What It's About
A side hustle that satisfies a creative director's desires for an even more creative outlet.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
Danielle's first big sale for Lefty's Right Mind came through a local New York pizzeria called Pizza Parm where they commissioned her to design their entire restaurant with her chalk art. After quickly befriending the people around her at a New York Mets Playoff game, she found she was stood next to the owner of Long Island’s largest restaurant groups who just so happened needed an artist to help design his new restaurant.
The lesson? Opportunities are all around you if you only know where to look. But more important than finding those opportunities is actually taking action on them.
Fun Fact
When Danielle was just starting out she got a fantastic opportunity—the chance to design a logo and business card for the notorious Gordon Ramsey. As she said, she was super green at the time, but it was a great learning experience and she really enjoyed designing it.
Her favorite part about her side hustle is how rewarding it is when she finally creates that perfect piece of artwork, and she stared at his logo for weeks after she submitted it. She was so proud of what she created and mentioned that it's still one of her favorite logos she's ever designed.
Notes from Chris
Episode 192
Since graduating college in 2008, Danielle Becker has always run a casual side hustle, working with clients where she could. Originally called DB Designs, she’d painted herself into a bit of a corner with a name she didn’t really like, and wasn’t overflowing with client work. So she decided to start giving 100% to her side hustle and out of hours work and committed completely to having clients outside of work too. Seeing as it’s her passion, she really didn’t mind giving up the extra time around work. Danielle wanted to set her own rules and live the life she wanted, through the art that she loved. And she’s now able to earn anywhere between $2,000 and $6,000 a month for the pleasure of doing so. Mostly, she learned how to charge for her services through the dark-art of reading books, and a little research on the internet. Pricing herself where she felt comfortable but also competitive. Danielle is fortunate that much of her design work spreads through word of mouth, and she uses Instagram to help make up the final portion of her marketing. Living in a big city like New York, surrounded by people who need creative designs, gives her a really great edge. Looking to the future, Danielle’s goal is to leave her full-time job at some point and turn Lefty's Right Mind: into her full-time income and continue to explore the creative challenges that come her way. Even though she believes passion doesn’t pay the bills, it doesn’t look like she’s too many projects away from it actually happening.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Lefty's Right Mind: View more of Danielle's designs and illustrations on her website
- Pizza Parm: The pizza joint that became one of Danielle's first big clients
- Designer Illustrates Success with Personalized Wedding Products: A graphic designer in New York City taps into the wedding e-commerce market and turns her side hustle into full-time work bringing in multiple six-figures
- Instagram Calligraphy Project Earns $9,000 in Year One: A GE engineer uses his skills to make and sell hand-crafted slate artwork to all 50 states. In addition to bringing in a great side income, it’s also given him more courage and security to make decisions at his day job
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