540: From Zero to 7-Figure ARR as a Digital Nomad

This week’s guest began his side hustle with the goal of getting just 10 clients in 90 days. Four years later, he’s now the proud owner of a 7-figure business!

Justin Tan is a Side Hustle Show listener who was inspired by Russ Perry’s story in Episode 248 of how he began Design Pickle.

In 2014, Russ was running a creative agency when he started to hate everything about it. Not wanting to feel like a prisoner of his own creation, he sought out a new business model, one that offered reliable, affordable, and scalable creative work at a flat rate.

Justin took inspiration from that model and applied it to video editing. And so, Video Husky was born.

Justin’s story is one of many examples of what can happen when you combine a demonstrable business model with a novel idea and an untapped market.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to hear how:

• Justin found his first clients
• he scaled into a full-time business
• he made the ultimate decision to step away

Full Show Notes: Growing a Productized Service from Zero to 7-Figures as a Digital Nomad

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539: How to Start a Commercial Cleaning Business on the Side: $100k in 9 Months

This week’s guest booked $100k worth of work in their first 9 months of a new side hustle they had no experience with.

Haley Gallagher and her husband are serial side hustlers and were specifically looking for a side hustle they could do after hours.

Seeing an opportunity at a bar he was working security for, Haley’s husband asked if they could take on the cleaning contract.

That job snowballed into more jobs and as they hired employees and grew their business, MoonlightCommercialCleaning.com, they turned over $170k in revenue in their full first year.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to hear:

• how Moonlight Commercial Cleaning found their first customers
• how they price their work and manage a growing team of cleaners
• mistakes they made along the way

Full Show Notes: How to Start a Commercial Cleaning Business

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538: Starting a 6-Figure Car Rental Business on the Side

Your next income stream might be sitting right in your driveway…

This week we’re talking about how to get your piece of a $100 billion market.

It’s the same model practiced by Hertz, Avis, Enterprise, National: renting cars out for a profit.

It’s a business with lots of built-in demand, and new platforms like Turo help put your car or cars in front of that demand and get paid.

Two years ago, Kirtis Murphy of FamilyTalksAuto.co decided to give this a shot on the side.

He started with his personal vehicle, and since then and with the help of a couple of partners has grown it to a 6-figure business that now has 14 cars in its fleet.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to hear:

• how you can get started renting out your car for cash
• how to protect yourself and your vehicle assets
• Kirtis’ tips for setting yourself up for profitability and scaling your operation
• Freshbooks.com – Start your 30-day free trial today!

Full Show Notes: How to Start a Rental Car Business

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537: The $1.2 Million Part-Time Affiliate Site

A common theme on the show: how do you make money online?

In short, you do it by solving other people’s problems.

We’ve got a really fun example of that today with an online business that helps people come up with gift ideas.

The business is Giftlab.co; it’s a 5-year-old website that’s already earned over $1.2M as a part-time project for today’s guest Andrew Fiebert.

You might recognize the name and the voice — Andrew co-hosted Listen Money Matters, a really fun podcast in the personal finance space.

He’s also the co-founder of the popular affiliate link management tool Lasso, which you can find at GetLasso.co.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to hear:

• how Andrew creates and monetizes his content
• how he optimizes his older posts to increase CTR and revenue
• his keyword research strategy for finding super-low competition longtail queries

Full Show Notes: The $1.2M Part-Time Affiliate Site

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536: Selling to the World’s Largest Customer: How to Win Government Contracts

This week we’re exploring a unique opportunity to turn the world’s largest buyer of goods and services into a customer of yours.

That’s right, we’re talking about selling to the government.

There’s nothing like having a client that can literally print the money. But there’s a lot of confusion and misunderstandings around getting government contracts so I’ve enlisted some expert help to help us learn how to do it the right way.

Retired Lt Col Ricky Howard of DoDContract.com spent years on the purchasing side for the U.S. Department of Defense and now helps small businesses like yours get their foot in the door.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to hear:

• why there are so many lucrative opportunities with government contracts
• Ricky’s tips and best practices for winning contracts
• how you can also win contracts acting as matchmaker or partnering with other business owners

Sponsors:

• Freshbooks.com – Start your 30-day free trial today!

Full Show Notes: How to Win Government Contracts

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535: Growing an Online Business from Scratch: From Personal Struggle to Multiple Income Streams

This week you’re going to meet an entrepreneur who recently left her 6-figure job in biotech to become a full-time podcaster and online business owner.

Gill Tietz of SoberPowered.com started the Sober Powered podcast in mid-2020 and has released over 100 episodes on the science of alcohol addiction and other content to help listeners get and stay sober.

In that time she’s also grown her Instagram account to over 43k followers, created a podcast network for other sober-related podcasts, and created several other income streams.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to hear:

• how Gill made her podcast stand out from the crowd
• how she’s grown her audience through different platforms
• the different ways she’s monetizing her business

Full Show Notes: Growing an Online Business from Scratch

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534: 5 Easy Ways to Build Backlinks and Outrank the Competition

By the end of this episode, you’ll have at least a dozen new backlinks for your website.

For those who are new to SEO, quality backlinks will help you climb the ranks in Google — which means you’re going to make more money.

To talk through his best link-building quick wins and link-building tactics, I’m joined by Jeremy Poland.

Jeremy is a long-time Side Hustle Show listener, he’s a former Pastor and non-profit worker turned SEO pro, and he’s gone from digital marketing freelancer to agency owner.

Jeremy specializes in helping small businesses leapfrog the competition with easy SEO wins.

The backbone of what Jeremy does is build backlinks, and best of all he does it without needing a huge marketing budget.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to hear:

• some of the quickest and easiest ways you can pick up backlinks
• why industry-specific links are so important and how to build those
• some of Jeremy’s best “special plays” backlinking tips

Full Show Notes: 5 Easy Ways to Build Backlinks and Outrank the Competition

Don’t have a site of your own yet? Check out my free video series on how to start a website of your own.

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533: 40 Things I’ve Learned in My 40 Years

I wish I was half as smart now as I was at 16!

But learning everything you don’t know is part of the process.

One thing I love about my work is I feel like I learn new things every day. Sometimes they’re small little tweaks and hacks, and other times they’re broader strategies or ideas.

I’m incredibly fortunate to have a healthy family and to get to work on stuff I love every day. Each year that goes by makes me more and more aware of that fact.

But the life I have today didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of literally decades (well, at least 2) of entrepreneurial education, trial and error, hustle, and if I’m being totally honest, luck.

In any case, here are 40 life lessons I’ve picked up in my 40 years on this planet.

Full Show Notes: 40 Things I’ve Learned in My 40 Years

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532: The Ladders of Wealth Creation

Nathan Barry went from working at Wendy’s to running a software company doing $2.5M in revenue every month.

But there were several steps along the way — and those steps are the topic of today’s episode.

In 2019, Nathan penned The Ladders of Wealth Creation to explain why to level up your earning power, you usually need to level up your skills.

In this episode, we cover:

• The 4 Ladders of Wealth Creation
• How you may be able to add new income streams to an existing side hustle or business
• A marketing strategy that’s working well for Nathan right now

Full Show Notes: The Ladders of Wealth Creation

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531: Flipping Shoes for Profit: $250-1000 a Month in Your Spare Time

On the side from his day job, Beau Hunter is a professional shoe flipper.

His flipping side hustle has helped his family erase over $100k in debt!

In this episode, Beau explains why shoes are an excellent choice for beginners and how you can find shoes to flip for up to a 10x return.

If you’re looking for an extra $500-1000 a month in profit, I’m confident you can go out and find it footwear with the help of Beau’s insights.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to hear:

• why Beau narrowed in on flipping shoes
• where he sources inventory and how he prices his shoes
• how Beau cleans, preps, and lists his shoes for sale

Full Show Notes: Flipping Shoes for Profit

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