Quick Reminder:
Even though it runs contrary to what you may have heard about "starting a business," you should know that side hustles do not necessarily need to be sustainable.
It would be easy from a traditional business perspective to criticize a side hustle like Elaine's in Ep. 55 and say, "Oh, well it's great that she made that money, but is this really sustainable? Other people are going to be entering the market, and it's something that's going to evolve."
In that story, she made over $50,000 last year without having to put in more than a few hours every week. Wouldn't it have been worth it to you to make that kind of money in a year even if it went away tomorrow?
Remember this when someone asks you if your project is sustainable if you're going to be able to scale it if you're going to have an exit plan—these are questions that may not apply to what you're doing, and that's okay.
Listener Q&A
Our listener questions for this week come to us from Kathleen and John:
- Kathleen has been wanting to start her own side hustle for quite some time, but uncertainties regarding tax forms and filing have been holding her back.
- John is looking for a way to get his new woodworking side hustle to a larger audience and is considering starting up a website. The only problem is that he's not certain if he should use a starter site like Etsy which we've discussed in the past, or creating his own website complete with a snazzy domain.
Starter websites are great to help you get the ball rolling, but I usually recommend that you have your own independent website once you're ready. In the long-term, you want customers to come to you, not to someone else's platform.
Listen to the Weekly Recap for a more comprehensive look at this week's Listener Q&A. Also, if you have a question you'd like answered, send me a voice message. Your question may be featured on the show!
Highlights From This Week
Here are some quick highlights for each episode this week. Listen to this week's recap for a more comprehensive highlight reel!
- Ep. 50 - An American who lived in Belgium for more than a decade who returns home and starts a hustle making fine chocolate
- Ep. 51 - How Scott was able to turn his obsession for travel hacking and cheap flights into an email list of more than 275,000 subscribers and over $1M in revenue within a year
- Ep. 52 - How a teacher creates a non-toxic face paint that lands her on the TODAY Show
- Ep. 53 - We all need personal finance skills but some of us might feel intimidated by this whole industry—so Hadassah is demystifying it for a group of people who identify with her
- Ep. 54 - Maury found a way to turn pennies into over $40,000 with this unique product, and it's yet another example of something that you wouldn’t know would work until you tried it
- Ep. 55 - This high-profit manufacturing side hustle explores the wide world of print-on-demand platforms like Merch by Amazon
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