YAPClassic: Nick Loper, Master the Art of Side Hustles to Create Lasting Freedom

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0:00:54 YAP, gang, gang, gang.
0:00:56 Earlier this week, we aired my latest interview
0:01:00 with Mr. Side Hustle himself, Nick Loper.
0:01:03 In that episode, we talked about his very first appearance
0:01:05 on the show that was episode 10
0:01:07 when he was one of my first ever guests.
0:01:10 I was a baby podcaster in this episode.
0:01:12 Well, now’s your chance to experience that conversation
0:01:15 as well in this YAP Classic episode.
0:01:17 Now, this was recorded back in 2018,
0:01:21 so it may sound a bit different than the podcast does today,
0:01:23 but this is so much more than just
0:01:26 an interesting archive exercise.
0:01:28 And that’s because Nick shares some solid gold nuggets
0:01:31 of wisdom that are still useful today.
0:01:34 You’re going to hear Nick talk about his very first Side Hustle,
0:01:37 what he calls the three laws of Side Hustle physics,
0:01:40 as well as which personality types do especially well
0:01:42 when it comes to Side Hustles.
0:01:44 So if you’re considering a new Side Hustle
0:01:46 or looking to expand an existing one,
0:01:48 then why not prime yourself
0:01:50 with a double dose of Nick Loper this week?
0:01:52 You won’t regret it.
0:01:55 Without further ado, I bring you Nick Loper.
0:01:58 (whoosh)
0:02:00 – So I thought that we could get started
0:02:03 with getting acquainted, so an icebreaker, if you will.
0:02:07 I was on your website and I saw this list
0:02:09 of 25 facts about yourself,
0:02:11 one of which I found really interesting.
0:02:14 You took a cold shower for 500 days in a row.
0:02:16 Can you tell me about that?
0:02:18 Why on earth did you do that?
0:02:19 – I know, it sounds awful now.
0:02:23 So this was kind of in the 2014 to 2015 timeframe,
0:02:26 started actually with a guest of mine on the Side Hustle show
0:02:29 who was talking about taking cold showers,
0:02:34 starting out as a fat burning hack
0:02:36 to boost your metabolism for the rest of the day
0:02:37 ’cause you’re gonna expend calories
0:02:41 like heating your body up long after the shower is over.
0:02:43 But then what he found was it was effective for that,
0:02:45 but what he also found it was effective
0:02:48 for just like motivation and he’s like,
0:02:50 if this is the hardest thing that I have to do today,
0:02:52 and some days it’s really hard ’cause it sucks,
0:02:55 you feel like you’re ready to tackle anything.
0:02:56 And I kind of found the same thing.
0:02:58 And I said on air is like, you know what,
0:03:01 that sounds awful, but let me give it a shot.
0:03:02 And some good things started happening.
0:03:04 It might’ve been totally placebo,
0:03:08 but at that time started to get more coaching clients,
0:03:09 like traffic started to pick up.
0:03:12 I don’t know, for what a reason I was into it.
0:03:14 And so I did it for over a year.
0:03:15 I guess it was effective.
0:03:18 Maybe it was what I needed at that time.
0:03:19 – Would you recommend it to others?
0:03:22 – Absolutely, get out of your comfort zone a little bit,
0:03:26 do it for 30 days, or even maybe the baby steps way to do it
0:03:28 would be to end your showers cold,
0:03:30 which is kind of what I tend to do today,
0:03:32 ’cause that’s less, for some reason less jarring
0:03:35 than just like jumping straight into the cold water.
0:03:37 – That’s funny, that sounds horrible.
0:03:41 So how did you become the chief side hustler
0:03:43 at Side Hustle Nation?
0:03:45 Tell us about yourself, your journey,
0:03:47 you know, how you got started with it all.
0:03:51 – My original side hustle was when I was working corporate
0:03:54 was a footwear comparison shopping site.
0:03:56 It was called Shoesniper.com.
0:04:00 And it would aggregate the product catalogs
0:04:01 from Zappos and Amazon
0:04:04 and all these other online footwear retailers
0:04:05 and tell you where you could find the best price
0:04:07 on your next pair of shoes.
0:04:09 And it earned money as an affiliate.
0:04:12 So, you know, if somebody went and bought that pair of shoes
0:04:14 through Amazon, the site would get a commission.
0:04:17 And while I was running that,
0:04:20 and the site had a almost a 10 year run,
0:04:22 we was always looking for stuff on the side.
0:04:25 And it was kind of like during one of these lower points
0:04:27 of that business, doing some soul search and be like,
0:04:28 well, what do you want to be known for
0:04:29 when people Google you?
0:04:31 What do you get excited about talking about?
0:04:36 And it was that prospect of lower risk entrepreneurship.
0:04:38 You know, how do I build a business on the side?
0:04:40 How do I make extra money that, you know,
0:04:42 really never gets old and still doesn’t get old
0:04:45 because there’s a million and one creative ways
0:04:46 that people are doing it.
0:04:49 And that’s kind of where the Side Hustle show
0:04:52 and the Side Hustle Nation blog kind of were born from.
0:04:55 So right now, are you a side hustler?
0:04:57 Like how many side hustles do you have?
0:04:59 A lot of them overlap.
0:05:02 And so my days of experimenting
0:05:04 with a lot of this stuff are kind of limited.
0:05:06 So I used to do some freelancing,
0:05:08 used to do some e-commerce experiments
0:05:10 with like Amazon and eBay.
0:05:11 And I still do a little bit of that,
0:05:13 but that’s kind of taken the back burner.
0:05:18 The Side Hustle blog has kind of become in the podcast,
0:05:20 kind of become the main focus,
0:05:24 but there still are a dozen income streams related to that
0:05:26 and not related to that through self publishing,
0:05:28 through affiliate marketing on the site
0:05:30 and on a couple other sites that I still run.
0:05:32 Sadly, the shoe site no longer exists,
0:05:35 but some other sites that were started during that time
0:05:38 are still around, starting some experiments
0:05:39 in the investing world.
0:05:42 And it all, you know, it all adds up
0:05:45 versus trying to rely on one source of income,
0:05:47 having like a single point of failure.
0:05:48 – Yeah, so to that point,
0:05:52 why do you prefer or recommend having Side Hustles
0:05:54 over a nine to five job?
0:05:56 – Well, not necessarily a preference one over the other,
0:05:57 but the ultimate freedom, right,
0:05:59 is control over your calendar.
0:06:00 How do you spend your time?
0:06:01 How do you spend your days?
0:06:04 And if you can piece together an income on your own terms,
0:06:06 rather than on somebody else’s terms,
0:06:09 you’re more likely to have that freedom.
0:06:11 So that’s kind of where it came from for me.
0:06:14 And I would definitely advocate focus first,
0:06:16 simplify first, and then diversify second.
0:06:18 So, you know, try and get one thing,
0:06:20 one business, one income stream off the ground
0:06:22 before going crazy and trying six things,
0:06:24 you know, with an unfocused effort,
0:06:28 ’cause I think that’s harder to see results from.
0:06:30 – Why don’t you give some context to our listeners
0:06:31 about Side Hustle Nation?
0:06:33 So like, what is Side Hustle Nation?
0:06:35 – Basically just a blog and podcast
0:06:37 for people trying to make extra money
0:06:39 outside of traditional employment.
0:06:41 At the very low end of that,
0:06:43 it could be like babysitting, walking dogs,
0:06:43 delivering pizzas.
0:06:46 Like, I think all of those count as Side Hustles.
0:06:49 There is a connotation that a Side Hustle
0:06:53 has a little bit more of an entrepreneurial upside,
0:06:56 where maybe you’re not directly trading hours for dollars,
0:06:58 or maybe there’s this vision, this hope,
0:07:01 this dream that it could become something bigger,
0:07:04 as it definitely did for me with the shoe business.
0:07:07 – I have a little trouble distinguishing a Side Hustle
0:07:10 from a part-time job or a second job.
0:07:12 How do you personally define what a Side Hustle is?
0:07:13 – Probably the textbook definition
0:07:15 would be that upside potential,
0:07:18 like that, it’s something that you have ownership over.
0:07:20 Maybe it’s an asset that you own
0:07:24 versus, okay, I drive for Uber,
0:07:26 or I’m delivering pizzas,
0:07:28 or I’m doing Instacart deliveries,
0:07:29 or something like that, right?
0:07:33 Like, that absolutely counts as a Side Hustle in my mind,
0:07:35 but at the same time, you’re limited
0:07:39 on how much you can do by your hours in the day,
0:07:42 versus with you starting the podcast,
0:07:46 it’s all of a sudden from a single mic
0:07:47 and two people having a conversation,
0:07:49 you could reach thousands and thousands of people,
0:07:51 and that is really powerful.
0:07:52 It becomes a little bit more leveraged,
0:07:54 and I think there’s a lot more upside,
0:07:56 even just like starting a freelancing business.
0:07:57 Like, I’m gonna do freelance writing,
0:07:59 I’m gonna do freelance podcast editing, whatever it is.
0:08:01 – So I was doing a bit of research on the show,
0:08:04 and I found out that more Americans
0:08:06 are working a Side Hustle than ever before,
0:08:09 and to be exact, there are 44 million Americans
0:08:11 with a Side Hustle today.
0:08:14 Why do you think the motivations to start a Side Hustle
0:08:17 are so much stronger than they were in the past?
0:08:19 – That’s a weird, it’s a weird time, right?
0:08:22 It’s a weird statistic, because on the surface,
0:08:26 the economy is great, unemployment is at record lows,
0:08:30 yet why are 44 million people feeling the need,
0:08:32 or the desire to go out and make extra money?
0:08:35 So I think part of it is reactive, right?
0:08:38 Housing, education, insurance, or healthcare,
0:08:40 like all of those costs have grown way faster
0:08:42 than real wages.
0:08:43 So that’s a driving factor,
0:08:46 like just the straight up cost of living,
0:08:49 and people feeling the crunch to make ends meet
0:08:50 and pay down student debt.
0:08:53 That’s maybe the negative way to look at it,
0:08:56 and the more positive way to look at it is,
0:09:01 I have the ability and the desire to start something
0:09:04 that scratches a creative itch,
0:09:06 that is something that I have control over,
0:09:10 that I’m interested in, that I’m passionate about.
0:09:12 That’s probably driving some of that as well,
0:09:13 and those are kind of the people
0:09:16 that are more interesting to talk to
0:09:19 than the people like, “Well, I need to make rent next month.”
0:09:20 That’s, you’re approaching it
0:09:22 from a completely different standpoint.
0:09:23 – Yeah, and from my perspective,
0:09:26 I really think it’s all about the digital innovation
0:09:28 that’s going on, like there’s so many different
0:09:32 digital platforms where people can do freelance work,
0:09:35 whether it’s Fiverr or Upwork, and mobility, you know?
0:09:38 Like you can just make money off your phone now
0:09:39 while you’re on the train, you know?
0:09:41 I used to do that years ago,
0:09:43 but I just feel like it’s easier.
0:09:45 There’s so much more space to play
0:09:47 because we’ve got the internet now,
0:09:49 and there’s just so much more that you can do
0:09:51 with your free time to monetize it.
0:09:54 So I think it’s also like digital impact too.
0:09:58 – Yeah, that word play that you just used is really key.
0:10:00 And approaching it that way, saying,
0:10:02 “Look, this is going to be a fun experiment.
0:10:04 I’m going to see what happens.
0:10:06 I’m going to put some content out there.”
0:10:08 And approaching it that way,
0:10:09 you know, lessens the sting of failure
0:10:11 and kind of puts you more into a scientist role
0:10:13 where it’s like, “Okay, this is my hypothesis.
0:10:15 I’m going to test something out.
0:10:16 If it works, great. If it doesn’t,
0:10:18 okay, on to the next thing.”
0:10:20 – I also read that half of millennials
0:10:22 report having a side hustle.
0:10:26 So this is really big for the younger millennial generation.
0:10:27 Why do you think it’s so attractive
0:10:29 to younger millennials specifically?
0:10:32 Most of my listeners are younger millennials.
0:10:34 – Yeah, I think it’s that, you know,
0:10:35 cash strapped nature.
0:10:37 You know, look, we’re dealing with a debt load.
0:10:41 We’re dealing with a higher cost of living in most cases.
0:10:44 And it’s just, okay, how do I make ends meet?
0:10:46 And the way I approached it was like,
0:10:47 I was just looking for a way
0:10:50 to use my free time more productively.
0:10:51 When I was first starting the shoe business,
0:10:53 like I moved across the country for my day job.
0:10:56 Didn’t have any friends, like outside of the office really.
0:10:57 And so I had a lot of free times, nights and weekends.
0:11:01 I was like, well, I could play Xbox with my buddies back home
0:11:02 or just sit there and watch TV.
0:11:06 But so, you know, how can I be more intentional,
0:11:09 be more effective with these hours that I’ve been given
0:11:12 and try and make something worthwhile out of it.
0:11:13 – Let’s hold that thought
0:11:15 and take a quick break with our sponsors.
0:11:22 – You mentioned that you have a blog.
0:11:23 It’s a very cool blog.
0:11:25 That’s actually how I found you.
0:11:27 I was looking for ways to monetize my podcast
0:11:29 and came across one of your blogs.
0:11:29 – Oh, nice.
0:11:32 – And one blog that I saw that I thought might be interesting
0:11:34 to kind of recap for our listeners
0:11:38 is this three laws of side hustle physics.
0:11:41 Do you mind explaining what those three laws are?
0:11:43 – Sure, well, these will parallel Newton.
0:11:48 So somebody wants to get nerdy and talk about physics.
0:11:52 So law number one is like this inertia and momentum law
0:11:54 where you might remember from physics, right?
0:11:57 An object at rest is gonna stay at rest
0:11:59 and an object in motion is gonna stay in motion
0:12:01 until acted upon by an external force.
0:12:03 And we see this over and over again
0:12:07 with people who are on the sidelines
0:12:08 looking to get into the game.
0:12:11 Like there has to be some motivating factor
0:12:15 to get you to move, to take action,
0:12:16 to register that domain name,
0:12:18 to put up your profile on Upwork,
0:12:21 to try and get that first client to put yourself out there.
0:12:25 And maybe that’s a meeting with your boss
0:12:26 that doesn’t go as well as you planned.
0:12:29 Like one of my favorite moments on the show
0:12:33 was a photographer, a journalist I had on the show.
0:12:37 He just won international sports photographer of the year.
0:12:39 Something like his highest award in his industry
0:12:41 goes into his boss for his annual review.
0:12:45 And his boss is like, man, I fought for 4%,
0:12:47 but I could only get you a 3% raise.
0:12:49 And he’s like, you gotta be kidding me.
0:12:51 And he’s making like 30 grand a year doing this.
0:12:54 And he’s like, this is not gonna work.
0:12:57 And so that was the motivating factor
0:12:59 to kind of get him off the sidelines
0:13:04 and start thinking seriously about starting his side hustle.
0:13:05 So that’s kind of the first law.
0:13:06 And it goes both ways.
0:13:07 Like once you’re in motion,
0:13:08 and we see this over and over again,
0:13:12 ideas start to pop up that you never would have had
0:13:14 just based on conversations that you have
0:13:17 or things that you come across during your research.
0:13:19 And that it’s really powerful,
0:13:21 like this inertia and momentum law.
0:13:26 Law number two is this law of force and impact.
0:13:28 And so this is Newton’s law of like acceleration,
0:13:31 acceleration of an object occurs based on the force
0:13:32 that was applied to it.
0:13:35 So the smack of that 3% raise
0:13:37 after winning the highest award in your industry,
0:13:40 that was a pretty hard smack.
0:13:43 And so it motivated Vincent to take off in a hurry.
0:13:45 He told me he would have been happy with 10%.
0:13:47 And so like that wouldn’t have been a big enough impact
0:13:49 to really change his life.
0:13:50 – I just wanna pause here for a second
0:13:52 ’cause I love that.
0:13:55 For me, rejection is such great motivation.
0:13:59 You know, and it’s like every time I’ve ever been rejected,
0:14:01 it’s been when I’ve like pivoted to something
0:14:04 that is like a life achievement for myself.
0:14:07 So I think that if you get rejected,
0:14:09 if you feel like you’ve been let down,
0:14:13 it’s the best time to put that negative energy
0:14:15 into something positive and do something different
0:14:17 and impactful for yourself.
0:14:20 – Yeah, this was kind of like hit home.
0:14:22 We were at this like beach vacation this summer
0:14:24 and you’re at the pool all the time.
0:14:26 And you’re like, man, I really should hit the gym more
0:14:28 ’cause I see all these people who are super fit.
0:14:29 And so like maybe that’s a motivating factor.
0:14:31 You could see it in health, you could see it in business,
0:14:33 you’d see it in relationships.
0:14:35 It happens all over the place.
0:14:38 And then the third law is this action and reaction.
0:14:40 You know, so for every action,
0:14:43 there’s an equal and opposite reaction.
0:14:45 And so we’re recording this on election day
0:14:48 and somebody just posted like whether you vote or not,
0:14:49 that’s a vote.
0:14:51 And so that made me think about this, you know,
0:14:53 there’s an equal and opposite reaction.
0:14:57 Even if nobody theoretically reacts to your stuff
0:15:00 ’cause I wrote a personal blog for years and years and years
0:15:03 that nobody really read outside of my friends and family.
0:15:05 Well, that was a reaction.
0:15:07 It was, you know, a reaction that told me
0:15:10 that you better write about stuff that people care about.
0:15:12 And it wasn’t all for waste
0:15:15 because it was practicing skills of writing online
0:15:18 and learning WordPress and learning all this other stuff.
0:15:22 But it can be depressing when on the surface it’s like,
0:15:24 yeah, there was no reaction.
0:15:27 What kind of side hustles do you write about on your blog?
0:15:31 The big three for the site right now are freelancing.
0:15:33 Like we talked about e-commerce
0:15:35 and kind of like a blogging
0:15:38 and podcasting content marketing types of businesses
0:15:41 where you’re like, okay, I’m gonna set up an online presence
0:15:44 to talk about this subject matter that maybe I’m an expert in,
0:15:47 maybe I’m not, maybe I’m learning this subject matter
0:15:49 and, you know, monetizing through ads,
0:15:51 through affiliate relationships, through digital products.
0:15:54 And do you think that there are certain personality types
0:15:58 that thrive in this side hustle role?
0:15:59 I’ve seen it work across, you know,
0:16:02 introverts, extroverts, young, old.
0:16:04 It’s really a matter of figuring out,
0:16:06 okay, what’s my offer gonna be
0:16:09 and how can I get that in front of my target customers?
0:16:11 Let’s say I’m a millennial
0:16:14 and I have this idea for a side hustle.
0:16:17 How can I test the idea and make sure it’s a good one
0:16:20 before I either quit my day job
0:16:22 or spend a vast amount of time on it?
0:16:24 This is good, let’s dive into this a little bit more.
0:16:27 So what’s the hypothetical business
0:16:28 that you’re thinking about testing?
0:16:31 Let’s say selling something on Etsy.
0:16:31 Okay, perfect.
0:16:33 So if we’re looking at Etsy,
0:16:36 where I would start is the existing listings on Etsy
0:16:40 and the existing listings on eBay, Amazon, Redbubble,
0:16:43 you know, some of these other similar marketplaces
0:16:45 where people buy me buying this stuff.
0:16:47 If there are other people making sales,
0:16:49 like that’s a fantastic sign, right?
0:16:51 There’s money in that market.
0:16:53 The second thing that I would probably do
0:16:56 is Etsy costs like, I think 20 cents to put up a listing.
0:16:57 It’s almost free.
0:16:59 So you create your listing very affordably.
0:17:01 And so if it’s a handmade product,
0:17:03 I would just create one of those
0:17:04 so you can take nice pictures
0:17:06 and put up that listing for 20 cents.
0:17:09 Etsy has on-platform advertising
0:17:11 that you can use to drive traffic
0:17:14 on top of their listing optimization tools
0:17:16 and keyword tags and stuff like that.
0:17:19 But one thing that you probably wanna do
0:17:20 before paying for traffic
0:17:24 is to land some social proof on your Etsy page,
0:17:26 which is like, you know, the number of likes on this page,
0:17:28 the number of sales that you’ve made.
0:17:31 So you can see that with some initial reviews
0:17:32 from friends and family.
0:17:34 You might even just give these away
0:17:37 and say, I’d really prefer if you ordered this through Etsy
0:17:39 to help out my appearance on that platform.
0:17:41 And you find that kind of a similar strategy,
0:17:43 not just on Etsy, but on iTunes.
0:17:45 Hey, can you review this podcast on you to me?
0:17:47 Hey, could you review my course on Amazon?
0:17:49 Hey, could you review my book?
0:17:51 Like just to kind of seed the platform
0:17:53 with a little bit of social proof.
0:17:55 So the algorithms start to work in your favor.
0:17:58 And so people, when they do land on that page,
0:18:00 they say, okay, this isn’t a ghost town.
0:18:03 There’s actually, you know, there’s something to this.
0:18:06 – Isn’t that so funny how you could have thousands
0:18:09 of listeners and the best personal feedback,
0:18:12 but if you have no reviews, like you ain’t shit.
0:18:14 – Yeah, and maybe that’s feedback too.
0:18:15 Like if nobody wants your thing,
0:18:17 like if you can’t get your friends and family to buy it,
0:18:20 that’s probably a sign that it’s not the best business
0:18:20 to go into.
0:18:22 – And I know a lot of people are thinking
0:18:25 about these days starting a podcast, starting a blog.
0:18:27 Do you have any advice for those folks?
0:18:31 – Yeah, I’m still really high on podcasting specifically
0:18:33 because I forget the latest stats,
0:18:36 but it’s probably something like 40% of the population
0:18:38 even knows what a podcast is.
0:18:40 And so that leaves a huge chunk of the pie
0:18:44 like a left to go out and grow over the next 5, 10, 15 years.
0:18:46 Like as people discover on demand audio
0:18:49 and they’re probably gonna react like I did,
0:18:50 like this is amazing.
0:18:51 How did I waste so many years
0:18:53 listening to nonsense on the radio?
0:18:54 When I could listen to stuff
0:18:57 that is gonna help me grow personally and professionally.
0:18:59 Like really excited about that.
0:19:04 The key then is, okay, how can I reach those people
0:19:06 and the 40% that already do know about podcasts?
0:19:08 How can I reach those people in a way
0:19:11 that is either helpful or entertaining.
0:19:12 A friend of mine kind of gave me,
0:19:14 this was five or six years ago at a conference,
0:19:15 he gave me the rule of the internet,
0:19:17 which I quote all the time.
0:19:19 It’s, you know, people are only ever online
0:19:20 for one of two reasons.
0:19:22 You know, number one, to be entertained.
0:19:24 And number two, to solve a problem.
0:19:26 And you can think of it, that’s Facebook and that’s Google.
0:19:28 You know, to be entertained or solve a problem.
0:19:32 And the podcast may bridge the gap there.
0:19:34 Some friends have called it infotainment
0:19:37 where you’re providing educational content,
0:19:39 hopefully in an entertaining way.
0:19:41 But you know, putting the listener first
0:19:44 and it’s a practice, it’s a crap.
0:19:47 Like the first 50 episodes of the side hustle show, awful.
0:19:50 You know, I’m embarrassed to go back and listen to those,
0:19:54 but it just took a while to hit my stride as a host.
0:19:57 And I don’t know, you’re like a radio professional.
0:19:59 So you’re doing great right out of the gate,
0:20:00 but it’s a practice.
0:20:01 Yeah, yeah.
0:20:04 I read that the average side hustle
0:20:06 only makes $200 a month
0:20:08 and $600 a month
0:20:10 if you’re really knocking it out of the park.
0:20:11 But to me, that doesn’t really sound
0:20:13 like a young and profiting type of stuff.
0:20:15 That sounds like we could do better.
0:20:16 Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t leave your job
0:20:19 if you’re at that two to $600 a month level.
0:20:23 What I would like to see is a track record
0:20:26 of earnings history, you know, six to 12 months
0:20:29 and other people will be more aggressive than this
0:20:32 of replacing not necessarily your day job salary,
0:20:34 but at least your monthly expenses.
0:20:36 So you know, you’re not going to be dipping
0:20:39 into your emergency fund, your savings
0:20:41 to try and get to that ramp up period.
0:20:45 The exception to that has been from folks
0:20:47 where the day job really is the bottleneck.
0:20:51 And you say, hey, if I had an extra 40, 50, 60 hours a week
0:20:54 in some cases, I know I could get this thing
0:20:56 to the next level where it could support me,
0:20:57 where it could support my family.
0:21:00 That’s when it might make sense to make the leap
0:21:03 where it looks on paper prematurely.
0:21:05 It has to align with your goals too, right?
0:21:09 Some people have no intention of leaving their day jobs.
0:21:12 Hey, I love my work, but I just, I do this stuff on the sign
0:21:14 because it’s fun, because it’s interesting,
0:21:17 because it provides play money, you know,
0:21:19 for whatever reason, you know, it’s building my skills,
0:21:22 it’s exercising it, you know, a different side of my brain.
0:21:25 So not everybody is out to quit their day job.
0:21:29 We’ll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors.
0:21:32 (whooshing)
0:21:37 I personally feel like side hustles have a negative appeal
0:21:40 to some people, especially like the older generation
0:21:42 that you should be more traditional,
0:21:44 you should have a regular job.
0:21:47 Have you faced any of that negative judgment?
0:21:49 That’s an interesting one.
0:21:52 So the negativity comes from a couple places.
0:21:57 The first is that you kind of economic macro positioning
0:21:59 that we talked about where it’s like,
0:22:00 you know, what a sad state of affairs
0:22:03 that 44 million people feel the need to side hustle,
0:22:05 like why can’t it be like the old days, right?
0:22:06 That’s maybe one angle.
0:22:09 The other angle is just like maybe the word hustle,
0:22:10 like as the connotation of like,
0:22:12 I’m gonna scam people or something like that,
0:22:15 not recognizing, it just means your effort,
0:22:16 like control what you can control,
0:22:18 work as hard as you can when you can,
0:22:19 and be smart about it.
0:22:22 So actually, side hustling nation comes from
0:22:24 a quote from an old baseball coach of mine.
0:22:26 He’s like, look, you’re gonna have bad days at the plate,
0:22:28 you’re gonna have bad days in the field,
0:22:29 but hustle never slumps.
0:22:30 And I was like, okay, I really like that,
0:22:31 that stuck with me.
0:22:32 Yeah, it is catchy.
0:22:34 And what side hustles today,
0:22:36 like this very moment in time,
0:22:38 would you recommend to our listeners?
0:22:39 Oh my gosh.
0:22:41 So we talked about the freelancing consulting stuff.
0:22:43 If you have a skill that’s in demand,
0:22:45 absolutely understand that your boss,
0:22:49 your company is probably taking a large percentage
0:22:50 of your value.
0:22:53 A friend of mine was a tutor for Kaplan,
0:22:55 or one of these big tutoring companies.
0:22:56 He was making 18 bucks an hour,
0:22:59 which was awesome for him, like in his early 20s.
0:23:00 The company was turning around
0:23:01 and charging the parents like a hundred bucks an hour.
0:23:03 And so he was like, wait a minute,
0:23:04 I have this skill, I could go out
0:23:06 and sell that directly to my customers.
0:23:08 So I like that freelancing marketplace.
0:23:11 Perfect first side hustle is a way to get your feet wet,
0:23:15 understand that you have value outside of your business card,
0:23:16 outside of your paycheck.
0:23:18 My wife and her business partner on the side
0:23:21 from her job started a photography business,
0:23:23 completely unrelated to her engineering job.
0:23:25 So it doesn’t have to be, I’m an accountant by day.
0:23:27 So I’ll do accounting at night.
0:23:29 We talked about the podcasting stuff.
0:23:33 We talked about kind of like the online authority business,
0:23:36 blogging, content marketing businesses.
0:23:39 I continue to see, and I continue to be impressed
0:23:42 by some of the numbers that these guys are posting.
0:23:45 I just talked to a guy this afternoon
0:23:49 who was selling $45,000 a month worth of a online course
0:23:53 that teaches you how to start a microgreens farming business
0:23:55 and grow the stuff in your garage
0:23:58 and sell it to the farmer’s market and to local restaurants.
0:24:00 And it just blew my mind that there was that much demand
0:24:03 in a niche I had never even heard of.
0:24:05 And I’m really excited by stuff like that,
0:24:08 people having this new ability to kind of monetize these
0:24:12 little skills, hobbies, interests that they might
0:24:14 be able to put out there.
0:24:17 Yeah, I feel like courses are getting more and more popular
0:24:20 and so in demand because people just want to learn.
0:24:24 And if it’s unique content that they can’t find anywhere else,
0:24:26 you can package that up and monetize it, you know?
0:24:29 Yeah, make it easy for me, make it step by step, absolutely.
0:24:30 And how about blogs?
0:24:33 Like, is there a way to really monetize blogs these days
0:24:36 ’cause it seems so oversaturated?
0:24:38 Yeah, that was my initial reaction too,
0:24:40 but I keep getting proven wrong, you know,
0:24:43 people starting relatively new sites.
0:24:45 Again, another guy I talked to today
0:24:48 started a mattress review blog in the UK.
0:24:51 So like just even a tiny little island
0:24:54 where apparently 15,000 people are finding his site
0:24:56 every month and clicking on his affiliate links
0:24:58 to go buy these mattresses.
0:25:00 But because the price point is high enough
0:25:01 and the commission is high enough,
0:25:04 he’s able to make a full-time living doing that.
0:25:07 So, you know, on the blogging front,
0:25:09 the trap I want people to avoid is like,
0:25:12 okay, I’m gonna start a personal blog
0:25:13 and expect that that makes money.
0:25:16 You know, the ones that I see doing well
0:25:18 are the blogs that have content
0:25:20 that solve specific problems.
0:25:21 As you’re creating every piece of content,
0:25:24 think, okay, how is somebody going to discover this?
0:25:27 Usually it’s gonna be Google.
0:25:28 Usually it’s gonna be Pinterest.
0:25:32 But like thinking of these user-to-content platforms,
0:25:33 that’s a term from Rosemary Groner
0:25:36 who runs thebusybudgeter.com.
0:25:38 It’s like a personal finance budgeting site
0:25:39 that’s gone crazy.
0:25:42 You know, how are people gonna discover this?
0:25:46 And if it has some nonsensical, clever title
0:25:48 that only makes sense to you,
0:25:49 you know, probably nobody’s gonna click on that.
0:25:50 Probably nobody’s gonna come and read that.
0:25:53 And it’s like, you’re gonna pour your heart out.
0:25:55 You’re gonna pour hours into creating this stuff.
0:25:58 Like make sure that you’re setting yourself up for success.
0:25:59 It’s something that somebody is looking for
0:26:02 and you know, you’re giving them the best chance to find it.
0:26:06 – Okay, so we’re gonna close out with one last question.
0:26:10 Tell us about the day that you quit your nine to five job
0:26:13 and what made you officially decide
0:26:16 to start your side hustle career?
0:26:21 – The day that I quit, I was out to dinner with my boss
0:26:26 and this has been kind of on my mind for months, really.
0:26:27 ‘Cause you know, I was building the shoe business
0:26:28 on the side from this corporate gig.
0:26:30 So I was out to dinner with my boss
0:26:32 and I’m like, okay, this is the day.
0:26:34 I’m like, I’m gonna break him the news.
0:26:34 Like I’m out of here.
0:26:36 I’m gonna give my notice.
0:26:37 It still took me like a couple of beers deep
0:26:40 into this dinner to like build up the nerve to do it
0:26:42 because it’s like, is that allowed?
0:26:44 Can I cut my own paycheck?
0:26:45 You know, I went to school.
0:26:47 I have these obligations.
0:26:49 Like is this actually gonna work?
0:26:52 And I had, you know, several months of earning history
0:26:53 at that point.
0:26:57 So it wasn’t completely, you might have heard the definition
0:26:59 of an entrepreneur or somebody who jumps off a cliff
0:27:01 and it’s gonna figure out how to build their parachute
0:27:02 on the way down.
0:27:05 Like that was not me and it was still super scary.
0:27:08 But after I told him, it was like this huge weight
0:27:12 off my shoulders and I just like, okay, this is real.
0:27:14 Like let’s go do this.
0:27:17 – And for millennials who are working a side hustle,
0:27:20 when should they, you know, decide to make that move?
0:27:23 – I would say once you have at least six months
0:27:26 of earnings history to cover your expenses
0:27:27 from the side business.
0:27:30 So, you know, you’re not jumping without a parachute.
0:27:33 You know, you’ve got something that you know is working
0:27:35 and you think you can get to the next level
0:27:37 if you’re gonna free up some time.
0:27:38 – Awesome.
0:27:40 Well, I really enjoyed this.
0:27:42 Before we go, can you let our listeners know
0:27:44 where they can learn more about you
0:27:45 and Side Hustle Nation?
0:27:46 – Absolutely.
0:27:49 Hit up sidehustlenation.com/ideas
0:27:52 for a constantly updated laundry list
0:27:55 of part-time business ideas that you can start today
0:27:57 and no opt-in required.
0:27:59 And of course, would love to have you tune into
0:28:02 the Side Hustle Show available in iTunes
0:28:05 and pretty much every other podcast player app as well.
0:28:06 – Perfect.
0:28:07 Thanks, Nick.
0:28:08 – You bet.
0:28:09 Thanks for having me.
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