Starting a Side Hustle

Starting a Side Hustle for Additional and Passive Income

The concept of starting a side hustle is something that has gained momentum over the past several years. Not only have the traditional offline gigs been a natural draw, but now, people are discovering the financial opportunities they have online.

If you were only looking at offline side hustles, like delivering groceries or providing rides to individuals, you’d be limited because you can only be in one place at a time. But online, you have the potential to build multiple income-generating businesses that all work to help you earn more and possibly leave your old job behind.

A side hustle for many is just that – a way to add on some extra money on top of what they already make. But to others, it’s a transition into the world of entrepreneurship, where they have no earnings ceiling, can work from anywhere at any time they prefer, and be their own boss.

Either way you look at it, you never want to rely on a single source of side hustle revenue. You want to protect your efforts and scale your side hustle money by developing a stack of businesses all working to contribute to the lifestyle you want to achieve.

My first foray into starting a side hustle came as a result of the computer revolution. The fear around these most recent real estate changes reminds me of what it was like at the turn of the Century (1999-2000) when computers and technology were the topic of discussion. Some people preferred to close their businesses rather than learn new technology and buy a computer for their office. That’s when a friend and I offered to help them get their offices set up. We charged a fair price and because we both had jobs – I was a classroom teacher then – we were only available on the weekends.

Unlike offline gigs, with online businesses, you can often set them up and have them earning passive income for you, which snowballs into something larger. You want to maximize your potential online, and this course is going to show you how to do that – whether you want to stay part-time with it or eventually make the move to a full-time Internet entrepreneur.

Starting a Side Hustle for Productivity

When I began my career as a classroom teacher, I had already been working as a real estate agent for three years. My intention was to put real estate aside and give all of my time and attention to my new career. But then the Union called for a strike, the teachers approved it, and overnight I saw the value of having another way to earn income.

During the two weeks we walked the picket line, I would report to the Strike Team Leader, grab a couple of doughnuts from the box, pick up a sign, and walk back and forth in front of my school for about two hours. It was painful to see my students on the other side of the fence and we would touch fingers with each other before moving on.

Around ten o’clock each day, someone would walk along the line and tell us to put the signs away and to join us at the local park for that day’s Rally. I drove over there the first couple of days, but when I realized there were thousands of teachers there – this was Los Angeles Unified School District, at that time the second largest District in the country – I decided that it would be smarter for me to drive over to my real estate office each day.

The company was called Day Realty and no one there even knew that I was a teacher now. Instead, I’d go to my desk and see what had been happening since I was last there. Then, I’d get busy with listings, sales, and rentals so I could generate some revenue until the strike was over.

When the strike was settled two weeks later, I joyously went back into the classroom, but now I had a different outlook on things. Until I resigned from teaching twenty years later, I made sure I could earn money from both of my careers.

The real estate work that had once been by sole source of income was now my side hustle. Only one person at school knew I was in real estate, and she was also an agent, but at a different company. She warned me against talking about this with the other teachers, as there could be some jealousy or other issues.

Everyone needs to be thinking of starting a side hustle, in my opinion. More than 35% of Americans have one, and the average earnings are close to a thousand a month. The benefits extend far beyond financial flexibility and freedom. Having a side job can boost your confidence, connect you with people you might not otherwise meet, and give you a creative outlet.

When I became a residential appraiser several years later, my eyes were opened to a different world with real estate. That’s when I began investing more regularly, something I had wanted to do all along but believed I didn’t have the knowledge, experience, resources, or connections to make happen.

While the other teachers were arguing over who would be chosen to make extra money during the summer or other special sessions, I was able to graciously take my name out of the running and offer to instead be a substitute if someone needed me. I was able to make some upgrades to my home each year and also take a 10-Day vacation every other year.

When real estate was slow for any number of reasons, I knew that my teaching job was secure and also gave me medical insurance. When real estate got busy again, I looked forward to being able to add to my savings account and think about my next investment.

Choosing what type of side hustle will be right for you is a personal decision. Once I resigned as a classroom teacher for twenty years and gave away my real estate clients to others who had already been working at this on a full time basis to come online as my primary method of earning income, I was already thinking ahead to what type of side hustle might be right for me.

The online world opened many doors to opportunities I was not familiar with, and everything could be done from my home computer and on my time schedule. I was helping others to change their life experience and circumstances, while simultaneously changing my own.

What about you? Do you already have a side hustle? I work with someone online who works full-time as a software developer, and he also has a job with another company doing very similar work. He doesn’t love either situation, so now he has an online business that can replace both of these jobs over time. His goal is one year to go from employee to entrepreneur and I believe in him and his goals.

Set Yourself Up for Stacked Side Hustle Success

Before you simply start launching a bunch of businesses with no map to guide you, you have to set yourself up for a strategic implementation plan that begins with an assessment of you.

If you’re not willing to understand what drives you, what you have a passion for and what skills you possess, chances are you’re going to struggle with this concept. Don’t worry about a lack of degree or knowledge.

What you need is enthusiasm about a topic and the willingness to create things for your hungry audience. Start by being honest with yourself about any type of skills you possess.

For example, if you are a technical person with the Internet or you are capable of writing well. That can help guide you in the right business models. Likewise, you might have a good sense of humor that entertains an audience or an eye for graphic design.

Next, you want to think about any type of hobbies or activities you enjoy. With a side hustle stack, you are able to tap into your passions and the profit from them with ease, whether it’s based on gaming, gardening, golf, or any type of knowledge you find interesting.

A good way to think about this is how would you spend your time if money wasn’t an issue and you didn’t have to work? There might be multiple things that you are drawn to, and you will be able to create a business for each one.

Another way you might look at it is to think about the goals you have in life. For example, you might have a goal to get your body physically fit or you may have a financial goal that you are aiming towards.

These are things you can start a business about and track your progress as you communicate with an audience who is interested in watching your journey unfold and following in your footsteps.

Once you have this list down, you can look at your skills combined with your passions and see if there’s any type of connection. For example, someone who is skilled at social media videos might be able to launch a business where are they create content about fitness and have great success with it.

Another thing you want to assess at the beginning stage is how much time you have to be able to launch and manage a business. If you are working a full-time job, you might be able to contribute anywhere from several hours per day to a couple of hours per week to begin with, and either one will work but you need to know what you can do without being stretched too thin. I recommend you dedicate 15 to 20 hours every week to starting a side hustle. You’ll be amazed at how many hours you have been spending with activities than can be shortened or eliminated altogether.

You might want to set up a preliminary schedule of when you will be working on your business and as you begin learning more about a side hustle stack, jot down your tasks for the day and week so that you can track what you are able to accomplish.

During this assessment, you also need to look at whether or not you have the basic tools and resources needed to launch a business online. You probably already have everything you need, but let’s go over the basics.

You definitely need to have a functional piece of equipment to get online. Some people have built businesses off of their smartphone, but it’s best to have some sort of laptop or computer that can handle other work.

You’ll also need reliable access to the Internet. If you don’t have the ability to tap into a reliable provider, you might want to get a hotspot so that if the Internet goes down, you are still capable of running your business.

Another thing you’ll want to do is get your business banking and payment processors set up. You may want to go to your bank and open a dedicated business banking account for tax purposes and get signed up on PayPal and Stripe so that you can receive payments from customers and clients.

As we move on in this course, you may see mentions of certain tools that you will want to use. This can range from a domain and hosting account to a paid version of artificial intelligence, an email autoresponder service, screen capture video software, and so on.

There are also many free versions of these tools that you can use, so you never want to feel pressured into paying for something until you have the funds to do so. This includes any educational material where you need to learn a skill.

While there are many fantastic paid courses on a variety of online entrepreneurial endeavors, there is also a lot of free information on YouTube and elsewhere that can help you learn the intricate details of things like launching a blog if you don’t have the money to invest in a course yet.

Preliminary Research for Starting a Side Hustle

After you have conducted your self-assessment, you want to dig into some research to help you determine which direction you need to go. This is going to help you make informed decisions so that you avoid any type of obstacles and increase your chance of success.

Start with some basic market research. What you are doing is looking for information about various niche markets so that you know the basics about who the target audience is, what the current trends are in that niche, and who the top competitors are.

When you find this information, you don’t want to just look at what is successful in that niche market, but what’s missing. In order to have a competitive edge as an online marketer, you need to be able to identify gaps and fulfill them for that audience.

You’ll be able to see what people are discussing with frustration, and pinpoint market gaps that the audience is hungry for, but not being served by others. While you are looking for that information, make note of demographic details about your audience.

This includes things such as their age, income, education level, media preferences, values, and other related topics like their lifestyle and other interests. The reason you want to make note of this is because you will be creating offers that are tailored to their needs, and some of this information can help you slant your products or serve them content in a way that they desire.

With competitors, not only do you want to look at their content to see what they discuss, but you also want to look at how they price their products or services, what their search engine optimization strategy looks like, what social media platforms they are using and what their strategy is there, etc.

Niche trends are easy to analyze. There are tools online that can help you with this, like Google Trends, but you are basically looking at news and discussions to see what the buzz is in your niche market at that time.

Keep in mind how your skills and passions could be parlayed into a business. For example, if you have a passion for homeschooling and there’s a rising trend in more people doing it, you might pursue the development of a course on homeschooling your kids, or create printables for parents to download.

Most online side hustles aren’t going to cost much, if anything. For example, if you pursued blogging it’s only going to cost less than $15/year for a domain and under $10 a month for hosting.

Consider the risks and potential rewards whenever you are gauging starting a side hustle opportunity. You want to think about the time investment you’ll have to put forth, the cost of what it will take to create the business and the potential return of income.

I’m Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author Connie Ragen Green, committed to helping one thousand people (to begin with!) to replace their income from their current job during a one-year period.