question I get quite a bit is what are the most profitable side hustles?
0:00:18 Let’s get to the chase, right?
0:00:21 And there’s a couple of ways to think about profitability.
0:00:26 The first is in terms of profit margin of every dollar that your side hustle
0:00:29 or business brings in how much actually flows through to the bottom line.
0:00:33 After all your cost of goods, after all your expenses in running the business.
0:00:35 And that’s the inspiration for this episode.
0:00:39 Actually, this spring, we did an episode on Amazon Wholesale where my
0:00:43 guest explained that if you were to win 10% margins as a wholesaler,
0:00:45 you were crushing it.
0:00:49 And I was kind of taken aback by that coming from the online content world
0:00:52 where it’s not uncommon to have 80% margins.
0:00:57 Of course, the other way to look at profitability is just in terms of
0:00:58 raw dollars.
0:01:00 Walmart is the perfect example here.
0:01:05 They are earning $10 to $15 billion in profit per year, but they got to sell
0:01:09 $500 to $600 billion worth of stuff to earn that profit.
0:01:15 Low margins, but huge, huge volume still can add up to a super profitable
0:01:16 business.
0:01:19 But in this episode, we’re mostly going to look at side hustles in the
0:01:24 first category, the higher margin, lean operation, lower overhead variety.
0:01:27 But number one on this list is one that actually checks both boxes.
0:01:28 High margin, high volume.
0:01:33 And that’s a recurring web design and web hosting service inspired by
0:01:40 Ryan Golgowski of 180sites.com and episode 550 of the side hustle show.
0:01:44 Ryan’s built an incredible business designing and hosting websites
0:01:47 primarily for the power washing industry.
0:01:51 If you can believe that, but rather than charging a few thousand dollars
0:01:54 upfront for the site, which most of his customers would say, yeah, no,
0:01:55 thanks, we’re good.
0:01:59 Instead, he charges around 200 bucks a month for 24 months and then has a
0:02:01 lower priced maintenance package after that.
0:02:08 And when we recorded, he’d just had his first $100,000 month all with a very
0:02:13 lean operation, volume plus margins, super inspiring business.
0:02:14 Here’s how he described it.
0:02:20 If having a better website that is going to offer a better user experience,
0:02:21 it’s going to better your SEO.
0:02:24 There’s going to be better conversion optimization on the site.
0:02:28 Even if it’s just generating for you one extra sale a month, you know,
0:02:31 that’s extremely conservative way to look at it.
0:02:34 It’s the service is already being paid for and then some.
0:02:37 It’s a pretty simple, easy sell.
0:02:42 Whereas like if I were to try to sell a website for five grand, a lot
0:02:46 of people sell websites for even more than that 10 grand for a company
0:02:49 that’s not doing millions of dollars in sales.
0:02:50 That’s like a huge number to them.
0:02:58 And it’s hard for them to justify, but 180, 220, 300 bucks a month and they’re
0:03:02 not only going to get more leads, they’re also going to look a lot better.
0:03:05 So there’s going to be so much more perceived value to their marketplace.
0:03:11 They’re going to be perceived as the high end, luxury, most professional
0:03:12 service provider.
0:03:15 And you’re doing several of these a week at this point.
0:03:16 Sounds like volume wise.
0:03:17 Yes.
0:03:17 Yeah.
0:03:21 So 20 a month, give or take, sometimes less.
0:03:29 But last year we did 211 new signups and this year shooting for 250.
0:03:29 Yeah.
0:03:35 Listeners can do the math on that and say, wow, that’s pretty substantial operation.
0:03:40 And now once it’s in on the developer’s desk, what’s their typical turnaround
0:03:44 time to get this thing up for approval or up for hosting?
0:03:44 Yeah.
0:03:49 So the initial stage of development, it should have about a week’s time max.
0:03:51 They could get it done quicker than that.
0:03:53 Then it will go to the project manager.
0:03:55 They’ll be going back and forth with the client.
0:03:58 If they need any revisions that will go back to the developer.
0:04:02 If we’re doing content that will take a little bit of extra time for us.
0:04:04 If they’re doing content, it could be fast.
0:04:06 It could take a year.
0:04:06 Who knows?
0:04:13 But we shoot for about a four week timeframe for the project from the time
0:04:15 they sign up to the time their site goes live.
0:04:16 Okay.
0:04:16 Okay.
0:04:20 Just to give yourself some buffer room in case there’s any back and forth.
0:04:21 Okay.
0:04:21 Cool.
0:04:26 And do you consider the upfront developer time and some of these other upfront costs?
0:04:29 Like, is there a sense of the break-even point?
0:04:31 Well, after three months, we’re good.
0:04:33 Or after six months, like it’s all gravy.
0:04:37 And so if we can keep that person on for six months and keep them happy.
0:04:40 Like, I mean, they, yeah, they signed the contract, but who knows?
0:04:43 I just try to get figured out for like, yeah, you’ve run some labor and some
0:04:45 other expenses upfront here.
0:04:45 Yeah.
0:04:45 Yeah.
0:04:47 Definitely starting out.
0:04:53 It is not as efficient or profitable, but over time, you’ll really refine your
0:04:57 systems and you should be able to at least your fixed costs should be covered by
0:05:00 about two months of the customer’s payments.
0:05:06 Fixed costs covered by two months of customer payments, meaning the next 22
0:05:08 months are almost pure profit.
0:05:11 Again, that’s episode 550 in your archives.
0:05:17 Definitely one that I refer back to quite a bit and likely replicable in tons of
0:05:17 different niches.
0:05:20 Again, Brian was focusing on power washing companies.
0:05:23 So that’s number one, starting a recurring web design service.
0:05:26 Number two is to start a content business.
0:05:31 What I mean by a content business is a helpful website, a podcast, a YouTube
0:05:33 channel, a social media following.
0:05:38 And the reason it makes this list is this combination of being super scalable
0:05:40 and having relatively low costs.
0:05:44 For example, it takes the same effort to write an article that a hundred people
0:05:47 read as it does to create one that a hundred thousand people read.
0:05:49 And it’s the same for other types of content as well.
0:05:54 And then on the other side, your costs are usually fixed or they’re tied to
0:05:58 performance in some way so that they scale with reach and revenue.
0:06:02 Some of the most successful business owners I know play in this space and
0:06:05 it’s where I spend most of my effort as well, creating episodes like this one
0:06:09 along with creating and maintaining the library of written content on
0:06:12 the Side Hustle Nation site as traffic increases, so does revenue.
0:06:16 Andrew Fiebert runs the affiliate tracking software Lasso and also
0:06:19 the gift ideas site giftlab.co.
0:06:24 Now, I’ve often talked about YouTube videos or blog posts as planting little
0:06:27 money seeds, these little digital assets, putting them out into the world.
0:06:30 And that’s really similar to how Andrew described running an online
0:06:33 content business in episode 537.
0:06:39 I kind of liken blogging to you have this like bag of seed and you’re
0:06:42 just grabbing fistfuls and you’re throwing the seed out there.
0:06:48 And when you start, 80% are landing on the street or the sidewalk or birds
0:06:49 eating it.
0:06:53 And as you get better, you’re like, oh, I need to put it on the grass or I
0:06:54 need to put it in dirt.
0:07:00 And so I think a lot of like the research and prep orient us towards that.
0:07:04 And then the more confidence we have in our publishing process for that
0:07:06 site and our ability to rank.
0:07:10 I feel like we’re able to pay more or rather scale the team better.
0:07:17 Some things are just going to miss and oftentimes things that miss are better
0:07:19 than the things that hit and rank.
0:07:26 We try and think less about like every articles ROI than how do we get more
0:07:32 hits and how do we make sure that 80% of what we create is profitable say
0:07:35 within the first like year, year and a half.
0:07:37 And then after that, I mean, it’s all margin.
0:07:42 So it’s really about like how do we land as many of those seeds as
0:07:45 possible in fertile soil?
0:07:46 Right.
0:07:47 That’s the other piece of the pie here.
0:07:51 It’s like, well, you can spend money creating all these articles that never
0:07:53 make it past the top of page two.
0:07:55 And you’re like, well, great.
0:07:56 Nobody sees those.
0:07:59 It’s like playing almost like mini venture capitalists.
0:08:02 Like, okay, I’m going to put a bunch of money on, you know, spread across 10
0:08:03 different bets.
0:08:07 Hopefully your odds are better than a typical VC and like you can land five
0:08:10 or eight of them on the first page and then you can kind of track
0:08:14 their revenue or affiliate commissions from there.
0:08:15 That was just, I don’t know.
0:08:16 You seem very dialed in on the numbers.
0:08:17 I was like, nope.
0:08:19 After six months, everything is gravy.
0:08:23 But it’s like, okay, after a year, year and a half, we have broken even on
0:08:23 that article.
0:08:27 And meanwhile, we already have our whole backlog of archive content that
0:08:30 is spinning and generating traffic and revenue for us.
0:08:31 It’s a multi-phase process.
0:08:35 So the first is you create, you publish, and then like, I don’t know,
0:08:37 hopefully the Google gods give it you traffic.
0:08:42 And then if it is getting traction, then it falls into our optimization
0:08:45 process where we’ll start to look at it.
0:08:47 What are the keywords that it is hitting?
0:08:49 Doesn’t need to be shifted slightly.
0:08:52 If it’s a gift list, we reorient items.
0:08:56 And so there are things that we create that I believe are excellent things
0:09:00 that we paid, you know, I’m listening to my Maris $450 for excellent.
0:09:05 And they get nothing ever that is relegated to the page 100 of Google.
0:09:08 And so then that was a bad bet clearly.
0:09:13 But if it starts to get traction, then it attracts our attention and we try
0:09:15 and lean into what is working.
0:09:19 Plant those seeds, give them the love and attention they need and pay attention
0:09:20 to what’s working.
0:09:23 Then go do more of that over its five year lifespan.
0:09:28 At the time we recorded gift lab had earned over $1.2 million in affiliate
0:09:32 commissions, but the interesting thing is that total was heavily weighted,
0:09:35 heavily back loaded to the final two years.
0:09:39 I think the first two years Andrew said it might have made a total of $50,000,
0:09:44 which is great, but it’s important to realize that this type of business
0:09:45 is a longer term play.
0:09:46 You got to stick with it.
0:09:50 And if you do, your efforts can really start to compound.
0:09:51 Now, I love content businesses.
0:09:53 I identify as a creator.
0:09:56 Like I know a lot of listeners do as well, which is why starting a content
0:10:00 business is number two on our list of the most profitable side hustles.
0:10:05 Number three can pair really nicely with a content business, but it can
0:10:06 also stand alone.
0:10:07 I’ll tell you more about it.
0:10:10 Plus the rest of our most profitable side hustles right after this.
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0:11:01 So do retail right with Shopify.
0:11:07 Go ahead sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/sidehustle.
0:11:08 That’s all lowercase.
0:11:13 Go to Shopify.com/sidehustle to take your retail business to the next
0:11:14 level today.
0:11:17 Shopify.com/sidehustle.
0:11:18 All right.
0:11:22 Number three is digital products and these compare really nicely
0:11:23 with a content business.
0:11:27 It’s another place to direct the attention that your content attracts
0:11:32 to a printable file, a digital download, an ebook, an online course.
0:11:35 And we’ve seen some fun examples of side hustlers taking these files
0:11:39 directly to the people on platforms like Etsy and teachers pay teachers,
0:11:42 both of which allow you to tap into some existing demand.
0:11:46 You can leverage an existing customer base on both of those sites.
0:11:48 You’ve got automated file delivery.
0:11:50 They’re handling payment processing for you.
0:11:54 Lots of cool stuff and because your cost of good sold is essentially zero.
0:11:56 It’s like a digital PDF or something.
0:11:58 It’s just your time to create the thing.
0:12:01 A digital products business can be really profitable as well.
0:12:04 And you may not even have to start completely from scratch either.
0:12:10 One of the most popular episodes of last year was number 582 with Becky
0:12:14 Beach on using AI to help create some of these digital products.
0:12:16 Well, the home planner bundle.
0:12:18 I’m selling it for like $17.
0:12:21 You get like a few other printables in that bundle as well.
0:12:27 Like you also get a 2023 goal planner and I saw also a coloring page pack
0:12:31 and that same bundle and that sells for like $17 and also have like
0:12:33 an upsell where you can pay like $27.
0:12:35 You get a few more printables too.
0:12:36 And that does very well.
0:12:38 That’s like one of my upsells I have.
0:12:42 Yeah, I’m just thinking about the margins on this like $17 because
0:12:44 she’s next to nothing to fulfill.
0:12:47 Just lather and repeat, create something once, sell it over and over again.
0:12:49 Those are the types of side hustles that I like.
0:12:50 Exactly.
0:12:54 I used to do drop shipping when I first started an online business and that
0:12:55 was really difficult to do.
0:13:00 There was a lot of problems with like fulfillment because you have to rely
0:13:02 on somebody else to fulfill your products for you have no control over
0:13:03 the shipping.
0:13:05 So a lot of times I would get charged backs, but that’s why I turned
0:13:06 to digital products only.
0:13:07 Gotcha.
0:13:09 All right, fair enough.
0:13:10 So I’m okay.
0:13:13 I have an understanding of okay, going where the demand already is trying
0:13:17 to create something that people want, maybe smaller niche products and then
0:13:21 a bundle of something that would appeal to that entire per se look just one
0:13:22 low price.
0:13:25 You get all this stuff at a slight discount plus some different bonuses
0:13:31 coming pages now specific to either this home planner or any of the
0:13:33 related products in there.
0:13:39 Talk to me about the chat GPT or the AI assistedness of coming up with
0:13:39 that.
0:13:40 I think that’s an interesting angle.
0:13:45 You can actually ask chat GPT to give you product suggestions based on
0:13:49 your niche so you can do a prompt, which could be please give me a guy.
0:13:50 I’m really polite to chat GPT.
0:13:55 So all of a sudden like please give me like 10 product ideas and the money
0:13:58 saving niche for printables or digital products or just whatever.
0:13:59 And it will spit it out.
0:14:02 It will give you like 10 different product ideas or you can even ask
0:14:05 for 20 ideas or just any amount you wouldn’t want.
0:14:09 And it gives you all these ideas, but then you can also take that data.
0:14:13 It gave you actually go on and research for yourself to see if it’s
0:14:13 trending on Google.
0:14:18 If any of it is doing well on Etsy or people on Etsy getting sales
0:14:18 with this topic.
0:14:19 Yeah.
0:14:22 Have they come up with any good ones that you hadn’t considered before?
0:14:26 I really like the checklist idea that you were saying about the routine
0:14:26 checklist like that.
0:14:28 I think that’d be better than a planner.
0:14:31 So I want to do that, but you help me come up with that idea.
0:14:32 I don’t know.
0:14:34 Yeah.
0:14:36 So I typed in this is probably not the best prompt in the world.
0:14:40 Please give me some digital product ideas for printables in the side
0:14:41 hustle niche.
0:14:45 And it came back with business planner, budget tracker, social media,
0:14:50 content calendar, productivity, worksheets, Etsy shop optimization
0:14:54 checklist, which could easily be repurposed to a website optimization
0:14:54 checklist.
0:14:57 Actually, I have a whole book on the small business website checklist
0:14:59 from like 2013 or something.
0:15:01 Business card templates, market research worksheets.
0:15:03 I think that’s a really interesting one.
0:15:06 Like if you’re evaluating a different niche, like, okay, here’s how you
0:15:08 ought to go about thinking about that.
0:15:11 I think that’s really creative inventory management sheets.
0:15:15 If you’ve got a physical product expense deduction worksheets.
0:15:18 Like if you’re in the finance accounting space, that’s really
0:15:20 interesting one client management templates.
0:15:24 If you’re in a service based business logo and branding templates,
0:15:26 content creation templates.
0:15:27 That’s an interesting one.
0:15:31 Like, oh, we’re creating product reviews as part of our side hustle.
0:15:34 Like, you know, here’s kind of like a fill-in-the-blank template
0:15:38 that is proven based on some level of SEO metrics or something.
0:15:39 That’s interesting.
0:15:44 Self-care and work life balance planners, the product launch checklist.
0:15:46 I think I have a book launch checklist.
0:15:47 Like that’s an interesting one.
0:15:50 I think I just have as a freebie right now, but that could be a paid
0:15:55 product in certain spaces, customer feedback, surveys, printable coupons
0:15:57 and promotions affiliate marketing planner.
0:16:00 If you’re going out to recruit affiliates to sell your product,
0:16:03 here’s how you’re going to plan out your affiliate campaigns
0:16:05 and the skill development tracker.
0:16:06 Man, chat GPC.
0:16:10 I think these are pretty solid suggestions that it came up with just for that.
0:16:14 So you might try that prompt or a variation of it to see
0:16:15 what comes back in your space.
0:16:18 It just gives you so many really good product ideas.
0:16:21 Like, I like the launch checklist the best like that launch one, you know,
0:16:23 that show people how they could launch a product.
0:16:25 That’s a really solid idea right there.
0:16:26 Yeah.
0:16:28 The next stage would be like, cool.
0:16:31 Can you give me more details on number 18 or what steps would you
0:16:32 include in number 18?
0:16:37 Now you have the starter template for that eventual freebie or product.
0:16:41 Then of course, you’re going to add your own expertise and insight into.
0:16:44 You’re not probably going to just copy and paste this thing, but then go
0:16:45 out and create that thing.
0:16:46 So that’s all right.
0:16:49 Now you can start it a little bit, but more than that, it’s not just
0:16:51 copying and pasting into Microsoft Word.
0:16:56 Like you’re doing some level of beautification through Canva or through
0:16:58 some other graphic design to like, okay, you know, I’m going to make
0:17:01 these templates and spreadsheets look nice.
0:17:04 Look like something worth paying for rather than just the default fonts
0:17:08 in Excel or Google Sheets and saying, okay, hit print on this.
0:17:10 I do brand it into Canva.
0:17:11 I do like some formatting.
0:17:13 It’s really simple to use Canva.
0:17:15 Like it’s a very user friendly app.
0:17:18 I have a major in graphic design in college.
0:17:21 So it’s like probably easier for someone like me that knows design,
0:17:23 but sure, anybody could pick it up.
0:17:23 It’s like real simple.
0:17:26 There’s lots of free YouTube videos you could watch.
0:17:32 Again, that’s episode 582 with Becky Beach from mombeach.com, who when
0:17:36 we recorded reported earning around 30 grand a month, primarily from
0:17:37 her digital product sales.
0:17:41 Low overhead, create it once, sell it over and over again, adds up to
0:17:42 a very profitable business.
0:17:46 Another example of a digital product would be taking your knowledge
0:17:50 and experience in packaging it up into an online course like Jacques
0:17:55 Hopkins of piano in 21 days.com has done and he sold over $4 million
0:17:59 worth of that course through its various iterations over the last 10 plus
0:17:59 years.
0:18:04 Now at the top of his funnel, so to speak, is just a handful of well
0:18:09 made pieces of content that introduce new piano learners into his world.
0:18:13 There’s a lot that goes into an evergreen profitable online course
0:18:16 business, but it doesn’t need to be overly complicated either.
0:18:19 In fact, you might be closer than you think to getting in front of
0:18:20 your target students.
0:18:23 So I was already ranking on the first page of Google for terms like how
0:18:27 to play piano and learn piano fast and on YouTube as well.
0:18:31 And so people were searching for these things at an unprecedented rate.
0:18:35 And I was already there with an established working sales funnel and
0:18:38 a course that had proven results and testimonials.
0:18:45 For that time period, my record month was 145,000 in revenue.
0:18:45 Oh my God.
0:18:49 For one month from one course, we’ve obviously come back to Earth since
0:18:53 then, but that was amazing as far as my business goes.
0:18:58 I have a video on YouTube I made five years ago that still makes me tons
0:19:01 of sales every month because people are still finding that video and getting
0:19:02 value from that video.
0:19:06 Evergreen digital assets can be a really powerful engine in building
0:19:10 a profitable side hustle, especially if you got the systems in place to
0:19:12 capture and monetize that attention.
0:19:15 And in Jock’s case, it points to an Evergreen digital course, an Evergreen
0:19:19 online course, but you got to plant some seeds out there to find which
0:19:20 ones are going to work.
0:19:24 That’s number three on this list, digital products with tons of examples
0:19:27 in the podcast archives of side hustlers having success in that area.
0:19:32 We got a whole series with Jock who also runs the online course guy.com.
0:19:36 Definitely worth a follow if you want to build a course business.
0:19:40 Now, next on the list is kind of a unique one because it’s a physical
0:19:43 product business, which would typically mean lower margins.
0:19:47 The reason I’m including it here similar to a dropshipping business is you
0:19:49 don’t have to pay for the inventory until you sell it.
0:19:53 And that unique setup is made possible through an app called ShareTown,
0:19:55 which is number four on this list.
0:20:01 ShareTown specializes in these customer returns for bulky items like furniture,
0:20:05 mattresses, exercise equipment, pizza ovens from these direct to
0:20:06 consumer brands.
0:20:09 And in most cases, the reason for this is the brands can’t take
0:20:14 back these items on customer returns to resell as new because they’re
0:20:15 not new anymore.
0:20:20 It was a hundred night sleep trial satisfaction guarantee type of thing.
0:20:22 Customer decides, I don’t really like it.
0:20:24 So they want to get their money back.
0:20:29 The companies partner with ShareTown who intern partners with local reps,
0:20:33 including lots of side hustle show listeners at this point to go pick
0:20:35 up those items, clean them up and list them for resale.
0:20:39 After they sell, that’s when the reps pay ShareTown for the product,
0:20:44 pocketing 100 to $250 per item for their work.
0:20:45 And it definitely is work.
0:20:46 It’s, it’s driving.
0:20:47 It’s lifting.
0:20:47 It’s cleaning.
0:20:48 It’s marketing.
0:20:52 It’s communicating with customers, but it can add up to thousands of
0:20:55 dollars in extra income without a lot of risk.
0:21:00 This is Stacy Averto from Episode 501 explaining a bit more about
0:21:01 how it works.
0:21:05 When we get our item, we’ll schedule them out and we’ll usually
0:21:09 plan on two to three pickups per trip.
0:21:14 He’ll usually go out and pick up these items and then he brings them back.
0:21:19 And some need a little bit more TLC than others, but we’ll clean and
0:21:20 sanitize them and then we’ll flip them.
0:21:26 So ShareTown provides pictures for us, but we also are able to take our own.
0:21:30 So I think that’s a huge important part of selling is making sure
0:21:32 it looks good.
0:21:34 That’s good lighting, things like that.
0:21:38 The longer you do this, the more comfortable you are with each item and
0:21:42 the knowledge you have in the brands and things like that.
0:21:44 And so I’ll have a conversation with the customer and let them
0:21:46 know, answer their questions.
0:21:49 Sometimes they want to come and check out the item or they’re just like,
0:21:50 Hey, when can you deliver it?
0:21:55 And so whatever happens, we’ll go deliver that mattress or item.
0:22:00 And then once we get paid via Venmo or cash or, you know, all the different
0:22:06 options you can receive payment nowadays, once a week, we will pay ShareTown
0:22:09 for all of the items that we sold that week.
0:22:10 Okay.
0:22:15 So it’s on you to manage the profit margin or manage the spread there.
0:22:18 So let’s say, so you go out, you’ve batched these things.
0:22:20 I’m going to this area.
0:22:22 So I’m going to pick up two or three in the evening.
0:22:26 You bring them home, you clean them up, photograph them, list them on
0:22:31 marketplace on offer up on Craigslist, like whatever.
0:22:38 Is there a price floor that you know that you have to pay for this inventory
0:22:39 once it sells?
0:22:43 Like, and so you have to kind of mind your markups on top of that.
0:22:43 Yep.
0:22:48 So ShareTowns, they’ve created a minimalist price for areas like Phoenix
0:22:51 where there’s 15 plus of us within a five hour radius of each other.
0:22:56 They’ve created a minimum list price that we are required to list in
0:22:59 and then you’re provided with the amount that you owe to ShareTown.
0:23:03 So you’ll see the margin that you’ll be able to make and you’ll be able to
0:23:07 say, okay, I want to make at least this much on this mattress or item.
0:23:11 And I’ll say, hey, if you come pick it up, I can take $50 off.
0:23:15 My husband and I, we average about 250 ish per item.
0:23:17 We’re higher inventory reps.
0:23:22 And so if we’re kind of building up to the max, then we’ll be like, okay,
0:23:23 let’s just focus on turning over.
0:23:29 We’ll make 100 to 150 bucks per item and just get our inventory turned over.
0:23:31 Is your garage like filled with mattresses?
0:23:33 Yeah, it’s filled.
0:23:35 Well, and it’s not just mattresses.
0:23:40 Like we work with all our couches, beam bag things.
0:23:42 I mean, we work with lots of different items.
0:23:42 Okay.
0:23:43 Yeah.
0:23:45 Frames, bases.
0:23:49 So yeah, we started out with just our garage, which was a huge benefit for
0:23:52 us because we didn’t have to invest in a unit or anything like that.
0:23:55 Around a year-ish, we started talking.
0:23:58 We should invest in a unit so we can hold more inventory.
0:23:59 Okay.
0:23:59 Yeah.
0:24:04 I’m just thinking through the big bulky items, like having a vehicle to be able
0:24:08 to transport it, having the space to be able to store it while you’re waiting
0:24:11 for it to resell some things to consider here.
0:24:11 Definitely.
0:24:12 Yes.
0:24:14 How is share town tracking this stuff?
0:24:17 Or like, what happens if you have something that just isn’t moving that you
0:24:21 can’t resell and now you’re stuck with this inventory that you didn’t have to
0:24:25 pay for upfront, but ultimately is there a bill that comes do.
0:24:29 So there’s not, you won’t ever pay for an item until you’ve sold it.
0:24:34 And we’ve been doing it for almost three years and we’ve sold through every
0:24:35 item we’ve received.
0:24:38 I mean, I had those same concerns and questions.
0:24:42 You’ll see some brands like we have a waiting list for when we get a brand.
0:24:46 I just text or send out a message and say, Hey, we just got this in.
0:24:48 Did you find what you were looking for?
0:24:49 Are we still wanting it?
0:24:51 And it sold in a matter of seconds.
0:24:56 And then there are some brands that aren’t as well known and popular that we
0:25:00 kind of hang on to for a little bit longer, but everything has always sold.
0:25:03 Again, that was Stacy from episode 501.
0:25:06 If you want to learn a bit more, I’ll also link up our full share town
0:25:09 review and write up in the show notes for this episode.
0:25:12 If you’ve got a truck or a bigger SUV and want to give it a shot in your area,
0:25:17 be sure to hit up my referral link, side hustle nation dot com slash share town
0:25:19 to fast track your application.
0:25:22 Number five on this list is niche consulting.
0:25:26 And the reason it’s so profitable is there is essentially no overhead at all.
0:25:29 You’re just selling your own time and expertise.
0:25:34 We’ve heard from examples like Bradley Rice on his $200,000 plus per year income
0:25:36 working 18 hours a week.
0:25:40 It’s still trading time for money, but if you can trade time for a lot of money,
0:25:44 that’s a trade that might make sense to make depending on your goals, right?
0:25:48 So some of the highest paid consulting niches are those that piggyback
0:25:52 on a popular software tool like Bradley does with Salesforce.
0:25:55 Conversion copywriters can command really premium rates.
0:25:57 We’re talking lawyer money in some cases.
0:26:02 I mean, Liz Wilcox was on the show talking about landing a $20,000
0:26:03 copywriting project.
0:26:04 It’s no joke.
0:26:07 Some companies spend a ton of money on this stuff and it doesn’t have
0:26:09 to be a business niche either.
0:26:09 I want to point that out.
0:26:14 We heard from Jane Havens, who was earning 10 grand a month as a baby
0:26:19 and toddler sleep consultant where there is pain and uncertainty and a problem
0:26:20 to be solved.
0:26:22 There’s a business idea there.
0:26:24 I can link up that episode in the show notes as well.
0:26:26 It was 490, I want to say.
0:26:32 One of the interesting recent examples was Carter Osborne in episode 601.
0:26:37 Carter started out as an academic tutor, but found that market pretty crowded,
0:26:38 pretty saturated.
0:26:43 So he niched down to offer a college admissions essay consulting service.
0:26:45 Yes, this is a thing.
0:26:50 And by being so specialized, he was able to build a full-time income from it
0:26:51 on the side from his day job.
0:26:54 My flat rate right now is 225 an hour.
0:26:58 I think for the Seattle area for full suite college application consultants,
0:26:59 that’s a little bit on the low end.
0:27:02 Specialists tend to charge a little less than those full suite consultants
0:27:04 just because we don’t offer as many services.
0:27:07 So it’s a little bit on the low end mainly because I’m trying to scale up.
0:27:09 But the pricing question comes up a lot.
0:27:12 And I think in the interest of kind of sharing with listeners some
0:27:16 of the missteps that I took early on that hopefully they can avoid.
0:27:20 When I started out in this industry, I priced myself really, really low.
0:27:22 I priced myself at $75 an hour.
0:27:25 And at the time as a graduate student, that felt luxurious.
0:27:28 I didn’t really do a full market research to understand that in the world
0:27:30 of college admissions, that’s not only cheap.
0:27:32 That’s sort of suspiciously cheap.
0:27:35 That’s like what’s wrong with this guy that he’s not charged in $75.
0:27:38 And actually, I would not be surprised if a couple people saw my rate and said,
0:27:40 ooh, I don’t know if I really trust this.
0:27:41 I’m going to move on.
0:27:43 It’s like looking for the group on for skydiving.
0:27:47 You’re like, I don’t know if this is something I really want to discount on.
0:27:48 That’s exactly right.
0:27:49 That’s a great comparison.
0:27:50 Yeah.
0:27:51 Well, so that’s exactly it.
0:27:55 But I think my error back then is I remember thinking, okay, what am I worth?
0:27:58 You know, as a college admissions or as a college essay consultant,
0:27:59 what do I think I’m worth?
0:28:00 Well, I don’t have any experience.
0:28:04 And yes, I took some creative writing classes and I have Stanford on my resume.
0:28:08 But I don’t know if I’m really fully qualified to charge $200 an hour or something.
0:28:10 I think that was my error, right?
0:28:13 Because it’s not about what you internally think you’re worth.
0:28:15 It’s about what the market can handle, what they’re willing to respond to.
0:28:19 And that has nothing to do with your own self-worth or positionality or anything.
0:28:24 If I’d done proper market research and thought of it more as I’m an actor in this space
0:28:27 and less of what am I worth relative to other people in the field from
0:28:29 a sort of inherent emotional standpoint.
0:28:33 I think I pretty immediately would have seen you need to start out at over $100 an hour.
0:28:36 I would have started higher and it’s taken me a little while to scale to $225.
0:28:40 I think now I’m in a more comfortable place, but it was an interesting transition early on.
0:28:45 I like that note about starting out pricing too low, almost suspiciously low.
0:28:47 But again, that’s episode 601.
0:28:53 And the other thing that stood out from that call was that Carter does almost no proactive marketing.
0:28:56 All it took was one strategic partnership.
0:29:00 Another admissions consultant in this case who didn’t like doing the essay work
0:29:01 who started sending referrals his way.
0:29:05 And the reason I bring that up is you might be closer than you think.
0:29:09 I love geeking out on all the latest and greatest marketing strategies,
0:29:13 but to get off the ground, you might not need to do much of that at all.
0:29:17 So that’s number five, a high value niche consulting service,
0:29:19 which can be a super profitable side hustle.
0:29:22 The second half of this list is coming up right after this.
0:29:26 All right, we’ve done our first five most profitable side hustles.
0:29:30 And number six is a fun one where your product is almost free,
0:29:35 but people will pay a premium for it if it’s in the right location and that’s ice vending.
0:29:39 Now, the biggest drawback to this business is the machines can be pretty expensive
0:29:41 and depending on your location, it can be pretty seasonal.
0:29:45 But the raw margins are pretty enviable.
0:29:49 This is Steve Slagle from episode 579
0:29:52 on how the math shakes out in his ice vending business.
0:29:58 It costs about eight cents to make 10 pounds of ice, roughly.
0:30:04 Wow, let’s just say you’re selling that for $3 if your market supports that price.
0:30:09 So now you’re at $2.92 of profit back a little bit out of that for maybe
0:30:11 planned maintenance and some of those things.
0:30:16 But you’re probably going to land in the 240 range per bag.
0:30:19 It’s pretty tough to beat.
0:30:23 And if you can do, let’s say 20, 30, 40 bags a day,
0:30:29 you can see those profits start to rack up pretty quickly and your margin stays the same.
0:30:34 It doesn’t cost any more whether you produce 10 pounds of ice or 500 pounds of ice.
0:30:38 It’s still a kilowatt per hour usage on the power.
0:30:43 It’s still a certain amount of water coming into the machine and it’s almost fixed.
0:30:48 Now, obviously the power company is going to raise rates every year because everybody does,
0:30:56 but you’re still looking at a relatively low, low cost to produce a product that replenishes itself.
0:31:00 And that’s one of the nice things about the Everest machines is you don’t have to stock it.
0:31:07 It’s constantly running and replenishing itself, having an available product that you don’t have to go do anything for.
0:31:13 As long as the machine’s up and running, it’s making ice that’s ready to sell and then hopefully you’re making money.
0:31:20 It would be super seasonal in the Northwest, but a snack and drink vending machine at our local community pool would crush in the summer.
0:31:23 That’s on my side hustle wish list to see if we can make that happen.
0:31:26 Again, $579 on ice vending.
0:31:34 And if you want a broader view on vending machines and many employee-less markets in general, check out $599 with Mike Hoffman.
0:31:39 But ice vending makes our list as number six purely because those unit economics make me smile.
0:31:41 Oh, it costs eight cents to make this bag.
0:31:44 Number seven is a membership or community business.
0:31:51 Now, a lot of people are attracted to a membership model because of the recurring revenue component, which I get it.
0:31:52 That is attractive.
0:32:01 The most common membership structure that we see from side hustle show guests has two parts as a content or education component and a community component.
0:32:06 And the common logic there is that people come for the content, but they stay for the community.
0:32:13 And yes, it takes time and energy to foster and support that community and potentially to feed more content into the membership.
0:32:16 But it’s a model that can naturally scale pretty well.
0:32:22 If you’ve got 100 members and $100 a month, you’re at $10,000 a month.
0:32:29 And you’ve got some levers to play with there, too, on growth, on pricing, on retention, on add-on offers, where it can be really profitable.
0:32:33 So that’s the common membership model that we see, content plus community.
0:32:37 But I wanted to share a different example from years ago on the show.
0:32:41 And that’s Jack Spearcoe’s member support brigade.
0:32:41 I think he called it.
0:32:46 Jack’s been hosting the survival podcast probably 15 years at this point, maybe longer.
0:32:56 And when we spoke, the biggest piece of his revenue pie was from this unique membership model where it wasn’t about getting extra content or exclusive content.
0:33:08 It wasn’t necessarily about access to a forum or community, but it was about getting exclusive annual access to a bunch of deals and discounts that Jack had negotiated for his followers.
0:33:11 Here’s how he explained it way back on episode 319.
0:33:16 So the way it works is a listener will sign up 50 bucks a year.
0:33:19 Sometimes I run sales, sometimes I run a lifetime sale.
0:33:22 So I do that a couple of times, usually really once a year.
0:33:26 Like today I did that and we did $4,500 worth of sales in an hour.
0:33:30 That was a nice little bonus that we paid ourselves for Christmas.
0:33:37 So that listener signs up for whatever duration and they’re on an automatic renewal because that’s just smart from a business standpoint.
0:33:42 Of course, they can cancel anytime they want and they get a login to the private side of the site.
0:33:47 They log into there and the big value add again is we call it the benefits section.
0:33:51 They click on benefits and there’s about 70 companies that offer discounts.
0:33:57 Imagine if the AAA discounts, the AAA says they give you were actually discounts, right?
0:33:58 The stuff you actually use.
0:34:00 That’s kind of what our program is.
0:34:03 We have discounts on firearms, parts and components.
0:34:05 We have discounts on seeds.
0:34:07 We have discounts on plants.
0:34:12 We have a couple, they’re kind of like general store of prepping type that have everything and anything you think of.
0:34:17 Water filters, Berkey water filters are probably the premier water filters in the prepper space.
0:34:19 We have a discount on those.
0:34:22 So we have discounts on all these different products and some of them are not really even prepper products.
0:34:26 So we have one on a company called EcoSense and I’m like, people will dig that from there.
0:34:28 They don’t justify to their wives while they have this program.
0:34:29 That works.
0:34:30 We have one called Olive Basket.
0:34:32 Those infused olive oils and vinegar.
0:34:34 So cooking products, et cetera.
0:34:36 So any company thinks they’re good fit will look at them.
0:34:40 And if they are, we’ll say, okay, write your own blurb.
0:34:45 If you do a membership program and you do discounts, I really encourage you to come up with guidance like word count, whatever.
0:34:48 Make the customer write their own blurb.
0:34:51 That way, if anybody doesn’t understand something, it’s their fault, not yours.
0:34:52 You’ll change it.
0:34:53 You see what I’m saying?
0:34:57 Otherwise, like he crafted for them and the customer gets the wrong idea about what the discount means.
0:35:07 So you make the right your own blurb, we drop them in there and I shoot to add about six to 12 new partner companies a year and some of them are small businesses.
0:35:09 So you’ll have some turnover.
0:35:13 If you do this, either they’ll stop doing it or the guy will go off and do something else or just continue.
0:35:20 The only product you had discounted by requirement is one, I don’t do a contract, but I expect kind of a virtual handshake.
0:35:22 We agree to do this together for a year.
0:35:24 So there’s stability in my program.
0:35:26 If it really doesn’t work for you, I’ll shut it off.
0:35:33 But we go in with kind of the understanding that’s the goal and that the discount not be something you do all the time for everybody anyway.
0:35:39 It has to be something that’s exclusive doesn’t mean you can’t do it around the holidays or twice a year or something.
0:35:41 But my people get access to it 24/7.
0:35:45 And as long as they’re willing to do that, it’s a quality product and I trust the company.
0:35:51 I’ll bring them on board and that makes the sale easy because of the customer who listens to you every day.
0:35:55 Looks at the people doing the discounts and says, well, I buy from them already.
0:36:00 And I don’t buy from them, but I buy that product and I’m happy to buy from them since they support us.
0:36:09 And I use herbal supplements and I use this and I do the math in my head and I’m going to get 70 bucks in discounts to give this guy 50 bucks.
0:36:11 Do I like anyway?
0:36:13 Well, done.
0:36:16 And as long as they’re making a profit, they retain.
0:36:24 I’ve had customers that are eight years retained because if you had something that’s giving you a hundred dollars worth of discounts you’re paying 50 bucks for.
0:36:28 Like you have poor financial sense if you cancel that product.
0:36:29 Yeah, I like this a lot.
0:36:33 Actually, this is kind of a digital coupon book in a way.
0:36:37 I think in Seattle, they used to have like the entertainment book or something we used to get when we were kids.
0:36:40 It’s like a digital coupon book or even a Costco membership.
0:36:43 Yeah, I’m definitely going to get more than 50 bucks out of this.
0:36:43 So it’s a no brainer.
0:36:46 I really like that is the pitch just on air.
0:36:51 They joined the support brigade for 50 bucks a year and get access to all these exclusive deals.
0:36:55 And as you might imagine, this model scales really well.
0:37:01 The incremental cost of a new member is essentially zero and Jack keeps the whole operation really lean.
0:37:05 It’s me and my wife and my dogs and the ducks.
0:37:08 That’s that’s really the team here.
0:37:08 Right.
0:37:12 So the dog sits on the floor while I podcast and wants to feed up.
0:37:16 My wife does all my booking for me when a guest submits a form.
0:37:19 She takes it from there Wednesday morning like magic.
0:37:21 A form shows up on my desk.
0:37:26 I researched the guest and by the time we’re doing the interview at one o’clock, I know enough about him to do the show intelligently.
0:37:28 We stay very, very lean on it.
0:37:30 So we have no cost.
0:37:36 Our costs are all web hosting and anything else I can convince the government is related to the show.
0:37:40 Meals out or taking a vacation or something like that.
0:37:42 There’s no buddy to pay.
0:37:45 There’s no, you know, what’s your margin on a membership?
0:37:51 I don’t know the biggest expense is the buck 40 that PayPal or Stripe charges me to run the charge.
0:37:57 There is a cost to deliver that, but the cost is the same for a thousand members as it is for 10,000.
0:38:00 Could you set up something similar in your niche?
0:38:06 I thought it was a pretty creative example of creating value for all parties while doing a really profitable business as well.
0:38:09 That’s number seven, a membership business.
0:38:14 Number eight is another opportunity for recurring revenue and that’s product licensing.
0:38:17 This is where you come up with a product idea.
0:38:22 Usually it’s some iteration or evolution on something that’s already existing, that’s already out in the market.
0:38:29 And then you pitch it to bigger companies, companies with the production and distribution and marketing firepower to really bring it to life.
0:38:39 Rather than you trying to find a manufacturer to drum up support for a Kickstarter campaign to fund the thing and, you know, try and get the thing off the ground all on your own.
0:38:45 This is the side hustle that appeals to all the modern day inventors who look at products and think of all the ways they could be better.
0:38:53 And companies have a history of doing this and in a lot of cases have a built-in process for accepting submissions from outsiders like you and me.
0:38:59 It’s their way of crowdsourcing some innovation at a relatively low cost.
0:39:01 So what’s a typical licensing deal worth?
0:39:03 Well, here’s Stephen Key from Invent Right.
0:39:07 He’s a resident expert on this business and he explained it this way.
0:39:09 What is a good deal?
0:39:11 A good deal is when they’re selling a lot of product.
0:39:13 That’s a good deal.
0:39:15 An average royalty is about five percent.
0:39:21 What’s really more important is make sure it has minimum guarantees, meaning that they have to sell X amount.
0:39:23 If not, you get it back.
0:39:24 It’s your best protection.
0:39:25 What do you mean by that?
0:39:26 It’s really easy.
0:39:28 Most companies are going to want an exclusive.
0:39:29 All right.
0:39:30 We see your idea.
0:39:31 We’re going to take it.
0:39:33 We’re going to spend all our money, but we want an exclusive.
0:39:36 So make sure they’ve got a lot of stores, right?
0:39:38 Make sure they’re the right partner for you.
0:39:38 Okay.
0:39:41 So I sent my sell sheet out to five or 10 different companies.
0:39:43 You know, maybe I got a couple of responses.
0:39:45 The one person is pretty serious about it.
0:39:46 One company is pretty serious.
0:39:47 They say, okay, we want to do this.
0:39:49 We want an exclusive deal.
0:39:52 They’ll say we want a worldwide exclusive.
0:39:54 It’s amazing how greedy these guys get.
0:39:57 But basically you want them to be greedy.
0:39:58 Okay, so great.
0:40:02 Now, what you’re going to do is that you’re going to add up all the stores that they’re in and you’re going to do the math.
0:40:03 They’re going to sell one a week.
0:40:07 If they don’t sell one a week, it’s going to get kicked to the curb at retail.
0:40:09 So now you’ve done the math.
0:40:14 You know, they’re in 25,000 stores and they’re going to sell one a week.
0:40:17 So that’s, you know, 100,000 a month.
0:40:22 Would they tell you how many stores they’re expecting distribution in or you just have to guess?
0:40:23 Well, you don’t have to guess.
0:40:25 Just ask them what stores you’re in.
0:40:25 Okay.
0:40:32 So now you realize, well, they’re going to sell, you know, a couple of million units a year easy.
0:40:34 My royalty is on the wholesale price.
0:40:38 And so now I’ve got an estimate of what I’m going to make.
0:40:38 Right.
0:40:41 So now I’m going to give you an exclusive.
0:40:47 Now, if I give you an exclusive and I don’t have any type of performance clause, I just gave it to you for free.
0:40:47 Yeah.
0:40:51 So I have to have some type of minimum that you have to sell.
0:40:53 If you don’t sell it, maybe get bored with it.
0:40:54 Maybe do a lousy job.
0:40:56 Hey, I need to get it back.
0:40:59 So you set the minimum guarantees the first year, very, very low.
0:41:01 Second year is a little higher.
0:41:05 And then the third year is you hit them between the eyes with it, make sure they’re doing a good job.
0:41:09 And this is on, you know, number of unit sales or like money in your pocket.
0:41:16 So it really comes, the rotating label that I just mentioned, the minimum guarantees were $750,000 for me.
0:41:19 They had to sell with royalties coming to me.
0:41:20 They had to sell that much.
0:41:21 So that is okay.
0:41:23 Now this is free for you to license to somebody else.
0:41:24 Yes.
0:41:25 And guess what?
0:41:26 They paid for all the patents too.
0:41:27 Oh, okay.
0:41:29 So they paid for 13 patents.
0:41:31 They went in a different direction.
0:41:33 They gave it all back to me up to five years.
0:41:35 So then I licensed it to another company.
0:41:36 I’ve been doing that for 20 years.
0:41:37 Oh, okay.
0:41:38 It’s a fun game.
0:41:39 It’s really fun.
0:41:42 Even when they mess up, it’s even fun because then you get it back, find somebody else to take it.
0:41:43 It’s interesting.
0:41:47 But what I like about it, you can kind of design your life.
0:41:49 See, it’s a different mindset.
0:41:52 Live where you want to live and work as hard as you want to.
0:41:55 It takes time to get started.
0:41:58 And like anything else, you have to, you have to dive into it, right?
0:42:01 And there’s things to do to be successful.
0:42:02 You have to educate yourself.
0:42:08 But the trick is come out with a lot of ideas and submit them to a lot of companies.
0:42:13 It’s a fascinating side hustle one with super low risks and big upside potential.
0:42:16 If you’ve ever done a licensing deal, I would love to hear from you.
0:42:23 We’ve done a few of these inventors slash entrepreneur type of examples on the show who’ve gone down this path.
0:42:28 One was a Pictionary inspired card game that got licensed to Mattel.
0:42:36 One was like a drink Coosie with a frozen Bulbassey section on the bottom that would fit into the little dimple underneath an aluminum can.
0:42:43 And one I want to say was a pad you could wear under a baseball or softball glove to protect your hand from hard line drives or throws.
0:42:44 But it’s been a while.
0:42:46 We’d love to hear some new case studies.
0:42:49 That’s number eight, product licensing.
0:42:50 Let me know what you got.
0:42:53 Low risk, big upside potential, very profitable side hustle.
0:42:55 Number nine is reselling software.
0:43:02 And I wanted to include software on this list because as you know, software companies are some of the most profitable in the world, right?
0:43:04 Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe.
0:43:13 And while it’s definitely possible for side hustlers to develop your own app, your own software tool, especially now with the help of no code tools, with the help of chat.
0:43:15 GPT even even hiring developers.
0:43:19 It’s still a more intimidating process for a lot of people.
0:43:24 The episodes that we’ve done or did on building software just didn’t perform that well.
0:43:32 But there was an episode we did on reselling software or white labeling someone else’s software that did really well.
0:43:42 Because it comes with a lot of the benefits of a software business like recurring revenue, low overhead, without the upfront development cost or product market fit risks.
0:43:49 And in this case, the game plan is to find a tool that you like and you play matchmaker between companies who could benefit from it.
0:44:00 The example we used in episode 494 with Chris Lillini was a reputation management software that helped small businesses collect more positive reviews from their customers.
0:44:05 So they’d end up ranking better in Yelp, ranking better in Google and getting more business.
0:44:07 Here’s Chris on how the model works.
0:44:19 So for example, if I go to the reputation management software in here, I imagine, I don’t know if it’s one of these that you’re using, but there’s a handful of options there.
0:44:20 Yeah, I’m sure.
0:44:27 They’re charging you a set price per month per customer, and then you’re turning around and selling it at 97 a month.
0:44:32 Are you comfortable sharing like how that math works or how you approach those margins?
0:44:32 Absolutely.
0:44:33 Yeah.
0:44:35 So I mean, my lowest package is 97 bucks a month.
0:44:43 I mean, that’s that’s kind of a mom and pop shop who’s like, you know, we don’t use any other software like you’re the first software we use.
0:44:47 Other way, you know, and they’re like, but, you know, we do get phone numbers and name and emails occasionally, right?
0:44:50 And so they’re like manually typing it in, right?
0:44:54 I would say that more so I’m at least at 150 bucks a month.
0:44:59 Most times, I would say what I’m selling more of now is about 300 bucks a month.
0:45:07 And that’s just because there’s, you know, different components to the technology now that’s making it more of like an all in one sort of solution for people.
0:45:10 And so how does the math work out?
0:45:14 Well, first off, usually what it works is you have to buy a kind of and this is just my own experience.
0:45:16 You have to buy a minimum of so many seats.
0:45:24 That number of seats is usually like, you know, you got to buy 10 seats at 40 bucks a seat, right?
0:45:32 And then usually there’s discounts as you go beyond that because they want to incentivize you obviously to grow your agency and allow you a more and more profit margin, right?
0:45:37 But your markup is really whatever you can charge, you know, whatever the perceived value is to the client, right?
0:45:47 So for me, if it’s a client where I’m kind of like, well, I don’t know if I necessarily want to do a lot for this person and there’s maybe not as much marketing budget than maybe it’s a 97 bucks a month.
0:45:57 But if I just give you an example, I just recently signed up an ENT doc out of Houston and they’ve been kind of struggling for years to get more reviews.
0:46:04 And within, you know, their first 30 days, they got 34, five star reviews and they were like, this thing is incredible.
0:46:05 I don’t know what you’re doing or how you’re doing it, right?
0:46:11 That’s a lot of value, especially when, you know, a sinus surgery can cost, you know, 10, 10, 15 grand.
0:46:12 It’s like a roofer, right?
0:46:12 Kind of thing.
0:46:15 But they’ve actually, they’re actually doing volume to justify that stuff.
0:46:20 So yeah, it’s just, it’s based off of the seats and the more that you do, the cheaper that they are.
0:46:24 I mean, sometimes people will do, you know, hey, for 300 bucks a month, it’s unlimited.
0:46:26 I mean, that’s really where I started.
0:46:36 And then, you know, what I would say, Nick, you know, if I was going to have a word to the wise of somebody doing something like this is I would make sure that you focus on building relationships with your clients.
0:46:45 Them understanding that you have a certain level of expertise enough that they trust you that, you know, let’s say that the platform you’re using gets sunsetted.
0:46:48 Because somebody else buys them because that’s what’s happening out there, right?
0:46:51 As a lot of these little things are being consolidated on these bigger brands.
0:46:53 It’s just the nature of the beast out there.
0:47:04 And so, you know, that was a lesson that I, I learned maybe midway through my sort of business where my initial software got bought up by a bigger company.
0:47:06 And I mean, that’s, let’s just say there’s a lot of sleepless nights there.
0:47:15 So, and it was just because I hadn’t necessarily prepared or positioned myself in a way that, hey, this is a newer platform that we’re moving to.
0:47:16 And it would be super awesome.
0:47:19 And it’s going to be way better and more efficient than people would be like, oh, yeah, I’m totally on board.
0:47:23 Whatever you, whatever you think, Chris, like you’ve been doing right by us for years, right?
0:47:28 I would just make sure that you’re, you’re keeping and maintaining that relationship and that capacity.
0:47:30 And if not you, you’re your account managers.
0:47:36 Just so they don’t just one day log in and see that the interface is all changed.
0:47:37 And they say, what’s going on?
0:47:39 Like it just creates questions for you.
0:47:40 Yeah, exactly.
0:47:41 Right.
0:47:43 Like, hey, what, what happened?
0:47:44 Or what is this?
0:47:45 Or, you know, I can’t log in, right?
0:47:52 Like, because there’s got to be a transition period of moving to that new one and learning the ropes of the new software and stuff like that.
0:47:54 So yeah, that would be my only emphasis.
0:48:00 And I use, I use a couple of softwares that I provide for my clients just based on what their needs are.
0:48:07 And so I guess in a way, I’m somewhat platform agnostic because if something were to happen again, I could, I could move everybody to this platform.
0:48:13 I can move everybody to this other platform or I know a couple of others that I might explore that are always kind of on the radar.
0:48:17 Potentially, if, if something were to go, you know, weird or screwy, right?
0:48:22 Because I would say the biggest thing is I’m moving off that $300 a month unlimited platform.
0:48:27 I moved to a platform that was like, okay, that’s cool for the first year since we bought these guys.
0:48:30 But now we’re actually going to charge you 20 bucks per seat.
0:48:39 And I’m like, okay, guys, you realize that my monthly bill for you just went from 300 bucks to about 2400 a month.
0:48:41 And I was like, yeah, that would just cripple my agency.
0:48:45 Right? But instead, I was able to talk it down to $10 a month.
0:48:51 Now, I think I was the cheapest one because I had the best relationship with the people and I was able to kind of get through that somewhat unscathed.
0:48:52 So yeah.
0:48:56 Okay. Yeah. Maintaining those relationships, everything is negotiable in some way.
0:49:01 And when things shift, you know, the customer, you’ve sold the solution.
0:49:06 The customer is kind of convinced that this is a problem at this point and they trust you to provide the solution.
0:49:13 If the back end of that solution needs to change slightly from one provider to another, as long as they’re still getting the results, like you said,
0:49:18 I think that’s still going to be okay versus completely being married to one solution.
0:49:24 And then all of a sudden it stops being effective anymore and then you’re kind of in trouble there.
0:49:30 What’s the conversation like with prospective customers?
0:49:40 Because it’s like, well, they could go directly to this software and pay $14 a month versus $97 to $300 for you to run it for them.
0:49:44 Or, I don’t know, like, what’s the value add layer?
0:49:48 I don’t know. I’m curious about it. I’m curious like, well, where does the margin come from?
0:49:56 So they sell it to us, right? At, you know, $10 or let’s just say what’s more reasonable, right? $40 a seat, right?
0:50:00 Well, their retail pricing at a minimum is $117, right?
0:50:08 So that’s what they’re selling retail because they realize like their cost for, you know, client acquisition or customer acquisition is X, right?
0:50:11 That they’re putting a lot of money on that side, right?
0:50:18 A lot of these guys will do contracts. So when you sign with them, and this is how really, to be honest with you, as a, you know, a solopreneur,
0:50:21 you know, a side hustle, apreneur, whatever you want to kind of call yourself,
0:50:26 where you can create value that makes your offer more attractive is that I don’t do contracts.
0:50:27 Mine’s all month to month, right?
0:50:33 So nobody has like, feels like they’re being pressured. And I always jokingly say in our kind of our sales call, if you will,
0:50:38 I said, hey, look, you know, my goal is to make you so delighted with the results that we’re providing that you kind of,
0:50:42 you kind of look at your bill every month and you kind of laugh and you, I can’t believe that’s all I pay this guy, right?
0:50:44 That’s sort of my approach to it, right?
0:50:50 And I also say at the same time, like, hey, if it’s not a good fit and we’re not, we’re not having a good relationship, like,
0:50:53 let’s become friends amicably, like, I don’t, I don’t want to sour the relationship.
0:50:55 I don’t want you stuck in a relationship that you don’t like.
0:50:59 Also, you know, if you’re not a good client, I don’t want to be in a relationship with you either, right?
0:50:59 Kind of thing.
0:51:04 And I say jokingly, obviously, but the idea there is like, hey, this is an open conversation, right?
0:51:05 In that realm.
0:51:10 And so where the margin is, is in what they will retail or charge it for, right?
0:51:12 So I’m always kind of keeping an eye on what that is.
0:51:15 The powerful thing is, is that I don’t have a lot of bloated overhead, right?
0:51:18 I’m not paying for the software development costs, right?
0:51:22 That’s the thing that really would eat up because I’ve, I’d thought back when I was a naive entrepreneur,
0:51:24 I was like, well, I’ll just build this software myself.
0:51:26 And then I went out and got it quoted.
0:51:30 And I was like, just to get a baseline platform is going to cost me about 300 grand.
0:51:32 And that was to like, just get something to stand up.
0:51:36 And then I was like, yeah, but then what’s the ongoing maintenance to keep that thing relevant,
0:51:41 especially in the digital world where like, you know, browsers are changing all the time.
0:51:43 All these review platforms are changing all the time.
0:51:45 I was like, yeah, you know what?
0:51:49 The 10 bucks a month I’m spending per account seems like a fair shake, you know?
0:51:52 And I’ll just deal with the limitations of the platform.
0:51:53 Super interesting business.
0:51:58 Again, that’s $494 in your archives to learn more about how it all works and how Chris
0:52:01 is getting his messaging in front of his target customers.
0:52:06 At that time, he reported earning a multi six-figure income from the software reselling business
0:52:10 number nine on our list of the most profitable side hustles.
0:52:11 I want to bring it home with number 10.
0:52:15 And it’s another example of creating something once and selling it over and over again.
0:52:17 And that’s self publishing.
0:52:24 My self publishing experience started in 2012 with a book called virtual assistant assistant.
0:52:30 And this was the project that opened my eyes to the power of Amazon as a buy buttons marketplace
0:52:36 to put your work up for sale on the world’s largest store for a very low cost that people
0:52:41 can search for and buy over and over again and not making a ton on any individual book.
0:52:42 But over the years, it can definitely add up.
0:52:44 I’ll share some of those numbers in a second.
0:52:49 But it was interesting because I was running the virtual assistant website at the time.
0:52:54 My thought was people would come to the website, forgive the less than amazing looking design
0:52:58 of the site, see that I’d written a book on the topic and click over to Amazon to buy
0:53:00 it to learn more about outsourcing.
0:53:05 Instead, the exact opposite happened through the magic of affiliate link tracking.
0:53:09 I can see almost no one went through the link on the website to go buy the book, but instead
0:53:12 people were searching for virtual assistant information on Amazon.
0:53:16 They found the book and they came over to the website afterwards, but self-publishing
0:53:18 is one of my longest running side hustles.
0:53:24 I’ve added several books since then, since 2012, including work smarter, which was 2015
0:53:29 buy buttons in 2016, the side hustle in 2019, which should still be free on Kindle if you’re
0:53:31 in the U.S. SideHustleNation.com/book.
0:53:37 We’ll get you over there, 1K 100 Ways in 2021, crowdsourcing a bunch of stories from the
0:53:43 SideHustleNation community in that one and then the three-question journal in 2023.
0:53:49 In total, those books and a few others have earned over $84,000 in lifetime royalties,
0:53:55 which given an estimated maybe two grand in total production costs between editing, cover
0:54:01 design, maybe audiobook production, very, very low production costs, that’s a 97% margin.
0:54:05 It’s hard to find something with a better profit margin than something like that.
0:54:09 Now, that doesn’t even include audiobook sales, doesn’t even include the other benefits
0:54:14 of self-publishing, like brand awareness, like building an email list, like increased
0:54:18 podcast listenership, all that other good stuff that comes from putting your work out
0:54:19 into the world.
0:54:25 On the show, we’ve covered a variety of self-publishing related topics, including low content publishing,
0:54:27 which would be journals and notebooks.
0:54:31 We covered children’s publishing, which is still on the back burner for me.
0:54:34 I need to review the illustrations and hopefully bring that one to market.
0:54:36 I think that’ll be a fun project.
0:54:39 We covered public domain publishing.
0:54:43 This was Aaron Kerr in episode 364.
0:54:48 He described earning over $100,000 in royalties from public domain books.
0:54:53 I think his biggest seller was like an Anne of Green Gables collection, but this is basically
0:54:57 taking a free text where the copyright has expired.
0:55:01 The work has entered the public domain, which I want to say is anything older than 95 years
0:55:02 in the US.
0:55:07 You format it for Kindle, you put it up for sale on Amazon, and I’ve got to imagine there’s
0:55:11 a bit of competition of other people doing this, but it’s just another example of tapping
0:55:16 into the power of Amazon in a creative way, creating something once that you can sell
0:55:19 over and over again and making some side hustle money.
0:55:23 Those were my top 10 most profitable side hustles to recap.
0:55:27 It was number one, the recurring web design service inspired by Ryan Golgowski.
0:55:32 Number two is to start a content business, something that scales really well, same effort
0:55:36 to create that YouTube video that 100 people watch or 100,000 people watch can be really
0:55:37 powerful that way.
0:55:43 Number three was digital products and perhaps even AI assisted digital products.
0:55:47 Number four was ShareTown, any physical product business where you got no upfront inventory
0:55:49 cost is interesting to me.
0:55:51 Number five was niche consulting.
0:55:56 Is there a service that you could offer that you have some subject matter expertise in where
0:56:00 you could command a high hourly rate or high effective hourly rate?
0:56:03 Number six was ice vending just because I love the unit economics on that.
0:56:08 Number seven was memberships, we talked both about the content plus community membership,
0:56:14 but also the creating a digital Costco where people join for discounts in a specific industry
0:56:15 or niche.
0:56:16 I thought that was really interesting.
0:56:21 Number eight is product licensing where you can get paid over and over again from sending
0:56:26 an idea off to a particular company and letting them do the heavy lifting there, really, really
0:56:30 interesting, low risk, low overhead, high upside.
0:56:32 Number nine was reselling software.
0:56:36 We could include software in general, but sometimes maybe a little more intimidating
0:56:39 or a little more difficult to build a software product from scratch.
0:56:44 Instead, one option to resell or white label a software product that already exists.
0:56:50 And number 10, self publishing with those 97% margins over the last 12 years of doing
0:56:51 that.
0:56:56 So that’s my list complete with real life examples and some actual margin numbers.
0:57:00 Now for the sake of curiosity, I had to ask, well, chat GPT, what are the most profitable
0:57:01 side hustles?
0:57:02 And I was really surprised.
0:57:06 There is a shockingly little overlap here.
0:57:07 They did include content creation.
0:57:10 They did include freelancing, which I’ll give them some credit, I’ll bucket my recurring
0:57:14 web design service and niche consulting under that umbrella.
0:57:18 But I was surprisingly, they included options like ride share and delivery, well documented
0:57:20 to be not very profitable.
0:57:24 They included stock photography, which is you can make money doing it, but it’s like
0:57:25 such a volume game.
0:57:28 You got to take thousands of pictures and upload all this stuff.
0:57:31 And dog walking was another one on their list.
0:57:35 They’re all totally viable side hustles and some of them do have really low overhead,
0:57:38 but pretty limited in terms of the hourly rates.
0:57:42 You can earn, maybe if you take six dogs at once, then it starts to explode.
0:57:46 So moral of the story, as with all things AI, as with all things on the internet in general,
0:57:50 take it with a grain of salt, do your own due diligence, find a side hustle you’re excited
0:57:51 about.
0:57:53 Find one that you’re excited to take action on.
0:57:56 If you’re not pumped about it, if you’re not excited to explore it, you’re never going
0:57:59 to prioritize the time and attention it needs.
0:58:04 Big thanks to all our past guests who shared their insight to make this episode possible.
0:58:08 I will do my best to link up all of those episodes in the show notes for this one so
0:58:11 you can easily find those and add them to your device.
0:58:15 Or if you want to go a little deeper, you can actually build yourself a personalized
0:58:19 side hustle show playlist at hustle.show.
0:58:24 Just answer a few short multiple choice questions and we’ll recommend a handful of episodes
0:58:26 to start with based on your responses.
0:58:28 Again, that’s hustle.show.
0:58:32 Thousands of listeners have already claimed their playlist and I want to invite you to
0:58:33 be next.
0:58:37 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:58:42 You can hit upsidehustlenation.com/deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in
0:58:43 one place.
0:58:44 That’s it for me.
0:58:46 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:58:50 If you’re finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:58:52 So fire off that text message.
0:58:54 Hey, what do you think of these ideas?
0:58:57 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen and I’ll catch you in the
0:59:00 next edition of the Side Hustle Show.
0:59:00 Hustle on.
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