This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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What are the hardest side hustles to start and operate? Great question here today because there's all kinds of different businesses and side hustles you could start. Why not choose one that is not one of the hardest or most difficult, right? Like if you have the ability to choose, why not make it relatively easy on yourself? You still have a lot of choice.
We're just going to eliminate a couple of them here today. Listener question from Evan. And of course, many side hustles can be started with minimal overhead or effort. That's what we try to talk about here or try to focus on much of the time on the podcast. But some come with significant challenges that can be tough to manage, especially if you're doing these things on your own and on the side.
So I'm gonna give you two specific examples, two major industries that I think you should probably stay away from unless you feel absolutely called to do it. And if you do, then of course, you know, good for you. That's great. But if not, there might be something better for you. So let's talk about it.
What are the most difficult or the hardest side hustles to start and operate? That's today's question. The detailed version from our listener, Evan and my answer coming right up. [Music]
Hey, Chris, so this is Evan from Portland, Maine. I'm curious, what are the hardest side hustles to start and run successfully?
I've been thinking about launching something, but I want to understand which types of side hustles might come with more challenges than others. I want to make sure I don't get in over my head. Plus, I might as well choose a project most likely to succeed, right? Thanks for all the insights. All right, Evan, I think this is a smart question.
Before you start a new side business, why not consider which businesses are easy, which ones are hard? So let's focus on difficulty because we often talk about some simple businesses, but some industries can be really challenging due to the amount of complexity and risk involved. We always want to lower complexity and lower risk, make things simple, make it so that the costs are low. If for some reason it doesn't work out, which happens, you know, in a lot of side businesses, you're not actually losing a lot of time or money. So I'll give you two big industries that are pretty tough for side hustlers.
And the first one is fashion. Now you can probably think of exceptions, but just hold on that for the moment. Starting an entire fashion business, like I don't just mean like reselling clothes, that's great. But I mean starting a clothing line or an accessories line. Inventory management is tough.
Fashion involves physical inventory. You have to think about sizing. It's hard. If you over order, you're gonna be left with unsold inventory. If you under order, then you're not able to meet demand and you're kind of missing out.
So balancing that can be a real guessing game. As I said, sizing complexity. In fact, that's one of the biggest issues in fashion is dealing with sizes. It's just so complicated to stock multiple sizes. Sizing also varies a great deal between manufacturers.
Then you have things like seasonality and trends, high return rates. It's just a tough business to go into. You often need to have some capital to start that business. And I try to focus on businesses that don't require a lot of capital to get started. So fashion for one.
Number two, running a restaurant. Again, there are exceptions. Like we've had side hustling restaurant owners for sure and small business owners, but the food industry is notoriously challenging. Profit margins are just low overhead costs are high. You have to rent a commercial kitchen or find a space.
You've got all sorts of certifications, licenses. You've got equipment you need to pay for. Some of that needs to be depreciated over time. Of course, you've then got food costs, ingredients. Then you've got staff.
It's just, there's just a lot, right? So between the regulations, the perishability of your inventory, the time intensive operation, and then of course the low profit margin, those are some difficult challenges to overcome. So to go back to where I started about, like if this is your calling, if you're like, I've always wanted to own a restaurant, then okay, that's admirable. I go to restaurants all the time. I want new restaurants to open.
Or if you're like, I really, really want to start a fashion line, I've been dreaming of this. I think this is one of my life goals, then that is great. But short of those factors, I would say, look at something else. What do you like about fashion? What do you like about the restaurant business?
Maybe there's a way to do that that still meets other side hustling attributes such as feasibility, profitability, low time and startup costs. What can you do like that that meets those characteristics which will then make it much easier for you, lower the complexity, lower the risk. That's my advice, you could talk about other stuff like real estate, e-commerce with physical products, some kind of client work and so on. But generally I think if you can start something simple and you still like that and it's helpful to people and it can be profitable, why not do that at least first? That's my two cents.
Good luck, Evan, good luck. Everybody out there always wishing you the best. Visit us at school.com. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts or you can download the entire archival history of the show, almost 2,900 total episodes, all free on the website. And of course much more is coming out throughout the holiday season.
I hope you'll join in again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
