Rob brought in $40k last year hosting tours in of Washington, D.C. -- all on the side from his day job, and with no marketing budget. However, if you Google “Washington, D.C tour guide”, Rob Pitingolo's TripHacksDC.com is nowhere to be seen. So what's secret sauce? He’s been creating helpful tourist-friendly content on YouTube, and outlet largely ignored by his better-funded competitors. His channel has had more than 1.4 million views to date, and he’s funneling those viewers to his site where they can sign up for a tour. In fact, his channel has grown so much that he’s partnered with YouTube and ad revenue from his videos has become another income stream for his business. Tune in to hear how Rob has grown his business into a fun and cash-flowing side hustle, how he leverages YouTube to reach his target customers rather than traditional tour marketplaces, and how he’s growing the business beyond just himself giving tours. Full Show Notes: How to Market a Local Business on YouTube: $40k on the Side

How do you start a side hustle? Well we can talk about side hustle ideas and marketing tactics until we're blue in the face, but in studying my catalog of past interviews, a few common traits popped up over and over again. I've compiled those into this 7-step guide to starting a side hustle. Whether you’re an established business owner, or you’re just starting out, I think you’ll find this a helpful framework for your projects. It'll also help you identify where you have the biggest opportunities for improvement this year. Full Show Notes: 7 Key Steps to Start and Grow Side Hustle

Is there gold in your backyard? Or, more accurately ... dog poop? Erica Krupin found $1000 a week in hers, with a side hustle that can easily be replicated in your local area. Erica started Kroopin’s Poopin Scoopin, a pet waste removal business in her spare time, and now has more than 80 recurring weekly customers. With an average price of $15 per customer per week, that’s over $1,000 a week, picking up dog poop. Sometimes it’s the simplest businesses that are the fastest to get started and see some results. Erica just left her day job to pursue this full-time, and with the plans she has in place, it looks like her business is set to continue growing. Tune in to hear how she landed her first customers and markets this business, how she prices the service, and how she delivers on her promises. Full Show Notes: How to Start a Pet Waste Removal Business: $50 an Hour Part-Time

Helping people make decisions is a big business! In fact, these two Side Hustle Show listeners started a website to do just that, and it's now bringing in $17-20k a month. Oh, and the project is only a little over a year old. Alex Goldberg and Healy Jones run a site called FinvsFin.com, which focuses on reviews and comparisons of direct to consumer brands. They earn money as affiliates -- basically earning a commission on sales that are referred through the site. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Affiliate Marketing Case Study: Zero to $20k/month in a Year Ready to Start a Site of Your Own? My free video series will help you get online quickly and affordably. FinvsFin is an example of what I’ll call the modern comparison shopping site -- helping readers make decisions and getting paid for it. And since comparison shopping was my original side hustle over a decade ago, this was especially fun to dive into. The impressive part is that this is still very much a side hustle. Both Alex and Healy have full-time jobs, and their business falls under the “passive income" business model. Tune in to hear how Alex and Healy prioritize and create their content, what they’re doing to market the site and drive traffic, and how you can borrow some of their same strategies in your own niche.

Etsy is no longer just the marketplace of handmade crafts! Yes, you can sell digital products like printables and even drop ship physical goods without ever touching your inventory. We haven’t really discussed Etsy in detail for a while. But I thought it was time to take a closer look at this platform again, as it’s seen tremendous growth in recent years. Opening the doors for you to create your own passive products -- both through digital downloads and drop shipping physical products. In fact, since 2015, the number of Etsy buyers has more than doubled -- far outpacing the growth of Etsy sellers. So, if you are currently selling online or have an idea in the pipeline, you’d be crazy to ignore the potential Etsy holds as a "Buy Buttons" platform. Melissa MacDonald is a long-time Etsy seller who now focuses her efforts on Etsy marketing and optimization for other shop owners. Tune in to hear Melissa’s process for coming up with new passive income product ideas, her favorite tools for running a hands-off Etsy shop, and how to optimize your listings for conversion and sales. Full Show Notes: Drop Shipping and Digital Products on Etsy

It’s time to dive into the ol’ listener mailbag and answer a few questions in this week’s edition of The Side Hustle Show. I’ve had quite a few interesting questions come in since the last Q&A episode, and picked 20 to talk through in today’s show. Like this format? This is the 9th installment of “20 Questions” so feel free to go back and binge on the older ones too: 346: The Con of the Side Hustle, Beanie Babies, Affiliate Marketing, and More: 20 Questions with Nick 320: Multiplying Money, Morning Routines, and $100k Side Hustles: 20 Questions with Nick 291: Email, Ebooks, Platforms, and Conferences: 20 Questions with Nick 271: Brilliant Blogging, Ruthless Productivity, and Guaranteed Success: 20 Questions with Nick 245: Network Marketing, Imposter Syndrome, My Side Hustle Mistakes, and More: 20 Questions with Nick 219: Growing Traffic, Monetization, List-Building, a Day in the Life, and More: 20 Questions with Nick 198: Blogging, Branding, Book Writing, and Finding the Right Side Hustle for You: 20 Questions with Nick 181: SEO, Affiliate Marketing, Self-Publishing, Udemy, and More: 20 Questions with Nick A common piece of advice you’ll hear is to take audience questions and turn them into content, so here’s a meta example of that in action. This episode covers market saturation, getting up earlier, mapping out content, and lots more. Enjoy! Full Show Notes: Market Saturation, Mind Mapping, Miracle Mornings, and More: 20 Questions with Nick

Looking for a part-time side hustle where you get can your inventory for free and there are almost no startup costs? This week, I’m excited to introduce the side hustle of public domain publishing. This is the art and science of republishing classic literature - where the copyrights have expired - and earning passive royalties when your version sells. Because these works are so old, they’re available online for free - but many Amazon shoppers and Kindle owners will pay to have them delivered straight to their device. I think any business where you can get your inventory for free is pretty compelling! Since 2013, Aaron Kerr has pocketed over $110k in royalties through this very part-time side hustle. You can see all his public domain projects over at TimelessReads.com. Tune in to hear how this business model works, Aaron’s advice on what to publish and how to get past Amazon’s gatekeepers, and how to differentiate your public domain books from everything else out there. Full Show Notes: Public Domain Publishing: $100,000 Selling Classic Books on Amazon

This week’s show is a re-take on last year’s Thanksgiving episode on 10 Creative Side Hustles that Make Real Money. That show was a hit, so I’m returning to that format for another round. Some of these will you have kicking yourself not thinking of it yourself, and some of these are 6-figure businesses you could literally start tomorrow. Here are the 10 creative side hustles I cover in this episode: The 7-Figure Lemonade Stand The World's Most Boring Podcast Local Dog Poop Pick-Up The 6-Figure Dog Walking Business The 7-Figure Email Newsletter Business The Ambient Noise Alexa Skill Big Bat Houses The Niche Service Provider Directory The Niche Productized Service In-Person Classes Enjoy! Full Show Notes: 10 Creative Side Hustles That Make Real Money - Part 2

Can you really get paid to answer questions? That’s exactly what Debbie Gartner from TheFlooringGirl.com does - and her answers are earning her $20,000 a month. Debbie used to run a local hardwood flooring consultation business. She’d estimate jobs, make recommendations, and match homeowners with reliable installers. In her spare time, she started her blog with the goal of showing up in some local search results to generate some more business. “I wrote blog posts that were questions that my customers would have,” Debbie told me. But as you might have guessed, the site soon started to reach an audience well outside her local area. A couple of years later Debbie got out of the brick and mortar flooring business and decided to monetize her blog. She was already pulling in more than 100,000 visitors and by simply turning on ads she made $1,100 in her first month. From there she continued to grow her traffic numbers, added affiliate posts, created her own products, and is now making more than $20,000 a month. Tune in to hear how Debbie is driving traffic, how her site earns money, and how you may be able to replicate some of Debbie’s tactics in your own niche. Note: If you don't have a blog of your own yet, my free video series will show you how to get up and running quickly and affordably. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Get Paid to Answer Questions: How I Make $20,000 a Month Online

Would you trade $200 for $4,000? That’s exactly what today’s guest, Josh Elledge is doing. Josh runs a kind of modern PR service for small businesses and has developed a unique and innovative way to break through the marketing clutter and have real conversations with real prospects -- and do it at scale. He’s found a way to create what he calls “a speed dating environment.” That's his metaphor for the revolving door of new prospects he’s interviewing and selling his services to. To do this, Josh has created a podcast called The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. It serves as a platform for business owners to talk about their businesses, and for Josh to demonstrate to them how he can improve their visibility. It’s a win-win, and with streamlined processes in place, Josh is seeing a return of around $4,000 for every $200 he spends on producing his show. If you’re a current or aspiring freelancer, consultant, coach, or agency owner… this is gold.  Tune in to hear how Josh does his proactive prospecting, how he’s turning his content creation into sales conversions, and the foundational ground game he’s got set up that makes this all work. Full Show Notes: How to Get More Clients … By Interviewing Them

He knew his $12 an hour gig at Walmart was a dead-end job. His escape route was a business idea you probably walk past at least a couple times a year without even thinking about it. What's he do? Today, Larry McGee's the guy who takes care of the aquarium at the dentist office and other commercial waiting rooms. And it earns him around $70,000 a year, doing something he enjoys and working just 15-hours a week. Larry’s aquarium maintenance business started as a lunch break side hustle with a friend while working at Walmart. More than a decade into the operation, he's got dozens of predictable retainer clients that pay him every month. In this episode, Larry shares some interesting tactics he’s used over the years to find new clients and keep them around for years. I'm confident he'll give you some food for thought as to what type of local service business could be right under your nose. Full Show Notes: From $12/hr at Walmart to a $70k a Year Part-Time Business

Just because a niche is insanely competitive, it doesn’t mean you can’t start an affiliate site and claim a slice of the revenue. At least, that’s what Sa El of SimplyInsurance.com has done, and the way he lays out how he’s done it will pique the interest of affiliate marketers out there. Sa was a door-to-door insurance salesman in Atlanta. He wanted to get into the online space and build an affiliate site, and with more than 11 years’ experience in the insurance industry, it made sense to enter the insurance niche. He took Brain Dean’s SEO That Works course to learn the ropes. But, when he told Brian he was going to build a site in the insurance niche, he was advised against it. Did Sa go back to the drawing board and look for a new niche? Nope. Sa told me there were two reasons why he decided to go ahead and build his site: He likes a challenge, and If the niche is that competitive, most of his competition is already at the top, leaving room for him to work his way up. That was 2 years ago. Today, Sa’s site is bringing in 6000 visitors a month and $13k-$15k in revenue. These numbers prove how competitive the insurance niche is. That’s a huge revenue number for 6k visitors, and Sa told me that only around 4.5k of those visitors are landing on his "money pages." (Some examples linked below.) Tune in to hear how Sa strategically built out his content to capture longtail traffic, how he builds backlinks (lots of them) to rank his money pages, and the tools he’s using to accelerate his efforts. Full Show Notes: Profitable Affiliate Marketing, Even in an Insanely Competitive Niche

What if you could make your rent or mortgage payment go away? Or, what if instead of paying that expense every month, your living situation actually paid you? It’s not as far-fetched as it may sound. In fact, that’s exactly what today’s guest, Craig Curelop, has done by intentionally "house hacking" over the past few years. He’s even written a book on the topic, and it's one I wish I’d had when I was 18 or 19! I would have definitely done some things differently. The basic idea is to use other people’s rents to offset, or even profit from your own housing costs. On top of that, you'll begin building wealth through real estate and earn tax benefits as well. If you have a spare room or two in your home, or you're interested in house hacking, this episode is going to get the gears turning for you. Tune in as Craig runs through some examples of how you can do this. Whether you’re a young professional, or you have a family of your own, you can offset some or all of your mortgage payments. But keep in mind, this isn’t a common path -- this is living for a period of time like others won’t -- as you’ll hear from Craig’s story. “Typically you’re going to sacrifice comfortability with profitability,” Craig explained to me. But living for a few years like others won’t has given Craig the financial independence to potentially live decades like others can’t. Full Show Notes: House Hacking: Live for Free and Turn Your Biggest Expense into a Profit Center

You’ve started a business. You’ve created a product or a service. You’re selling it to clients and getting great feedback. That’s great, you’ve overcome so many of the hurdles we face as entrepreneurs. But the next step is finding a way to keep new customers coming through the doors and scaling up your services. That’s the challenge today's guest Matt Rudnitsky of Platypusbooks.com is facing. Matt helps entrepreneurs and other interesting people turn their ideas and expertise into books. For this, Matt earns $30k and up per project. But, as you might have guessed, it takes a ton of work and the client pipeline is sometimes dry for months at a time. Matt has also created an online course teaching self-publishing, but hasn’t enrolled any students yet. So, I invited Kurt Elster from EtherCycle.com back onto the show. (Some of you will remember Kurt from episode 71 back in 2014 where he talked about productized consulting). Kurt hosts the unofficial Shopify podcast and is a leader in productized consulting in the Shopify space. He’s faced all the same problems Matt, and a lot of you reading this are currently facing. Tune in to hear our take on Matt’s business and Kurt's recommendations for next steps. As you listen in, put yourself in Matt’s shoes and see how a similar product or service ladder can apply to your own business. Full Show Notes: Productized Service Coaching: Building a Product Ladder

Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most effective. This post (and podcast episode) are inspired by my presentation at FinCon last month. I broke my own rule of not seeking out any speaking gigs, and submitted for a breakout session. The idea was a bit of an homage to the conference: 10 FinCon Breakthroughs that Tripled My Business. The powers that be stripped the "FinCon" part from the title, but I was still able to highlight some of my favorite -- and most impactful -- takeaways from the annual conference. I've been every year since 2015, and have seen some great steady business growth since then. This chart tracks my yearly profit: While there are certainly other factors that went into that growth, there is absolutely a concrete, positive ROI from attending. And on top of that, it's super energizing to hang around a group of motivated, talented, and generous individuals. So here we go with the 11 simple ideas! Full Show Notes: 11 Simple Ideas that Tripled My Business

If you have an online business, chances are you’ve tried your hand at outreach. If you want to expand and grow your business, especially from an SEO standpoint, you need good quality links pointing to your site from other websites. The problem is that getting other sites to link to you is not easy, as I’m sure you’ve found it. The “traditional” method is to send out dozens, even hundreds of emails to other site owners trying to land a guest post. But, as today's guest Brendan Hufford explains, this takes an awful lot of work, has a low chance of success, and the links you do get might not actually be doing much for your site’s SEO. Brendan is an SEO master, a long-time entrepreneur, and a master at building win-win relationships. His approach to SEO and link building is a little different. “Build friend’s first, not links,” is Brendan’s motto when it comes to outreach. He’s come up with his own Dream 100 Strategy for SEO, and he’s seen it work wonders with his own businesses and for his students. Tune in to hear Brendan explain how you can create your own Dream 100 list of the sites you’d like to work with to grow your business. He explains why most outreach is awful, how you should be reaching out to people, why there is long-term value in building friendships, and how you can improve your SEO and grow your online business. Full Show Notes: The Dream 100: Stop Building Links and Start Building Friendships

Sick of trading time for money? Looking for ways to turn a service or a skill you already have into a digital product? This is exactly what Matt Bochnak of HowtoMotorcycleRepair.com has done. He’s turned a "blue collar" service business--repairing motorcycles--into a lucrative business with multiple streams of time-leveraged income. This is a “Where are they now?” episode. I first caught up with Matt early in 2016 when he was a guest on episode 160 of the Side Hustle Show. Back then, Matt’s revenue split was about 50/50 between repairing bikes and selling the video guides of the repairs. Overall, his business was doing around $800-$1,000 a month. Fast forward almost 4 years later and Matt is earning $4,000-$5,000 a month, still on the side from his day job. What’s more impressive is that this boost in revenue is mostly from passive income streams, and he’s spending less time than ever in his garage. If this sounds like a side hustle you’d like to replicate with your own business, tune in to hear how Matt’s creating content without repairing customer's motorcycles, and the various passive income streams he’s built up over the past 4 years. Full Show Notes: Turning a Service Business into a Passive Income Stream - Part 2 Related: Need a website for your service business? Here’s the fastest and cheapest way to get one online.

A small blog doesn't have to mean a small income. By helping a specific group of people solve their problems, Carol Tice has attracted more than 1500 members -- at $25 a month -- to join her community. Carol went from working as a freelance writer, to coaching others how to become freelance writers, to building one of the largest online membership sites for freelance writers. (I found Carol while doing keyword research for terms like “get paid to write” and “make money writing” – and Carol OWNS this space.) The best part is that the paid membership model is an awesome way to build an online business, and it’s a model that can be applied to just about any niche. It didn’t come without sacrifice for Carol, who was working full-time and had two preschoolers when she started her blog. “I didn’t see a TV show, I didn’t go out to a movie, I didn’t go to dinner parties,” Carol explained. But with hard work, a laser-focused attitude towards her goals, and good communication with her audience, Carol has built something special for freelance writers. Tune in to hear how Carol built her membership site from the ground up. She explains how she uses funnels to constantly bring in new members, and how she keeps members engaged (any paying) for the long-haul. You’ll learn loads of actionable stuff, and how you can also apply the same tactics to develop a recurring revenue business of your own. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Small Blog, Big Income: Recurring Revenue from a Low-Traffic Site

I wish I was half as smart now as I was at 16! But learning everything you don't know is part of the process. One thing I love about my work is I feel like I learn new things every day. Sometimes they're small little tweaks and hacks, and other times they're broader strategies or ideas. I originally drafted this list 7 years ago, after my 30th birthday, but decided it was due for an update. (I updated it at 35, too, but keep learning more!) For context, that was pre-Side Hustle Nation, pre-podcast, pre-kids, and pre-almost everything I'm working on now. I'd been a full-time entrepreneur for 4 years already at that point, but my business had seen lots of ups and downs. Turning 30 had hit me harder than I expected it to, and I'm guessing it was because I really wasn't where I wanted to be. I'd been battling with flaky developers, fighting with the state Assembly in Sacramento over affiliate marketing tax laws, and we were in the process of short-selling our home -- which had been a major source of stress. Seven years later, that stuff is thankfully in past, and I’m in a better place today. That's not to say I'm completely stress-free, but I'm incredibly fortunate to have a healthy family and to get to work on stuff I love every day. Each year that goes by makes me more and more aware of that fact. But the life I have today didn't happen overnight. It's the result of literally decades (well, at least 2) of entrepreneurial education, trial and error, hustle, and if I'm being totally honest, luck. In any case, here are 37 life lessons I've picked up in my 37 years on this planet. Enjoy! Full Show Notes: 37 Things I Have Learned in My 37 Years

The fastest way to multiply money? It might be reselling. That is, buy low, sell high, repeat. Keely Stawicki started reselling when she was just 12 years old, flipping a horse saddle on Craigslist and making $100 profit. Fast forward 15 years--and more than $270,000 in sales--and reselling is now her full-time gig. Today, Keely focuses mostly on vintage goods, clothing, and furniture--all items in great demand right now. Reselling is a business model we keep coming back to because it checks some of the boxes for an awesome side hustle: Anybody can do it It doesn't require a huge upfront investment It’s quick to get started and see results If this sounds like a side hustle you’re interested in, listen in to hear Keely’s top tips for sourcing profitable inventory, the types of products she sees doing well today, and where she lists and markets her items for maximum exposure and profitability. Full Show Notes: Thrifting for Profit: How I Made $270k in Sales Reselling Vintage Items

Buy a house. Rent it out. Tenants pay it off for you. It’s possibly one of the oldest side hustles in the books, right? Done right, owning rental properties can be an attractive long-term income and wealth-building strategy. But done wrong, it can be a recipe for headaches and a mountain of debt.  It’s a side hustle that I know a lot of the Side Hustle Nation readers and listeners are interested in (as am I). For this one, I collected my own real estate investing questions, and gathered more from the Side Hustle Nation Facebook community. On the other end of the line is Zach Evanish, a remote real estate investor and Director of Retail for Roofstock.   Roofstock is a marketplace designed to make it easy to shop for, compare, and purchase rental properties. (Zach was Roofstock employee #3 -- and has bought 11 rental properties of his own through the platform.) Full Show Notes: Is Real Estate Your Next Income Stream? Rental Property Q & A

She always knew she wanted to start her own business, she just didn’t know what kind of business. Sound familiar? So, Sylvia Inks asked friends and colleagues what they saw her as an expert in, and what they go to her for advice and help with. Their answers? “They said I’m great with finances, and they said I have great research skills,” Sylvia told me. This helped Sylvia narrow down her focus to financial coaching. From there she started networking, wrote a book, and worked diligently on her presentation and speaking skills. Her business has taken off as a result. Tune in to hear how Sylvia found her niche, found her first clients, and continues to level up her impact and income. As you listen in, you'll notice the common theme throughout the call: conversations + action. Full Show Notes: How to Start and Grow a Local Consulting Business: Effective Marketing Ideas

Creating content. Marketing your site. Monetizing your traffic. There’s a lot that goes into running a money-making website! In this episode, I want to shortcut your learning curve a little bit. To do that, I’m joined by a couple of gracious volunteers. The first is Side Hustle Show listener, Jamie Robe, who’s started a new website to help people in the path of hurricanes and tropical storms. As a resident of Central Florida, it’s a topic he knows plenty about! My second volunteer is professional blog coach Kim Anderson. (You might remember Kim from an earlier appearance on The Side Hustle Show, in which she shared how she made financial independence a reality for her and her family through her blog, Thrifty Little Mom. Listen in to our coaching call with Jamie as we try and guide him toward clarity on his content, promotion, and monetization strategies. What strategies could you apply to your own site? Full Show Notes: Blog Coaching: Building Traffic and Income to a Brand New Site

Michele Mattix of SedonaMeditationExperiences.com has a unique side hustle where she gets paid to breathe. As a tagline that sounds great, but there’s a lot more to her side hustle than just breathing. In fact, in Michele’s own words she describes her business as helping, “people experience the spiritual side of Sedona and to bring more awareness and wellness into their life through meditation, mindfulness, and a deep connection with nature.” Michele is able to offer all of this because she is a certified meditation instructor. The interesting part is how she's managed to carve out a profitable business model in the experience economy using Airbnb’s Experiences platform. When travelers book a stay in Arizona using Airbnb, they are also offered one of Michele’s meditation experiences -- at a cost of course. This enables Michele to take advantage of the huge marketing machine that is Airbnb. They drive the traffic and raise awareness of her meditation experiences, and it’s paying off. Tune in to hear how Michele found her first experience customers, what she’s done to market and grow her business, and how you may be able to apply the same strategies to an experience of your own. Full Show Notes: Paid to Breathe: Make Money Hosting a Unique Local Experience

It’s time to dive into the ol’ listener mailbag and answer a few questions in this week’s edition of The Side Hustle Show. I’ve had quite a few interesting questions come in since the last Q&A episode, and picked 20 to talk through in today’s show. Like this format? This is the 8th installment of “20 Questions” so feel free to go back and binge on the older ones too: 320: Multiplying Money, Morning Routines, and $100k Side Hustles: 20 Questions with Nick 291: Email, Ebooks, Platforms, and Conferences: 20 Questions with Nick 271: Brilliant Blogging, Ruthless Productivity, and Guaranteed Success: 20 Questions with Nick 245: Network Marketing, Imposter Syndrome, My Side Hustle Mistakes, and More: 20 Questions with Nick 219: Growing Traffic, Monetization, List-Building, a Day in the Life, and More: 20 Questions with Nick 198: Blogging, Branding, Book Writing, and Finding the Right Side Hustle for You: 20 Questions with Nick 181: SEO, Affiliate Marketing, Self-Publishing, Udemy, and More: 20 Questions with Nick A common piece of advice you’ll hear is to take audience questions and turn them into content, so here’s a meta example of that in action. This episode covers the dark side of side hustling, beanie babies, affiliate marketing, and much more. Full Show Notes: The Con of the Side Hustle, Beanie Babies, Affiliate Marketing, and More: 20 Questions with Nick

Jaime Masters has interviewed more than 500 millionaires. On top of that, she runs some premium mastermind programs and is a sought-after business coach. I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to get on the podcast for years, and I think we came up with something unique and hopefully compelling. Jaime agreed to actually coach me on a couple of areas of my business. In preparation, she: took a look at the last 12 months of my business finances asked me to complete a time-tracking study to see what I was actually spending my time on had both my wife and I complete a 5-year vision document So, if you want to hear what a millionaire coach thinks of my operations and what I could or should be doing differently, or just want hear the kinds of questions that come up, tune in. I think you’ll find the insights applicable to your own business, no matter what level you’re at. Full Show Notes: A Millionaire Business Coach Takes a Look Inside My Day-to-Day

A location-independent consulting business that replaces your day job income in a matter of months? That's exactly what Paul Minors accomplished with his virtual software consulting business. You might recognize Paul’s name. Paul is a productivity blogger and consultant from New Zealand. He was part of a fun productivity roundtable episode we did towards the end of 2016 -- that was episode 197 if you want to go back and check it out. What I now know, is that at that time Paul was putting the wheels in motion on his consulting business centered around specific software tools. Which as a side hustle tactic, is fantastic. If you can hitch your cart to a rising tide of interest in a particular tool, and become the go-to expert in that space, you can do really well. And, that’s exactly what Paul has done. Paul was able to leave his day job within a couple of months of starting his business. He was then able to go traveling with his wife for 6-months while working 15-20 hours a week from his laptop. After arriving back home, he started working full-time on his consulting business. “I noticed the impact of that straight away, within a couple of months I had doubled my income,” Paul told me. It's clear Paul has figured out this business model. This one’s packed with ideas you might be able to apply to your own areas of expertise. Maybe you’ll even uncover some areas of expertise you never really considered that special before. Tune in to hear how Paul came across the idea of offering his first consulting services “by accident”. As well as how he’s used several different marketing channels to drive targeted traffic to his website, and how he’s been adding more products and services to his portfolio and seen his revenue increase as a result. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Virtual Consulting: How to set up your location-independent Consulting Business

We all have a limit to our capacity. For some entrepreneurs and small business owners, that’s a tough pill to swallow . But when you’re up against that ceiling you have to decide between two options. You can: Settle in. Ask for help in breaking through. This episode is about growing your team in such a way that you have some breathing room in your schedule and in your mental bandwidth to do the work that’s required of a business owner. Even though I’ve been hiring virtual help in my businesses since 2005, I’ve still got a lot to learn! This is something that’s been on my mind this year as I think about where I want to my current operations to go and who can help get me there. To help dive into this topic, I’m excited to welcome John Jonas and Nate Hirsch to the show. Between them, they’ve got more than 60 virtual team members and have been practicing remote management for more than a decade. They both run platforms to help you make your first virtual hire as well: John heads up OnlineJobs.ph, the largest remote job board and resume database for workers in the Philippines. Nate created FreeeUp.com, a curated freelance marketplace for workers all around the world. Tune in to hear John and Nate’s take on when it’s time to hire, how to find the best talent for your budget, and some common mistakes to avoid. Full Show Notes: Hiring Your First Virtual Assistant: When, Where, and How to Do it Right

Is options trading legit? Is it a viable side hustle? In this episode, we’re tackling trading options -- a topic that’s been frequently requested by listeners, but is somewhat foreign to me. To help school me on this, I’m excited to welcome my friend Kirk DuPlessis to the show. Kirk runs the super popular site OptionAlpha.com, where you can get all sorts of free options trading training. He’s been at this for over 10 years and the site has over 150,000 members. Options trading (when done right) is a high probability form of investing, but as with all investments it’s based on risk. Kirk explained options contracts are like insurance. As a trader, you can either be a buyer of insurance or a seller of that insurance. On the buying side, it’s a way to kind of amplify your trading power through leverage. Instead of buying 100 shares of a certain stock and hoping it goes up, for example, you could buy contracts for a fraction of the share price that give you the option to buy the stock at today’s price should it go up by a defined amount in a certain amount of time -- the contract term. If it does, you exercise your option and make a big gain on a small initial investment. If it doesn’t, you just lose your initial option contract purchase price, kind of like your car insurance premium if you don’t get into a wreck. On the seller side, you’re the person selling that insurance. You collect the cash upfront, and as long as the trigger event doesn’t happen, you keep it. Kirk argues that just like insurance companies are some of the most profitable in the world, option sellers are most often the winners in the options trading game. In this post and podcast episode, Kirk explains in more detail about how this all works in practice and shares his 8 rules for success in options trading. Full Show Notes: Options Trading 101: 8 Rules for Success for Total Newbies

Amy Feierman and Kristin Ostrander of MommyIncome.com have generated over $2 million in sales on Amazon over the last 12 months with a unique strategy that has high margins and lower costs per sale. What are they selling on Amazon? Bundles -- Think shampoo and conditioner, peanut and butter, or any 2-6 products that compliment each other and provide some added value and convenience to the buyer. Amy and Kristin have both been selling online for over 10 years, but recently they have shifted their focus onto this specific strategy of wholesale bundles – and it’s working really well for a number of reasons. These bundles make life easier for the 1-click ordering, free Prime shipping Amazon customer, and they make life better for you as a seller because you face less competition and can earn better profit margins. Tune in to hear how Amy and Kristin go about their product research that leaves them confident their bundles are going to sell without any paid ads, product reviews, or marketing efforts. You'll also learn how they're sourcing their inventory, the kinds of upfront investment needed, and the price points and margins they're working with. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Make Money with Wholesale Bundles on Amazon FBA

Over the last 10 years, the bulk of my energy and attention has been on building audience businesses.  These types of businesses (usually) involve creating some helpful resource, and then figuring out a way to monetize the people who come by to use it. In my case, that's primarily been through affiliate marketing and more recently, advertising on this podcast. But you also have the flexibility to sell products and services to your audience once you have their attention. In this episode, I'll play a section from my latest book on Building an Audience Business of your own, and share why I'm giving it away for free on Amazon.

Robert Brandl is a German entrepreneur now living in Spain with his wife and twin 16-month olds, but 10 years ago he was working full-time, wanting to travel, and was just trying to figure out how to get a blog online. He did what most aspiring bloggers would do--he turned to Google for answers. But he was disappointed with what he found. Nobody was doing a great job answering his question and comparing all the different options. With that, WebsiteToolTester.com was born. This is Robert’s flagship affiliate site that now has in-depth reviews of all the top website building software. I invited Robert on the show because this is a really common side hustle business model: the affiliate review site. How it often works is you write product reviews, hopefully attract some organic search traffic, and then collect your commissions when someone buys through your links. We saw this most recently in the physical product space with Kieran MacRae in episode 313, where he was reviewing mattresses and other sleep-related products. But like most businesses, there’s an art and a science to doing this right and building a truly helpful resource as Robert has. And, he’s applied the same model to a number of different niches too, including email service providers, live chat tools, and more. You can check out his whole portfolio at ToolTester.net. Tune in to hear how Robert structures his review content to make it easy to consume, how he optimizes it for SEO, and how you might apply the same strategies to an affiliate review site of your own. Or even just to review content on your existing blog. Full Show Notes: Affiliate Review Sites Done Right: How to Market and Monetize Like a Pro

This week I’m excited to introduce one of the hottest side hustles of the moment, and that is low-content self-publishing. What is low-content publishing? Let me explain -- self-publishing has been around for a decade, and we’ve covered that quite a bit in both fiction and non-fiction -- it’s one of my favorite and perhaps most passive side hustles. Write the book, hit publish, collect royalties for years. Cool, right? Well, it’s the whole write the book part where a lot of people get stuck. You might not know what to write about, and even if you do, it can be really time-consuming, and at the end of the day, it still might turn out to not be a huge seller on Amazon. What low-content publishing aims to accomplish is to accelerate your product creation by focusing on a very specific sub-set of books: journals diaries planners notebooks sketchbooks and more With these types of books, the value doesn’t come from your years of experience and a 35,000-word brain dump. Instead it comes from how you’ve structured the mostly-blank internal pages and prompts, and who you’re targeting as your customer. With Amazon’s print-on-demand KDP print service, you can upload these products as digital files, hold no physical inventory, and collect passive royalties whenever they sell. But there’s an art and a science to it, and that’s why I’ve assembled a panel of experts in today’s show. I’m joined by three experts in the low-content publishing space with more than 1,000 titles between them: Rob Cubbon from RobCubbon.com - Long-time listeners might remember Rob from episode 81, back in 2014. Rob’s been in the low-content game for the last year or so and in that time has published over 1,000 titles. Flav Maderios from SideBusinessLaunch.com - Flav was a guest on episode 300 of The Side Hustle Show last summer, where we were talking about his merch business. Since then he’s expanded to the self-publishing space with around 300 titles so far. Rachel Harrison-Sund from RachelHarrisonSund.com - Rachel built her low content business to 6-figures a year on a very part-time basis. But as you’ll hear in this episode, there’s some seasonality that comes into play, there are some competitive factors that come into play, and there’s a little bit of a gold rush feel to all of this. Tune in to hear how these low content publishers go about their product research (so they don’t waste their time), how they price and market their books to maximize sales and royalties, and how they manage such wide-ranging portfolios. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Low Content Publishing: Can You Make Money Selling Blank Books on Amazon?

At the end of nearly every episode of The Side Hustle Show, I ask my guests for their #1 tip for Side Hustle Nation. There’s always a great variety of responses, and I wanted to take some time today to go through some of my favorites from the past 50-ish interviews. This has become an annual tradition on the show, and we just passed 6 years and 8.5 million downloads! If you like this short-and-sweet meta-style show, be sure to check out the others in this series: Episode 50 Episode 124 Episode 177 Episode 236 Episode 288 And even though my primary motivation is to extract helpful tactics for you, the listener, I can’t help but learn from my guests as well. You never know when inspiration will strike or where you’ll hear the one insight that has a huge impact. These episodes are a lot of fun to put together, and give me an excuse to revisit some of my favorite moments and wise words from the show. From the last 49 guests, the 3 most common theme I heard was to "Take action. Just start!" While it might sound overly generic, don’t be quick to dismiss it. If all these really smart and successful people keep saying these episode after episode as their “#1 tip,” I think it's worth paying attention to. My #1 tip this time? Surround yourself with people on the same trajectory. Full Show Notes: What I've Learned and Applied from 49 Awesome Entrepreneurs - Part 6

Dr. Shirag Shemmassian decided to take action on a particular skill of his, and is seeing some impressive results -- all on the side from his day job as a research psychologist. What do I mean by impressive? How about $650k in revenue last year, which was more than double of 2017, which was more than triple of 2016. He’s on a serious growth curve! Full Show Notes: Multi Six-Figure Consulting on the Side

“Everyone is researching a product, I’m telling you to research a problem,” Chad told me. Chad Rubin runs ThinkCrucial.com, a profitable e-commerce business that he’s built by selling products that solve a pain point for people. Every product follows a direct-to-consumer strategy that lets him source and sell in-demand products efficiently and inexpensively. Chad’s story began when he was laid off from his job on Wall Street. He started helping out at his parent’s vacuum shop, selling some of their inventory online. He came to the realization that the profit margins were being eaten up by intermediaries along the supply chain, so he decided to get closer to the manufacturers to make more profit per sale, while still selling at a competitive price. His first products, starting with what he knew, were vacuum filters. Once he had the blueprint down for selling at a higher margin than his competitors, Chad started sourcing new products to expand his product line, and he has an interesting and unusual way of finding product ideas. Tune in to hear Chad’s unique take on product research, what he calls the “anti-Amazon opportunity,” and some sneaky ways you can connect with expert manufacturers. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Direct to Consumer Product Research - How to Find Your Next Profitable Product

He'd just gained 3000 subscribers and made $8000 in a matter of days, but Chris Ritter's first virtual summit didn't deliver the result was looking for. As a personal trainer for swimmers, he was looking for more clients to coach online. Not a single one signed up. Still, the summit was a serious turning point in his business--one that turned into a 6-figure side project in its first year. He started serving an entirely different set of customers, and went from working one-on-one to one-to-many. His multi-year journey includes in-person personal training, seeking online clients, writing blog posts, selling an e-book, hosting a hit virtual summit, and more. Listen in because you’ll pick up some tactics and ideas you can apply to your own side hustle as this is one that’s ripe for replication across different niches. It’s a story about leveling up your reach and impact and income, and evidence that opportunities start to appear once you’re in motion. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: The 6-Figure Pivot: How Shifting Your Customer Can Dramatically Shift Your Results

There's a topic that no one really talks about in entrepreneurship or online business, and that's the unfair advantages someone had starting out. Behind every killer case study, every income report, every "overnight" success, there's a backstory you don't always hear. The truth is, no one ever really starts from scratch. We bring our own history, perspectives, and baggage to the table. We also have the advantage of learning from everyone who's gone before us. Like Newton said, we "stand on the shoulders of giants." In this episode, I'll share some unfair advantages that undoubtedly helped me, and offer up some you probably have working in your favor as well. Full Show Notes: Unfair Advantages: How to Find Yours—and 10 of Mine

Kimberly Gauthier has been running KeepTheTailWagging.com since 2011, but things really started to take off when she niched down her focus to raw feeding for dogs. Raw feeding is basically the paleo diet for dogs -- attempting to mimic their ancestral diet. Her blog had than 2 million page views last year -- almost entirely from organic search in Google, and she’s monetized the traffic with a few different income streams. Tune in to hear how Kimberly arrived at his niche, what drives content and marketing today, and how the business makes money -- all on the side from her day job. Full Show Notes: The Raw Truth About Blogging - How a "Dog Mom" Built her Online Business on the Side

WTF man!? Are you willing to fail! Let that be your new mantra. That's the rule Brian Scudamore -- the founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK -- lives by. What started with a $1000 investment (Brian's life's savings at the time) has turned into a home services empire that does $1 million in sales on any given day. Brian's come a long way since that beat-up pickup truck going door-to-door that first summer. His portfolio now includes house painting, moving services, and home detailing--all under the umbrella of Ordinary 2 Exceptional Brands. He’s formulated some unique and effective ways to build teams of passionate employees that share his goals and has leveraged the franchise model to grow his businesses and revenue from $0 to $444 million and beyond. Tune in to hear how Brian started the junk hauling business as a soon-to-be college student, his thoughts on marketing and hiring, and how you can apply nearly 30 years of his own successes and failures to your business. Full Show Notes: The Junk Hauling Business: From $0 to $300 Million and Beyond

A few years ago, a side hustler named Brock McGoff reached out to me with a guest post pitch. The post detailed how he was making, at that time, $4,000 a month, from his blog about men’s fashion, on the side from his day job. Since then, Brock has turned TheModestMan.com into his full-time focus, into a 6-figure income, and into a media empire that expands well beyond the blog itself. In this episode, Brock talks me through how he generates content ideas, how the business makes money, where he’s focusing his energy for the best results, and how he’s taken his site from a side hustle to a full-time business. Don't have a website of your own yet? Check out my free video series on how to get up and running in no time. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: A Look Inside a 6-Figure Online Business: Traffic, Monetization, and More

Roberto Chavez started his raw land flipping side hustle a little over a year ago, and with persistence, has already built it into 5-figure of monthly revenue. This is a business model that was first introduced to me by Mark Podolsky, from TheLandGeek.com, in episode 108 of The Side Hustle Show. He called it "the best passive income model" because it avoids "the 3 T’s" of traditional real estate investing: tenants, toilets, and termites. How the model works is you: acquire parcels of land on the cheap because the owners don’t want them anymore re-sell them either for a quick cash flip, or more commonly, as an owner-financed sale. This is where the passive income comes in as you collect monthly payments for a period of 3-7 years, or whatever terms you agree on. For example, buy a $10,000 parcel upfront for $2,500, and resell it for $199 a month for 5 years. In that scenario, your total payments collected would be almost $12,000, and you'd breakeven on your initial investment after about a year. Where the persistence comes in, is the initial seller outreach. It’s very much a numbers game, as you’ll hear Roberto explain. I think that’s what separates those who have success in it from, those who don’t. Tune in to learn how Roberto finds parcels to buy for 25 cents on the dollar, how he figures out how much to offer, the due diligence that goes into these deals, and how he re-sells them for profit. Full Show Notes: Land Flipping Revisited: From Zero to $10,000 a Month on the Side Note: Roberto is actually a student of Mark's. When I told Mark we were recording this episode, he offered his Land Investing Launch Kit (normally $97) free for Side Hustle Show listeners. I'm also an affiliate for his paid program; use code "sidehustle" for $500 off.

"Growth isn't the byproduct of success," Paul Jarvis told me. "Or at least it shouldn't be. The byproduct of success should be freedom." Paul is a talented writer and designer who’s made a living--and a name for himself--by often taking the counterpoint to the conventional wisdom, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship and business growth. His latest book, Company of One, caught my attention. It’s about why building a better business doesn’t necessarily mean building a bigger business. In this episode Paul talks me through: The decision-making frameworks he uses in his business and how you can apply them to yours How he’s intentionally set up his own operation to maximize time leverage and freedom How he’s built a list of 33k+ email subscribers over the 8 years and how this list drives his business today Full Show Notes: Get Better, Not Bigger: On Growth, Freedom, Online Marketing, and "Enough"

As we’ve mentioned, “scaling” a service business can be one of the biggest challenges with this business model. In fact, it’s a sticking point that keeps a lot of people away from freelancing altogether. But if your goal is to get big or even to just avoid trading time for money your whole life, there are lots of ways to scale a service business. If you'd like to learn more about starting a service business and connecting with your first clients, check out this in-depth interview with Abbey Ashley (Episode 328). Abbey's claim to fame is she booked enough virtual assistant work during her maternity leave that she didn't have to back to that job she hated when her leave was up! Abbey also put together this killer free training on how to launch and grow your freelance business. In the meantime, here are the 7 Ways to Scale a Service Business from this episode: Raise your rates Go From one-to-one to one-to-many Hire subcontractors Create productized packages Play Matchmaker Look for affiliate opportunities Create a product Enjoy!

Starting a service business on the side is one of the fastest ways to build extra income. It's flexible, low-overhead, and you can probably start with skills you already have. “I had a lot of drive underneath me," Abbey Ashley told me, about starting her service business back in 2013. "I was super pregnant and I hated my job so much,” Abbey started offering her services as a virtual assistant, and connected with her first clients at local networking events in Washington, DC. My the time her maternity leave was up--just a few short months--Abbey had booked enough work to not have to go back to that job she hated. On top of that, she only had to work 20 hours a week to do it, and could work from home. There are almost no barriers to entry to starting a freelance service business, and the startup costs are minimal. (All Abbey did was make business cards for networking.) In fact, it was a service business, a house painting business in my case, that was one of my first entrepreneurial adventures. Over time, Abbey scaled her virtual assistant business from just herself at $20-30 an hour, to her own little virtual agency, to $75 an hour and up for some specialized work. Before long, the questions started coming in: How can I do what you do? How can I work from home and set my own hours? How can I do work I enjoy? In response, she built up a complete training program for would-be virtual assistants. She's helped thousands of people start their own service businesses and has built a thriving free community of virtual assistants.  If you want to dive in deeper, check out her free training called Become a Booked Out Virtual Assistant. (That's an affiliate link; if you buy her full program, I'll receive a commission.) Full Show Notes: How to Start a Service Business to Replace Your Income, Step-by-Step

Todd Tresidder took his own personal net worth from less than zero at 23, to self-made millionaire and retired at 35. When it comes to building wealth, he's the smartest guy in the room. His latest book is The Leverage Equation: How to Work Less, Make More, and Cut 30 Years Off Your Retirement Plan. We met through the FinCon community several years ago and I've learned a ton from our conversations. Todd has a unique perspective on business and investing, and our conversations over the years always get me thinking a little differently. He blogs at FinancialMentor.com. Tune in to hear Todd talk me through his 6 types of leverage and how you can apply those as needed in your business: Financial Leverage Time Leverage Technology and Systems Leverage Communications and Marketing Leverage Network and Relationship Leverage Knowledge and Experience Leverage Enjoy! Full Show Notes: How to Get Unstuck: 6 Levers to Pull to Level Up Your Business

Jessica Larrew and her husband Cliff have been reselling on Amazon for years. And though it started as a part-time side hustle, it turned into a serious business--they've sold more than $1 million worth of stuff on Amazon! What's surprising – and I think exciting – is that they’ve done this is by finding profitable products to resell primarily in nearby retail stores. How Reselling on Amazon Works Jessica takes advantage of Amazon’s FBA program, or Fulfillment by Amazon. This is Amazon's way of crowdsourcing its inventory, and letting regular people like us tap into its world-class logistics network. That means this Selling Family doesn't have to ship anything to the end customer, handle returns, or write up product descriptions. How the business works is like any other retail business: you profit on the spread between the cost of your product and what it sells for. Now you have to account for Amazon's fees and shipping costs, but it's basically buy low, sell high. And the best part of this side hustle is that you can get started today with whatever initial inventory investment you're comfortable with. Full Show Notes: Reselling on Amazon with a $1 Million Seller: Let’s Go Pick Up Profit!