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.
0:14:22 Running a business is hard.
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0:14:26 You got a to-do list a mile long
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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.

0:00:04 If you’ve got weekend plans you might want to clear on because you’re going to take action
0:00:05 on this episode.
0:00:06 What’s up?
0:00:07 What’s up?
0:00:08 Nick Loper here.
0:00:09 Welcome to The Side Hustle Show.
0:00:12 It’s the business podcast you can actually apply today.
0:00:17 We’re exploring the unique side hustle of online directories, why they’re a great starter
0:00:22 online side hustle, how to come up with your first directory idea, build the thing out
0:00:23 and start making money.
0:00:26 Now, we’ve got a little bit of experience in this space, but nothing like today’s guest
0:00:31 who is a master at quickly building and marketing these little side projects, launching 30 in
0:00:38 the past year or so, monetizing a dozen of them and even selling one, which was all GPTS.co
0:00:42 for a five figure exit from johnrush.me.
0:00:43 John Rush, welcome to The Side Hustle Show.
0:00:45 Thank you for having me, Nick.
0:00:46 I’m ready to share.
0:00:47 All right.
0:00:48 I’m excited for this one.
0:00:49 Start us off with the pitch.
0:00:51 Give me the elevator pitch for why directories.
0:00:55 How come you’ve been investing so much time, effort and energy into them in the last year?
0:01:00 The most scarce resource of the future and today’s attention, and the best way to win
0:01:06 attention is to see what people search for and then have your products and services shown
0:01:08 up on the search results.
0:01:14 And then I had this idea that maybe if the search will be more and more polluted with
0:01:19 AI generated content, eventually people will want to find places to search for things where
0:01:27 they trust the curation, they trust the the author who has put the time and expertise to
0:01:29 build up this list.
0:01:35 So then I thought like the directories will really thrive in a world of infinite choice
0:01:42 where users don’t trust the former ways of searching for things such as Google and other
0:01:43 places.
0:01:49 And they will rather trust a place that focuses only on one type of item and knows everything
0:01:50 about that.
0:01:51 Okay.
0:01:55 So the idea is to become almost a mini Google in a way for a specific topic.
0:01:56 Yeah.
0:01:57 Okay.
0:01:58 All right.
0:01:59 I like that.
0:02:00 And that’s kind of the game that I’ve been trying to play in the side hustle space for
0:02:01 a long time.
0:02:04 Like, hey, you know, we’ve become the go-to resource and, you know, one of the challenges
0:02:10 has been historically relied heavily on Google for that initial traffic.
0:02:15 It’s great if people know who you are, but it’s harder to kind of get that initial traction
0:02:16 in the first place.
0:02:21 Finding success, still marketing through SEO, still finding, you know, that initial,
0:02:25 you know, no-like and trust factor through and discoverability through Google.
0:02:31 It’s getting harder and harder for SaaS projects, and it’s getting easier and easier for directories.
0:02:38 Because I see that the patron people have with the search, when they search for something
0:02:43 where there is a large number of items to choose from, their typical patron is that
0:02:45 they’re not searching for the answer.
0:02:48 They’re searching for a place where they will find the thing.
0:02:51 So they’re kind of searching for directories.
0:02:52 They don’t think about that.
0:02:58 But in reality, people search for directories for places where they can have this rich type
0:03:05 of content where every item has reviews or ratings or information around it or comments.
0:03:09 So I think that game is just getting easier and better and better.
0:03:15 I see huge growth on SEO traffic for my directories, and I have serious drop on SEO traffic
0:03:20 for SaaS projects, because SaaS projects usually drive traffic through blogs.
0:03:26 And the blog articles are not doing well now, because so many people can easily generate
0:03:32 them with AI, and some say AI blog posts are low-quality, but, you know, they do something
0:03:33 else.
0:03:35 They just take good blog posts, and they rewrite it with AI.
0:03:39 Now it’s good quality, because it’s just the same blog posts rewritten, and you cannot
0:03:42 spot those rewrites, right?
0:03:43 Unfortunately, not yet.
0:03:45 So here’s my theory.
0:03:49 I’m going to go off on a little tangent, and then we’re going to bring it back.
0:03:56 My theory and my hope is that even in an AI-driven world, there’s got to be some benefit to being
0:04:02 a primary source creator, like to scooping a story, to creating a firsthand review, even
0:04:06 if eventually that ends up getting scraped and crawled and regurgitated by a million
0:04:07 different AI tools.
0:04:08 That’s fine.
0:04:12 It’s like, you know, there’s some frustration around that, but there’s still got to be…
0:04:15 There’s got to create this stuff, right, and there’s got to be some benefit of doing that.
0:04:18 Now I want to pitch you on my idea.
0:04:22 So historically, lots of, like, listical type of posts.
0:04:26 That’s side hustle ideas of 2024 or something like that, right?
0:04:29 What I would like to build and what’s kind of been on this project radar is, like, the
0:04:35 side hustle ideas directly, like, everything we’ve ever covered, you know, in one easily
0:04:41 sortable, you know, maybe it has, like, earning power and a degree of difficulty, and so your
0:04:45 argument is, like, you know, rather than that traditional, listical, 25 best side hustles
0:04:50 of the year type of content, building out the database, like the directory of side hustle
0:04:54 ideas, like, that could be a different type of project, or that could be a new way to
0:04:56 capture SEO and visitors.
0:05:02 Yeah, historically, nearly every directory or database of items that managed to survive
0:05:09 for several years and kept improving its content has worn and driving a lot of traffic.
0:05:12 And I’ve been researching this a lot, like, I’ve been researching their traffic and the
0:05:16 growth, and it’s insane, the amount of traffic going into these directories.
0:05:21 So most people don’t even realize they actually use those directories, because at some point,
0:05:26 your director will not look like a directory, it will be like a marketplace or a place where
0:05:27 you can put items.
0:05:30 For example, even Craigslist is directory, right?
0:05:31 Even Airbnb is a directory, right?
0:05:37 Like, people think that AI is going to change everything, and all content game will go to
0:05:40 zero, because AI will just answer your question right away.
0:05:45 I don’t think that will be the reality, because a lot of questions have no answer, like, AI
0:05:49 will answer what’s one plus one, and you will trust it.
0:05:53 But if you ask AI, what’s the best place to go with my girlfriend, for example, like,
0:05:58 whatever answer you get from AI, you will not trust it, because it’s it’s a topic nobody
0:05:59 has the answer for.
0:06:05 And then what you actually want AI to do is to say, look, here in your town, I think this
0:06:06 is the best place.
0:06:13 And here’s the link to the to the directory of the places where I researched this.
0:06:18 And what you would probably do, you would click on that link and go and verify yourself
0:06:25 why this is a good place, and and continue your search there versus using, you know,
0:06:26 Chatterby or AI.
0:06:33 So I think from this point, directories might be the only content project that will survive,
0:06:38 because most of the other things, they can be hidden behind the AI chats and users won’t
0:06:41 really give attention where it’s coming from.
0:06:45 Like there will be maybe links and citations, but you won’t click because the answer is
0:06:46 good enough.
0:06:51 But for directory type of items, you will always wonder why and what else is there.
0:06:55 Yeah, that’s a really interesting, you know, okay, this could be a small scale weekend
0:07:00 site project, or it could be some of the biggest websites in the world, like a trip advisor,
0:07:04 you know, a directory of things to do on your vacation, places to stay.
0:07:05 Yes, exactly.
0:07:06 Yeah.
0:07:09 You know, Upwork and Fiverr, like, you know, directories of qualified freelancers.
0:07:10 Yes.
0:07:14 There’s like side hustle directory, and then there’s like, this could turn into a really
0:07:15 substantial business type of directory.
0:07:20 Now you built dozens of these things, like talk to me through the idea of generation,
0:07:24 probably like, how do you figure out what, what to build or where do you recommend people
0:07:25 start there?
0:07:26 There are two ways to account with ideas.
0:07:32 So one way is, if you’re an expert in something, and you know something really, really well,
0:07:37 I think I really believe that high quality data will win no matter what.
0:07:41 So if you know something really well, you can build directory out of that.
0:07:46 But most people don’t really have the, the super expert knowledge on the topic.
0:07:50 So then if you don’t have that, then the best way is to go and check on Google what people
0:07:51 are searching.
0:07:55 So the best way is to go to the Google itself and enter a keyword.
0:08:02 For example, you enter dogs, you say like dogs, and then you will see shelters for dogs or
0:08:05 food for dogs or trainings for dogs.
0:08:08 And now you have three director ideas, right?
0:08:14 Because probably there is no directory that has a lot of trainings for dogs and all the
0:08:18 ways you can teach all different kinds of dogs or et cetera.
0:08:20 So Google helps me a lot.
0:08:23 And then you can use other places where people search for things.
0:08:28 So you can go to Quora and see if people ask, for example, if there is one article there
0:08:33 that says, what’s the best hummer to buy, for example?
0:08:36 And then you will see a lot of answers in the comments.
0:08:41 And if all the answers are different, then it’s pretty much a directory that was just
0:08:45 created under this article, because in some cases, everybody can answer the same thing.
0:08:47 Like what’s the best payment solution?
0:08:48 People gonna say Stripe.
0:08:52 There’s no point of making directory for that because you’ll have Stripe and other items
0:08:53 nobody cares about.
0:08:59 But in this case, you have the items and you can see that people debate whether one item
0:09:00 is better than the other.
0:09:06 And I would say that such debate is just gold for making directory because A, you have the
0:09:13 idea and B, which is even more important, you understand how exactly people compare these
0:09:16 items because it’s not clear.
0:09:19 And this part is more important than most people think for a directory.
0:09:25 So you have to be really smart on what exactly you present about the item because people
0:09:27 don’t come there just to see the list.
0:09:32 People come there to see the list and also to see like every item has a lot of stuff
0:09:33 about it.
0:09:37 But what are the three most important things about this item and how do you highlight them
0:09:41 so that I don’t have to go and search and read and read and read.
0:09:46 So you have to save my time and such core article gonna help, read article gonna help
0:09:48 and social media as well.
0:09:55 How does this differ from a traditional affiliate, Amazon affiliate site where it’s like bestblenders.com
0:10:00 and it’s like bestblenders for smoothies or bestblenders for juicing.
0:10:04 And I see that kind of a listicle content with affiliate links and they’ve got their
0:10:10 own little blurb or we tested this like a wire cutter type of content.
0:10:15 What separates that type of site from a directory in your mind?
0:10:16 I think it is a directory too.
0:10:21 So I think that’s just a subset where you take a physical product or any product that’s
0:10:27 on sale and you niche it down to certain category or many categories and then you have affiliate
0:10:29 links and you make money on that.
0:10:35 But I think that space is difficult to win because you need a lot of sales to happen
0:10:37 through your website.
0:10:44 So I usually recommend people to bet on the ideas where you can find sponsors who will
0:10:50 pay you a lot for sponsoring it because it also means that the directory is valuable
0:10:57 because it’s kind of one way to test is to find sponsor who will sponsor your directory
0:10:58 before you built it.
0:10:59 And that’s possible.
0:11:04 I recommend that to some people and they did and it worked because everybody wants to
0:11:08 pay for growth and traffic and if you can bring it, people are gonna pay you.
0:11:14 So with this, with Blenders, there’s no way you can convince a Blender producer to sponsor
0:11:19 such a directory and with affiliate links, you can make some money, but it’s really hard
0:11:24 because you’re competing with all the listicles, like you say, you know, 15 best Blenders.
0:11:30 And in this space, I think, especially in Blenders, I think the blog articles will often win
0:11:35 against the directories because people don’t feel so serious about the thing so that they
0:11:38 go into the directory like the blog article seems lighter.
0:11:45 But if it’s a car or a tractor or something more serious, then the director will win against
0:11:46 the blog article.
0:11:47 Okay.
0:11:51 Because you have more perceived expertise in that you built the entire directory and
0:11:54 database and structure around being the expert in that thing.
0:11:55 Yeah, exactly.
0:12:00 Also you can anticipate what people want to know about the topic.
0:12:04 For example, if you’re looking for a really good microphone for a podcast, there’s really
0:12:10 high chance you’re looking for the light thing and for the camera and other things.
0:12:16 And then if you land on a directory that has it all, like it has five categories, like
0:12:24 microphones, speaker, light, camera, and you see that it’s fresh, you see that it’s done
0:12:29 by an expert, and then you click on the expert, and you see that the expert is producing really
0:12:33 good YouTube videos that you really like.
0:12:38 And you’re going to bookmark this place, and you will send it to your friends when anyone
0:12:40 else wants to do the same.
0:12:42 So I think with directories, there’s multiple plays.
0:12:46 So one play is where you just do a side project and you win some traffic, you channel the
0:12:48 traffic into your main project.
0:12:53 But the other way of building directories is to build something that it will turn into
0:12:54 full product.
0:12:58 And in this case, if you target the people who make podcasts, there are a lot of products
0:13:00 you can build on top of this directory.
0:13:06 For example, you can connect the people who sell the services on helping you to make podcasts
0:13:08 and also the guests for the podcast.
0:13:10 There are a lot of things you can sell to this crowd.
0:13:11 Sure.
0:13:17 Yeah, you could have even a directory of the best podcast editing services or something.
0:13:21 And some of these service providers may be hungry for growth, so they would turn around
0:13:22 and sponsor that.
0:13:23 Exactly.
0:13:26 Or they would pay for a featured listing or something, and that’s my directory building
0:13:31 experience is somewhat limited to this virtual assistant site that I had years ago.
0:13:35 And it was directory and review platform for outsourcing companies where to find your best
0:13:37 virtual assistant.
0:13:42 And we didn’t do this right away, but after years of kind of paying attention, well, what
0:13:43 does Yelp do?
0:13:44 What does TripAdvisor do?
0:13:45 It’s like they have the featured listing at the top.
0:13:48 It’s like, no, this is not necessarily based on any algorithms.
0:13:50 It’s based on who paid to advertise there.
0:13:54 And so that’s why we ended up selling a kind of featured listing placement to companies
0:13:56 that were looking for extra leads.
0:13:59 More than they might get organically, and that worked out really well.
0:14:04 So what I’m hearing is, start with what you know or have an interest or curiosity in.
0:14:09 Look what people are searching for using tools like Google Quora, Reddit, trying to figure
0:14:10 out, okay, what’s that?
0:14:12 Looking for a diversity in answers.
0:14:16 If there’s one consensus winner, it’s going to be really hard to build a directory around
0:14:20 that, but looking for diversity of answers and some back and forth debate, that could
0:14:21 be great.
0:14:23 And then maybe like looking for higher commitment decisions.
0:14:26 Maybe Blender’s not a great thing to build the directory around, but if I’m looking for
0:14:30 somebody to edit my podcast, potentially for years and years down the road, okay, that’s
0:14:33 a higher commitment type of decision.
0:14:37 And similar to MVP Wizards, one of yours, people who are going to build out this product
0:14:38 for me.
0:14:42 Top website builders, another one of yours where it’s like the switching costs of trying
0:14:44 to move different platforms pretty high.
0:14:48 So hopefully I get to make the right decision and guide people to the right choice for something
0:14:49 like that.
0:14:53 But John, in just a moment, including how to evaluate the competitive landscape before
0:14:57 you start, and the most important thing you can do to differentiate yourself from that
0:15:00 competition right after this.
0:15:01 Running a business is hard.
0:15:04 If it were easy, everybody would be doing it, right?
0:15:07 You got a to-do list a mile long and a dozen different hats to wear.
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0:16:57 Now, that’s a side hustle I can get excited about because when I’m traveling for work
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0:17:17 Now, you pay any attention to the level of existing competition here, like if I type
0:17:23 in a primary keyword and I see nothing but super, super authoritative websites and household
0:17:26 name brand type of publishers, is that a deterrent?
0:17:29 How do you figure out if there’s still room to play here?
0:17:35 Presently, in this game, really often seeing a competitor is a good sign because you know
0:17:40 that people search for it, you know that Google is actually pouring that directory app.
0:17:44 It also means that you have the chance to, because for some topics, I don’t know why,
0:17:49 but Google never brings directories app and it will always bring the blog posts there.
0:17:57 So I usually expect several directories in the first 20 pages and one thing that will
0:18:01 scare me off is seeing only directories on the first 20 pages.
0:18:05 For example, if you search for AI tools, you will see so many directories that there is
0:18:07 no room there.
0:18:12 But I would say that’s the only topic that you shouldn’t go after, like the only one
0:18:19 because everything else, if there is one winner there, there’s always room to play and I don’t
0:18:23 really look at the competition at all in a negative sense.
0:18:26 I look in a positive sense, like if there’s competition is good.
0:18:31 So it’s just the opposite of a normal business where you’re looking for less competition.
0:18:37 All right, let’s say we’ve got this idea, we want to build it out, maybe it’s the podcast
0:18:42 editors or maybe it’s the dog trainers or it’s something where I’ve got some background
0:18:48 or some level of expertise in and I want to go and build this thing.
0:18:49 What’s your first step?
0:18:52 My first step is to find the idea.
0:18:53 So you have the idea.
0:18:57 The second step is to find the domain name because that’s really important.
0:19:00 If you don’t have a good domain name, it’s really hard to win.
0:19:05 And it takes time to find a good domain name because .com is usually taken for everything
0:19:08 that’s obvious, so you have to be creative.
0:19:14 And in my case, I spent weeks and months looking for domain names, not like every day, but every
0:19:19 day I would spend a few minutes on that and eventually find something.
0:19:22 Like every single time I found something, that was really, really good.
0:19:27 So you find a good domain name and then you find a website builder to build it.
0:19:32 And I really recommend people to use No Code Builders because they have everything out
0:19:36 of the box and you’re not in the business of inventing technology here.
0:19:40 You’re in the business of data and you should focus on data, not on the technology.
0:19:42 Any specific ones that you like?
0:19:47 Yeah, I use my own Unicorn platform, which I pivoted into being a directory builder.
0:19:50 It lets you build a lot of things, but also directories.
0:19:53 So that’s Unicorn platform I use mostly.
0:19:55 But people can use any other tools.
0:19:58 I would say there is no difference between the tools.
0:20:03 So my builder is Taylor for directories, but other builders are also capable of that.
0:20:08 And if you know Webflow or if you know Vex or if you know WordPress, just go for them.
0:20:11 If you don’t know anything, I would recommend using my tool because it’s really good for
0:20:12 directories.
0:20:16 And then once you build that directory, it should take you not more than a day.
0:20:21 Because if it takes you weeks doing that, you’re just putting your focus on wrong things.
0:20:26 It’s really difficult to succeed with anything if you’re not putting your priorities straight
0:20:27 up from the start.
0:20:31 So you have to put it from the start that this is a data project.
0:20:32 This is not a technology project.
0:20:38 So you have to spend 10% of your time on technology and building the thing and 90% of the time
0:20:42 on actual data curation because that’s exactly what’s important.
0:20:50 I’ve seen directories with millions of clicks every month that look like they’re from 90s.
0:20:54 They look really bad, but they have millions of clicks.
0:20:57 The next step for you is to curate the data.
0:21:01 And that’s the most difficult step because you have to find everything in this topic
0:21:06 because usually the people who land on your directory, they know some of the names.
0:21:10 They know because otherwise they wouldn’t be searching for it.
0:21:15 Like imagine you’re looking for websites to book your holiday travel.
0:21:16 That’s a directory.
0:21:19 You open that and you don’t find Airbnb there.
0:21:24 The typical user will quit because they will think like someone who made this has no idea
0:21:26 what he’s doing.
0:21:31 So you have to make sure you have all the big players because that’s what creates trust
0:21:33 for the visitor.
0:21:37 But also you have to have the players which are not big because users came there to find
0:21:38 something they don’t know yet.
0:21:43 So the big players are there not for the clicks, but for the trust and then the rest is there
0:21:45 for the value.
0:21:51 And usually to solve that, I use scrapers or I hire someone for a week.
0:21:57 I give them the task and they just spend every day searching for the items.
0:22:02 They put them into Google Sheet and then I go through the sheet and I just visit every
0:22:08 item and I make sure it’s relevant and it’s new because also it’s not about quantity.
0:22:09 It’s about quality.
0:22:15 You should not put items from 90s like it should look fresh, it should look like it’s
0:22:19 done yesterday because one thing with the director is a lot of the websites on the Internet
0:22:22 are abandoned and you still land on them.
0:22:26 But then once you fill it hasn’t been updated for a long time, you lose interest.
0:22:29 So people have to fill like this is an active project.
0:22:33 So don’t put there some boring, ugly items.
0:22:36 Just make sure that you filter them and you put good stuff there.
0:22:37 And that’s it.
0:22:38 So that’s an interesting point.
0:22:43 It’s not necessarily about building out the yellow pages with like every single business
0:22:44 possible.
0:22:47 It’s like trying to curate the best or the most active.
0:22:48 Yeah.
0:22:49 Well, you have two options.
0:22:54 One, if you go after having everything there, if that’s your value and if your directory
0:22:59 is called all companies in the world, like that’s the name, you have to have them all.
0:23:03 And when people come in there, the first thing they’re going to do is they’re going to test
0:23:08 like people always test places and they will come and they will search for the least known
0:23:12 company in the world to see if you have that and you won’t have that problem.
0:23:15 And then they will think you’re lying and the whole trust is gone.
0:23:20 That’s why if you have that directory, you have to make sure you’re capable of creating
0:23:21 the data.
0:23:22 And it’s really hard.
0:23:25 Like you have to put insane effort to get everything.
0:23:26 Okay.
0:23:30 So instead of so instead of attempting every side hustle or all side hustles, you know,
0:23:35 maybe pivot that to best or top or something like that.
0:23:39 I would pivot that into, you know, like lazy side hustles, for example.
0:23:43 And then you only focus on things that take a little time.
0:23:44 Got it.
0:23:48 For example, like you have to niche it down somehow because if you say best, then why
0:23:49 best?
0:23:50 It’s not easy with best.
0:23:53 A lot of people use best, but I would not recommend best.
0:23:54 Okay.
0:23:58 Another couple of examples came to mind just as we were talking here, the theme forest
0:24:02 and the whole Envato suite of different marketplaces that they have, like theme forest is a marketplace
0:24:04 for different WordPress themes.
0:24:09 So I was very meta, looked for directory WordPress themes and got, you know, that was the top
0:24:13 search result, like into their directory, like, oh, here’s a bunch of WordPress themes
0:24:14 that are good for directories.
0:24:17 Another one that came to mind would be like solar installers.
0:24:20 Like this is a higher ticket type of project.
0:24:23 Like if you want to put these panels on a roof, like who do you trust?
0:24:24 How does it work?
0:24:27 You can go and curate that type of kind of lead generator and then like, it’s built in
0:24:28 monetization.
0:24:31 Like you might have to go make some deals with these companies, but like, I imagine
0:24:36 if it’s a $25,000 install, like they’re probably willing to pay you a little bit for that
0:24:37 lead.
0:24:38 Yeah.
0:24:43 I actually think that the safest way to build directory is to go after really high tickets
0:24:47 like solar or in my case, for example, MVP wizards.
0:24:52 It was really successful having very little traffic because you’ll need a lot.
0:24:58 You can have 100 visitors a day on this directory and you can monetize that really, really well.
0:25:03 If you have a commission system where you get 20% on the money they pay to the vendors
0:25:08 and they pay like 10K, then you get, you know, 2K back and that’s a lot.
0:25:12 So one deal brings you 2K and that’s huge.
0:25:15 So I think that space is really empty.
0:25:19 Like I don’t see a lot of competition there because for some reason the directories mostly
0:25:25 target high traffic niches because I think most directories still go after affiliate
0:25:31 market looking links and channeling the traffic and very few go after high tickets and few
0:25:32 sales.
0:25:37 So I think that would be where I would go if I had nothing going on right now, I would
0:25:38 go there.
0:25:39 Okay.
0:25:40 Yeah.
0:25:42 It doesn’t need a ton of traffic volume or even a ton of search volume.
0:25:47 It’s like you can be the go-to authority in that tiny niche and all of a sudden if you’ve
0:25:51 got the attention and the leads, yeah, people will be happy to pay for that.
0:25:52 Exactly.
0:25:56 You don’t even need the items like with solar power, for example, you can say solar power
0:26:02 in Texas and then you have to just find all who can deliver it in Texas and that’s not
0:26:03 a lot.
0:26:06 You can spend one evening and find them all on the internet and then you put them there
0:26:10 and then the chance that you will score high for those who search for that is really high
0:26:14 because it’s a local search and local search is way easier to win than any other search
0:26:18 because Google really rewards those websites.
0:26:21 Scraping data sounds kind of technical.
0:26:24 Hiring a researcher sounds less technical.
0:26:30 Talk to me about this data curation process because this is the value add in a lot of
0:26:31 ways.
0:26:34 And then adding your own, I guess, insight expertise to layer on top of that.
0:26:39 But like to first collect the meat and potatoes, the listings themselves in the directory.
0:26:41 That’s kind of the hard part here.
0:26:42 Exactly.
0:26:46 You should do it yourself first so that you understand where to find them.
0:26:51 You understand how to evaluate them because if you hire somebody to do that or you scrape
0:26:56 and you still have to read through all the items and make sure that they have, like you
0:27:01 have to put some categories, tags, and you have to make sure that the description is
0:27:06 roughly the same size so that you don’t want to have one item with one sentence and the
0:27:10 other has a book in it because you want to have a similar thing there.
0:27:15 So I think you should spend a few days yourself just doing that and collect first 50 or 100
0:27:16 items yourself.
0:27:20 I always done that, but I always did that for every directory I have.
0:27:25 And once you understand it really well, just write the spec for it, like where to search,
0:27:29 what to look for, and how to describe it, et cetera.
0:27:32 And then the job is easy to outsource to people too.
0:27:38 So you would go to place like app work, for example, and you would put your entry there.
0:27:43 You would pay a few hundred dollars for that and somebody would do the job for you.
0:27:48 What kind of data points are you going to make sure to collect in that initial research
0:27:49 phase?
0:27:50 I start really small.
0:27:55 I go for title, URL, and description, and the category.
0:28:00 I even skip the logo and the images because I think it is not that important.
0:28:07 And then later, I just enrich the data I have once I see the director is working out.
0:28:12 But at the first, at the initial stage, it makes more sense to put more effort into finding
0:28:18 more items and putting some time into writing descriptions because I write them myself.
0:28:20 And that’s very interesting.
0:28:23 So if you don’t write them yourself, there’s a problem.
0:28:24 They all will look the same.
0:28:29 Like, for example, you have a microphone and they will all say, “Good microphone works
0:28:30 best for podcasts.”
0:28:35 And then you find 100 of those and they all have the same text on them and it works great
0:28:37 for podcasts and everybody loves it.
0:28:38 No value, right?
0:28:45 So your job is to simplify the suffering for the users because they have unlimited choice
0:28:47 and they want to pick one.
0:28:52 And that’s why I look at all of them and I try to come up with descriptions to actually
0:28:54 differentiate them.
0:28:59 This one is the smallest microphone or the cheapest microphone or the microphone that
0:29:03 works well when there’s noise around, etc.
0:29:08 Because some microphones have that option where you can have a cheapest, biggest, smallest,
0:29:09 etc.
0:29:10 Some don’t have that.
0:29:15 But for them, you just say something like, “It’s rather good value for money.”
0:29:20 And then for others, you say, “It’s durable, it lasts for 10 years.”
0:29:23 But if you’re not pro, maybe go for something cheaper.
0:29:29 So I’m kind of like a reviewer who reviews every item based on everything I find about
0:29:34 the item on the Internet and then I put fuel lines on every item on the directory so that
0:29:37 you don’t have to do that work I’ve done.
0:29:41 So I’m compressing my work and making it easy for you to pick the right one.
0:29:42 Okay.
0:29:47 And this is, like one of my earlier projects was a, I guess you could call it a directory
0:29:48 for footwear.
0:29:50 It was like, “Where can you find the best price on your next pair of shoes?”
0:29:55 But in that case, it was affiliate-driven and so the retailers would happily give you
0:30:00 their product catalogs and so you could mash all of that data into one central database.
0:30:05 And then the challenge became kind of normalizing it where there wasn’t a hard SKU or product
0:30:09 ID across every different store that carried the same product.
0:30:13 And so we had to kind of develop our own type of algorithm to compare this product to this
0:30:15 product and make sure it was really the same.
0:30:18 And what kind of common words were we going to ignore and which ones were we going to
0:30:22 say like, “Okay, this is actually the same thing and this is the price.”
0:30:24 But that’s kind of the value add here.
0:30:31 I think you had a good term normalizing the data and I think most directories bring that
0:30:37 as the key value because most potential directories or the niches, they don’t have that, nobody
0:30:39 has ever done that.
0:30:41 And just doing that is huge value.
0:30:47 And if you’re looking for the idea, that’s one way to evaluate the potential, like if
0:30:53 that’s not done in the space, then it’s something you should do because if you do something that
0:30:59 doesn’t exist, like in my case, for example, with all GPTs, what happened is that it didn’t
0:31:02 exist when I created it.
0:31:06 And then you win all the traffic from Google because people search for something and there’s
0:31:08 nothing except you there.
0:31:12 And even if you’re on the page number five, people will find you because they’re looking
0:31:14 for a specific thing.
0:31:19 People always say to me like, “Probably the directory thing has too many people in it
0:31:23 and every directory that could be created has been created.”
0:31:27 Like 9% are not created yet, 99%.
0:31:31 Every day when I search for new directories, I find so many that I don’t know how I will
0:31:36 ever build them all, at least 10 per day.
0:31:40 Now I’m actually giving away these ideas because I have no time to build them all.
0:31:47 And if it already exists, find a way to differentiate it in some way, make a pivot to niche it down,
0:31:49 to serve a different market.
0:31:54 The advice that stood out several years ago on the show from Jon Lee Dumas was like, “Hey,
0:31:59 when I started Entrepreneurs on Fire, I was the best daily entrepreneur interview podcast.
0:32:04 I was the worst daily entrepreneur interview podcast because I was the only to be the
0:32:06 best worst and only.”
0:32:10 Like if you can be a market of one, if you can be the only, it can be a really powerful
0:32:11 place to play.
0:32:16 More with Jon in just a moment, including the role of AI in your directory project and
0:32:22 marketing and monetizing the thing to start making some money right after this.
0:32:27 Tell me about the role of AI in either this data curation or this.
0:32:31 I feel like there’s got to be a way to excel because I spent nine years like building out
0:32:35 this virtual assistant directory and every time like trying to come up with new, what
0:32:39 new companies launched this month and like, should they be included here and then hiring
0:32:42 somebody to go research them and interviewing the founders?
0:32:46 Like it was very tedious and time-consuming and there’s got to be a way to accelerate
0:32:47 this stuff today.
0:32:52 AI makes it way easier to run directories because AI can normalize the data, AI can
0:32:57 look at all the items and extract certain properties of those items.
0:33:02 For the business ideas directory, AI could say like, you probably should add a column
0:33:05 of difficulty, like how difficult is the idea?
0:33:12 And I always use AI for that because it’s, AI is really good at looking at the big picture,
0:33:17 looking at a lot of data and extracting certain common properties.
0:33:23 I just take the data as CSV file and I just paste it into the chapter and I ask questions
0:33:29 like what columns should I add so that people could filter on those columns and then what
0:33:38 are the categories I should use to categorize this list and sometimes I ask it to shorten
0:33:43 all descriptions, for example, because I wrote long ones and just made them all roughly the
0:33:45 same size and it helps a lot.
0:33:50 So I don’t think I would even near where I am now without AI, like there are tools that
0:33:54 help you to find the data, there are tools that help you to enrich the data like this
0:33:58 AI agents, but I wouldn’t use them if you’re building just one directory.
0:34:02 So I use them myself because I have a lot of directories and but if you’re building just
0:34:04 one directory, I would not use AI too much.
0:34:10 So I would probably stay with Chatchapati and just use it as an assistant, but still you
0:34:15 have to run the show because one problem with AI is that it makes things look average.
0:34:22 So if I use AI and you use AI, our products will look very similar, very similar.
0:34:27 And if you’re as a human, you’re below average, then AI is better than you.
0:34:31 But if you’re better than average, then you’ll look better than AI.
0:34:32 Okay.
0:34:39 So what I’m hearing is starting pretty lean and basic with as few data columns as possible
0:34:45 and then once it gets traction, then it’s adding on going back, doing the additional
0:34:49 research, adding the logos and the images and the extra columns that people might want
0:34:53 to filter on and all of that other stuff.
0:34:57 But only after, okay, I’m starting to see some interest in this, I’m starting to see
0:34:58 some initial traction.
0:35:03 Like, what are you doing outside of just relying on SEO, like, oh, build it and they’ll come,
0:35:07 anything you’re doing proactively to, you know, to breathe some life, to get some algorithms
0:35:10 churning in your favor, to get some traffic to these things?
0:35:11 Yeah.
0:35:16 You have to because Google will not respect your website if there are no backlinks.
0:35:18 It will ignore it completely.
0:35:21 So you have to find backlinks and to find backlinks, there are a few ways.
0:35:26 So the first thing you have to do is you have to go to places where people ask for this,
0:35:31 for example, the Quora article or Reddit article where people ask for those microphones,
0:35:32 for example.
0:35:37 And then you go there and you say, hey, I build a directory for the microphones, just
0:35:38 check it out.
0:35:44 And the interesting thing is that the directory is the only type of business that you can
0:35:50 just plug your URLs into replies and nobody getting hate for that.
0:35:51 Because it is a value add.
0:35:52 Somebody did all this work for me.
0:35:53 Yeah.
0:35:54 Like, really?
0:35:55 Because it’s free.
0:35:56 Yeah.
0:35:57 Because it’s a free product, right?
0:35:59 Because there is no paywall there.
0:36:03 And I’ve never had even once the case where people said, like, why are you bringing the
0:36:04 URL here?
0:36:05 Yeah.
0:36:08 Because on Reddit, it’s really hard to put URLs, but this one is fine.
0:36:13 So you go to Reddit, you go to Quora, you go to social media, Twitter, LinkedIn, and
0:36:19 you find hundreds of places where people talk about that and then you place your URL there,
0:36:20 but you don’t spam it.
0:36:22 You just try to answer the questions.
0:36:28 For example, the tweet says, what’s the best microphone for podcasts?
0:36:34 And then you say, hey, I have directory with all the microphones, and I think these three
0:36:36 are good based on, like, whatever.
0:36:42 So you do a little work for them in the text so that it doesn’t look like automated reply.
0:36:47 And then you say, but you can go and look for yourself on my directory if you want to
0:36:48 learn more about it.
0:36:52 And it works really well because you gave a little bit of value and some just use that
0:36:55 and then others will click and learn more.
0:37:00 And that part is probably the most important part of the directory because you get backlinks
0:37:03 from those replies.
0:37:08 It’s not like reply giving you a backlink for Google, it’s just when you reply, somebody
0:37:15 sees your link and then there’s a high chance that people will link to your URL from their
0:37:17 blog article or from somewhere else.
0:37:20 That’s your hope being present in the social media discussions.
0:37:21 Got it.
0:37:22 Got it.
0:37:23 So it’s user generated content.
0:37:28 It’s probably going to be a no follow link, but by virtue of being visible on these, especially
0:37:32 Reddit and Quora too, but like all these sites that already have a bunch of search traffic
0:37:36 that if people are looking for this thing, you have expanded your surface area of opportunity
0:37:40 of luck where other people can find it and get traffic both from the thing directly and
0:37:45 from other people now linking to you in editorial content with hopefully a do follow link.
0:37:46 Yeah, exactly.
0:37:48 So that’s the thing about directories.
0:37:52 Directories are by design made in a way to be shared by others.
0:37:57 So you have to do very little for others to share your directory, very little.
0:38:01 Like with SaaS, it’s difficult because every SaaS, it has payroll and it has a million
0:38:07 competitors, but with directories, it’s usually not the case and people both share and link
0:38:11 to it a lot, but you have to show it to the world.
0:38:15 So you show it through replies on social media and Reddit.
0:38:18 And then if you have good directory, the rest happens.
0:38:23 If nothing happens, then you know why, because directories are not good enough.
0:38:25 And often that’s the case.
0:38:30 Like if you build your first directory, I have this directory guide community where
0:38:32 I guide people on building directories.
0:38:36 And it’s really interesting to watch how people build and how they approach it.
0:38:42 And most people put such a little time, it almost feels like in school when you want
0:38:48 to pass with a little effort possible and get that whatever grade you get and go to
0:38:49 next year.
0:38:53 So I think a lot of people have that kind of mentality to business too, but with directories,
0:38:58 you have to be really putting your heart into it because people can feel that it’s really
0:39:05 easy to judge directory and understand whether somebody put time into it or not.
0:39:10 Because if you are a user of the directory, you understand what you’re searching for.
0:39:13 You understand what you need, you understand the space slightly.
0:39:14 So it’s really easy to judge.
0:39:18 That’s why there’s no chance you can make bad directory and it will score.
0:39:23 But at the same time, also there’s a small chance to make a good directory that nobody
0:39:25 going to link to or share.
0:39:28 So it’s really fair space.
0:39:31 I’ve got dozens of ideas of like, oh shoot, we can build this.
0:39:32 You can build it.
0:39:34 Like, and to me, that’s the mark of a good episode.
0:39:36 So I’m sorry to pause the detail.
0:39:37 It’s like, I’ve taken notes.
0:39:38 I’ve got it like.
0:39:39 That’s good.
0:39:42 It’s really cool to just kind of spark this and kind of broaden the definition of what
0:39:44 it could be.
0:39:47 And there’s limitless, niche is limitless potential here.
0:39:49 I think it’s really, really cool the stuff you can do.
0:39:54 So going back to the marketing stuff, it was this first wave of backlinks and mentioned
0:39:58 was from this user generated content answering people’s questions.
0:40:02 What happens and hopefully getting some positive word of mouth from that.
0:40:03 Anything else?
0:40:04 What happens next?
0:40:08 There are very few things you have to do is rather you have to repeat the same thing.
0:40:11 So you have to repeat the work on data every day.
0:40:14 And that that’s the thing like a lot of people asking what’s the next often.
0:40:20 And I say like, do the same thing again, better data, more data, improve the data at the data,
0:40:25 find more content on the internet where people talk about it, plug it in because internet
0:40:26 is not static.
0:40:27 It’s dynamic.
0:40:33 And every day there is new stuff there and also create your own content to like, you have
0:40:37 a lot of items and there are a million ways of creating articles out of it.
0:40:42 For example, best microphones for that and like you can make all those listicles that
0:40:44 others do as well.
0:40:48 And since you have the data, you can use the data to like, for example, if you have data
0:40:53 on clicks or something like that, you can have an article saying that the most popular
0:40:57 microphones this month on my directory.
0:41:01 And nobody knows your directory, but people will think you have a cool directory because
0:41:07 there’s an article that uses your director as, you know, when, when you say Craig list,
0:41:08 it’s a brand.
0:41:12 And if you use your director and name the same way, it will be like a brand too.
0:41:15 And it’s not a brand at the start, but if you behave like a brand and you create articles,
0:41:16 it’ll work.
0:41:21 And then you also find all the articles on the internet that talk about this and you contact
0:41:26 the, the author and you tell them that you have this directory and if they want to link
0:41:27 to it.
0:41:32 And often they will say yes, because it will improve their article by linking to your directory,
0:41:34 they will improve it and they will do it.
0:41:39 So basically you have to hunt for more backlinks because SEO game is your game and SEO has two
0:41:40 factors.
0:41:41 One is backlinks.
0:41:42 The other is the content.
0:41:46 That’s why improve the content every day and make the articles.
0:41:49 And then the other thing you can do, you can create little tools.
0:41:54 For example, if it’s a microphone, you can have a little tool that tests the microphone
0:41:57 if it’s working or not, or so something like that.
0:42:01 And it’s easy to make those tools because you can either pay somebody a few hundred
0:42:05 bucks for that, or you can just use AI generators and create a tool.
0:42:11 So and those tools are pretty cool because if your directory is having items, blog articles,
0:42:18 and also the little tools about the same space, then when the visitor comes in, they have this
0:42:23 feeling that you put effort, you’re an expert, you know what you’re talking about and you’re
0:42:26 serious because most directors are not like that.
0:42:31 And also there’s really high chance to be linked to, like you take this link and you
0:42:36 go to all articles talking about microphones and you say, look, I also have a link to test
0:42:38 and you can link people to this.
0:42:40 So that’s kind of the boring part of the job.
0:42:42 So you have to just do this little things every day.
0:42:47 And do you have an example of a tool that worked for you on one of yours?
0:42:48 Yeah.
0:42:52 For example, I built this tool to test a website for Brooklyn links.
0:42:55 I built it with AI in like half an hour.
0:43:01 So you put URL there and it tells you if there are any Brooklyn links on this URL, it just
0:43:02 looks at the whole page.
0:43:08 So that one, and a lot of small tools like that where where mostly you enter something,
0:43:11 you click something and then something else happens, right?
0:43:17 It can be a calculator, it can be a generator, and et cetera.
0:43:22 And now it’s the best, like now it takes less time to create the tool than write an article
0:43:27 because all this AI generators for code, they will work really well.
0:43:30 You don’t have to be a coder for using them.
0:43:31 Fascinating.
0:43:35 On the monetization side, we talked a little bit about sponsored listings or even like,
0:43:37 you know, the title sponsor of the entire directory.
0:43:42 We’ve talked about kind of a lead generation model, especially for high ticket services
0:43:46 where, you know, if it’s, you know, a multi-thousand dollar solar install or something, yeah, we’ll
0:43:51 pay you for that lead to strike up those partnerships, we talked kind of on the affiliate side, more
0:43:55 traditional product affiliate marketing, you know, best blenders, best podcast mics, type
0:43:56 of stuff.
0:43:59 Anything else that we should know about on the monetization side?
0:44:02 Once this thing is built, once it’s got some traffic interaction.
0:44:03 Yeah.
0:44:05 So there are two ways of monetizing.
0:44:08 So one is by using technology and one is by using sales.
0:44:13 So by using sales, you can just sell the ads, you can sell the data.
0:44:15 So one, you can sell the ads to anyone.
0:44:19 It doesn’t have to be somebody who owns these items.
0:44:21 It can be anyone who’s interested in the audience.
0:44:27 Like if it’s microphones, you can sell ads for those who sell with light, right, because
0:44:29 it’s the same audience.
0:44:31 And I usually do that really very often.
0:44:35 And then the other way is to, is to have paid listings.
0:44:41 So you don’t let anyone list anything on the directory and you charge them something for
0:44:42 listing.
0:44:46 It works really well if your directory is large and you expect a lot of people listing
0:44:48 things there, like yellow pages.
0:44:54 And then you have these freemium directories where you show something and then you hide
0:44:55 something else.
0:44:58 So it can’t be anything, it’s kind of a gamification.
0:45:01 So you either show all the items and you hide the rest.
0:45:04 You show 100 and then you hide the 500.
0:45:06 Or you have categories.
0:45:11 For example, you have, if it’s cars, like the cars that are cheaper than 30K, you can
0:45:12 view them.
0:45:14 And if it’s more expensive, you have to pay.
0:45:18 No, I forget the name of the company, but it was like industry research reports with
0:45:23 a show you like a little bit of the data, but then some of it is grayed out and you
0:45:25 got to pay them the 29.95.
0:45:26 That’s the step it is.
0:45:27 Yeah.
0:45:28 Maybe it was that way.
0:45:29 Yeah.
0:45:31 Whereas, you know, if you want the full report, you can, you can pay us for it.
0:45:32 Yeah.
0:45:33 They do really well with that.
0:45:38 Like I pay them and I can imagine how much money they make because they charge a lot.
0:45:44 So you have to gamify so that people get some value out of your directory for free.
0:45:50 And maybe even the first time they come, they are satisfied, but then they come their third
0:45:53 or fifth time and then they will pay to see more.
0:45:57 It can be either items or it can be the metadata of the item.
0:46:01 For example, you see all the items, but you don’t see reviews or you don’t see the contact
0:46:02 information.
0:46:05 In some cases, the contact information can be hidden.
0:46:09 So that’s really common on job boards where it’s like, hey, you know, we’ll show you the,
0:46:13 you know, the profile and some of the skills and qualifications.
0:46:17 And if you want to be able to actually contact this person for an interview or hire this person,
0:46:18 then you’re going to have to pay us.
0:46:19 Exactly.
0:46:24 Anything around humans going to work that way, like if it’s a marketplace for skills or jobs
0:46:27 or anything, then you have humans, then you have their contact information.
0:46:33 You can hide that and charge for every click or charge subscription and then show it completely.
0:46:39 And then the other way is to let businesses claim their, their items.
0:46:46 So you add items with really poor metadata and then you email all the owners like, like
0:46:49 intentionally poor, like not, not bad, but poor, right?
0:46:51 So you just put title and that’s it.
0:46:52 For example, okay.
0:46:53 Just not super complete.
0:46:54 Got it.
0:46:55 So it’s still there.
0:46:56 Yeah.
0:46:57 Exactly.
0:47:01 So it’s still there that if anyone is looking for items in this directory, they would probably
0:47:04 ignore the one that has only title, but they can still click on it.
0:47:08 And for the sake of quantity, you have it all for the sake of trust.
0:47:09 You have them all too.
0:47:12 If I know that item and I see the title, I’m happy.
0:47:13 It’s there.
0:47:14 Okay.
0:47:15 And then you email all the owners.
0:47:20 And I think this is probably the strategy that will make you most money at the start.
0:47:26 So you just find all the owners, you email them and you say, Hey, your item has 20 people
0:47:28 viewing it last week.
0:47:29 Do you want to improve the listing?
0:47:31 Like right now it’s this.
0:47:32 Yeah.
0:47:33 And do you want to improve it?
0:47:38 Add images, add tags, add contact information and the link to your website or something
0:47:39 like that.
0:47:44 Then click here and claim the item and pay for it.
0:47:45 And then it’s verified as well.
0:47:50 So you just list the perks, it’s verified with a check mark, your contact information
0:47:51 is there.
0:47:54 And the link is do follow because that’s important very often.
0:47:55 Got it.
0:47:59 There’s so many different directions that this type of project can go and what you could
0:48:04 build and how it can make money and how you can get traffic and it’s just lots of different
0:48:07 niches and ideas spin around in my head.
0:48:13 Anything stand out to you as far as mistakes to avoid or common problems because you’ve
0:48:17 built dozens of these things and by your own admission, not all of them work.
0:48:23 So does the hit rate improve over time or what do you see as mistakes to avoid for new
0:48:24 directory builders?
0:48:29 Well, one thing use short names in the domain name.
0:48:30 Interesting.
0:48:34 The shorter the name, the higher is the traffic in my directories.
0:48:37 There’s like direct correlation between traffic and the name.
0:48:43 Because when you’re looking for a good name that has high traffic on Google, often it’s
0:48:48 something out of few words and it’s long and don’t go for that.
0:48:52 So don’t do the best places to go and eat sushi.
0:48:54 Like that’s too long.
0:48:58 Yeah, something six words.info and like that and up.
0:48:59 Yeah, exactly.
0:49:04 So buy only.com or org like these two.
0:49:05 Only these two work for me.
0:49:07 The rest didn’t work even with short names.
0:49:08 Yeah.
0:49:09 I guess.org sounds authoritative.
0:49:15 Like, hey, we’re building the go to database directory in this niche and we got the .org
0:49:16 to prove it.
0:49:17 Yes.
0:49:18 Yeah.
0:49:19 Sometimes the org is better than com.
0:49:24 Or get nerds or technical people or like the people who actually like that domain.
0:49:27 You don’t have to be like a registered non-profit or anything.
0:49:29 It’s just like anybody can register it.
0:49:30 Right.
0:49:31 Exactly.
0:49:32 Exactly.
0:49:34 But you suddenly look like non-profit and that’s why I should trust you more when you
0:49:35 have the org.
0:49:36 Right.
0:49:43 But both work really well and more like a business level mistakes were that I didn’t
0:49:49 put enough attention into thinking through the directory because like it’s from one head
0:49:53 directory is something simple that lists all the items in the space.
0:49:59 But you still have to have this while moment where people enter it and they fall in love
0:50:00 with it.
0:50:05 For example, when I launched all GPT, the reason people loved it, there was one clear
0:50:13 reason why I won that game and it was there were 30K GPTs, 30,000 GPTs on the internet.
0:50:14 It’s a lot.
0:50:15 Right.
0:50:16 How can you pick one?
0:50:18 There were no reviews, no ratings, nothing.
0:50:24 And if I put that on my directory, I won’t have enough data to rank on them too.
0:50:30 So I was thinking like I have to figure out how to sort this huge list because every type
0:50:33 of GPT had 100 clones.
0:50:35 Whatever you type, it has 100 options.
0:50:36 Which one do you choose?
0:50:43 I invented this really simple hack where I went to Google and I counted the number of
0:50:48 backlinks to every GPT in a rank based on them.
0:50:52 Because the more backlinks you have, the better GPT probably.
0:50:54 Like there has to be some correlation.
0:50:59 And if you made a clone of somebody’s GPT, it was clear.
0:51:03 Like for example, you search for math teacher, for example.
0:51:09 And then one item has 500 backlinks and other has zero.
0:51:14 It’s obvious that the other one is like not used by anyone, it’s probably not even good.
0:51:19 And when I did that, suddenly the first page of my directory was so good.
0:51:25 You come there and you try something and you see somebody put time into this GPT.
0:51:31 And when you make a directory, you have to really think hard on what can you do that
0:51:34 people try it and they say, wow, it’s cool.
0:51:39 And in my case, people loved it so much that they went on Twitter and they started sharing
0:51:40 it.
0:51:41 So I did nothing.
0:51:45 So I literally just launched it and it went to sleep and I woke up and it was the most
0:51:46 popular directory in the world.
0:51:47 So why?
0:51:53 Because some people saw it, I made a tweet, but it was a small tweet and some people tried
0:51:57 it, liked it, shared it and then it was network effect because it was good.
0:52:00 And with some other directories, I didn’t do that.
0:52:05 I just collected items and I made it okay, but it was not great.
0:52:09 So I think one thing people should really understand is that like directors are easy
0:52:13 to build, but it’s really hard to make it great.
0:52:19 Every directory I didn’t put enough time into failed, or in my case, I don’t say it’s failed.
0:52:21 It’s just in get enough traffic.
0:52:25 And now I have to go back and do the real work so that it’s actually a good directory.
0:52:26 Yeah.
0:52:29 I love that line, easy to build, hard to make it great.
0:52:33 I think that’s a metaphor for so many different side hustles and so many different businesses
0:52:37 where it’s like the motivation is so strong early on, you get the thing going, but then
0:52:41 to really have that marketing flywheel start to spin, it’s got to be great.
0:52:42 Exactly.
0:52:48 You know, to capture people’s attention and get them to do some of that marketing on your
0:52:52 behalf, how to turn one user into two, have them spread the word, it’s got to be really
0:52:54 a strong product.
0:52:59 And that’s the challenging part in turning through the data and sprinkling in your own
0:53:04 industry knowledge and expertise to make it something that is really worthwhile.
0:53:05 I’m excited.
0:53:10 Like I mentioned, dozens of different ideas spin it around as a result of this conversation.
0:53:11 What’s next for you?
0:53:12 You got all these SaaS projects.
0:53:13 You got all these directories.
0:53:16 You got the directory guide at johnrush.me.
0:53:17 What’s got you excited these days?
0:53:24 I really like to help others build businesses on the internet and it just feels so good
0:53:31 when I see someone launching a directory that’s built on my website builder that’s using
0:53:37 my blog generator and the founder has read my directory guide.
0:53:40 So I’ll just do more of that.
0:53:45 And I think my whole mission is to build tools and guides for founders.
0:53:51 So now I launched one more guide called founder guide, where it’s not just the directories,
0:53:52 but it’s the other things too.
0:53:57 How to build SaaS projects, micro SaaS projects, no good platforms.
0:54:00 And I’m launching more products to help the founders.
0:54:04 For example, I’m launching one product specifically for directories.
0:54:07 It’s basically an AI agent that does the curation work for you.
0:54:13 You still have to help it and you have to moderate it, but it does the scraping of the internet.
0:54:18 It does the enrichment of the data and it finds the emails of the items and then it helps
0:54:21 you send them an email to claim the item.
0:54:24 So basically I’m trying to automate the whole directory thing for myself because I have
0:54:29 more than 20 and I don’t have resources to run them all and I want to automate it.
0:54:33 And when I automate it for myself, I basically automate it for the others too.
0:54:34 Well, very good.
0:54:37 We’ve got the founders guide on top of the directory guide.
0:54:38 We’ll link up all this stuff.
0:54:42 One platform was the directory builder platform of John’s.
0:54:44 We’ll link all this stuff up in the show notes for you.
0:54:48 All you got to do is follow the show notes link in the episode description and I’ll get
0:54:49 you right over there.
0:54:50 John, this has been awesome.
0:54:52 Thank you so much for stopping by.
0:54:56 Let’s wrap this up with your number one tip for side hustle nation.
0:55:03 Enjoy the process, not the outcome because it takes way longer than anyone expects or
0:55:04 anyone says.
0:55:09 And for me, personally, it took more than 10 years to get to a place where I could
0:55:12 build things and make money on them.
0:55:17 So I think if you start this and expect to make money in a few months or a few weeks,
0:55:19 you’re going to have difficult times.
0:55:20 So well, come on.
0:55:24 That’s, you know, where’s the clickbait headline in that, you know, it took 10 years.
0:55:25 Exactly.
0:55:28 So I say things people don’t want to hear, but I think the only thing you have to be
0:55:36 focused as a startup founder or somebody doing side hustles is just be better than yourself.
0:55:40 Today you have to be better than yesterday and just try to learn because the business
0:55:45 in side hustle is no different than musical instrument or sport.
0:55:48 Like there is no secret to become good at sport.
0:55:51 You have to just do a lot of the sport.
0:55:55 And I think exactly same goes with side hustles or businesses.
0:56:00 You have to learn, you have to learn to sell, learn to build, learn to design, learn to
0:56:03 market and it takes years to do that.
0:56:06 That’s why look at this as learning.
0:56:11 And then as a side effect of this, one day, you know, you will get great results.
0:56:13 Be better today than yesterday.
0:56:15 Enjoy the process.
0:56:19 Wise words from John Rush, a couple takeaways from me before we wrap.
0:56:25 I liked the section on niche research first, trying to come up with maybe even a potential
0:56:30 monetization model before you go into it, looking at the existing competition and seeing
0:56:35 if there are already directories ranking, which, you know, an earlier me would have
0:56:36 been discouraged by that.
0:56:39 But no, John says, hey, that’s actually a positive sign that Google is rewarding and
0:56:40 ranking.
0:56:44 If I can build something that is better, that’s differentiated in some way, then there’s a
0:56:46 chance to compete and win there.
0:56:52 I like the, you know, speed of execution part, this like, you know, quick launch, quick validation.
0:56:56 Like, look, if nobody likes a thing, then either back to the drawing board or try something
0:56:57 new.
0:56:58 Like maybe that just wasn’t good enough.
0:57:02 And I liked your line about, look, AI makes things look average.
0:57:03 Don’t be average.
0:57:07 You got to love the niche, fall in love with this problem and really build something that
0:57:14 is great, that is worthy of traffic and attention in an era of really fragmented attention.
0:57:15 So build something that’s great.
0:57:17 AI makes things look average.
0:57:18 Don’t be average.
0:57:21 Whether you’re a first-time listener or a long-time listener, thank you so much for
0:57:23 tuning in to The Side Hustle Show.
0:57:28 If you’re wondering what to listen to next, make sure to build your own personalized playlist.
0:57:33 How it works is you go to hustle.show, you answer a few multiple-choice questions, takes
0:57:38 a couple minutes, you can do it on your phone, and it’ll spit back out a custom curated playlist
0:57:43 based on your answers for the Side Hustles or the episodes, eight to 10 episodes that
0:57:49 will hopefully be most impactful and insightful and actionable for you based on where you’re
0:57:50 at, where you want to go.
0:57:52 Again, that’s hustle.show.
0:57:55 Big thanks to John for sharing his insight today.
0:57:58 Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone.
0:58:04 You can hit up sidehustlenation.com/deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in
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0:58:07 Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show.
0:58:08 That is it for me.
0:58:10 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:58:13 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen, and I’ll catch you in the
0:58:15 next edition of The Side Hustle Show.