This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome back to Side Hustle School, the daily podcast that helps you turn your passion into a profitable venture. You know, you always hear about loving your work, but your work doesn't always love you back. So you need to figure out how you can do something that's important to you. I think that is one of the primary goals of life, to spend more of our time doing what's meaningful. And today we've got Sam on the line from Massachusetts.
Sam is, by background, a software engineer with an entrepreneurial spirit, wrestling with a conundrum many of our listeners find familiar. Well, as I just said, he's trying to figure out how to do something more meaningful. And specifically, he's got several exciting ideas for a side hustle, but is having trouble deciding which to pursue, or at least which to pursue next. 'Cause you know, throughout your life, you're gonna have lots of different projects, lots of different ventures. But how do you decide which one should I do right now?
Okay, so let's hear about his different ideas, see if we can help him make the right choice. As I said, a common dilemma. And I bet if you think about it, you've got multiple ideas right now that you could consider or choose between. So let's dive in and try to have a bit of a bias towards action. So not so much analysis, maybe a little bit of analysis, but mostly how can we get Sam and maybe somebody else out there closer to taking action?
That's what it's all about, choosing between many exciting ideas, the detailed question and my answer coming right up. [Music]
Hi, I'm Sam from Quincy, Massachusetts. I'm a software engineer by day, but I have several ideas for a side hustle, including starting a bootcamp, developing a fitness app, or launching a tech podcast. I'm having trouble deciding which one to pursue because each idea excites me in a different way. What do you think I should do?
How can I evaluate my ideas? - Hey Sam, thanks for calling in. As mentioned, this is a common situation, a great problem to have, but it's also a problem at times. You know, if you've got too many ideas that you just, you can't move forward, you know, you kind of have this analysis paralysis. Well, that is a situation that we need to overcome.
So let's do it. First and foremost, you need to do some kind of self-evaluation, a couple of different options for that. I believe it was in the $100 startup that I included a detailed exercise where you can basically list out each idea and then rank it according to some criteria. And that kind of helps you along the way. But you can also just very simply list out what you enjoy about each idea, what skills you have that might be useful, how much time each idea might take, you know, versus how much time you have available to commit.
And that might help you kind of assess your passion and your dedication for each idea. Now next, you want to do some kind of market analysis though, because it's not just about what you're into, right? It's also like, where is the market demand? So you can use tools like Google Trends or Keyword Planner, maybe even some social media, but I think, you know, using one of those more objective tools can be helpful in seeing like, is there demand for this? And hopefully you're going to find a match between, okay, here's the idea I'm excited about, and here's an idea that there is clearly a gap in the market, or at least a potential gap.
Now, profitability, might want to create a basic financial model. And for that, in the side hustle book, I included like a little back of the napkin financial planning tool with a proverbial napkin, or it could be a simple spreadsheet, just estimating some startup costs, ongoing expenses, potential revenue, depending on number of customers and clients. And you're going to get some insights from that. Again, not complex at all. So let's see what else here.
Maybe some bigger questions. If you still don't have the answer here, some bigger questions you may want to consider, can this idea grow? You know, list each idea and compare each idea. Can this idea grow? Can it eventually create passive income?
Could it potentially become your full-time job if it takes off? And maybe you don't want that, but you know, if you're just trying to look at different ideas and consider the options, having an answer to that could be helpful. So when you do these things, you know, either all of them or just a couple of them, hopefully one idea is really going to start to stand out. And just remember, there isn't necessarily a wrong choice. You know, the whole beauty of a side hustle gives you the freedom to experiment.
You can try different stuff. You can do something for a while and then try something different. So you're going to have lots of different ideas throughout the course of your entrepreneurial life. And it's not always just like finding the ideal perfect one, but what is the best one for you right now? So Sam, best of luck.
Listeners, best of luck. Commit to an idea. Select an idea, commit to it. And of course I'll do anything I can to help. We've got a new episode every day.
It's all completely free. My name's Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
