648: The 10 Best Side Hustles of the Year

0:00:04 It’s time for the 10 best side hustles of the year.
0:00:06 What’s up, what’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:00:07 Welcome to The Side Hustle Show.
0:00:10 It’s the entrepreneurship podcast you can actually apply.
0:00:12 Now, the end of the year is upon us,
0:00:13 which means it’s time to reflect back on
0:00:15 the side hustles that stood out,
0:00:17 the ones that got people talking,
0:00:19 the ones that I was most excited to share.
0:00:22 Now, the mark of a good episode for me is when I hang up the call thinking like,
0:00:25 “Dang, I need to drop what I’m doing and go do that.”
0:00:27 Whatever it was we just talked about,
0:00:28 I could totally do that.
0:00:29 I should totally do that.
0:00:33 I try and exercise some level of discipline and restraint
0:00:35 because the shiny object syndrome is real,
0:00:37 but when the shiny object shines for me,
0:00:39 I know it’s going to be a hit episode.
0:00:42 I have selected my top 10 for the year.
0:00:43 If you’re new to the show,
0:00:45 I’ll do my best to reference episode numbers.
0:00:48 You can go back and check out the ones that you’re interested in.
0:00:53 I’ve also put all of those into a Spotify playlist that I will link up in the description.
0:00:55 Make it easy to go add that to your device.
0:00:56 If you’re a longtime listener,
0:00:58 see if your favorites made the list.
0:00:59 Which ones did I miss?
0:01:00 There’s room for debate in all of this.
0:01:02 Best is always subjective.
0:01:05 These are in mostly chronological and numerical order,
0:01:09 starting at the beginning of the year with an absolute banger of an episode.
0:01:11 The most downloaded episode of the year,
0:01:13 almost 75,000 downloads to date,
0:01:18 was Jackie Mitchell and her $100 per day side hustle challenge.
0:01:20 This was episode 594,
0:01:26 and Jackie broke down how she successfully earned over $10,000 in 100 days
0:01:29 from her personal $100 per day challenge.
0:01:33 A good chunk of that income came from what I would call plug-and-play side hustles.
0:01:36 For example, she mentioned paid surveys,
0:01:38 mobile game testing through swag bucks.
0:01:40 Could be worthwhile if you like playing mobile games.
0:01:44 Now, her best paying spot for surveys was through a platform called Prolific.
0:01:47 Prolific is going to always be at the top of my list.
0:01:49 This is a survey site that researchers use.
0:01:56 A lot of times, they’re post-grad students or medical researchers or psychological researchers.
0:01:58 They’re paying pretty well per hour for short little surveys.
0:02:00 Maybe it’s a 10-minute survey,
0:02:03 but it pays like $7.00.
0:02:04 Well, that’s really good if you break down.
0:02:05 In terms of an hour.
0:02:06 Yeah, exactly.
0:02:09 So Prolific gives you mostly,
0:02:11 I would say 30-minute and under surveys.
0:02:13 It’s just prolific.com.
0:02:14 Anyone can sign up.
0:02:18 I do believe that they are often on a wait list because of demographics.
0:02:20 I would say consistently,
0:02:21 when surveys are available,
0:02:24 I can make anywhere from like $10 to $30 a day doing that.
0:02:27 $10 to $30 a day, nothing to sneeze at,
0:02:30 especially if that is in alignment with your side hustle goals.
0:02:32 Jackie also mentioned paid focus groups,
0:02:33 kind of few and far between,
0:02:36 but can pay $50 to $200 an hour.
0:02:39 I’ll link up some of my favorite resources for those in the show notes
0:02:43 at sidehustlenation.com/bestof24.
0:02:46 Another side hustle she talked about was data annotation,
0:02:48 which I ended up testing out myself as well.
0:02:51 Data annotation is one that I would rate a three out of five,
0:02:52 just as my disclaimer,
0:02:55 in terms of accessibility and kind of like,
0:02:57 is the work enjoyable to do?
0:02:59 I would say most likely no,
0:03:02 but it pays well and it’s an interesting site.
0:03:05 So data annotation and I’ll group another site,
0:03:09 remote tasks are both in the business of training large language models.
0:03:11 So AI, think of things like Google Bard,
0:03:15 think of things like open AI, chat GPT.
0:03:19 So a lot of it is kind of veiled to the workers
0:03:21 in terms of like which ones you’re training.
0:03:24 And some of that is just because you’re signing different disclosures.
0:03:27 You’re essentially freelancing for one of these major companies,
0:03:31 but the majority of your work is going to be editing and classifying
0:03:33 and fact-checking large language model responses.
0:03:35 So maybe you’re given two responses
0:03:37 from two different versions of a language model.
0:03:40 You’re fact-checking it for accuracy
0:03:41 that it’s not making up information.
0:03:44 You’re looking at if it was too verbose,
0:03:47 did it run on and just give you way too much information
0:03:49 that it didn’t really need to give you?
0:03:51 Was the grammar okay, stuff like that?
0:03:53 So there’s a lot of different subsets
0:03:55 within both remote tasks and data annotation.
0:03:57 You can get put on a lot of different tasks.
0:03:59 There’s more specific ones for people who code,
0:04:03 which I know pay a ton, which is amazing if you code.
0:04:06 I don’t, every time I see a qualification pop up for that,
0:04:07 I wish I did.
0:04:10 But typically these will pay anywhere from $15 to $25 an hour,
0:04:11 in my experience.
0:04:14 -Okay, it’s not bad, it’s not nothing. -No, I don’t think so, no.
0:04:16 What’s the primary site that you’re doing this through?
0:04:19 Data annotation is the name of the site, yep.
0:04:21 -Data annotation.tech, yep. -Data annotation.tech, yep.
0:04:24 Okay, the one that I signed up for was remote tasks
0:04:25 to try and check it out.
0:04:28 And I was almost deterred.
0:04:30 It was like, I got to do it for the blog post,
0:04:30 I got to stick through this.
0:04:33 But like the onboarding process took probably a couple of hours
0:04:36 worth of training the things.
0:04:38 Like you had to do an editing task,
0:04:39 like that’s easy enough, like okay,
0:04:40 I would cross out this sentence
0:04:42 or this is the way I would phrase that instead
0:04:43 to be more concise or whatever.
0:04:46 But then you had to come up with a prompt response on your own.
0:04:48 And there was one that was factual,
0:04:51 like make an argument for X, Y, Z.
0:04:52 I forget what he was like,
0:04:54 “Well, why should we cut NASA’s budget or something?”
0:04:56 I was like, “Oh, okay, well, people are starving,
0:04:58 so the money would be better allocated.”
0:04:59 Like you can make that argument.
0:05:00 But the other one was like a fiction response
0:05:02 or like a creative response.
0:05:06 And that one was like, dang, it’s been,
0:05:08 I was really proud of what I came up with in the end.
0:05:10 But 500 words was like pretty decent sized,
0:05:13 what I considered like the opening of a book.
0:05:15 But it was like almost through the towels,
0:05:16 like this is pretty time consuming.
0:05:19 – Yeah, I feel that way data annotation is super similar.
0:05:21 And to my understanding,
0:05:24 they really do screen out a lot of people through that test.
0:05:28 Which is not to say that you pass because you have X, Y, Z.
0:05:31 It is heavily geared towards people who enjoy long form
0:05:34 writing, who enjoy fact checking and editing,
0:05:35 who have very strong grammar skills.
0:05:37 I think data annotation says something like
0:05:40 grammar and writing skills and like critical reasoning
0:05:41 are the things that they look for.
0:05:43 So you don’t have to have degrees, anything like that.
0:05:44 But it is grueling work.
0:05:47 So I don’t know how far you got into remote tasks after that.
0:05:49 But people who come to my page and say like,
0:05:51 I took the data annotation test, that was awful.
0:05:52 I can’t wait to get in.
0:05:53 I’m like, well, that’s all that it is though.
0:05:55 That’s exactly what you’re,
0:05:56 if you take the test and you don’t like it,
0:05:58 that’s all the prompts and all the work.
0:06:01 – Once I was accepted into remote tasks,
0:06:04 I earned 15 bucks for my first hour of actual annotation work,
0:06:05 which isn’t bad.
0:06:07 If that’s something that you might like to do,
0:06:10 I’ll link up my full remote tasks review in the show notes
0:06:14 as well, again, signupsonlation.com/bestof24.
0:06:16 I just got a kick out of the whole episode with Jackie.
0:06:18 So make sure to go back and check that one out.
0:06:22 If you missed it, episode of 594 in your podcast player app.
0:06:23 Moving on to number two,
0:06:25 and I should add that this list isn’t in order
0:06:28 from best to worst or anything like that.
0:06:30 I’m just going in the order that the episodes aired.
0:06:32 But number two is website rentals.
0:06:37 And this was a unique side hustle shared in episode of 597,
0:06:40 where the name of the game is to build out
0:06:44 a descriptive website for a local niche service.
0:06:47 I want to say concrete driveway repair
0:06:49 in Wellington, New Zealand was one that we talked about
0:06:53 as one example, but niche service plus location.
0:06:55 Step two, get that site ranking in Google,
0:06:58 open up your local SEO playbook, do what works there.
0:07:00 And then number three, where the side hustle comes in
0:07:03 or step three is to rent out that site
0:07:05 to a qualified local service provider
0:07:07 who’s hungry for more leads.
0:07:12 In some cases, these sites can rent for 500 to a thousand
0:07:14 to maybe 1500 bucks per month, or maybe even more
0:07:17 depending on the traffic and the customer value.
0:07:19 And they’re relatively hands off.
0:07:22 Once you’ve got a service provider in place,
0:07:25 they’ll handle the inbound customer inquiries.
0:07:27 And you’re just in charge of making sure the site
0:07:29 stays at the top of Google.
0:07:32 This is Meow Rios describing what makes a good niche
0:07:34 for this rank and rent model.
0:07:37 I like something that’s service-based
0:07:39 that you don’t have a storefront.
0:07:43 Basically like a plumber, the concrete guy or a roofer,
0:07:46 you go to the client’s site to work.
0:07:49 So it’s not that people come into your office.
0:07:51 So service-based business.
0:07:55 The second one is I really like those high ticket type
0:07:59 of work, like concrete, driveways, patios,
0:08:04 earthwork, demolition, roofing, nothing sexy, nothing sexy.
0:08:07 But those niche work, they work.
0:08:09 – And that’s because the value of these jobs
0:08:11 is worth quite a bit to the service provider.
0:08:14 And so if we can get more leads in,
0:08:16 if we can book up our calendar, then yeah,
0:08:17 it’s worthwhile.
0:08:19 We’ll just add this to our monthly marketing budget.
0:08:20 – Yeah, exactly.
0:08:23 I’ve done the smaller niche like handyman.
0:08:25 I probably would not do handyman again.
0:08:27 Having said that, I have a handyman side
0:08:29 that’s producing lots of, lots of leads.
0:08:32 And business has been with me since the beginning
0:08:33 when I started business.
0:08:36 So, and sometimes like a smaller niche,
0:08:38 like a gutter cleaning can be good
0:08:40 because it’s high volume.
0:08:44 So you get like a 60 to 90 leads per month.
0:08:46 But the thing with gutter cleaning is
0:08:49 sometimes you start a job with gutter cleaning
0:08:51 and you find out the gutter needs a repair,
0:08:54 the roof needs a repair, the roof needs repaint.
0:08:58 So a small job can turn into a bigger job.
0:08:58 You just never know.
0:09:03 So, but my personal favorite is still a bigger ticket niche.
0:09:07 – Do you like to go deep in one location
0:09:09 or deep in one niche?
0:09:11 Or like it’s really a matter of like trying to find
0:09:14 the sweet spot of I’m going to do carpet cleaning in Dallas
0:09:16 and then I’m going to build out all these other niches
0:09:18 for Dallas or I’m going to go do carpet cleaning
0:09:19 in a hundred different cities.
0:09:21 – There’s two way to tackle this.
0:09:25 So if it’s a big city, like with a population of a million
0:09:29 and above, I like to go either niche down.
0:09:33 So for example, if it’s concrete, I don’t do all concrete.
0:09:35 I just specialize at certain type of concrete,
0:09:39 either as a stand concrete or concrete resurfacing
0:09:41 or concrete driveway.
0:09:44 So you have to be the specialist in the service
0:09:45 that you provide.
0:09:47 I found you get a lot more success
0:09:50 than just do something every general in the big city.
0:09:52 – Now, the bigger the city, the more niche down.
0:09:54 – Yeah, so niche down for a big city.
0:09:57 And if it’s a big city, also you can,
0:09:59 let’s say for New York city, it’s just too big.
0:10:02 So you have to niche down to a different boroughs
0:10:05 like Manhattan or Brooklyn or Queens, Long Island.
0:10:09 So yeah, either niche down to the specialized area
0:10:11 or niche down to the local area.
0:10:13 So that’s a general rule.
0:10:18 I found anything above 50K should work the population wise.
0:10:21 I’m talking about 400K population wise
0:10:22 seems to be very sweet spot.
0:10:24 So it’s not too big city.
0:10:28 Your local competition is not that strong
0:10:30 and you have enough volume.
0:10:32 The population produce enough leads,
0:10:35 enough search volume that is gonna help you
0:10:36 to render side out.
0:10:37 – Okay, cool.
0:10:39 And I swear I was on Wikipedia at one point.
0:10:42 Like here’s the list of cities with population,
0:10:44 you know, 100,000 to 250,000
0:10:45 or you can probably just ask chat GPT at this point.
0:10:47 Like come up with this list for me
0:10:49 and there’s a potential starting point.
0:10:52 Anything else that goes on trying to cross-reference
0:10:56 these cities, am I looking at the local competition yet?
0:10:57 Or am I?
0:10:58 – Yes.
0:10:59 Well, one thing I’m doing,
0:11:01 I’ll just actually give you an example
0:11:04 that just shows you the initial research.
0:11:08 Sometimes it’s not about what you provide
0:11:11 has to be good enough, is about your competition.
0:11:13 So I’ll give you an example of two side I built.
0:11:17 One is a, that’s in Wellington, the capital city in New Zealand.
0:11:20 And the data shows that the landscaping business
0:11:23 has a huge demand, very high volume.
0:11:25 The keyword difficulty is medium.
0:11:27 So you have the local competition.
0:11:29 So I thought, given that how much demand,
0:11:31 I’m gonna build a site for landscaping.
0:11:33 A few months down the track,
0:11:36 the site is ranking however, the quality of leads
0:11:38 and the number of leads are not great.
0:11:40 So we still have producing the leads,
0:11:43 but it’s just not ideal.
0:11:47 So what I did is I built a specialized,
0:11:50 so I work at this landscaping company
0:11:54 and they do all the paving concrete artificial grass,
0:11:56 retaining wood, everything.
0:12:00 And then what we did is we found the concrete driveway
0:12:01 in the local area.
0:12:03 There’s no company just do concrete driveway.
0:12:05 There’s a lot of landscaping company.
0:12:07 There’s a lot of concrete company.
0:12:10 Just does a very general, general contractor,
0:12:11 but no company does concrete driveway.
0:12:14 So I built a site for concrete driveway in Wellington
0:12:16 and that site blew up.
0:12:18 It’s completely blew up.
0:12:20 So what happened is this contractor,
0:12:22 if a client wants a concrete driveway down
0:12:23 in front of the house,
0:12:25 sometimes they’re gonna do the backyard.
0:12:27 They need a retaining work again.
0:12:28 They need paving work again.
0:12:33 So it’s finding the right market to get into,
0:12:34 therefore dominate.
0:12:37 So you’re still providing the same service.
0:12:39 However, it is extremely important
0:12:41 to actually pick the niche
0:12:43 that was very little competition.
0:12:44 – Interesting.
0:12:45 So it was the landscaping company
0:12:47 that was doing the driveways?
0:12:48 – Yes, so that’s the same.
0:12:49 It’s the same company.
0:12:51 The local landscaping company,
0:12:53 there are a few big one that have a good name.
0:12:55 So they dominate the market.
0:12:58 So it’s very hard for someone small to medium business
0:12:59 to just get into the market.
0:13:01 ‘Cause when people think about landscaping,
0:13:03 there’s a big name out there.
0:13:06 But if you change your arena to the concrete driveway,
0:13:08 while no company is doing that,
0:13:09 like specializing that,
0:13:11 so it’s just really easy to get into.
0:13:14 And you ended up getting all the landscaping work,
0:13:15 but through the right channel.
0:13:16 – That’s really interesting.
0:13:17 I’m just trying to find that back door,
0:13:19 that side door into the place.
0:13:21 Like, well, maybe it’s number six
0:13:23 on our menu of service offerings.
0:13:25 But if I try to rank for general landscaping,
0:13:26 it’s really tough.
0:13:29 But if I try and rank for concrete driveways.
0:13:30 – Paving, yeah, a different, just.
0:13:32 – Yeah, okay.
0:13:33 – Specializing it, yeah.
0:13:36 – Male mentioned looking at SEMrush data
0:13:37 for keyword difficulty
0:13:38 and trying to find those keywords
0:13:40 with a difficulty score under 20.
0:13:42 This is a metric of competitiveness,
0:13:43 how hard it’s gonna be to rank
0:13:45 for a certain keyword combination
0:13:47 of service plus location.
0:13:50 That is episode 597 in your podcast feed.
0:13:52 Really interesting one.
0:13:53 And where it’s really common
0:13:55 to stack a bunch of these sites together
0:13:57 to form a really strong income
0:13:58 that’s somewhat diversified
0:14:00 and somewhat predictable month after month.
0:14:01 You’ve got recurring revenue.
0:14:03 And if your client is making money from your leads,
0:14:05 it’s a service that they’re unlikely to cancel.
0:14:07 And if you’ve got the skills
0:14:09 to build one of these sites and get it up and running,
0:14:12 you can rinse and repeat in a new niche or new city.
0:14:14 I forget how many meow had,
0:14:16 but I wanna say it was 20 or more.
0:14:18 So we got more of the best scientists of the year
0:14:20 coming up right after this.
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0:15:33 The next episode that really got people talking,
0:15:35 including my then 10 year old neighbor
0:15:38 was number 599 on how to start a vending machine business.
0:15:41 I mean, these are literally money making robots
0:15:43 that can make you passive sales when you’re not around.
0:15:44 So I get the appeal.
0:15:45 I’ve hung up the call to see and like,
0:15:47 “Man, I want to start a vending machine business.”
0:15:50 Now the challenge is finding the right location
0:15:51 with a hungry crowd.
0:15:53 This is Mike Hoffman from that episode explaining
0:15:54 what makes a good location
0:15:56 and how he might make that pitch.
0:15:57 – It’s super easy.
0:16:00 I think the first thing is the examples you just rattled off.
0:16:02 So senior center and let’s say an apartment complex.
0:16:03 The thing they all have in common
0:16:06 is they have a front desk person that works there.
0:16:08 So you can just roll right in there.
0:16:10 They’re not gonna know you from anyone else.
0:16:12 And you can just say, “Hey, is your general manager
0:16:14 or your property manager in today?”
0:16:17 And if she’s like, “Oh no, you can always ask
0:16:19 for the business card and send an email.”
0:16:20 But yeah, that’s exactly what I did
0:16:22 that first location I landed.
0:16:23 I was like, “Hey, is your manager in?”
0:16:24 And she happened to be in.
0:16:27 She’s like, “Oh my gosh, coming with COVID,
0:16:29 we can’t put out refreshments, blah, blah, blah.
0:16:31 We want to move forward.”
0:16:33 It’s just such a low barrier to entry
0:16:35 by just doing that pop in.
0:16:36 – Your ask was like,
0:16:38 “Tell me about your current vending situation.
0:16:39 Like what’s that line?”
0:16:40 – Yeah, or just like,
0:16:42 do you want to provide modern amenities?
0:16:44 And then you just start asking questions
0:16:46 about foot traffic to qualify them.
0:16:48 So how many people live here?
0:16:49 Or how many units are here?
0:16:51 And they’ll say, “Okay, Nick, there’s 200 units.”
0:16:52 And then you’re like, “Okay, well,
0:16:54 how many people live in those units?
0:16:56 ‘Cause some might be two or three bedroom.”
0:16:58 They’re like, “Oh, 400 people, like right away,
0:17:01 you’re sitting on a 1500 to two grand gold mine,
0:17:02 just with that.”
0:17:05 – Is there a minimum residency or occupancy
0:17:06 that you’re looking for?
0:17:09 – Yeah, we like to target 100 units as a minimum
0:17:12 or 100 plus employees.
0:17:16 – Okay, 100 residential units or 100 employees.
0:17:18 – It’s hard to imagine an office building
0:17:20 without this in there already,
0:17:21 but you’re finding like,
0:17:23 “This building has been here for 25 years.
0:17:25 No one has ever asked us about vending before.”
0:17:26 You know, that’s a great idea.
0:17:27 Like, does that happen?
0:17:28 – All the time.
0:17:30 And in fact, what you’d be really surprised about
0:17:33 is we’re taking over a lot of the market.
0:17:37 So current user, let’s say that location,
0:17:38 they probably already have vending machines
0:17:40 that aren’t being stocked
0:17:44 because the baby boomer generation doesn’t use a cell phone.
0:17:45 The only way they can track inventory
0:17:47 is driving by the property,
0:17:49 where like on my phone across the country,
0:17:51 I can look at all my vending machines,
0:17:54 even my micro market in Philadelphia
0:17:58 and see what I’ve done in sales in the last hour.
0:18:01 So then I can get ahead of what needs stocked
0:18:04 before it actually shows up empty customer facing.
0:18:07 I’m like, “Okay, we’ve sold eight out of 10 solids.
0:18:08 We have two left.
0:18:09 We need to backfill those solids.”
0:18:13 Where right now, these places we’re taking over for,
0:18:15 they either have vending machines that are broken,
0:18:18 they have vending machines that don’t allow credit card usage.
0:18:19 Well, guess what?
0:18:23 80% of your sales are gonna be with card, not cash anymore.
0:18:23 – Yeah.
0:18:26 So it’s not so much that they have never considered vending.
0:18:29 It’s that their existing provider
0:18:31 is not living up to expectations
0:18:32 or it could be doing better.
0:18:35 – Yeah, it’s like either that existing provider
0:18:39 took on a bigger, let’s say the Coke provider
0:18:42 of Washington has vending as a side service.
0:18:44 Well, is that Coke provider more worried
0:18:47 about topping off the cafeteria with Coke in the school
0:18:48 or are they more worried
0:18:50 about the teacher’s lounge vending machine?
0:18:52 – A good location with the right product mix
0:18:53 can earn 500 bucks a month.
0:18:55 You place 10 of these machines,
0:18:57 you got yourself a $5,000 a month side hustle.
0:18:59 I think Mike had 10 or 15 when we spoke
0:19:02 and maybe a couple employee less automated micro markets
0:19:04 as kind of the next stage of the business.
0:19:06 Now you still gotta stock the machines.
0:19:07 It’s not totally passive,
0:19:09 but you can find people to help with that.
0:19:10 And that’s a good problem.
0:19:11 If you need to restock,
0:19:12 it means you moved some inventory.
0:19:14 To learn more, definitely check out that episode
0:19:16 with Mike, number 599.
0:19:19 We talk startup costs, logistics, all that jazz
0:19:22 and he’s helping other people get started in this world
0:19:24 as well at vendingpreneurs.com.
0:19:25 Kind of tricky to spell.
0:19:27 I will link that up in the show notes.
0:19:31 For this episode, again at sidehustlenation.com/bestof24.
0:19:32 The next side hustle I wanna highlight
0:19:35 is one that you probably drive by every day
0:19:37 without even thinking about it.
0:19:40 That is, until you heard episode 608 with Chris Brown.
0:19:43 Chris runs a billboard business in Arkansas
0:19:45 that generates thousands of dollars a month
0:19:48 in again, relatively passive income.
0:19:50 Now, just like real estate and like vending machines,
0:19:54 it’s all about location and the level of a local competition
0:19:56 that dictate how much you can charge.
0:19:58 Here’s Chris describing his first billboard deal
0:19:59 and how much it made.
0:20:01 – Yeah, the first deal was very interesting.
0:20:03 So he was just willing to get out.
0:20:05 He actually showed me the invoice of his cost
0:20:08 to put it in the ground, what he had on it.
0:20:09 That included the land.
0:20:11 He didn’t even want the land or anything.
0:20:13 He was about to go bankrupt, so he really didn’t care.
0:20:13 – Oh, okay.
0:20:14 – So he actually showed that to me.
0:20:17 So that was $75,000, which again,
0:20:19 I didn’t know that the point was a great deal,
0:20:20 but it was a great deal.
0:20:22 And I was able to purchase that from him.
0:20:24 And he sold it to me.
0:20:27 It’s right in the middle of a intersection.
0:20:29 So it’s literally surrounded by three roads.
0:20:31 People have to drive underneath the billboard,
0:20:34 which is very interesting and was a little concerning.
0:20:36 So I actually had to get the city to sign off on it
0:20:38 to say, “Hey, look, we’re good with it staying.”
0:20:40 ‘Cause I was really not sure about that
0:20:42 if they were gonna make it take down or not
0:20:43 and didn’t want to buy something
0:20:44 and if that was gonna happen.
0:20:46 So it did get hit a few times.
0:20:49 – Oh my God, like by a really tall truck or something?
0:20:51 – Yes, yes.
0:20:53 ‘Cause the original road did not actually have
0:20:54 the road that went underneath it.
0:20:56 So people would normally have curved around it
0:20:58 and then they added this as all my property,
0:21:00 but it never was addressed.
0:21:02 And so it started out as like a little dirt cut through
0:21:03 and then people, they paved it
0:21:05 and it became a main part of the road.
0:21:06 So really interesting spot.
0:21:07 Yes.
0:21:09 – There’s a combination of this real estate play
0:21:11 plus a media play.
0:21:13 How many eyeballs like am I gonna get over here?
0:21:16 They go to turn around and then sell that and inventory.
0:21:20 Okay, so 75 grand for the land and the structure
0:21:21 to go out there.
0:21:24 And then you go out and try and find a new advertiser for it.
0:21:25 What happens next?
0:21:28 – Yeah, so once I acquired it, I actually then did,
0:21:29 I called up a few local businesses and said,
0:21:31 hey, I had some friends that own businesses,
0:21:33 some heating and air companies,
0:21:35 some furniture companies, some car dealerships.
0:21:37 And I said, hey, would you guys be interested?
0:21:39 And it was on the middle of a great location.
0:21:42 It was kind of a random spot right by a bunch of neighborhoods
0:21:43 where you wouldn’t expect a billboard.
0:21:45 So they jumped on it and some of those people
0:21:48 are still advertising today and that was in 2011.
0:21:50 So we’re talking 13 years later,
0:21:52 they still have the same advertisers on a few of them.
0:21:54 – Okay, yeah, long-term.
0:21:56 I mean, yeah, if they’re seeing a positive ROI on it,
0:21:57 yeah, just keep it rolling.
0:21:59 – Yes, ’cause there’s three elementary schools
0:22:01 and junior highs and high schools right by it.
0:22:03 So it’s a great location.
0:22:05 So that’s how I got the first one is I’m driving around.
0:22:07 I found one, decided I would kind of wanted that.
0:22:08 I was already looking for real estate itself.
0:22:11 So I was into single family flips.
0:22:14 I was into land acquisition and commercial property
0:22:15 and multifamily.
0:22:17 But then I saw that and I thought about,
0:22:20 that was a very interesting way to play the land game
0:22:23 or as just a different play to own the business,
0:22:25 have the media and have the passive income
0:22:27 from the billboards themselves.
0:22:30 – What did you end up selling the first spot on that
0:22:31 first billboard for?
0:22:32 – Yeah, so each spot on the billboard.
0:22:35 So that first billboard had four billboards on it,
0:22:38 four signs, each one of those was about $600 each.
0:22:40 That was the first day I had no idea how to price them.
0:22:43 So what I did was just called some of the other billboards
0:22:44 around and said, all right,
0:22:46 what are you guys pricing these at?
0:22:49 ‘Cause I just acted like an interested billboard buyer
0:22:51 and they were glad to tell me what their rates were.
0:22:54 And so I was able to find that and give that deal to people.
0:22:56 I just wanted them full to cover my cost on that
0:22:59 so that I would have just some positive cashflow
0:23:00 coming in every month.
0:23:02 – A four-sided thing or it’s like one of these
0:23:05 mechanic rotating type of thing?
0:23:06 – Yeah, it was a top and a bottom on both sides.
0:23:08 So it was a good old fashioned,
0:23:10 there was four static billboards.
0:23:11 Yeah, so we call them static.
0:23:13 So in billboards, there’s static, there’s digital,
0:23:14 and then there’s actually tri-vision.
0:23:16 Most are static or digital.
0:23:18 So you have just the ones that are flat.
0:23:19 They don’t change.
0:23:21 They say the same 24/7 and then you have the digital
0:23:25 that actually then rotate in as a LED screen.
0:23:27 – The one that’s closest to us that I can think of,
0:23:29 I think it, so it’s two-sided, right?
0:23:31 So you get people going both directions
0:23:32 and I want to say it,
0:23:35 there’s two different advertisers on each side.
0:23:37 Like it somehow flips and then every now and again.
0:23:39 – Yep, so then there’s a tri-vision.
0:23:40 So that was actually flipped.
0:23:41 – Yeah, the slats get broken.
0:23:44 It says like half of one and half of the other and stuff.
0:23:46 – Okay, so about four signs, 600 bucks each.
0:23:50 We’re at $2,400 a month in income there.
0:23:53 Okay, and so then pencil that against the acquisition costs.
0:23:56 And I have learned to not do math on air,
0:23:59 but that’s close to $29,000 for the year,
0:24:00 which pencils out.
0:24:01 – ROI is about three.
0:24:05 – Yeah, three years and you’re even on that purchase cost.
0:24:07 – Total purchase cost, yeah, paid back in three.
0:24:10 – Okay, I promise you’ll never look at billboards
0:24:11 the same way again.
0:24:13 Again, that was episode 608 with Chris Brown.
0:24:15 Really interesting side hustle.
0:24:17 That’s equal parts, real estate and media.
0:24:20 Next on my list is one that I shared with a ton of people
0:24:22 just because of the novelty factor.
0:24:24 I never knew this was a thing.
0:24:27 And that was Cheryl DeFrank’s photo organizing business
0:24:29 in episode 619.
0:24:32 In that episode, she said she had more than enough work
0:24:33 to keep herself busy full time
0:24:35 and that the average rate is around a hundred bucks an hour
0:24:38 and that the average project could be 20 hours or more.
0:24:43 It seems like a relatively low competition side hustle.
0:24:45 Like there simply aren’t that many service providers
0:24:46 doing this yet.
0:24:47 And there’s a novelty factor
0:24:49 when you strike up a conversation about it.
0:24:52 Cheryl did her first project for free to get the hang of it,
0:24:53 which gave her the confidence
0:24:55 to go after paid photo organizing work.
0:24:57 Here’s how she described getting the business off the ground.
0:24:59 – I just started talking to friends
0:25:03 and my first actual paying client was another friend
0:25:05 who just said, “Hey, can you help me out
0:25:06 with the photos on my phone?
0:25:07 ‘Cause they’re such a mess
0:25:08 and I know I’ve got so many duplicates.
0:25:11 Everybody has tons of duplicates.”
0:25:12 It was a relatively small project
0:25:14 but I helped her out and she was grateful
0:25:18 and then she just started talking to other people.
0:25:21 A lot of people would say to start with friends and family
0:25:23 and that’s a good idea.
0:25:25 I mean, they obviously will already kind of have
0:25:26 a certain amount of faith in you
0:25:28 and already want to support you,
0:25:29 but it can also be a little bit hard
0:25:30 to work with friends and family.
0:25:34 So I kind of started spreading the word
0:25:35 as quickly as possible.
0:25:37 I’m on a neighborhood listserv,
0:25:38 so which is kind of like next term.
0:25:40 It’s basically an email listserv.
0:25:43 All the families in my kid’s school are on a listserv,
0:25:45 all the people that belong to our pool
0:25:47 are on another listserv and so on.
0:25:49 So you’ve got all these different kind of groups.
0:25:52 Either I would post something about my services
0:25:54 and sometimes there’s rules about self promotion
0:25:55 but either I would post something
0:25:57 or a friend would post something for me,
0:25:59 kind of maybe even a scripted thing like,
0:26:02 “Hey, you guys wouldn’t believe this person I found
0:26:04 to organize all your photos and give her a call.”
0:26:07 And of course now, years later,
0:26:09 my previous clients will post things
0:26:10 on their own listservs.
0:26:12 So just the word kind of spreads
0:26:17 and the phone hasn’t really stopped ringing in 10 years
0:26:19 based on just kind of word of mouth.
0:26:21 I always say like someone told me early on,
0:26:23 and this is probably true in every business,
0:26:26 someone told me early on to put your company name
0:26:28 and kind of a little tagline of what you do
0:26:31 at the bottom of every single email you write,
0:26:32 no matter who you’re sending it to,
0:26:35 whether it’s business email or not.
0:26:36 Yeah, and it’s not a new concept,
0:26:39 but in my case, because it is so unique,
0:26:43 I’ll send an email to somebody about my son’s La Crosse game
0:26:44 or something or La Crosse team,
0:26:47 and they’ll see what I do and they’ll write me back,
0:26:49 having nothing to do with La Crosse,
0:26:50 but say, “Wait, what is that you do?
0:26:51 I see you’re a photo artist.”
0:26:52 They’re like, “What’s that?”
0:26:55 And then might turn into a job,
0:26:56 might turn into a project.
0:26:57 So conversation starter, if nothing else,
0:26:58 and we’ve talked about that.
0:26:59 It absolutely is.
0:27:00 That email signature space,
0:27:02 underutilized, marketing real estate.
0:27:03 Exactly.
0:27:07 I was assuming this was gonna be almost all digital,
0:27:09 but when starting locally,
0:27:10 I get maybe it is in person.
0:27:12 So it’s that box in the attic.
0:27:13 It’s like the physical pictures.
0:27:17 And so does it need to be kind of a local radius for it?
0:27:17 It’s both.
0:27:18 It’s really both.
0:27:22 The three main areas of photo organizing.
0:27:23 Number one is the print photos.
0:27:25 These are usually maybe older families
0:27:28 that still have print photos in the attic.
0:27:29 It’s a mess.
0:27:30 They’ve been hiding up there for years,
0:27:33 and so they’ll give me the boxes of print photos
0:27:35 for me to organize and sort,
0:27:38 and usually it’s chronologically.
0:27:39 For the most part,
0:27:41 because there is a physical exchange there,
0:27:42 those are usually local clients,
0:27:45 but I’ve had people mail me boxes and boxes of photos
0:27:46 from other places.
0:27:48 So that’s one area.
0:27:50 And then the other area is digital photo organizing,
0:27:53 which is, again, the photos on the phone
0:27:55 and the hard drives and all those little camera cards
0:27:57 that we have in all kinds of drawers around the house
0:28:00 and so on, that clients also have no idea
0:28:02 where everything is or what’s on these hard drives.
0:28:05 So in that case, again, it certainly can be local,
0:28:09 but then you can have people either send me hard drives
0:28:12 or sometimes, for instance,
0:28:15 and we’ll log into their online storage.
0:28:17 So for instance, I can log into a person’s iCloud
0:28:19 or a person’s Google photos or something,
0:28:21 obviously with their permission
0:28:23 and organize straight online
0:28:24 and never meet the client in person.
0:28:25 And then the third aspect,
0:28:27 which is kind of one of the main areas,
0:28:30 is scanning or digitizing photos.
0:28:32 There are certain photo organizers that just do that.
0:28:33 So they just do scanning
0:28:36 and they don’t really even do the sorting process.
0:28:38 So there’s lots of different aspects.
0:28:40 And then there’s other kind of offshoots
0:28:42 like just creating photo books.
0:28:43 There’s certain organizers,
0:28:45 their specialty is creating photo books
0:28:48 for all kinds of different events or slide shows,
0:28:50 kind of anything having to do with photos
0:28:55 that a lot of people either just have no idea how to do
0:28:58 or don’t want to spend the time figuring it out.
0:29:01 Or the other thing too is working with your own photos,
0:29:03 whatever you’re doing, whether you’re sorting them,
0:29:04 whether you’re creating a slideshow,
0:29:07 trying to pick the photos for the slideshow,
0:29:08 is a very emotional process
0:29:10 when you’re working with your own photos.
0:29:12 So what I tell clients, which is true,
0:29:14 is there’s no emotion for me.
0:29:16 So I can do it much, much faster
0:29:20 and I’m not reliving my son’s three-year birthday party
0:29:22 in the process and so on.
0:29:23 – What do you think?
0:29:25 Is this a side hustle you could take action on?
0:29:27 Would you hire a photo organizer yourself?
0:29:29 Again, episode 619 with Cheryl
0:29:32 to get the full scoop on her unique service business.
0:29:34 I selected the next side hustle on this list
0:29:36 because it’s the one I probably tell more people
0:29:40 to start than any other and that’s software consulting.
0:29:42 The specific example I want to highlight from this year
0:29:44 is Christie De Silva from De Silva Life.
0:29:47 Christie’s built a really strong brand in business
0:29:49 specializing in support for two different software tools,
0:29:51 HoneyBook and ClickUp.
0:29:53 The reason I like this model so much
0:29:55 is you don’t have to create demand from scratch.
0:29:57 If you find the right software,
0:30:00 maybe it’s one you’re an early user of, you’re a fan of,
0:30:03 they’ll likely be heavily investing
0:30:05 in growing their user base.
0:30:08 A lot of times these companies have raised venture capital
0:30:10 and they’re investing in user acquisition,
0:30:11 customer acquisition.
0:30:14 So if you can create content to help those people,
0:30:16 those new customers, it’s easy to get found
0:30:20 or at least easier than shouting into the void of the internet
0:30:23 without piggybacking on some built-in search volume
0:30:25 around the name of a specific software
0:30:27 like Christie does with HoneyBook and ClickUp.
0:30:30 The other reason it’s so powerful is by niching down
0:30:33 and becoming a sought-after expert in a specific software
0:30:36 is the pricing power that comes with it.
0:30:38 – I started my rates a lot lower
0:30:40 than other people may have been charging
0:30:45 because I’m like, I’m not like a top tier expert yet
0:30:49 but I know that I know a lot more about these products
0:30:51 than the people that I’m serving
0:30:53 and these softwares than the people that I’m serving.
0:30:58 And so I was still able to charge more technically hourly
0:31:01 except a lot of our stuff is flat right now.
0:31:05 For example, yeah, I’m making about 30 to 40 bucks an hour
0:31:08 as a VA where now I charge $300 an hour
0:31:12 for a strategy session, like so crazy that jump
0:31:16 but now being an expert in this for four years,
0:31:18 it’s really cool to see.
0:31:19 – It is really cool to see.
0:31:21 She 10x’d her hourly rate by niching down
0:31:23 from generalist to specialist.
0:31:24 And how does she find customers?
0:31:26 Well, in most cases, they find her.
0:31:27 That’s what’s cool about this.
0:31:30 She creates helpful keyword targeted Q and A content
0:31:33 for YouTube and invites viewers to take the next step
0:31:36 either scheduling a call or downloading some free resources.
0:31:38 Here’s how she described the YouTube strategy.
0:31:40 – We get the majority of our leads from YouTube
0:31:43 and I will say like probably 80% of the time
0:31:45 people come on, they’re like, oh my gosh,
0:31:46 it’s so nice to meet you.
0:31:47 I’ve been subscribed to your channels
0:31:49 for like two or three years
0:31:51 and they feel like they already know me
0:31:54 even though I have no idea who they are yet.
0:31:57 It’s funny because it’s a huge thing
0:32:00 in sales is that like no like in trust factor
0:32:02 and we already solved that piece
0:32:04 before we even ever get on a sales call.
0:32:08 – Yes, you know, you’re showing your face, your voice.
0:32:10 Yeah, I build a lot of trust that way.
0:32:12 Deciding what type of content to make
0:32:15 any sort of like keyword research tools
0:32:17 or search volume that goes into it.
0:32:20 I’m just looking at like broad Google searches,
0:32:22 400,000 monthly searches for ClickUp
0:32:24 and then 60,000 for HoneyBook.
0:32:28 And so there’s some decent like top level search volume
0:32:31 but then I imagine it kind of goes into that long tail
0:32:33 for like how to run your agency in HoneyBook
0:32:35 like more specific type of searches.
0:32:38 – We actually really love vidIQ.
0:32:40 We were using TubeBuddy for a while
0:32:42 and then we started getting into vidIQ.
0:32:45 They have some really cool things with like AI
0:32:48 and their platform is a bit more robust, I feel.
0:32:51 We look at our channel
0:32:53 and we do quarterly content planning.
0:32:55 We do yearly at a high level and then we do quarterly
0:32:59 and we try to do like themed content, like themed months
0:33:02 and now we’re starting to get into like different series
0:33:06 and we’ll look at what performed best on our channels
0:33:07 or like what’s ranking highest.
0:33:10 Like for example, our ClickUp dashboards video
0:33:12 was ranking highest for like a long time
0:33:16 are how to use HoneyBook and ClickUp like yearly videos
0:33:19 like in 2024, those always do really well as well.
0:33:21 So we’re like, okay, we’ll always do those
0:33:22 in the beginning of the year
0:33:24 but we’ll look back at our previous content,
0:33:27 what’s highly ranking, knowing people want more of that
0:33:30 and then we’ll really just start doing
0:33:34 long tail keyword research in vidIQ.
0:33:37 You know, kind of going down a rabbit hole of like,
0:33:41 okay, how are these ranking in terms of search volume
0:33:43 and things like that.
0:33:45 – Is there a minimum search volume
0:33:47 that is interesting to you or worthwhile
0:33:49 to make the video about?
0:33:51 – It’s more like how it scores in vidIQ.
0:33:55 I think we’re looking over like a 60 or 70 ranking.
0:33:58 – Which is a combination of volume and competitiveness.
0:33:59 – Yeah, yeah, exactly.
0:34:02 And so we also, speaking of competitiveness,
0:34:05 we’ll definitely do competitor research as well
0:34:08 because we have like a few competitors.
0:34:11 We’re very niche, but we absolutely have competitors.
0:34:14 And so we’ll look at their channels,
0:34:16 what’s ranking high on their channels
0:34:20 and by no means do we ever just copy their video
0:34:21 but we’ll be like, okay, cool.
0:34:24 They did something on this specific topic.
0:34:29 How can we do something similar but have our own spin?
0:34:31 And so we’ll do that research as well.
0:34:33 – Again, this is something you can replicate
0:34:35 across any number of different niches.
0:34:37 We’ve seen examples of people doing this with Asana,
0:34:39 with QuickBooks, with FreshBooks, with Salesforce,
0:34:42 with Excel, with different WordPress themes and plugins.
0:34:45 It’s one that is ripe for replication.
0:34:47 Be sure to check out the full episode number 627
0:34:49 with Christy to learn more.
0:34:51 The rest of our best side hustles of the year
0:34:53 are coming up right after this.
0:34:57 This year, I was lucky enough to connect
0:35:01 with a pair of Jacks, Jack Fleming and Jack Limbach,
0:35:04 both really inspiring young college-aged entrepreneurs.
0:35:07 Jack Fleming had built up his lawn mowing
0:35:11 and yard care service to 70 grand in profit as a teenager
0:35:13 and ended up selling off a portion of the business.
0:35:14 It was a great story.
0:35:17 Starting out pushing the lawn mower up and down the sidewalk,
0:35:18 I think starting at 13 years old
0:35:21 and then continuing to level up and bid
0:35:23 bigger and more complex projects.
0:35:26 That was episode 610, and a little bit later in the year,
0:35:29 in episode 630, we met Jack Limbach,
0:35:31 who had a similar local service business,
0:35:34 only instead of lawn mowing, it was window washing.
0:35:36 When we recorded, Jack was about to start
0:35:38 his sophomore year in college,
0:35:40 but was already selling 10 grand worth
0:35:41 of window washing every month.
0:35:42 Now, like the other Jack,
0:35:45 the business started out by going door-to-door
0:35:47 and that worked, but it was tedious.
0:35:48 And if you’ve ever gone cold calling,
0:35:51 you know you deal with a lot of rejection
0:35:53 and sometimes just flat out rude people.
0:35:56 So, it was when Jack layered on a level
0:35:58 of online advertising and combined that
0:36:01 with some better equipment when the business
0:36:02 really started to blow up.
0:36:05 – Made my first Instagram ad and I posted it on,
0:36:07 I posted it on Facebook, I posted it on Instagram.
0:36:08 Facebook didn’t do very good.
0:36:10 So I just, I took it off Facebook,
0:36:12 kind of put all the money towards Instagram.
0:36:15 And I was just spending $10 a day, like really nothing.
0:36:17 And then I was knocking on the side of it,
0:36:20 but just that one ad after spending $600,
0:36:23 it generated me $10,000 in revenue just from the ad.
0:36:25 And that doesn’t even include the word of mouth I got from it
0:36:29 or recurring customers, whatever it is.
0:36:33 But the return on investment on online advertising is huge.
0:36:34 – Wow, that’s crazy ’cause you,
0:36:37 it’s probably like super location targeted.
0:36:40 Probably, I imagine you’d like wanna target homeowners,
0:36:41 you know, above average income level.
0:36:44 I know you could probably set it really targeted.
0:36:46 – Yeah, there’s a bunch of little things
0:36:49 you can add in, like I want it to be a woman
0:36:53 that’s 35 to 65 and I want it to be right in my area.
0:36:56 But in all these ads, the super important part is,
0:36:59 so I made a video, they were all super funny.
0:37:01 I tried to make them like super entertaining to listen to.
0:37:03 But the most important part was right at the beginning,
0:37:06 I’d say, hey Evergreen or hey Auburn,
0:37:08 that way people know I’m talking to them
0:37:09 and they’re not just gonna skip it
0:37:11 because they see the send message,
0:37:12 which shows it’s an ad.
0:37:14 So they’re not just gonna skip it right away
0:37:15 and they actually might listen
0:37:17 because they know I’m targeting it right to them
0:37:19 and then I’m gonna throw in the joke a little bit after.
0:37:21 So for example, for my Auburn ad,
0:37:23 I posted this one about six days ago
0:37:26 and I’ve just, I put in 60 bucks into it.
0:37:29 I’ve already booked $2,500 worth of jobs with it.
0:37:31 It’s been doing super good, but what I said, I said,
0:37:33 hey Auburn, there’s a huge epidemic
0:37:36 going around the Auburn and Opalika area.
0:37:39 Your windows are looking like this or this or this
0:37:41 and it’s gonna cause some serious permanent damage
0:37:44 that’s gonna seriously lower your property value.
0:37:46 And then I did this funny little transition
0:37:48 where I did a little jump
0:37:50 and I went from my normal clothes
0:37:53 to my uniform with my belt on and people love that.
0:37:55 But then I have all these moms texting me
0:37:56 and they’re like, or DMing me and they say,
0:37:58 “Hey, I love a quote.”
0:38:00 And then you get there and then you do your spiel.
0:38:03 – Okay, so that’s the call to action.
0:38:04 I love that.
0:38:06 There’s a huge epidemic of dirty windows going around
0:38:08 and then you show the visuals, you’re like,
0:38:10 and then you can see people looking up at there.
0:38:12 It’s like, yeah, when was the last time those were clean?
0:38:16 So then the call to action is message me for a quote
0:38:17 or message me to schedule an appointment.
0:38:19 – Yeah, so at the very end,
0:38:21 I tell them all the services I do
0:38:23 and I say, “I know you need at least one of these done.
0:38:25 “So give me a text and I point up
0:38:27 “and then my number pops up.”
0:38:29 But most people just DM me and it says at the bottom,
0:38:31 like the whole time you’re reaching, it says send message
0:38:32 and then they can just send a message
0:38:34 and it’s super duper easy.
0:38:35 Most people just say, “Hey, I love a quote.”
0:38:38 And then maybe they send their address and I say,
0:38:40 “Okay, I’ll be there tomorrow, blah, blah.”
0:38:41 And then they’re like, “Oh, that’s super easy.”
0:38:44 – Okay, how cool, what a great return on investment on that.
0:38:46 And then while you’re out on the job,
0:38:48 of course there’s opportunity to go get some warm
0:38:50 or semi-warm leads from the neighbors.
0:38:53 Hey, we’re working on someone’s house next door
0:38:55 and try and turn one job into two.
0:38:57 – Yeah, so typically how we structure
0:38:58 our business plan for the day
0:39:01 is we schedule one house from an ad
0:39:03 or that we’ve knocked on a previous day
0:39:05 and we schedule one house per day,
0:39:07 like per morning or whenever we start working.
0:39:09 And then when we get to that house,
0:39:11 normally one person starts cleaning
0:39:12 while the other goes knocking
0:39:13 to line up the rest of the day.
0:39:16 And that’s how we’re able to fill up our schedule so often
0:39:18 just ’cause we hardly have that name.
0:39:20 And so we can say, “Oh, Michelle, down the road,
0:39:21 like that’s where we’re at.”
0:39:23 And that builds that level of trust.
0:39:25 We’re more likely to land the client.
0:39:28 – Yeah, leaning on the job that you were able to book
0:39:29 and then being able to say,
0:39:31 “As soon as we’re done there, we’ll come over here.”
0:39:33 Versus, “Well, let’s book it.”
0:39:36 Like, well, the motivation might wane if you wait too long.
0:39:37 We’re only gonna schedule one per day
0:39:41 and then trust and hope that we can get some more jobs
0:39:42 to fill up the schedule.
0:39:44 – Yeah, when people are calling you out,
0:39:45 usually they got a couple of people
0:39:47 that are asking for a quote.
0:39:48 And so you’re trying to just beat those other people.
0:39:50 But when you’re doing door to door,
0:39:52 you know, there’s that appeal of the homeowner
0:39:53 to just like get it done right away.
0:39:55 And so, you know, you’re not really competing
0:39:58 with other people and the homeowner just loves the fact
0:40:00 that like, okay, these guys can do it in literally an hour.
0:40:02 They can get me a price in 30 seconds.
0:40:04 Like, I might as well just hear the price
0:40:05 and then, you know, if I want it done today,
0:40:06 like that’d be great.
0:40:09 What both the jacks showed me was that the money’s out there
0:40:10 if you’re willing to go and get it.
0:40:12 And maybe they had the advantage of youth
0:40:14 when knocking on doors,
0:40:16 but I still think there’s a big opportunity
0:40:18 in local home services, lawn care, window washing,
0:40:22 house cleaning, car detailing, gutter cleaning, you name it.
0:40:24 Another side hustle I just couldn’t help
0:40:26 but tell people about was Wayne Seminoff’s
0:40:30 junk land flipping business highlighted in episode 629.
0:40:32 Wayne holds the record as the most experienced
0:40:35 side hustle show guest at age 81 when we recorded.
0:40:38 And he said he’s been doing his unique land business
0:40:39 for the last 40 years.
0:40:42 Now, the name of the game here is to find
0:40:45 these unwanted, unloved vacant parcels.
0:40:47 Maybe they’ve got title issues.
0:40:49 Maybe they’re too small to get a building permit.
0:40:51 Maybe there’s no sewer or septic.
0:40:53 Wayne picks a handful of these up every year
0:40:56 at the tax auction or sometimes is able to make a deal
0:40:58 with a seller before the public sale
0:41:00 and then opens up his bag of tricks
0:41:03 and works with City Hall to make the lot buildable.
0:41:06 It’s more like legal and red tape work
0:41:08 than it is bulldozers and hammers.
0:41:09 But if you can get that stamp of approval
0:41:11 for a building permit, all of a sudden
0:41:15 that lot is worth 10 to 100 times what he paid for it.
0:41:17 – And the key to it is pretty simple.
0:41:21 Generally, junk land is junk because you can’t build on it.
0:41:25 But I found there was like seven tools you can use
0:41:29 to change junk land into buildable land.
0:41:30 And one is like variances.
0:41:34 You get a variance from the building code
0:41:38 or let’s say you need a boundary line adjustment
0:41:41 or title problems or whatever the problem is
0:41:43 on the property, if you can isolate that problem
0:41:47 and then correct it, your value dramatically increases
0:41:50 a hundred times, I mean like literally a hundred times.
0:41:54 I’ll give you an example of that as I bought a property
0:41:58 a year ago in Issaquah, which is a really hot area,
0:42:01 bought a half acre lot with water, sewer, power,
0:42:04 road access right across from Target
0:42:06 and I paid $1,000 for it.
0:42:08 And then the reason I bought it for $1,000
0:42:12 is the guy who’d owned it for like 20 years
0:42:15 couldn’t sell it to anybody because it had a title problem.
0:42:18 He couldn’t get clear title from a title insurance company.
0:42:21 So he was gonna let it go in the tax sale.
0:42:23 So I called him before the tax sale and I said,
0:42:25 “Hey, are you gonna let it go in the tax sale?”
0:42:28 And he says, “Yes, I’m gonna let it go in the tax sale.”
0:42:30 And I go, “Well, I’ll buy it from you
0:42:32 “and don’t let it go in the tax sale.”
0:42:34 And I said, “I’ll give you $500 for it.”
0:42:37 And he goes, “No, no, no, no, no, no, you think I’m crazy?”
0:42:39 And I said, “Well, how much do you want for it?”
0:42:42 And he goes, “I’ll take $1,000 for it.”
0:42:47 – I need to pause and say like any piece of land
0:42:49 just given the path of development in this area
0:42:52 is worth significantly more than even $1,000.
0:42:54 So you’re thinking, he’s like,
0:42:55 “Hey dude, don’t low ball me, come on.
0:42:56 “I know what I’m sitting on.”
0:42:58 But he’s like, “No, I didn’t really want that much more.”
0:43:00 – It always shocks me and I always come back
0:43:01 do that low ball thing.
0:43:06 And they always come back with low, low counter offers.
0:43:07 And so he said, “If you write me,
0:43:10 “if you send me $1,000, I’ll sign over the deed to you.”
0:43:13 And so I’m gonna sister owned it.
0:43:15 So I got his sister and him to sign it.
0:43:18 And we did, I just sent him the deed electronically.
0:43:20 And then I venmoed him the money.
0:43:23 So he had the money immediately.
0:43:25 And then he just sent it back to me.
0:43:26 And I had a deal.
0:43:29 So then I took this gorgeous piece of land,
0:43:31 right now it’s zoned for one unit.
0:43:36 In that area, one unit of land is worth $500,000,
0:43:37 one housing unit.
0:43:40 And so I went to my attorney and I said,
0:43:43 “I need to do a quiet title on clear of this title.”
0:43:45 And I looked into what the problems were on the title
0:43:48 and I found some supporting data to give to the attorney
0:43:51 to make the title quiet title action go smoother.
0:43:53 And it took him four and a half months.
0:43:56 And then the four and a half months he gave me clear title
0:43:58 and I got a title report that says,
0:44:00 “I’m the sole owner of the property
0:44:02 and nobody else can challenge it.”
0:44:06 And now today that $1,000 property is worth $500,000
0:44:07 right now.
0:44:11 – Yeah, so you have $1,000 into it plus some legal fees.
0:44:15 – Yeah, they cost me $15,000 for clearing the title.
0:44:20 So for $16,000, I’m gonna make $500,000.
0:44:22 – Right, wow.
0:44:24 That sounds pretty good, right?
0:44:26 That’ll get people on their toes, right?
0:44:27 But that’s not enough.
0:44:29 Okay, so this lot is subdividable.
0:44:32 So I’m applying for a short subdivision.
0:44:34 I’m gonna split the lot in two.
0:44:38 And two lots in that area are worth $1,000,000.
0:44:40 So in four months from now,
0:44:43 when the short subdivision is over in Issaquah,
0:44:44 I’ll have two separate lots
0:44:47 and I’ll have $1,000,000 worth of land.
0:44:50 For about $25,000 total investment,
0:44:53 I’ll have a million dollar property.
0:44:55 – Now, there’s a lot to unpack here,
0:44:57 but it was such an interesting conversation.
0:44:59 And Wayne just happened to be local to me.
0:45:00 It definitely got me looking
0:45:01 at some vacant parcels nearby.
0:45:04 I think the side hustle might be best
0:45:06 if you’ve got a little bit of legal background,
0:45:08 maybe a little bit of real estate background.
0:45:09 You enjoy a little bit of a treasure hunt.
0:45:12 And I got the impression that at this stage of his life,
0:45:15 Wayne’s just in it for the game, the thrill of the big win.
0:45:17 And I could be wrong on that, but that was my impression.
0:45:20 Episode 629, fascinating one, definitely check it out.
0:45:23 And I think what I love most about my job
0:45:26 is even 11 years into the show,
0:45:28 I’m still coming across people like Wayne,
0:45:30 people like Cheryl, people like Chris
0:45:32 with the billboard business who’ve got businesses
0:45:34 I’ve never heard of, never thought about before.
0:45:37 Number nine on our list of the best side hustles of the year
0:45:40 is Debbie Gartner’s digital products business on Etsy.
0:45:42 This is episode 637.
0:45:45 This episode stood out to me for a few reasons.
0:45:47 First, it’s low risk, low overhead.
0:45:49 It’s a business where you can sell the same product
0:45:50 to multiple different customers.
0:45:52 That always appeals to me.
0:45:54 Second, it wasn’t an overnight hit.
0:45:55 It took Debbie a couple of years
0:45:57 of admittedly very part-time effort
0:46:00 to build the business to $1,000 a week
0:46:01 or around $4,000 a month.
0:46:04 I think a lot of people will see that result,
0:46:08 but not the slow, consistent asset building effort
0:46:09 that it took together.
0:46:11 And third, what was maybe most interesting to me
0:46:14 was her product idea generation methods,
0:46:17 which went all the way back to her as a kid thinking,
0:46:19 well, what did she really like to do?
0:46:23 Just like with blogging, you start with what do you know?
0:46:26 What do you like and how can you leverage that?
0:46:28 So the simplest thing, like a blood pressure,
0:46:31 one page tracker is all I did.
0:46:33 I did other things like that.
0:46:36 And then I started getting into games
0:46:39 because I’ve always loved games.
0:46:42 So I created a July 4th trivia game
0:46:45 just because I had a blog post on my website
0:46:49 that was for July 4th fireworks in my county.
0:46:50 So I did that.
0:46:53 And of course it was, I don’t know, November.
0:46:56 So it wasn’t very relevant.
0:46:56 Oh, okay.
0:46:58 You gotta skate where the puck is going, right?
0:47:01 Okay, come July, there’s gonna be some demand for this, okay?
0:47:02 Exactly.
0:47:05 So then I said, okay, I made it done,
0:47:08 but it proves to me that there’s an opportunity here.
0:47:10 So now let me do another trivia game.
0:47:13 So I did a trivia game for Thanksgiving.
0:47:16 And then I said, okay, well, there’s Hanukkah
0:47:17 and there’s Christmas.
0:47:19 And you just keep going through all the different holidays.
0:47:22 I would do that, I would do different games.
0:47:24 And I just had fun with that
0:47:26 because it was really interesting.
0:47:27 I just enjoyed it.
0:47:30 There was the solar eclipse this year.
0:47:33 So I did several solar eclipse games.
0:47:37 So whatever is kind of of the moment or coming up,
0:47:40 let’s call it two to three months in advance,
0:47:41 I would do it.
0:47:43 And then I would just keep doing different things.
0:47:48 I was interested in or that I wanted to learn more about.
0:47:50 And that’s kind of how I did it.
0:47:53 At some point I had this realization
0:47:55 that when I was younger, like in high school,
0:47:58 I had this conversation with one of my friends
0:48:01 in math class, like what do you wanna do when you grow up?
0:48:05 And I told them I wanted to be a puzzle master.
0:48:06 Okay, okay.
0:48:08 You know, like Will Shortz does,
0:48:11 except at that point in time, Will Shortz,
0:48:12 I didn’t know who he was.
0:48:14 He wasn’t anyone famous,
0:48:16 but I’m like, I want to do something like that,
0:48:18 but there’s no such job.
0:48:21 So I just went to college and had a regular job.
0:48:25 – Yeah, like a virtual escape room coordinator
0:48:28 or that’s a really interesting one.
0:48:30 I had a similar net ’cause now you’re making money
0:48:32 doing that, like taking it back to high school.
0:48:35 I had, you know, my job shadow day
0:48:36 would have been junior or senior year.
0:48:40 It was going down to like the sports broadcast office
0:48:41 for Channel Five in Seattle.
0:48:44 And it was like, yeah, it’s super irrelevant
0:48:45 to what I’m doing today.
0:48:49 And then my buddy was like, you’re kind of in media.
0:48:51 You know, that seems actually pretty relevant.
0:48:54 So I was like, oh, it’s kind of this weird full circle moment
0:48:57 of, yeah, I guess it’s kind of in this broadcast media
0:48:57 in a way.
0:49:00 – Exactly, there’s so many things I’ve done in my life
0:49:02 in different jobs and different courses I took
0:49:06 in college or high school or just, you know,
0:49:10 continuing ed courses or hobbies or anything.
0:49:12 And so then I just kept going through my brain like,
0:49:13 what do I like?
0:49:14 What am I interested in?
0:49:16 And then I would try to understand,
0:49:19 is there a need for whatever that is?
0:49:22 Do a little bit of keyword research, try some stuff out.
0:49:24 Some of it worked, some of it didn’t.
0:49:28 Then do more of what works like rinse and repeat.
0:49:30 And that’s basically what it is.
0:49:31 – So I’m picturing like a trivial game,
0:49:34 like trivial pursuit where I’ve got a bunch of these cards,
0:49:36 like these, you know, question cards
0:49:38 that people are cutting out at home.
0:49:39 It’s just like a big list.
0:49:42 Like tell me just like a little bit of the structure
0:49:43 of what the product looks like.
0:49:44 – Exactly.
0:49:46 So you can’t use trivial pursuit
0:49:47 because that’s a trademark,
0:49:50 but you can take games like that or something else
0:49:53 and call them something else
0:49:56 and make sure you don’t use the trade colors of them
0:49:57 or anything like that.
0:50:00 But yes, that’s exactly the idea.
0:50:03 And what happens is when you make some products,
0:50:07 Essie recommends other products that are like this.
0:50:10 And you kind of can’t help but notice other games.
0:50:12 So as I start creating more games,
0:50:15 I see more games that are available.
0:50:18 And then I try those and then some work, some don’t.
0:50:21 And then whichever ones of those work,
0:50:22 I make more of those.
0:50:24 And then I get more suggestions
0:50:26 and then it gets my brain going
0:50:31 because I am not naturally a creative person, like not at all.
0:50:32 – I don’t know.
0:50:33 I’ll give yourself some credit.
0:50:34 You’ve been creating content on the internet
0:50:35 for 14 years here.
0:50:38 – Well, you get better at it.
0:50:41 So the point is you don’t need to be creative.
0:50:42 My mom would always say, “You’re so creative.”
0:50:43 I’d say, “No, I’m not.”
0:50:47 Really honestly, I’m good at creative problem solving,
0:50:49 but I’m not a creative person.
0:50:51 But it doesn’t matter because you can just learn it
0:50:54 because as you do it, you become more creative.
0:50:57 Just like I did not know anything about flooring,
0:50:58 but you learn it.
0:51:00 And then I became good at home decor.
0:51:04 So you just, as your interest level increases,
0:51:06 your curiosity does too.
0:51:08 And then so does your knowledge.
0:51:09 They all work together.
0:51:12 And then ideas, they just come to you.
0:51:15 It’s like, I don’t even try anymore.
0:51:18 I can, I mean, you’ve seen one of my things where I wrote,
0:51:23 like I have 1014 ideas of things I can create on Etsy.
0:51:26 – I hope that little sample sparks some inspiration
0:51:29 to start thinking about what kind of digital products
0:51:31 you could create or even a little bit broader,
0:51:34 what kind of side hustle might be in your wheelhouse?
0:51:38 Episode 637 with Debbie, The Flooring Girl Gartner.
0:51:39 All right, let’s bring it home with number 10.
0:51:40 To round out this list,
0:51:44 I wanna highlight Skyler Sullivan’s remote cleaning business.
0:51:49 And let this be an example of or a lens into
0:51:52 any number of drop servicing style businesses
0:51:54 where you’re essentially playing a matchmaker
0:51:56 between qualified service providers
0:51:58 and people who need that work done.
0:52:00 You’ve got a little more skin in the game
0:52:02 than with Meow’s website rental model,
0:52:04 but I would say their cousins.
0:52:05 Business models are related.
0:52:07 In Skyler’s case, it was super impressive
0:52:11 building Nebraska Elite Cleaning to $60,000 a month
0:52:14 as a side hustle in episode 645,
0:52:15 just aired a couple of weeks ago.
0:52:19 The premise here is to build a strong online brand
0:52:22 in presence, nail the operations and logistics,
0:52:23 and then find people who are excited
0:52:25 to do the delivery for you.
0:52:27 In fact, that’s where Skyler recommended starting.
0:52:29 After all, if you book a job
0:52:31 and you don’t have anyone to go out and do it,
0:52:32 it’s gonna be you.
0:52:33 And that’s not the end of the world,
0:52:35 but that wasn’t his ultimate goal.
0:52:39 I asked him how he sourced and onboarded new cleaners
0:52:41 so then he could go out and market the business.
0:52:43 – Yeah, well, everybody’s cleaned.
0:52:45 I’ve cleaned before, you know, don’t love it,
0:52:47 but everybody’s clean.
0:52:48 And so cleaning to me is like,
0:52:50 you don’t have to be a star or a machine.
0:52:52 Yeah, we can learn tips and tricks
0:52:53 and be more efficient and be better.
0:52:55 But if you’re just detailed and diligent,
0:52:56 anybody can do it.
0:52:58 If you’re high character, detailed and diligent,
0:52:59 you probably, anybody can do it.
0:53:00 And then after that,
0:53:02 I mean, there’s tips and tricks for different chemicals,
0:53:03 but so that’s what I knew.
0:53:05 That’s what I knew is that it doesn’t take a master.
0:53:06 I just need to find some people who are probably good
0:53:08 and maybe they’ve worked in a hotel or something like that.
0:53:10 So I would use Indeed, Facebook a little bit,
0:53:14 but Craigslist, Indeed was really, really helpful at first.
0:53:15 And then after I found a couple,
0:53:17 we would use referrals from cleaners
0:53:20 who knew other cleaners who, you know, had worked out.
0:53:22 So what’s that pitch like though?
0:53:24 The pitch is like, hey, I just created
0:53:26 an elite cleaning company,
0:53:27 a company that I’m looking for pros.
0:53:30 We are pros, we have a professional mantra
0:53:31 and I’m looking for pros like you,
0:53:34 based on your resume and who you are, you know,
0:53:35 does this sound like something you’d be interested in,
0:53:38 you know, making some more money and taking more jobs?
0:53:40 And most of the time it’s yes, not always, but most of the time.
0:53:42 – Okay, so it’s like the pitch is,
0:53:44 we’re building this elite culture.
0:53:47 We’d love for you to be a part of it if that’s a fit
0:53:49 and we’ll help you fill up your schedule.
0:53:51 We’ll help you get more hours.
0:53:52 – Absolutely, yep, exactly.
0:53:54 We’ll help you fill up your schedule.
0:53:56 All you have to worry about is doing the cleaning.
0:53:58 We’ll do the, you know, the scheduling.
0:54:00 We’ll do the notes.
0:54:02 All you have to do is just show up, do the cleaning.
0:54:03 You have to worry about reschedules
0:54:05 and collecting payments.
0:54:07 We’ll take care of all that for you.
0:54:08 – Got it.
0:54:09 And so it appeals to the people who want,
0:54:11 kind of like an easy button way.
0:54:12 I mean, of course it’s still manual labor,
0:54:14 but like they don’t have to be the entrepreneur.
0:54:15 They don’t have to be the marketer.
0:54:17 You don’t have to be the administrator.
0:54:20 Like they can just be, you just show up and do the work.
0:54:21 You know, I think a lot of people
0:54:22 are looking for something like that.
0:54:23 – Yeah, exactly.
0:54:25 Advertising, they don’t have to worry about sales,
0:54:28 negotiation with customers, customer cancellations,
0:54:30 getting payments, you know,
0:54:31 in the communication with customers,
0:54:33 it can be literally 24/7.
0:54:34 Like we’ll get calls, texts from people
0:54:36 and all day, all night.
0:54:37 And so if you’re not an entrepreneur
0:54:38 or don’t have that mindset,
0:54:40 you can get walked over by customers as well
0:54:41 or taken advantage of.
0:54:45 – What’s typical in terms of an hourly rate
0:54:46 or a payment per clean?
0:54:49 Or how do you have things structured with the cleaners?
0:54:53 – We like to be around that $25, $25 an hour ish,
0:54:55 because they’re also supplying equipment
0:54:56 of their own equipment as well,
0:54:58 their own cleaning supplies and driving there.
0:55:01 So $25 and then they get tips as well.
0:55:03 And it can be a little bit higher around that.
0:55:04 – Schuyler went on to explain
0:55:07 that he typically would aim for a 40 to 50% margin
0:55:09 on the residential jobs he’d book,
0:55:11 lower on commercial cleaning work
0:55:13 because it’s more competitive and more frequent,
0:55:16 like lower margin, but higher volume, if that makes sense.
0:55:17 And I highlight Schuyler’s business
0:55:20 because it’s another one like Christie’s
0:55:21 where you could replicate it
0:55:23 in any number of different niches.
0:55:24 The key is looking for an industry
0:55:26 that’s pretty fragmented, like cleaning,
0:55:29 where there really aren’t any single companies
0:55:30 that you could probably think of
0:55:32 that command a big chunk of market share.
0:55:34 On top of that, like we might have talked about
0:55:35 in that episode, it’s an industry
0:55:37 where the pie keeps getting bigger.
0:55:38 It’s a chore that more and more people
0:55:40 are choosing to hire out.
0:55:43 So you don’t necessarily need to conquest business
0:55:44 from another provider.
0:55:47 Again, episode 645, remote cleaning business.
0:55:49 That’s number 10 on our list.
0:55:52 To recap, number one was the $100 a day challenge
0:55:53 with Jackie Mitchell.
0:55:55 Number two was the website rental business,
0:55:57 the rank and rent model.
0:55:58 Number three was vending machines.
0:56:01 I think we could all use a money-making robot in our life.
0:56:04 Number four was the billboard business.
0:56:06 You’ll never look at billboards the same way again.
0:56:08 Number five was photo organizing.
0:56:10 Number six was software consulting,
0:56:12 highlighting the piggyback principle,
0:56:14 go where there’s already some level of demand
0:56:17 and establish some credibility and expertise there.
0:56:19 Number seven was window washing,
0:56:21 one of our college side hustles examples.
0:56:24 Number eight was the super, super interesting
0:56:26 junk land flipping business,
0:56:28 looking for those unloved parcels
0:56:30 and making them buildable.
0:56:32 Number nine was digital products on Etsy,
0:56:34 an example of creating something once,
0:56:35 selling it over and over again.
0:56:38 And number 10 was Skyler’s remote cleaning business.
0:56:40 If you want to learn more about
0:56:42 any of these individual businesses,
0:56:45 make sure to check out those specific episodes.
0:56:47 Again, I will link those up in the show notes.
0:56:48 And for the sake of convenience,
0:56:51 I put them all into a Spotify playlist for you,
0:56:52 which is also linked up in the show notes,
0:56:55 sidehustlenation.com/bestof24,
0:56:58 or just hit the link in the episode description
0:56:59 and it’ll get you right over there.
0:57:01 Big thanks to all our incredible guests
0:57:03 for sharing their insight.
0:57:04 Thanks to our sponsors for helping make
0:57:06 this content free for everyone.
0:57:07 That is it for me.
0:57:09 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:57:12 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen
0:57:13 and I’ll catch you in the next edition
0:57:15 of The Side Hustle Show.