Nick Loper: Side Hustle Secrets Every Aspiring Entrepreneur Needs to Know | E323

0:00:03 Today’s episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify,
0:00:05 Found and Airbnb.
0:00:07 Shopify is the global commerce platform
0:00:09 that helps you grow your business.
0:00:12 Sign up for a $1 per month trial period
0:00:14 at Shopify.com/profiting.
0:00:17 Found gives you banking, invoicing, and bookkeeping
0:00:21 all in one place and was created for busy entrepreneurs.
0:00:25 Try Found for free at found.com/profiting.
0:00:28 Hosting on Airbnb has never been easier
0:00:30 with Airbnb’s new co-host network.
0:00:34 Find yourself a co-host at Airbnb.com/host.
0:00:36 As always, you can find all of our incredible deals
0:00:41 in the show notes or at youngandprofiting.com/deals.
0:00:44 You’re one layoff away or one bad meeting away
0:00:45 from having your income go to zero.
0:00:47 That’s a really stressful way to live.
0:00:50 The realm of potential side hustles
0:00:52 has expanded in the last 10 years.
0:00:56 You are famous for having a lot of side hustles.
0:00:58 What are some side hustles that do well
0:00:59 in tough economic times?
0:01:01 My very first side hustle was–
0:01:05 How do you think AI is transforming the side hustle world?
0:01:07 It has improved certain processes,
0:01:08 has made things more efficient,
0:01:10 but you don’t entrepreneur is somebody
0:01:11 who jumps off the cliff and figures out
0:01:13 how to build their parachute on the way down.
0:01:15 What side hustles allow you to do
0:01:16 is just reduce the height of the cliff.
0:01:18 Even if you don’t have a side hustle,
0:01:19 even if you don’t have a business,
0:01:21 you are the CEO of your own life.
0:01:23 Stop shipping a thing anymore.
0:01:24 Whoa.
0:01:26 (wind blowing)
0:01:31 (gentle music)
0:01:41 – Yep, and welcome back to the show.
0:01:43 And today’s episode is especially
0:01:47 for my entrepreneur newbies and wannabes
0:01:51 because we are lasering in on the topic of side hustles.
0:01:53 Side hustles are very popular nowadays.
0:01:55 It seems like everybody has a side hustle.
0:01:57 And of course they do,
0:02:00 because side hustles enable security and freedom
0:02:01 and allow you to follow your passion
0:02:03 while making money.
0:02:05 Who wouldn’t love having a side hustle?
0:02:09 I actually started Yap Media as a side hustle six years ago.
0:02:12 And I’m so happy that I dedicated the time and effort
0:02:15 it took to get this side business off the ground
0:02:16 because now it’s my main hustle
0:02:20 and I make millions of dollars a year off of this business.
0:02:22 And I have so much security and freedom
0:02:23 and live in my dream.
0:02:25 So side hustles are awesome.
0:02:27 I’m an advocate of side hustles.
0:02:29 Nick Loper is a side hustle expert.
0:02:31 He is the side hustle king.
0:02:33 He knows everything about side hustles.
0:02:34 He’s had so many side hustles himself.
0:02:36 He’s been blogging about side hustles
0:02:40 for over a decade now at the side hustle nation.
0:02:43 He’s also the host of the very popular podcast
0:02:44 called the side hustle show.
0:02:46 And he interviews people with really unique
0:02:49 and cool side hustle ideas all the time.
0:02:50 So he’s a wealth of information.
0:02:53 He’s got so much to share on how we can create
0:02:56 and execute a very successful side hustle.
0:03:00 Let’s dive right into my conversation with Nick Loper.
0:03:02 Nick, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.
0:03:03 – Happy to be back.
0:03:05 Thanks for having me.
0:03:05 – Of course.
0:03:09 So fun fact, I was looking back in the archives
0:03:12 and I realized that you came on the podcast
0:03:15 back in 2018, episode 10.
0:03:18 You were one of the first podcasters and people in general
0:03:20 that I’ve ever interviewed.
0:03:22 And I think it’s just so awesome
0:03:24 because you were somebody that I looked up to
0:03:26 and now everything is so full circle
0:03:30 because I’m not only interviewing you again on the podcast.
0:03:32 You’re in my podcast network.
0:03:33 We work together.
0:03:37 And so I just feel like it’s just a beautiful moment right now.
0:03:38 – Well, it was one of these things
0:03:42 where I think you reached out, whatever that was, 2017, 2018.
0:03:45 And it’s like, this girl’s a go getter.
0:03:46 She’s going places.
0:03:49 But I just want to watch this journey
0:03:51 and it’s been really inspiring to see
0:03:55 what you’ve built starting as a side project
0:03:58 and into this media behemoth conglomerate
0:04:00 that you got going on now.
0:04:00 – Thank you.
0:04:01 I really appreciate that.
0:04:03 I appreciate you taking a chance on me.
0:04:07 And so when we first spoke in 2018,
0:04:09 side households was not necessarily new
0:04:11 but it was becoming this trend.
0:04:14 And we were talking about the gig economy.
0:04:17 And we were talking about remote work
0:04:19 and the future of remote work,
0:04:22 not even realizing that two years later,
0:04:25 everything would accelerate with COVID.
0:04:27 And so my first question to you is,
0:04:29 give us the evolution of side hustles.
0:04:30 How did it start?
0:04:32 When did it start to pick up steam
0:04:33 and where are we at now?
0:04:36 – Yeah, I don’t think it’s a new concept by any means.
0:04:38 I think previous generations would have called it
0:04:40 moonlighting or having a second job.
0:04:43 And it might have looked like bartending on the weekends
0:04:46 or delivering pizzas or having a rental property.
0:04:49 But the realm of potential side hustle
0:04:51 says absolutely expanded in the last 10 years
0:04:55 with the rise of peer-to-peer gig economy type of apps,
0:04:56 plug and play, side hustles.
0:04:59 I would sign up for Uber and go drive around
0:05:01 or do DoorDash and stuff like that.
0:05:04 There’s a peer-to-peer platform for just about anything
0:05:06 if you have an underutilized asset in your life,
0:05:08 whether it’s your house or your car
0:05:11 or you’re watching other people’s dogs,
0:05:13 there’s all sorts of different things that you can do.
0:05:16 And side hustle nation has been a beneficiary
0:05:20 of that rising tide of interest inside hustles
0:05:22 over the last 10 or 12 years.
0:05:26 And it’s become much more mainstream.
0:05:29 And I think that’s one part out of a necessity
0:05:32 where like housing, healthcare, education,
0:05:35 some big ticket expenses have not gotten any cheaper.
0:05:37 Wages by and large have not kept pace
0:05:40 with some of those big ticket increases and expenses.
0:05:43 And so approaching it out of necessity on the one hand
0:05:46 and then approaching it out of this proactive desire
0:05:48 to spend your free time more effectively,
0:05:50 more productively, like if your day job
0:05:52 isn’t scratching that creative itch,
0:05:55 maybe something outside of your nine to five can do it.
0:05:58 And we see people really tackling it from both sides.
0:06:00 – Side hustles have totally taken over.
0:06:03 I feel like everybody I know has a side hustle.
0:06:07 So you are famous for having a lot of side hustles.
0:06:10 And I know in the past you used to like break down
0:06:12 how much money you make on your side hustles.
0:06:14 So talk to us about the side hustles
0:06:16 that you did six years ago,
0:06:19 10 years ago versus the ones that you’re doing today.
0:06:21 – My very first side hustle,
0:06:23 aside from painting houses in college,
0:06:24 like I don’t know if that counts,
0:06:27 but the first online side hustle
0:06:29 was a comparison shopping site for shoes.
0:06:31 Like in the early days of the internet,
0:06:32 10 different stores have this pair of shoes
0:06:33 that you’re looking at.
0:06:35 We’ll tell you where to find the best price.
0:06:37 It was an affiliate marketing type of business
0:06:39 where those stores would pay a finder’s fee.
0:06:43 They would pay a commission for driving sales to their sites.
0:06:44 That was a good one.
0:06:46 I started a virtual assistant directory in review platform
0:06:48 called virtual assistant assistant.
0:06:51 Started in 2011, sold in 2020.
0:06:54 That was really born out of my own experience
0:06:56 and anxiety around working with virtual team members
0:06:59 and like of all of the different companies,
0:07:00 which ones are legit?
0:07:02 Are they gonna steal my idea?
0:07:04 How does it work with paying them and taxes?
0:07:06 You know, all of these rookie questions,
0:07:07 but then putting the directory
0:07:09 and kind of having a front row seat as that industry
0:07:13 really grew and expanded over that time too.
0:07:16 That was the hypothesis in the early days
0:07:19 of side hustle nation where I’m gonna be the guinea pig,
0:07:20 I’m gonna be the tester,
0:07:21 but try out all these different things
0:07:24 and report back on the results.
0:07:29 And in the early days, that was freelance writing,
0:07:32 a little bit of freelance book editing
0:07:33 for nonfiction authors.
0:07:35 Started with like a gig on Fiverr.
0:07:36 Hey, I’ll proofread your book.
0:07:41 And as most books are a lot more than 500 words,
0:07:43 but ended up to be some pretty sizable gigs.
0:07:47 I did a lot of like Amazon FBA clearance arbitrage
0:07:49 in those early years,
0:07:51 because somebody told me about it on the podcast.
0:07:56 It’s like, there is no way in the era of big data
0:07:57 that this is actually a thing.
0:07:59 But sure enough, you go to Walmart,
0:08:00 you scan the products and you’re like,
0:08:02 oh, okay, it says there’s profit here,
0:08:05 then you ship it in and it sells immediately.
0:08:08 And you’re like, okay, I guess this is a thing.
0:08:12 It was doing that kind of thing, selling digital products,
0:08:14 creating online courses on Udemy,
0:08:15 doing the self publishing thing,
0:08:19 trying my hand in a bunch of different areas.
0:08:20 And I think it was a ton of fun
0:08:22 to play around and do those experiments.
0:08:26 – Now today, one of your biggest side hustles is podcasting.
0:08:30 So talk to us about how you monetize your podcast.
0:08:32 – Well, this is the dream job.
0:08:34 If I can show up and get paid
0:08:37 to do my hour, hour and a half of radio every week,
0:08:38 I don’t know why I would ever give that up.
0:08:43 I did such a kick out of scooping side hustle stories,
0:08:44 connecting with people
0:08:47 with really inspiring businesses that they built.
0:08:49 I mean, the show is primarily monetized
0:08:51 through sponsorships.
0:08:54 Most of them are coming through YAT media these days.
0:08:58 And it took years to be truthful before that
0:09:03 could meaningfully be called a full-time income from the show.
0:09:05 What was more helpful early on was recognizing,
0:09:08 podcast advertising is amplitude and frequency.
0:09:11 How big is the audience and frequency?
0:09:12 How often can you reach them?
0:09:14 And so if you have an entrepreneur’s on fire,
0:09:16 daily show with a big audience,
0:09:19 yeah, absolutely, you’re gonna kill it on advertising.
0:09:21 But if you’re doing, at that time,
0:09:23 a weekly show with a modest audience,
0:09:25 does this really pencil out?
0:09:28 But using it as a content marketing channel
0:09:30 to build up an audience, build up an email list,
0:09:32 build relationships and trust,
0:09:36 it still was absolutely worthwhile to do in the early days.
0:09:37 And you still get all those benefits,
0:09:39 even though the show is now monetized primarily
0:09:42 with pre-roll or mid-roll ads,
0:09:44 rather through sponsorships.
0:09:47 And to your point, podcasting is no easy route.
0:09:49 It’s not like you’re gonna start a podcast,
0:09:50 get really rich.
0:09:52 However, if you can build an audience,
0:09:53 it is very lucrative
0:09:56 and there’s really not that many podcasts out there
0:09:57 that get a lot of downloads.
0:10:01 And so filling up your sponsorships is a lot easier
0:10:03 than one might think.
0:10:04 The key is just growing that audience,
0:10:05 which is the hard part.
0:10:06 – That’s the hard part.
0:10:10 I think of it in terms of what I call the listener pyramid.
0:10:11 You know, pyramid with four levels.
0:10:13 You have strangers, unfortunately,
0:10:15 that’s the biggest section of the base of the pyramid.
0:10:17 Strangers, people who don’t know you exist.
0:10:20 You’ve convinced some of them to become listeners.
0:10:22 You’ve convinced some of them to become subscribers.
0:10:23 And then ultimately what you’re shooting for
0:10:25 at the top of the pyramid is fans.
0:10:27 These are the people who listen to everything
0:10:28 that you put out.
0:10:30 They’re the people evangelizing for you.
0:10:31 They’re spreading the word.
0:10:34 They’re taking your recommendations.
0:10:36 And with every piece of content that you create,
0:10:39 it’s like trying to ascend people on that pyramid,
0:10:43 you know, from really compelling titles and topics
0:10:45 to hopefully get a stranger to give you a chance
0:10:47 and listen to you for that first time.
0:10:49 And then hopefully they do and they’re compelled
0:10:52 to click that subscribe button to that follow button.
0:10:53 And hopefully they spend enough time with you
0:10:54 in their earbuds.
0:10:57 They become fans of yours and help spread the word.
0:11:01 – Now, Nick, I sell your ads and you’re sold out.
0:11:03 And I’m always like, Hey Nick,
0:11:05 can we do a newsletter series?
0:11:08 Or can you drop another episode per month?
0:11:10 Or I’m always like trying to convince you,
0:11:11 what else can we monetize?
0:11:13 We need more inventory, right?
0:11:14 Cause that’s how my brain works.
0:11:17 And you’re very much chill.
0:11:18 You’re like, you know what?
0:11:20 I’m happy with the number of ads.
0:11:22 And I just, I’m curious.
0:11:24 How do you decide whether or not?
0:11:25 Because it’s basically like another side hustle.
0:11:26 I’m saying like, Hey Nick,
0:11:27 are you willing to do webinars?
0:11:28 I can sell you webinars, you know?
0:11:32 And you’re like, well, let’s just slow down here.
0:11:34 What are you sure it’s all process?
0:11:36 – Yeah, a friend of mine in a mastermind group
0:11:39 posed decision framework and it’s stuck with me ever since.
0:11:40 With every decision you make,
0:11:43 does it add complexity or reduce complexity?
0:11:44 And if it adds complexity,
0:11:47 okay, is it permanent or is it short-term?
0:11:50 And is that trade-off gonna be worthwhile?
0:11:53 Obviously, like making money, it’s fun.
0:11:54 But at a certain point you’re like,
0:11:57 well, you still have to do right by the audience.
0:11:58 – 100%.
0:12:00 And I feel like some of our best creators in the network,
0:12:03 like you and Jenna Kutcher, for example,
0:12:04 your mindset is always there.
0:12:07 How can I make sure that A, it’s worth my time.
0:12:08 It brings me joy.
0:12:10 It’s something that I want to spend my time doing.
0:12:13 And B, how do I make sure that I’m, you know,
0:12:14 have integrity with my audience?
0:12:16 So I feel like that’s why you guys are sold out
0:12:18 and do such a great job.
0:12:21 – So aside from loving what you do,
0:12:24 being passionate about side hustles,
0:12:27 what are some of the other benefits of doing one?
0:12:28 – My boss might disagree,
0:12:30 but I think it made me a better employee
0:12:33 where at my day job, my old day job,
0:12:36 I was at the bottom rung of this Fortune 500 company.
0:12:38 But by nights and weekends,
0:12:41 I was the CEO of my own little project.
0:12:45 And there’s some entrepreneurial upside to it
0:12:48 that maybe it doesn’t scale to quit your job,
0:12:51 but there’s still some benefit of doing that.
0:12:54 And you can think of it in terms of the side hustle snowball
0:12:55 is a framework that we talk about
0:12:57 where you’ve itemized out your expenses
0:12:59 from smallest to largest.
0:13:00 It’s like everybody wants the side hustle
0:13:02 that erases their mortgage or their rent.
0:13:04 And that’s a great goal to have.
0:13:06 But like, could you pay for your car insurance?
0:13:07 Could you pay for your cell phone bill?
0:13:09 Could you erase your gym membership
0:13:11 or whatever to celebrating those small wins?
0:13:13 ‘Cause I think there’s some value in that too.
0:13:16 Like erasing those expenses with new income.
0:13:17 – And I have to say,
0:13:21 I think side hustles also add a layer of security.
0:13:23 I have been talking to some of my girlfriends
0:13:25 who have recently lost their job.
0:13:29 And I feel like so many of my friends that had a nine to five
0:13:32 are finding themselves jobless right now.
0:13:34 And these are women that are so talented.
0:13:36 They’ve always been employed.
0:13:39 They have no reason to not be employed.
0:13:42 And then I think back to young Hala
0:13:45 starting Yap Media side hustle
0:13:48 and the podcast for three years while working corporate
0:13:51 and all the hard work I did to get it off the ground.
0:13:53 And it makes me realize, wow,
0:13:56 I’m so blessed because I’m so secure
0:14:00 because I took that risk and I put in that work.
0:14:04 What are your thoughts around the security piece around it?
0:14:07 – Yeah, there’s some element of that
0:14:09 whole digging your well before you’re thirsty thing.
0:14:11 There’s a lot of stress.
0:14:14 You’re one layoff away or one bad meeting away
0:14:16 in some cases from having your income go to zero
0:14:18 as a really stressful position
0:14:21 to be like a really fragile way to live.
0:14:25 So I think there’s definitely some of that security benefit.
0:14:27 It’s not gonna be immediate probably
0:14:29 but it’s something you can stack up over time.
0:14:32 I think Reed Hoffman has the quote about,
0:14:35 you know, an entrepreneur is somebody who jumps off the cliff
0:14:37 and figures out how to build their airplane
0:14:38 or their parachute on the way down.
0:14:40 What side hustles allow you to do
0:14:42 is just reduce the height of the cliff.
0:14:43 That sounds terrifying.
0:14:45 It’s like, well, if we can make it just a step off
0:14:48 instead of this huge leap of faith.
0:14:48 – Let’s hold that thought
0:14:51 and take a quick break with our sponsors.
0:14:54 Hey, AppBam, launching my LinkedIn secrets masterclass
0:14:56 was one of the best decisions
0:14:59 that I’ve ever made for my business.
0:15:01 And I didn’t have to figure out all the nuts and bolts
0:15:04 of creating a website for my course.
0:15:07 I needed a monthly subscription option.
0:15:08 I needed chat capabilities.
0:15:11 I needed a laundry list of features
0:15:14 to enable what I was envisioning with my course.
0:15:15 But here’s the thing.
0:15:18 All I had to do was literally lift a finger
0:15:19 to get it all done.
0:15:22 And that’s because I used Shopify.
0:15:28 Shopify is the easiest way to sell anything,
0:15:30 to sell online or in person.
0:15:33 It’s the home of the number one checkout on the planet.
0:15:35 And Shopify is not so secret secret as Shoppay
0:15:38 which boosts conversions up to 50%.
0:15:40 That means way fewer cards get abandoned
0:15:42 and way more sales get done.
0:15:45 If you’re into growing your business,
0:15:48 your commerce platform better be ready to sell
0:15:51 wherever your customers are scrolling and strolling
0:15:54 on the web, in your store, in the feed
0:15:56 and everywhere in between.
0:16:00 Put simply, businesses that sell more sell with Shopify.
0:16:02 Upgrade your business and get the same checkout
0:16:04 we use at YAP Media with Shopify.
0:16:07 Sign up for your $1 per month trial period
0:16:10 at Shopify.com/profiting.
0:16:12 And that’s all lowercase young and profitors
0:16:15 that’s Shopify.com/profiting.
0:16:17 Go to Shopify.com/profiting
0:16:19 to upgrade your selling today,
0:16:22 Shopify.com/profiting.
0:16:26 YAP Fam, if you’re anything like me,
0:16:27 you didn’t start your business
0:16:30 to spend all your time managing finances.
0:16:33 Budgeting, invoicing and tax prep,
0:16:36 not exactly the fun part of entrepreneurship.
0:16:40 My COO Jason is great at the finance stuff,
0:16:42 but even he doesn’t wanna switch between
0:16:44 five different apps for banking,
0:16:46 expense tracking and contractor payments.
0:16:49 We wanted a tool that could just do it all
0:16:51 and save us our time.
0:16:52 And guess what?
0:16:55 We found that tool and yes, it’s called Found.
0:16:57 Found is an all-in-one financial tool
0:16:59 made for entrepreneurs.
0:17:01 Found handles everything, business banking,
0:17:04 bookkeeping, invoicing and vendor payments.
0:17:05 And even tax planning.
0:17:07 No more juggling multiple apps.
0:17:10 Found does it all in one place.
0:17:13 With smart features like automatic expense tracking,
0:17:15 virtual cards for specific budgets,
0:17:18 and no hidden fees or minimum balances,
0:17:21 Found helps us stay organized and save time.
0:17:23 Plus, signing up is quick and easy.
0:17:26 No paperwork or credit checks required.
0:17:29 Join the 500,000 small business owners who trust Found.
0:17:32 Get your business banking working for you.
0:17:35 Try Found for free at found.com/profiting.
0:17:37 Stop getting lost in countless finance apps
0:17:41 and try Found for free at found.com/profiting.
0:17:46 Sign up for Found for free at foud.com/profiting.
0:17:48 Found is a financial technology company, not a bank.
0:17:51 Banking services are provided by Paramount Bank,
0:17:52 member FDIC.
0:17:54 Found’s core features are free.
0:17:58 They also offer an optional paid product, Found Plus.
0:18:01 Guys, I’ve been telling you about Rakuten for a while.
0:18:04 Rakuten is the best way to shop online
0:18:06 because it lets you get cash back on the purchases
0:18:08 you were already gonna make.
0:18:10 Hopefully you’ve all signed up to Rakuten by now,
0:18:11 but if you haven’t yet,
0:18:15 let the holiday season be your reason.
0:18:18 Rakuten is especially useful over the holiday season
0:18:20 because you can stack up on holiday sales and deals
0:18:24 on top of cash back to maximize your savings
0:18:26 at over 3,500 stores.
0:18:28 And the stores will be at their highest cash back rates
0:18:31 of the year, all the way up to 15% cash back
0:18:33 at some of your favorite brands
0:18:34 throughout the holiday season.
0:18:37 Whether you’re getting dad a power tool from Lowe’s,
0:18:39 your nephew and Xbox from Best Buy,
0:18:41 or surprising your spouse with a dream vacation
0:18:44 from TripAdvisor, Rakuten can get you cash back
0:18:47 on all these gifts and any gifts you could imagine.
0:18:50 Rakuten is awesome because once you know what you wanna buy,
0:18:53 you can hop over to rakuten.com and do some research
0:18:55 and make your decision on where you wanna buy.
0:18:56 Here’s how it works.
0:18:59 Your favorite stores pay Rakuten to send them shoppers
0:19:02 and Rakuten passes on a part of that money
0:19:04 to members via PayPal or check.
0:19:06 Get cash back at hundreds of stores
0:19:09 across every single category, including fashion, beauty,
0:19:12 electronics, dining, and so much more.
0:19:14 The best part is that Rakuten costs you nothing.
0:19:17 Membership is free and it takes just a couple minutes
0:19:18 to sign up.
0:19:21 Join the 17 million members who are already saving,
0:19:23 start all of your holiday shopping at rakuten.com
0:19:26 or download the Rakuten app to start saving today.
0:19:28 Your cash back really adds up.
0:19:35 So let’s talk about some side hustle ideas.
0:19:38 And since we were just talking about tough times,
0:19:40 what are some side hustles that do well
0:19:44 in tough economic times or are just pretty stable
0:19:47 type of side hustles to go after?
0:19:48 – Yeah, we came across one
0:19:50 that we would probably not check this box.
0:19:52 It was called porch pumpkins.
0:19:54 And, you know, you can check her out on Instagram
0:19:57 at porch pumpkins, $7 million a year worth
0:20:00 of decorative piling up pumpkins on people’s porches
0:20:02 for Halloween and Thanksgiving.
0:20:04 I don’t know if I would call that a recession-proof business,
0:20:06 but fantastic.
0:20:08 Good on you for tapping into this demand
0:20:12 where you kind of go down Maslow’s hierarchy, right?
0:20:13 Where, you know, food and shelter
0:20:15 all the way up to self-actualization.
0:20:17 And so the harder times get,
0:20:20 the more people are focused on basic needs.
0:20:23 And so if you’re providing something in that realm,
0:20:25 even if it’s a food delivery service
0:20:28 or maybe the food delivery budget gets cut back,
0:20:30 but like you’re lowering,
0:20:32 going lower down on that hierarchy of needs,
0:20:35 it really comes down to solving people’s problems.
0:20:39 I think about what I spend money on in my own day-to-day.
0:20:42 It’s like, make this pain go away, right?
0:20:43 You know, it’s so much easier to sell pain pills
0:20:44 than it is to sell vitamins,
0:20:47 even if the vitamins might be better for you long run.
0:20:50 But if you can figure out what people’s pains and problems are,
0:20:54 and especially solving those for a business customer,
0:20:56 generally has more money to spend,
0:20:59 that’s probably where I would play.
0:21:01 Everybody knows at least one entrepreneur
0:21:02 and you could start that conversation
0:21:04 of what’s really bothering these days
0:21:05 or what are the biggest bottlenecks
0:21:06 or what are the biggest pain points?
0:21:09 And even if you got nothing to sell right now,
0:21:11 but it’s just you’re trying to probe
0:21:14 for potential issues and pain points
0:21:16 and get that conversation going.
0:21:19 I love what you said in terms of start with the basic needs.
0:21:22 When things are going bad, people still need to eat.
0:21:24 People still need shelter, all those kinds of things.
0:21:28 So the pumpkin thing was really a good one
0:21:30 because it also lines up with some advice you give
0:21:34 around having the shovel for the gold rush.
0:21:35 Can you tell us about that tactic
0:21:37 when thinking about side hustles?
0:21:40 – Yeah, so maybe the gold rush here is a Pinterest trend
0:21:44 around nice looking porches or holiday decor.
0:21:48 She’s like, well, I can get pumpkins by the dozen.
0:21:49 I’ll pile them up, I’ll make them look nice.
0:21:51 I don’t know if she has a background in interior,
0:21:54 exterior design or landscaper or anything.
0:21:56 But you’re like, I get it, they look nice.
0:21:58 But is that something that’s,
0:22:01 I mean, she found, looked out a million dollars
0:22:03 worth of business sold out by August.
0:22:07 And it was like, there’s a niche for everything.
0:22:08 – Yeah.
0:22:10 – Those are the ones that always are super fun to share.
0:22:13 It’s like, nope, never knew you could make money doing that.
0:22:16 What other examples of getting the shovel
0:22:18 for the gold rush can you give?
0:22:21 – Maybe another example is the world of podcasting,
0:22:23 especially during the pandemic.
0:22:25 It’s everybody and their brother is starting a podcast.
0:22:27 And so what shovels could you sell into that gold rush?
0:22:29 Maybe it’s editing services.
0:22:31 Maybe it’s the ad broker sales.
0:22:34 Maybe it’s the recording platform software.
0:22:37 If you have more technical development side of things,
0:22:40 microphones, thinking of what are those trends
0:22:43 in gold rushes that you could go and provide
0:22:46 some type of service for.
0:22:48 – AI might be a good one now.
0:22:49 – Sure.
0:22:50 Maybe you’re an early adopter.
0:22:54 How can you use AI tools to provide some sort of service
0:22:55 to somebody who either doesn’t know how to do it,
0:22:58 doesn’t want to learn and they can improve
0:23:00 some process flow in that way.
0:23:03 We’ve seen people piggybacking on the popularity
0:23:06 of other software tools.
0:23:11 What if you are a Notion expert or a Pipedrive expert or?
0:23:13 – HubSpotter.
0:23:13 – Yeah HubSpotter.
0:23:16 HoneyBook was one that we had on the show recently.
0:23:19 You can help other companies implement this.
0:23:22 You’ve already got the proven templates.
0:23:25 And the advantage is there’s already some level
0:23:27 of awareness and search demand.
0:23:29 People are typing in questions into YouTube
0:23:31 about these different software tools.
0:23:34 Well, how do I do such and such in this thing?
0:23:36 You create that video content and you know,
0:23:37 hey, I’m an Asana consultant.
0:23:39 And today we’re gonna learn how to do blah, blah, blah
0:23:43 in Asana or HubSpot or QuickBooks or whatever it is.
0:23:45 – Also Airbnb is a great example.
0:23:47 When Airbnb got popular,
0:23:51 then you have the Airbnb management, the Airbnb cleaners.
0:23:52 – Totally, totally.
0:23:54 – Yeah, the furnishings, everything.
0:23:59 – Okay, so what about the most profitable side hustles
0:24:01 or maybe some of the hottest new side hustles
0:24:03 that you can talk about?
0:24:05 – Oh my gosh, the most profitable one
0:24:06 that comes to mind from recent memory.
0:24:09 This guy must have just been printing money.
0:24:14 This is a web design service called 180sites.com.
0:24:17 I think ’cause he started initially charging 180 bucks.
0:24:19 I think the pricing has changed.
0:24:22 But focusing almost exclusively on building websites
0:24:24 for pressure washing companies.
0:24:27 So take this and run with this in any niche imaginable.
0:24:29 If he’s doing this, just focus on building sites
0:24:30 for pressure washers.
0:24:34 Like typical web design might be sold as $5,000 upfront cost
0:24:35 will be able to do this website.
0:24:36 Flips that on its head.
0:24:38 I’m just gonna charge you 180 bucks a month,
0:24:41 200 bucks a month for a two year contract
0:24:43 and then ongoing maintenance after that.
0:24:44 We’re gonna host the site.
0:24:46 If you need any updates, we’ll get those done.
0:24:48 We’ll make sure it’s secure
0:24:50 and represents your business well.
0:24:53 And because his customers will only takes one extra job
0:24:56 or half of an extra job to pay for this fee every month,
0:24:59 it was a pretty easy sell.
0:25:04 And when we recorded, he just had his first $100,000 month
0:25:08 and it was this recurring revenue business model
0:25:10 and it gets easier with every client you do.
0:25:12 You add that to the existing template.
0:25:14 You’re not starting from scratch every single time.
0:25:17 It was like, it probably doesn’t take you very long
0:25:18 to recoup your costs.
0:25:20 He’s like, no, after month two or whatever,
0:25:23 we’re broken even and the rest is gravy.
0:25:25 It’s like insane profit margins run
0:25:27 by a primarily overseas team.
0:25:29 – Is he just targeting those businesses
0:25:32 or he’s targeting multiple industries?
0:25:34 – I think if somebody outside
0:25:36 of a pressure washing company came to him
0:25:38 and asked him to build a site, he’d absolutely do it.
0:25:39 But that was the bread and butter.
0:25:41 And because he had, at this point,
0:25:43 several different templates.
0:25:45 We’ll pick a choose which one you like
0:25:46 and we’ll build that out for you.
0:25:48 And so that added to the economies of scale
0:25:50 and efficiencies of it.
0:25:51 – It’s so random.
0:25:54 How many pressure washing companies really are out there?
0:25:55 Let’s talk about AI.
0:25:59 How do you think AI is transforming the side hustle world?
0:26:02 Are you worried about a lot of the typical freelance jobs
0:26:05 going away or do you think it’s gonna augment
0:26:07 and create more jobs?
0:26:11 – It’s a really interesting place to be right now
0:26:15 because on the one hand as a content creator, as a user,
0:26:16 it has improved certain processes,
0:26:18 has made things more efficient.
0:26:21 At the same time, the AI snippets in Google
0:26:22 are taking some of our traffic.
0:26:25 It is a challenging place to play.
0:26:26 Like a year and a half ago,
0:26:30 we recorded this episode on doing faceless YouTube content.
0:26:32 Try and win the viral lottery.
0:26:35 Create a video around some topic that’s already trending.
0:26:37 And it was hire a script writer.
0:26:39 It was hire a voiceover artist.
0:26:41 It was hire a video editor.
0:26:43 And then hire a thumbnail designer.
0:26:46 And we talked to the guy a year later.
0:26:48 It was like, well, now we got chat GPT right in the scripts.
0:26:51 Now we’ve got AI narration.
0:26:52 And we’ve got, I think he still had
0:26:54 a human video editor compiling stuff.
0:26:56 It was like several of these different roles
0:27:01 had been replaced by AI or 80% of it replaced by AI.
0:27:02 He’s like, I’ll still go in and edit that script
0:27:04 to make sure it is correct.
0:27:06 But it was really interesting to see
0:27:10 how some of the previous freelance talent at the low end
0:27:12 got evaporated within a year.
0:27:15 – Yeah, I know AI, it’s really helpful,
0:27:17 but it’s also really scary.
0:27:20 ‘Cause I do feel like a lot of people need to figure out
0:27:23 how they can level up and differentiate outside
0:27:27 of what AI can do, especially if you’re a graphic designer
0:27:27 or a copywriter.
0:27:30 I also feel like it’s gonna create a lot of competition.
0:27:33 ‘Cause now anybody can be a graphic designer
0:27:36 because you can use all these different tools
0:27:39 and suddenly offer graphic design services.
0:27:41 Are you worried about that at all?
0:27:43 – More worried about deep fake stuff.
0:27:45 Is somebody with hours and hours of their voice
0:27:45 on the internet?
0:27:48 Have you played around with 11 Labs at all
0:27:49 and the voice cloning?
0:27:51 – Yes, I have my AI voice.
0:27:54 We use it when I’m sick and if I like miss my commercials
0:27:55 or something, we’ll use it.
0:27:57 – Yeah, it’s crazy.
0:27:59 And maybe it’s just me, ’cause like I know
0:28:03 that I didn’t speak it, but it sounds pretty good.
0:28:03 – I know.
0:28:05 – Yeah, that sounds like me, I’ll give it to you.
0:28:07 – They’re not getting the tonality right though.
0:28:10 I feel like we still got that over the machines
0:28:11 for a little while.
0:28:12 (laughs)
0:28:14 – Yeah, that was an episode concept
0:28:15 we were thinking of throwing out for Halloween.
0:28:19 Like could we do 100% Zombie Nick episode?
0:28:21 Just through 11 Labs and we ended up going
0:28:23 with a different concept for that episode,
0:28:26 but you could do little segments and absolutely,
0:28:28 if you need to tweak something in that commercial
0:28:30 and you don’t have your recording equipment handy,
0:28:33 it’s like, okay, we’ll swap out that word for that word
0:28:35 and it sounds just fine.
0:28:37 – Maybe one day I’ll never have to record commercials again.
0:28:41 – One cool one that we’re using on the video front,
0:28:42 the bottleneck is still in scripting.
0:28:44 And so we’re still working on chat GPT,
0:28:47 like how to turn this blog post
0:28:51 into a compelling video script and priming it
0:28:53 in such a way as like you wouldn’t just read off
0:28:55 the blog post like that wouldn’t play very well,
0:28:56 but there’s this tool called Pictori,
0:28:58 which you’ve been using for the last several months
0:29:00 where you upload the script,
0:29:02 you upload your voiceover narration
0:29:07 and it pulls in hundreds of stock video clips
0:29:10 that would have taken me or a human editor
0:29:13 hours and hours and hours of tedious manual labor
0:29:14 to do that and splice that together.
0:29:16 It does it in just a few minutes.
0:29:19 And I think it creates a pretty visually compelling video
0:29:21 without you having to be on camera.
0:29:24 I’ll introduce the topic, you know, talking head
0:29:26 so that you like know that it’s an actual person
0:29:29 for the first five or 10 seconds.
0:29:31 And then it’s just rolled this tape
0:29:33 and it’s pretty visually compelling
0:29:35 and some of those videos have done pretty well.
0:29:36 – Oh wow, I can’t wait to use that Pictori.
0:29:37 It’s called, cool.
0:29:39 – Yeah, Pictori, I gotta do a whole,
0:29:41 I need to do a whole video kind of demo
0:29:43 on our use case for it.
0:29:46 – Okay, so let’s talk about how we can get started
0:29:47 with some side hustles.
0:29:50 So I know that service-based side hustles
0:29:51 are the easiest to get started.
0:29:54 So I started that way, I was good at social media
0:29:56 and then I started a social agency
0:29:59 and I started to just do that for other people.
0:30:03 But talk to us about some of the disadvantages.
0:30:05 I know they’re easy, but sometimes easy
0:30:07 doesn’t necessarily mean better.
0:30:08 What are some of the disadvantages
0:30:12 of starting a service-based side hustle?
0:30:15 – The most common pushback that I get is, well yeah,
0:30:16 but you’re still trading time for money.
0:30:17 I’m doing that on my day job.
0:30:19 Why would I want to do that as a side hustle?
0:30:22 That’s the most common pushback that I get.
0:30:24 Nathan Berry has what he calls his ladders
0:30:25 of wealth creation and it starts
0:30:28 with trading time for money.
0:30:30 Either at a job or as a freelancer,
0:30:32 consultant, service provider of some sort,
0:30:34 you almost have to start there to build up
0:30:39 some entrepreneurial skillset and you can skip to the end.
0:30:41 Like his top ladder is products and software
0:30:43 and all the recurring revenue types
0:30:46 of passive income businesses that everybody wants.
0:30:47 You can skip some steps,
0:30:48 but you can’t skip learning the skills
0:30:50 as you got to work your way.
0:30:52 And I was a little bit surprised to find
0:30:55 that more guests started with a service business
0:30:57 than any other business model.
0:30:59 ‘Cause it’s like, it doesn’t have that allure
0:31:02 of passive income, but it’s not necessarily
0:31:03 where they end up.
0:31:04 It’s like, okay, that’s where I started.
0:31:06 And then it sparks some other idea.
0:31:08 It sparks this conversation
0:31:09 or you meet somebody through that
0:31:11 and the businesses start to evolve.
0:31:13 The opportunities become visible once you’re already
0:31:17 in motion, but most people do start in that.
0:31:19 I mean, there was me painting houses in college
0:31:22 trying to figure out how to sell something
0:31:25 and go through all the steps in that process.
0:31:26 – Yeah, totally.
0:31:28 And I can even think about it from my perspective
0:31:31 when I first started social media and my agency,
0:31:32 I was pretty hands-on.
0:31:35 I’d be involved with the accounts, leading the strategy,
0:31:38 even writing the posts, I think, when I first started.
0:31:41 And then you build an agency, you build a team under you.
0:31:43 Now there’s pods that manage my accounts
0:31:45 and you can scale it.
0:31:47 So any other ideas in terms of,
0:31:49 aside from the agency model
0:31:52 of how you can scale a service-based business?
0:31:55 – Now you see, you can scale it with team members
0:31:57 by having other people do the work.
0:31:59 You can scale it by raising rates.
0:32:02 You can scale by productizing to a certain extent
0:32:06 where instead of hourly, now it’s just a fixed monthly cost
0:32:08 and you have a sense of what your deliverables are gonna be.
0:32:12 So you can sell it maybe without even talking
0:32:13 on the phone with a customer.
0:32:14 Like they just click the buy button
0:32:16 and there’s a level of trust that’s built up.
0:32:20 You could scale through referral partnerships
0:32:22 where this one was like white labeling.
0:32:24 Like this isn’t a service that we provide,
0:32:27 but we can partner with this other agency
0:32:28 or this other service provider.
0:32:29 We’ve seen people do that.
0:32:32 A friend of mine did, he was running like this SEO business
0:32:36 and eventually got fully booked up, sold out.
0:32:38 And he started making money, not doing the work.
0:32:40 Like, oh, but I’ll introduce you to this other guy
0:32:42 a friend of mine or this other business owner
0:32:43 and like would get a finder’s fee
0:32:45 for sending work to somebody else.
0:32:47 I was like, well, that’s pretty interesting.
0:32:50 And that evolved into a matchmaking directory
0:32:53 or lead gen type of directory for that type of business.
0:32:56 Like, oh, well, answer a few different questions
0:32:57 about your goals and your type of business
0:32:58 and we’ll match you or, you know,
0:33:01 we’ll introduce you to the company that’s the best fit.
0:33:03 I was like, oh, dang, you could probably do that
0:33:04 in just about any niche.
0:33:08 – Yeah, and also I guess you could turn your expertise
0:33:10 whatever you were doing into a course
0:33:13 or an info product and sell that.
0:33:15 – Yeah, very common path to go.
0:33:17 You know, have, do the thing, get the results
0:33:20 and naturally you’re gonna have people asking,
0:33:21 well, how did you do that?
0:33:23 How did you build your podcast
0:33:26 or how did you get somebody social followers?
0:33:27 You get tired of answering the same question over and over
0:33:29 again, you’re like, well, let me just record the answer
0:33:32 as we’ll package this up into a digital product.
0:33:33 – And speaking of products,
0:33:36 there’s lots of different products, side hustles.
0:33:39 Can you talk to us about product licensing
0:33:40 and how that works?
0:33:41 – Have you connected with Stephen Key
0:33:43 from Invent Right at all?
0:33:44 – No.
0:33:44 – Fascinating guy.
0:33:46 So he’s been doing this for decades,
0:33:51 helping aspiring inventors license their products.
0:33:54 And the way we kind of framed it was rather than
0:33:56 at this time, like Amazon FBA private label
0:34:00 was the hot thing, like tap into this huge market
0:34:03 on the world’s largest store, Amazon, you know,
0:34:06 build it and they’ll come almost was how you shoot
0:34:07 and fish in a barrel.
0:34:09 That’s at least how it seemed from the outside.
0:34:10 His argument is like, look,
0:34:13 look at all this upfront risk that you have.
0:34:17 You gotta buy 500, 1,000 units of whatever this product is.
0:34:19 You gotta spend additional money on marketing,
0:34:22 advertising, collecting reviews.
0:34:24 And then even if it hits,
0:34:26 you’re gonna be reinvesting capital into inventory,
0:34:28 sometimes for years before you could take those chips
0:34:29 off the table.
0:34:33 He’s like, what if instead you just pitch the idea
0:34:37 to some company that already had the marketing manufacturing
0:34:39 and the marketing firepower to make this thing a hit?
0:34:43 And we talked to a guy whose business was,
0:34:45 it was like a Pictionary inspired card game.
0:34:47 It’s like, here’s something that already exists.
0:34:49 Here’s my creative spin on it.
0:34:52 Sold it to Mattel, maybe 5% licensing fee,
0:34:55 which they netted like $300,000 in royalties.
0:34:57 This guy was like a dentist in Georgia,
0:35:00 it’s like a little side project for him.
0:35:03 Another guest, she was like a softball player,
0:35:05 a softball coach and she was playing third base
0:35:08 and her hand kept getting hurt with hard ground balls.
0:35:12 So she had a little padded inner glove thing.
0:35:13 She was sticking inside her mitt
0:35:16 and that was her little licensing invention
0:35:21 or somebody else had like a koozie, like a can holder.
0:35:23 The little bottom would freeze and it would fit
0:35:26 into the dimple of your Coke can or your beer can.
0:35:29 And it was like these little pivots on products
0:35:32 that already exist is just such a creative way
0:35:33 to go about it.
0:35:34 – I love those ideas.
0:35:35 And I love the fact that you don’t necessarily
0:35:37 need to be a business person.
0:35:40 You could just be an inventor
0:35:42 and then pitch it to other businesses.
0:35:43 So that’s cool.
0:35:46 Dropshipping used to be really hot.
0:35:48 Is dropshipping a thing anymore?
0:35:51 – It is less popular than it once was,
0:35:53 but still can work.
0:35:56 Dropshipping is where you don’t hold any inventory
0:35:57 but you partner with people who do.
0:36:00 And usually it’s going to be big ticket
0:36:02 or bigger ticket purchases
0:36:04 that aren’t readily available nearby.
0:36:06 Like we’ve seen people doing golf simulators
0:36:10 or giant commercial inflatable bounce houses
0:36:14 or maybe treadmills or treadmill desks,
0:36:17 maybe barbecue smokers type of thing,
0:36:18 but like typically bigger items
0:36:20 where you don’t have to hold the inventory.
0:36:22 You strike up partnerships with the distributors
0:36:24 or manufacturers and you collect orders,
0:36:26 you do the marketing and then you ship it out
0:36:28 or the distributor ships it out on your behalf
0:36:31 or the manufacturer ships it out on your behalf.
0:36:32 And so the appeal is,
0:36:34 well, I don’t have to buy this thing until it’s sold, right?
0:36:37 And then I just make my maybe 10%, maybe 15%.
0:36:38 You might have pretty thin margins,
0:36:41 which you got to pay your entire marketing budget out of that.
0:36:43 You figure out, how am I going to drive traffic?
0:36:45 And then the other downside is I don’t really have any
0:36:48 control over that customer experience.
0:36:50 If there’s shipping delays, if something breaks,
0:36:51 all of a sudden you’re a middleman.
0:36:54 The customer thought they were doing business
0:36:56 with you, but now you’re almost powerless.
0:36:58 You just have to forward messages or calls.
0:37:00 Like, hey, where’s my customer’s order?
0:37:02 So definitely trade-offs.
0:37:04 It could be kind of a competitive place to play.
0:37:06 But if you can drive your own traffic
0:37:09 and you’ve got a partner that you really trust,
0:37:10 absolutely can work.
0:37:12 – And I could imagine nowadays,
0:37:16 it’s so easy to find and compare prices
0:37:18 that that game could just be like a race
0:37:21 to the bottom price-wise.
0:37:24 – Yeah, as you think about, what’s my value add layer?
0:37:26 Is it going to be customer support?
0:37:29 Is it going to be some sort of consultation?
0:37:33 Oh, on your golf simulator, are you an insider in that space?
0:37:35 Like, do you know which ones are actually better
0:37:36 and help customers drive their decision
0:37:39 rather than just purely competing on price?
0:37:43 – We’ll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.
0:37:48 – Okay, let’s do something fun.
0:37:50 Let’s do some scenarios.
0:37:52 – Okay. – Okay.
0:37:53 – You ready for this?
0:37:55 – I’m going to try.
0:37:58 – You are the side hustler in this case, okay?
0:38:00 You’re not Nick Loper in these scenarios.
0:38:02 You are a side hustler with no experience.
0:38:03 Are you ready?
0:38:04 – Okay.
0:38:07 – Number one, you just quit your job.
0:38:09 You only have $2,500 to play with
0:38:12 and you want to replace your income as quickly as possible.
0:38:14 What do you do?
0:38:16 – I would go that service route.
0:38:19 And if I’m thinking longer term, that agency route
0:38:22 where trying to figure out pain points and problems,
0:38:23 what can I solve?
0:38:24 And if it’s me personally, like, okay,
0:38:27 I’ll go pressure wash people’s driveways or something.
0:38:29 The machine is going to cost me 300, 400 bucks.
0:38:31 Pressure wash somebody’s house, 300, 400 bucks.
0:38:33 Like, you know, break even after one job
0:38:35 and, you know, that’s kind of off to the races.
0:38:39 And you could even go sell the job before buying the machine.
0:38:40 You know, hey, can I come back next week
0:38:42 to do pressure washing for you?
0:38:45 And you don’t even need to spend the $2,500 upfront.
0:38:49 Like if you prebook it, but longer term,
0:38:50 I’m still trading time for money.
0:38:52 I don’t have a lot of leverage in this.
0:38:55 And so we talked to some really inspiring
0:38:58 younger entrepreneurs recently who were doing
0:39:01 a window washing business or, you know,
0:39:03 car detailing business where it’s like,
0:39:05 I can find other people who know how to do this
0:39:07 where probably as good or better than me,
0:39:10 I just need to be the marketing arm.
0:39:12 I need to be the administrative arm, the scheduler,
0:39:16 kind of being a better administrator, better operator,
0:39:18 and then just finding trustworthy people to go out
0:39:19 and do the work.
0:39:21 And so similar to your agency,
0:39:22 your social agency model,
0:39:26 where that has got some scalability and some legs to it.
0:39:27 – I love that idea.
0:39:29 That seems so realistic.
0:39:32 Like anyone could just go out there and do that.
0:39:33 Okay, number two.
0:39:35 And maybe you are Nick Loper.
0:39:36 I don’t know how we should think about this.
0:39:37 This is your Nick Loper,
0:39:39 but you don’t have all this current side hustles
0:39:41 that you have right now, okay?
0:39:43 Okay, you have no background in e-commerce
0:39:48 and you decide you wanna sell handmade products online.
0:39:49 How do you get started on the right foot
0:39:52 and avoid the typical obstacles?
0:39:53 – I think for handmade products,
0:39:56 you gotta figure out where the demand is.
0:39:58 And it’s probably gonna be on Etsy
0:39:59 and maybe Amazon handmade,
0:40:01 if you can get accepted into that program.
0:40:03 The challenge is,
0:40:05 and there’s some keyword research tools
0:40:09 that can help you with evaluating Etsy demand.
0:40:11 And to their credit, Etsy has a lot of public data
0:40:13 where they’ll show you the number of sales
0:40:15 that each shop has made.
0:40:17 They don’t tell you on the individual product level
0:40:18 as far as I’m aware,
0:40:21 but rather than trying to create demand from scratch,
0:40:23 it’s so much easier to fill demand.
0:40:25 So we’re trying to figure out what is already selling
0:40:28 and how can you put your own unique spin on it?
0:40:29 So that’s where I would go,
0:40:31 especially if I don’t have an existing audience.
0:40:34 I’m gonna be relying on Etsy’s audience in this case
0:40:37 to say, “Hey, these products are popular.
0:40:39 “How can I throw my hat in the ring
0:40:41 “and try and capture some of that demand?”
0:40:42 – I think that is so smart.
0:40:44 I think that is one of the biggest mistakes
0:40:46 that I see people do that are trying to launch,
0:40:48 especially products.
0:40:53 I had a friend once who wanted to start a sweatshirt company,
0:40:56 and that’s just such a hard thing to compete with, right?
0:40:59 How is your sweatshirt company gonna be different
0:41:00 from everybody else’s?
0:41:03 And to your point, if you can find something more niche
0:41:06 that people are actually looking for and buying already,
0:41:09 and you could just be the second or the third girl or guy
0:41:12 who’s offering that one specific thing that everybody wants,
0:41:15 you’ve just got such a better rate of success.
0:41:18 Is there any insight in terms of testing products
0:41:20 or anything that you wanna share?
0:41:21 – Well, Etsy is nice from that standpoint
0:41:24 ’cause it’ll cost you 20 cents to put the listing up,
0:41:28 but we had a guy who was doing
0:41:31 these Renaissance-style pet portraits,
0:41:35 and I think he had actual Photoshop experts on his thing.
0:41:36 You probably do this with AI now
0:41:39 where customers would upload a picture of their dog
0:41:44 and he would put them in this frilly Henry VIII type of outfit,
0:41:46 and it was all print-on-demand,
0:41:48 and he’d ship these guys the products.
0:41:50 Something like that would be really interesting,
0:41:52 some AI-powered type of thing,
0:41:56 where it gets, like if you’re doing the print-on-demand thing,
0:41:57 very much a volume game,
0:41:58 where the people I see having the most success
0:42:01 have thousands of products out there,
0:42:04 and you’re just dealing with copycats all day long,
0:42:07 if something sells the bots
0:42:09 or the other people who are watching that say,
0:42:11 “Oh, we better make a copy of this shirt
0:42:12 ’cause somebody bought it,”
0:42:15 and it can be really challenging,
0:42:16 but it’s super rewarding.
0:42:19 When we get those red-bubble sales notifications
0:42:22 or those Amazon merch sales notifications,
0:42:23 it’s passive income once it’s up there.
0:42:25 – Yeah, and to your point,
0:42:29 channeling demand on a platform like Etsy is just so smart
0:42:31 because they’re already bringing the customers in,
0:42:35 and these customers are looking for handmade items,
0:42:38 and it’s just so much easier than creating your own website
0:42:40 and trying to generate your own traffic.
0:42:42 I feel like a lot of people take the uphill route,
0:42:43 would you agree?
0:42:47 – Yes, now the advantage to building your own audience,
0:42:50 obviously, like you have much more control
0:42:51 because Etsy’s customer, it’s not yours,
0:42:54 it’s Amazon’s customer, it’s not yours.
0:42:56 I had a woman on last year,
0:42:58 the site is called Strapsicle.
0:43:00 Strapsicle is this little silicone strap
0:43:02 that goes on the back of your Kindle
0:43:03 so you can read with one hand,
0:43:06 and the origin story was fantastic.
0:43:07 I was breastfeeding my son,
0:43:10 and the Kindle dropped on his head,
0:43:11 and everybody was really upset,
0:43:12 like there’s gotta be a better way.
0:43:14 None of the existing Straps were great,
0:43:17 so we went out and invented this thing,
0:43:20 and what she did, which was, I thought, really smart,
0:43:22 lots of influencer marketing,
0:43:24 partnering with TikTok or Book Talk
0:43:27 was the sub community that she found.
0:43:29 People who were really into Kindle and tapping in,
0:43:31 “Hey, let me send you a free thing, no obligation,
0:43:34 “no strings attached, and here’s an offer code
0:43:35 “if you like it.”
0:43:38 And was selling the crap out of these things with,
0:43:41 you can imagine, like, it didn’t weigh anything,
0:43:44 almost no cost to ship, almost no cost to manufacture,
0:43:47 and then when it was time to launch on Amazon,
0:43:49 they had this existing audience
0:43:51 that they could push over there to leave reviews
0:43:52 to go and buy the product,
0:43:55 where I think most people start Amazon first
0:43:56 and then try and wean themselves off,
0:43:59 wean back onto their own Shopify-powered platform,
0:44:02 and it’s so much harder to go that other direction.
0:44:03 – I totally agree with that,
0:44:05 and something that I read of yours
0:44:06 that I thought was really interesting
0:44:09 is that you actually consider a side hustle
0:44:11 being growing an audience, right?
0:44:13 You call it an audience business,
0:44:16 so talk to us about why having an audience in itself
0:44:19 can be a side hustle with multiple avenues.
0:44:21 – Yeah, this is probably tier three,
0:44:24 you know, tier one services, tier two products,
0:44:28 tier three is this really flexible, hybrid,
0:44:30 content-based business, audience-based business,
0:44:32 where it could be a social following,
0:44:34 it could be a blog following,
0:44:36 a podcast following, a YouTube following,
0:44:39 and once you have people paying attention,
0:44:40 the entire playbook opens up.
0:44:43 Yeah, sure, you could sell services, you could sell products,
0:44:45 you could sell attention in the form of advertising
0:44:47 or affiliate partnerships,
0:44:49 but it really is a powerful place to play,
0:44:52 and that’s really where I spent the bulk of my side hustle
0:44:55 and entrepreneurial time over the last 10 years
0:44:57 to try and figure out how to get more traffic,
0:44:58 how to get more listeners,
0:45:00 how to get more email subscribers,
0:45:01 and playing in that space,
0:45:04 because the scale is almost infinite, right?
0:45:09 It takes, as you know, the same effort and energy
0:45:11 and investment to create an episode,
0:45:13 a podcast episode that 10 people listen to,
0:45:17 or 10,000 people listen to, or 100,000 people.
0:45:19 And so it’s a really unique platform in that way,
0:45:23 and the same thing with social content or video content.
0:45:25 Okay, so scenario number three.
0:45:26 And this is something I didn’t realize
0:45:28 you would have so much experience with,
0:45:29 but apparently you do.
0:45:32 So you want to be a virtual assistant,
0:45:34 but you find there’s too much competition.
0:45:36 How would you stand out?
0:45:38 Yeah, you gotta niche down.
0:45:41 And so to say I’m a general virtual assistant,
0:45:43 it’s kind of a race to the bottom,
0:45:48 but if you say I am your QuickBooks bookkeeping assistant,
0:45:51 okay, now I’ve got a lane that I can play in,
0:45:54 or I am your Funnel Optimization Assistant,
0:45:57 I am your Community Manager,
0:46:00 I am your Podcast Editing Provider,
0:46:02 lots of different sub-niches.
0:46:04 You can even ask ChatGPT,
0:46:06 what are a hundred different services I could offer
0:46:07 as a virtual assistant?
0:46:09 And there’s gonna be a few on that list,
0:46:10 where you’re like, I know how to do that.
0:46:13 And even if you’re not completely,
0:46:16 you know, the world’s foremost expert on that,
0:46:18 I guarantee you will be after you get a couple of clients
0:46:21 to do the thing, and then you can start to agency-fy that,
0:46:23 you can start to productize that,
0:46:25 and you might have some fun doing it,
0:46:27 or you might find, I really didn’t like doing that,
0:46:30 I’m gonna try Option B, go try something else.
0:46:31 I love that one.
0:46:32 Okay, last one.
0:46:33 You love photography,
0:46:36 and you’ve been doing it just as a hobby for years.
0:46:38 You wanna start charging for your services,
0:46:40 but you feel nobody will take you seriously.
0:46:44 How would you transition from hobbyist to paid photographer?
0:46:45 Oh, I like this one.
0:46:48 This is actually my wife’s side hustle.
0:46:49 So she does wedding photography,
0:46:52 she does family photos for holiday cards,
0:46:53 and stuff like that.
0:46:55 What it was for them, from hobbyist to professional,
0:46:57 was getting up the nerve,
0:47:00 and this was 10 plus years ago,
0:47:02 but add on Craigslist, we’ll shoot your wedding.
0:47:05 Her and her partner, we’ll shoot your wedding for 200 bucks.
0:47:08 I think it was like starting super, super low,
0:47:10 ’cause in this business, portfolio sells.
0:47:13 If I am a bride and you don’t have any wedding pictures,
0:47:15 you’re gonna have to cut me a real good deal
0:47:18 for me to take a chance with you on our wedding day.
0:47:20 But that’s what they did, and they booked up,
0:47:22 and I was like, who is looking
0:47:24 for wedding photography on Craigslist?
0:47:26 And maybe today, it would be Facebook groups
0:47:29 or Facebook marketplace, different places to play.
0:47:32 But in that era, that site had some eyeballs.
0:47:35 And sure enough, they booked up 10 or 12 weddings.
0:47:37 They raised their prices with each one,
0:47:42 and now they charge $4,000 or $5,000 for this wedding package.
0:47:45 But they had to have that portfolio to build up
0:47:48 the experience of doing it live under the pressure.
0:47:50 Like a family photography, like, okay, it didn’t work.
0:47:52 We’ll just do it again next weekend.
0:47:53 We’re not gonna restage this whole weddings.
0:47:54 We gotta get it right the first time,
0:47:56 to building up the confidence to do that
0:47:59 and building up the confidence to charge more and more
0:48:03 in land hire, paying clients, better venues, and all of that.
0:48:04 And lots of cool stuff.
0:48:06 So they found a strategic partnership
0:48:09 with one of the wedding venues in California,
0:48:11 where it’s like, and the conversation might be as simple
0:48:14 as what does it take to get on your preferred vendor list?
0:48:16 Who are the companies that you work with over and over again?
0:48:19 And they’re like, fill out this application
0:48:20 or make sure you have this insurance.
0:48:21 And we’ll add you.
0:48:23 Like it was not a difficult process.
0:48:25 And now all of a sudden kind of a steady stream
0:48:27 of weddings come through there.
0:48:30 It could be one cool one,
0:48:32 partnering with the local school PTA,
0:48:34 like if they have a silent auction, okay,
0:48:36 we’ll auction off a photo session.
0:48:39 So we get in front of all the parents at that school.
0:48:41 You just kind of start the word of mouth.
0:48:44 It’s like micro-local influencer marketing almost.
0:48:45 Yeah.
0:48:47 It only takes one person who knows a lot of other families
0:48:49 to start to figure you out.
0:48:51 Such good tips there.
0:48:53 Okay, so a lot of the stuff that we were talking about
0:48:57 so far has been about skills, scaling out our skills.
0:48:59 Even some of the e-commerce stuff takes a bit of skills.
0:49:01 What if somebody’s like, listen, like,
0:49:03 Nick, I don’t have any skills.
0:49:07 What are some no-skill side hustles that I can tackle?
0:49:10 This is where probably pause
0:49:12 and first give yourself some credit.
0:49:14 You probably have some skills by definition,
0:49:15 like any job you’ve had,
0:49:18 like that was a skill somebody thought was worth paying for.
0:49:21 At the very low end of this,
0:49:24 it could be those gig economy type of jobs.
0:49:28 It could be the Instacars, the door dashes of the world.
0:49:31 The downside is obviously time for money.
0:49:35 It could be limited upside on that sort of thing.
0:49:38 But it could also be something like other,
0:49:41 what we call like plug and play side hustles.
0:49:43 Like we’ve covered becoming a mobile
0:49:45 notary loan signing agent.
0:49:47 If you have an attention to detail
0:49:48 and you can get a notary license,
0:49:50 you’re qualified to do this work.
0:49:53 And it’s not rocket science and not particularly exciting,
0:49:55 like watching people sign papers,
0:49:57 but it’s not the end of the world either.
0:50:01 It could be taking surveys or doing online market research,
0:50:03 focus group type of stuff.
0:50:04 I think these are fun.
0:50:06 I probably do three, four, 500 bucks a year worth of this stuff.
0:50:08 It’s like, oh yeah, come to our online panel
0:50:09 about credit card rewards
0:50:13 or talk to us about your favorite video editing software.
0:50:16 Like, all right, sure, that’s totally fine.
0:50:19 It could be a bunch of apps will pay you to play mobile games
0:50:21 if you’re into that kind of thing.
0:50:24 Like another popular one in the past year or two
0:50:26 has been this company called ShareTown,
0:50:29 which is similar like plug and play
0:50:33 where the ShareTown specializes in product returns
0:50:34 for direct to consumer brands.
0:50:36 It’s all like bulky stuff,
0:50:39 like furniture, exercise equipment, mattresses.
0:50:41 I think they do pizza ovens as well.
0:50:43 But like, you know how all the mattress companies
0:50:46 have like a hundred night better sleepers free guarantee?
0:50:48 And so a certain percentage of people like, you know,
0:50:50 either on night one or night 99, they’re like,
0:50:52 eh, it wasn’t for us.
0:50:53 So we want to return it.
0:50:55 And so then as the local ShareTown rep,
0:50:58 you get dispatched to go pick it up, you clean it up,
0:51:01 you resell it ’cause Casper, whoever it is,
0:51:02 they can’t take that mattress back.
0:51:03 They don’t want it back.
0:51:06 And so this is their way of helping the customer out
0:51:09 and assume recouping a little bit of the cost
0:51:10 at the same time.
0:51:13 – Something else that bubbled up since we last talked
0:51:16 was the advancements of all these sites
0:51:20 that allow you to do these gig works other than Fiverr.
0:51:22 There’s all these baby sitting sites
0:51:24 and like cat sitting sites, dog sitting sites,
0:51:27 just all these random sites for random services.
0:51:29 Can you talk to us about some of the popular ones
0:51:31 that are out there right now?
0:51:35 – Yeah, so you mentioned Fiverr, obviously Upwork
0:51:39 for the freelance marketplaces, Rover for pet sitting.
0:51:42 There’s a peer-to-peer site for just about anything.
0:51:45 The challenge is to find one that is up and coming
0:51:48 and less saturated or maybe more niche.
0:51:51 What I would probably Google is the service or skill
0:51:55 that you have in mind plus marketplace or plus platform
0:52:00 and see what comes up and maybe page two of Google.
0:52:02 Maybe lower on page one and then you could plug
0:52:04 that brand name into Google Trends and see like,
0:52:07 is it increasing, is it decreasing?
0:52:10 Just to try and catch something that’s on the upswing
0:52:12 rather than one that is already just loaded
0:52:15 to the gills with service providers.
0:52:17 – So my last question to you, Nick.
0:52:20 Somebody who’s tuning in, they work a full-time job.
0:52:23 They feel like they don’t have a lot of time
0:52:26 to start a side hustle, but they want to start working
0:52:27 on getting some of that freedom
0:52:29 and being less dependent on their job.
0:52:33 What is your advice to them to just get started?
0:52:34 – I love this question because everybody is here
0:52:37 at one point or at some point,
0:52:40 you find yourself in this exact position.
0:52:44 So what you have to remember, and I’m still guilty of this,
0:52:46 I want you to remove the phrase I didn’t have time
0:52:47 from your vocabulary.
0:52:48 Instead of I didn’t have time,
0:52:50 the phrase that you need to get into your head
0:52:52 is I prioritized something else.
0:52:54 And it’s totally fine to prioritize something else,
0:52:58 but that little mental shift of being honest with yourself,
0:52:59 I prioritized watching Netflix,
0:53:01 or I prioritized hanging out with my kids,
0:53:02 that’s all totally fine.
0:53:05 But you might find that you’re prioritizing
0:53:06 some suboptimal things.
0:53:07 So that’s the first step.
0:53:10 Next step is getting consistent with carving out time,
0:53:14 either daily or weekly, to make progress on the thing.
0:53:15 And if you don’t block it off in the calendar,
0:53:16 it’s not gonna happen.
0:53:19 It could be a half hour first thing in the morning.
0:53:21 It could be 15 minutes after the kids go to bed.
0:53:24 It could be Saturday mornings on the weekend.
0:53:26 You do it and do it consistently
0:53:30 because it’s so hard to get that momentum spinning.
0:53:33 It’s like trying to push that boulder down the hill.
0:53:34 But once you get it rolling,
0:53:36 the momentum can start to compound,
0:53:37 the motivation can start to compound,
0:53:39 especially if you start to see some results.
0:53:43 And then you really feel the need to keep going at it,
0:53:44 but carve out that time.
0:53:46 Because otherwise, it’s like,
0:53:48 I’ve been guilty of having,
0:53:50 I’m a to-do list junkie and sometimes a to-do list
0:53:52 will say things like, “Write book.”
0:53:56 There is never, never gonna be an uninterrupted
0:53:59 eight-week block of time to go and write this thing.
0:54:01 So instead, trying to break it down
0:54:03 into the smallest actionable steps
0:54:06 that you might be able to accomplish
0:54:07 or might be able to start on
0:54:09 in that 15, 30 minute block of time.
0:54:12 Like, okay, maybe I can outline chapter one
0:54:17 or maybe I can start to chip away at this daunting project.
0:54:19 People talk about eating an elephant,
0:54:21 which is like the weirdest metaphor of all time.
0:54:23 But, you know, it’s just one bite at a time,
0:54:25 one step at a time.
0:54:27 – Yeah, such, such good advice.
0:54:28 I love that, Nick.
0:54:31 Okay, so I end my show asking two questions to all my guests.
0:54:34 You can forget about everything
0:54:34 that we just talked about,
0:54:36 answer these questions from your heart.
0:54:39 It doesn’t have to do with the topic of today’s show.
0:54:41 What is one actionable thing
0:54:43 our young and profitors can do today
0:54:46 to become more profitable tomorrow?
0:54:47 – The first thing that comes to mind
0:54:49 is actually keeping track
0:54:51 of what I call your personal profitability.
0:54:53 This is, even if you don’t have a side hustle,
0:54:55 even if you don’t have a business,
0:54:57 you are the CEO of your own life.
0:55:00 And that means you’re in charge of how profitable am I
0:55:01 as an individual, as a household?
0:55:04 And this is simple equation, income minus expenses.
0:55:07 And a lot of people have a sense of their salary
0:55:08 or how much they’re making.
0:55:10 But like, have you ever gotten really honest
0:55:13 and granular about what are my actual outflows?
0:55:15 ‘Cause every month, my wife and I,
0:55:16 look at the credit card statement,
0:55:19 and you’re like, ooh, a little bit higher than it normally.
0:55:21 But it’s like, oh, we bought plane tickets
0:55:23 or we had that garage repair.
0:55:27 But it’s like, we have one thing in our mind
0:55:28 of like, what the base level expenses is.
0:55:30 And then another one that’s like the reality.
0:55:32 And so trying to get honest, like, well,
0:55:34 how profitable was it having that conversation
0:55:37 and keeping track of that on a monthly basis,
0:55:38 I think is really important.
0:55:42 The IRS will ask you for your adjusted gross income
0:55:44 and all these weird acronyms and measures,
0:55:46 but they don’t care about,
0:55:47 how much did you actually keep?
0:55:49 What was the actual profitability of your household?
0:55:51 I think it’s really important to get a pulse on that.
0:55:52 – I love that.
0:55:53 That’s one that I’ve never heard
0:55:55 and it’s something that I certainly need to do
0:55:58 because I feel like it’s so different every time.
0:56:01 So it can help be really laser and in budget.
0:56:03 And what would you say your secret is to profiting in life?
0:56:05 And this can be outside of business profiting
0:56:07 in all areas of life.
0:56:10 What do you think is the secret to that?
0:56:13 – The secret to a profitable life is (laughs)
0:56:16 again, I was like the one word sound bite.
0:56:20 What comes to mind is this willingness to experiment.
0:56:23 And it comes down to like this house painting thing
0:56:26 in college where they let you get several steps
0:56:27 down the interview process
0:56:29 before they even tell you it’s house painting.
0:56:31 And then by that time, you’re kind of bought in
0:56:34 and you’re like, well, do I really want to do that?
0:56:37 And my girlfriend, you know, my future wife is just like,
0:56:39 it’s three months of your life, who cares?
0:56:41 Like if it sucks, it sucks, it’s not gonna kill you.
0:56:45 And that kind of experimenter’s mentality
0:56:46 has paid off over and over again.
0:56:49 What’s the realistic worst case scenario?
0:56:50 If it’s not life threatening
0:56:52 and the upside is strong enough,
0:56:54 it probably is worth a shot.
0:56:56 And that’s something that we’ve seen over and over again,
0:56:59 separating the side hustle show guests
0:57:01 that are having success versus the people
0:57:03 who are perpetually stuck on the sidelines,
0:57:05 is willingness to take step one.
0:57:08 Even if they don’t really know what steps two through 10 are,
0:57:12 it’s kind of that unlock that really helps people
0:57:15 work for profits and not wages, ultimately,
0:57:19 and unlock that next level of personal freedom,
0:57:20 financial freedom, for sure.
0:57:21 – Amazing.
0:57:23 I loved hearing your thoughts, Nick.
0:57:25 Where can everybody learn more about you
0:57:26 and everything that you do?
0:57:28 – SidehustleNation.com is the home base.
0:57:30 Would love to have you tune into the side hustle show.
0:57:33 You find it in all your favorite podcast apps.
0:57:35 I know we talked about a lot of different side hustles
0:57:39 in this episode, but sidehustleNation.com/ideas,
0:57:40 if you would like even more.
0:57:43 This is kind of our annual updated list
0:57:45 of the best that we found.
0:57:47 – Awesome. Thank you, Nick.
0:57:47 – You bet.
0:57:53 – It was so fun to have Nick Loper,
0:57:57 one of my first ever guests back on the show.
0:58:00 And it just reminds me how far this podcast has come
0:58:02 in the past six and a half years.
0:58:05 And it’s crazy to even think that it’s been so long.
0:58:07 I started this podcast as a side hustle.
0:58:10 And for two years, I would work on it
0:58:12 early in the morning before work,
0:58:15 late at night when I got home.
0:58:16 I was working in corporate,
0:58:19 and I would do all of my interviews at lunch.
0:58:22 And I’d find like closets to do these interviews in
0:58:25 at the time I didn’t have video or phone booths
0:58:27 or I’d even drive home
0:58:29 if it was a really big interview and drive back.
0:58:32 And I never missed an episode in seven years.
0:58:36 And it’s the consistency that made me successful.
0:58:37 I’m like tearing up.
0:58:41 It’s crazy to think how far you can go
0:58:43 if you’re just consistent.
0:58:45 You really can go far.
0:58:48 Here I am almost seven years later,
0:58:52 and I’ve got this very large podcast.
0:58:54 I have a lot of followers, not just on Apple,
0:58:56 but on all the different apps.
0:58:59 I’m like a really innovative type of podcaster
0:59:02 where I didn’t just grow on one platform.
0:59:05 So I’m making all this sponsorship money now,
0:59:09 and I didn’t take a podcaster payout for years.
0:59:14 And my podcast made $100,000 last month.
0:59:15 And that’s besides my business.
0:59:20 I have a social media agency and a podcast network.
0:59:24 My podcast alone made $100,000 last month.
0:59:27 And I finally am taking my own payouts.
0:59:30 And it’s just crazy.
0:59:32 Like it’s crazy to think that this idea
0:59:37 that I had seven years ago is now making $100,000 a month.
0:59:43 And it is the main lead gen for all of my businesses.
0:59:46 The people that come on this show become my clients.
0:59:49 They become my social clients, my podcast clients.
0:59:52 So the podcast has also made me a ton of money
0:59:56 indirectly outside of sponsorships.
0:59:58 And it’s the consistency.
1:00:01 It’s the fact that I never missed an episode.
1:00:02 It’s the fact that I did it
1:00:05 even though when it was really hard and I had another job.
1:00:07 I did it when everybody told me
1:00:10 I was too old to start a podcast.
1:00:11 I just did it.
1:00:14 And I think you all can do it too.
1:00:18 If you wanna start a side hustle, you should do it.
1:00:20 All right, let me get myself together.
1:00:23 Side hustles, like Nick said,
1:00:25 have been around for as long as people
1:00:27 have had main hustles.
1:00:29 But the landscape of side hustles today
1:00:31 is more varied than ever,
1:00:33 offering so many opportunities
1:00:36 for anyone looking to diversify their income streams.
1:00:38 And of course, it’s really not just about income.
1:00:40 It’s about building a new skill set,
1:00:42 experimenting with something new on the side
1:00:44 until you’re ready to turn your side hustle
1:00:47 into your full-time passion.
1:00:49 And if you dig that well before you’re thirsty,
1:00:52 then you can avoid a lot of headaches.
1:00:54 Like Nick said, if an entrepreneur is somebody
1:00:57 who jumps off a cliff and builds an airplane
1:00:59 on the way down, a good side hustle
1:01:01 can reduce the height of that cliff
1:01:05 or the difficulty of building that airplane.
1:01:07 You just need to find your niche.
1:01:09 And you can find some quite profitable ones
1:01:12 in unexpected places like designing websites
1:01:14 for pressure washing businesses.
1:01:16 Now, I wouldn’t go that niche.
1:01:18 I think that you’ll have more success
1:01:20 being a little bit more broader,
1:01:24 just designing websites for businesses in general.
1:01:26 Or perhaps your niche is selling shovels
1:01:31 to gold seekers, like providing editing services for podcasts.
1:01:33 It’s such a hot area right now.
1:01:36 You got to just attach to what’s hot.
1:01:39 Or maybe your side hustle is building an audience
1:01:41 for your own content and business.
1:01:44 And then you can sell that audience whatever you want
1:01:46 as you evolve over time.
1:01:48 And so many of these side hustles
1:01:50 have little or no barriers to entry,
1:01:54 but you do need to carve out the time to make it happen.
1:01:56 Even if it’s just 30 minutes in the morning
1:01:58 or before you go to bed,
1:02:00 you need that consistency to build momentum
1:02:02 and boost motivation.
1:02:07 Obviously, you can’t spell side hustle without the hustle.
1:02:08 Thanks for listening to this episode
1:02:10 of Young and Profiting Podcast
1:02:13 and making this podcast one of your side ventures.
1:02:14 If you know somebody who’d like
1:02:16 to improve their side hustle game,
1:02:17 then share this episode with them,
1:02:20 spread this podcast by word of mouth.
1:02:21 And if you listened, learned and profited
1:02:24 from this conversation with the hustling Nick Loper,
1:02:27 then please take a couple minutes to drop us
1:02:30 a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify
1:02:32 or wherever you listen to your podcast.
1:02:36 Now I mean it when I say I’m literally obsessed
1:02:38 with reading your reviews.
1:02:41 This is a podcast where I’m talking to you,
1:02:43 but I can’t hear what you’re saying back to me.
1:02:47 And your reviews are the way that you give me that feedback.
1:02:49 And plus, I love hearing from you guys.
1:02:52 I work really hard on this show.
1:02:53 I do the work.
1:02:54 I’ve got a business that’s about
1:02:57 to make eight figures next year.
1:03:02 And I’m a busy girl, but I make sure that I read the book.
1:03:05 I study, I have good questions
1:03:08 and I’m prepared to make this hour as valuable as possible.
1:03:10 It’s not normal to have as many five star reviews
1:03:12 as we do on the podcast.
1:03:15 And it really helps other people start listening
1:03:17 and it just supports the show overall.
1:03:21 We’ve got a big team and your reviews help support us.
1:03:23 So please, if you enjoy the show,
1:03:26 you listen and you listen every week.
1:03:28 You listen every morning while you’re on the gym,
1:03:29 while you’re on a walk.
1:03:31 Take a couple of minutes right as a review.
1:03:33 Let me know when you listen to it.
1:03:35 How do you listen to this podcast?
1:03:36 What does it make you feel?
1:03:37 How does it motivate you?
1:03:38 Tell me.
1:03:40 I wanna hear it in the review.
1:03:42 I get so motivated from these reviews
1:03:44 to do a better job for everyone.
1:03:47 So please make my day, write a review.
1:03:50 And if you prefer to watch your podcasts as videos,
1:03:53 all of our episodes are uploaded to YouTube.
1:03:56 In fact, I just interviewed Mel Robbins.
1:03:59 Yes, the Mel Robbins in person.
1:04:01 And it’s gonna be on YouTube soon.
1:04:03 So make sure you go to YouTube, subscribe.
1:04:05 I’ve got an interview with Gary Vee on there in person.
1:04:07 And I’m starting to do a lot more in person content.
1:04:11 And it’s so funny because it seems like the bigger the guests
1:04:13 are more likely now that I’ll be interviewing them
1:04:16 in person, which is so awesome.
1:04:19 But it’s been such a great learning experience
1:04:21 because virtually I don’t think I get that nervous
1:04:23 but meeting somebody in person,
1:04:25 you get a lot more nervous, but it’s great.
1:04:26 It’s a challenge for me.
1:04:27 I love it.
1:04:29 And I think I’m still doing a great job
1:04:30 and I can’t wait to get better.
1:04:34 So we’ve got in-person interviews on YouTube now.
1:04:35 Check them out.
1:04:38 And of course, if you wanna find me on social media,
1:04:41 it’s Instagram @yappwithhala or LinkedIn
1:04:44 by searching my name, it’s Halataha.
1:04:48 And finally, I’ve gotta thank my fabulous YAP media team
1:04:51 who make this production possible.
1:04:54 Oh my gosh, guys, it takes a village to put on the show.
1:04:56 We’ve got Paul, who’s our assistant producer now.
1:04:58 He just got promoted from the YouTube team.
1:04:59 He’s been with us for years.
1:05:01 He is amazing.
1:05:04 And I’m so proud of him and excited for him
1:05:06 to take on this role.
1:05:07 And he helps me so much.
1:05:09 So shout out to Paul.
1:05:12 Shout out to Sean for being like the best researcher
1:05:15 in the world, Greta for supporting him.
1:05:17 And Paul for again, supporting him.
1:05:19 Shout out to Christina.
1:05:21 Shout out to Furkan and Hisham
1:05:24 for booking the most incredible guests all the time.
1:05:27 I also wanna shout Maxi, Raven, Zoe.
1:05:30 Thank you guys for all that you do.
1:05:33 I couldn’t do this without you.
1:05:36 It clearly takes an army to put on this show.
1:05:38 Like I said before, it’s no joke.
1:05:40 We work hard here at YAP.
1:05:43 This is your host, Halataha, AKA the podcast princess,
1:05:45 signing off.
1:05:47 (upbeat music)
1:05:50 (upbeat music)
1:05:53 (upbeat music)
1:05:55 (upbeat music)
1:05:58 (door creaks)
1:06:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]