Weekend Workshop: Sizing Up Your Ideas

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Welcome back to the weekend workshop. This one's all about sizing up your ideas. And if you're new here, this segment for 2025 is all about helping you learn the key steps to a new side hustle, one step or concept per week. It includes activities, examples, and more. And of course, it's all free.

Just like everything we do around here, it's all free. We're gonna use the book "Side Hustle" from idea to income in 27 days. That's my book, in fact. It is available wherever books are sold. But if you don't have the book, don't worry.

I'm gonna be taking you through the key steps along with listener stories and examples throughout the year. All right, today's episode comes from day four. It's all about sizing up your ideas. We've talked a bit about where ideas come from, how to develop the power of observation. Our learning objective for today is to identify the key opportunities and obstacles for any potential side hustle before you invest time and money, right?

Wouldn't it be great if you could know upfront what might be amazing, what might be difficult? And the big idea is that every promising side hustle idea comes with both opportunities and obstacles. Success depends on identifying these early before you are deeply invested. Just think about it like scouting a location for a new store, perhaps. Maybe you're not gonna open a new store, but just imagine you were.

You'd wanna understand both the potential and the pitfalls before signing a lease. So here's an example. Joe Maliano wrote about him in the book. He was working at a cancer research facility. He and his friend developed a gin recipe and they were like, man, we should open a distillery.

Like wouldn't it be cool to open a craft distillery? And then they kind of did some research and they realized they would need at least a million dollars in startup costs. There's also a lot of complex regulations at local, state, and federal levels involving the manufactured distribution of alcohol and therefore a long approval process for licenses. And so they're like, well, this is a complicated business. So rather than pursue that business and rather than give up entirely, they pivoted.

So instead of making gin, they started making kits for people to make their own gin at home. They actually called it the homemade gin kit, which has been much copied, but they were the original. And this new approach had much lower startup costs, far fewer regulations to navigate 'cause they weren't selling alcohol, and of course a faster path to market. So for lots of great reasons, this was a much better idea because they took the time to identify the obstacles before getting started. All right, we're gonna take a quick break when we return the two types of examination that will help you size up ideas, just like Joe and his friend did, and just like you can do for your first or your next side hustle or entrepreneurial project.

Okay, stay tuned. [Music]

Every side hustle idea needs two types of examination, honest brainstorming and basic research. So think about buying a used car. Like you want to actually look under the hood yourself or maybe take it to a mechanic that's brainstorming, but you also need to check the vehicle history report, which is research, okay? So brainstorming research.

Through brainstorming, you wanna explore what makes your idea uniquely promising. Consider the resources you already have versus what you'll need to acquire. Think about how quickly you could make your first sale and what might stand in your way. You know, I always wanna encourage our listeners to start quickly to pursue the idea that is most feasible. We talked about how you want your ideas to be feasible, profitable and persuasive.

And this initial exploration should feel like having a conversation with yourself about your ideas potential. Okay, so that's brainstorming. Second phase research, it's about learning from others' experiences. So look for similar businesses or services. Notice what customers say about existing solutions.

Understand price ranges, basic requirements. You don't need to become an expert at this point. You just need enough information to make an informed decision. And just to be clear, the goal isn't to find a perfect obstacle-free idea. You're looking for an idea where the opportunities clearly outweigh the challenges.

Okay, an action exercise for you on the notes page for every weekend workshop will include one of these action exercises. You can always see that at sidehustleschool.com/workshop. Today's exercise, take your top side hustle idea or your top current idea and create a simple analysis. Analysis is a big word I realized, but let's break it down. Just write out a short paragraph, a couple of sentences about the opportunities section and the obstacles section for your idea.

So opportunities, describe your advantages, your existing resources, why you think this could be a great idea. Consider who your first customers might be and think about what makes your approach unique or valuable. Next, as you might guess, the obstacles section. Be honest about startup costs, skills needed, time requirements. Consider any competition that you'll face.

Think about why this idea might not be as amazing as you first thought or why it might be more difficult to achieve the success you want than you first thought. And just notice those potential red blocks that could slow you down. Let's look at a little example here from a mobile pet grooming service. Someone said, someone who did this business said, "My biggest opportunities came from my existing vehicle and five years of pet care experience. Local vet connections could provide early customers and our growing neighborhood has many busy pet owners willing to pay premium prices for convenience." So that was the opportunities.

The obstacles, they said the main obstacles are getting certified, which was like $2,000, buying equipment, another few thousand dollars and handling insurance. So there you have both of them, the opportunities and the obstacles, that then helps you make decisions, which we're gonna continue to look at in this series. Quick little self-check for you as you do this exercise. Do the opportunities outweigh the obstacles or is it the other way around? Which obstacles could you overcome quickly and what's the minimum you need to get started?

That's not just money, it could also be time or some other resource. Just ask yourself, what's the minimum you need to get started? What could I do? Like how could I get started in a few days or a few weeks maybe at maximum? As I said, your goal is not to eliminate all obstacles, it's to find an idea where you can handle the challenges while capitalizing on the opportunities.

That's all for this weekend workshop. Thanks for tuning in. Size up your ideas. We've talked about spotting a profitable side hustle idea. We've talked about beg, borrow or steal ideas.

Now we're sizing up your ideas next week. Let's see, next week is all about money, math made simple. We're gonna help you make smart and simple projections. So stay tuned for that. And of course, new episodes rolling out every day as well.

Thank you for listening. It's always completely free. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]

From the Onward Project.