This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Weekend workshop time. Let's talk about assembling the nuts and bolts, putting things together. What are we talking about here? Well, this new segment, it's all about helping you learn the key steps to a new side hustle in 2025, one step or concept per week. We are using the book "Side Hustle" from idea to income in 27 days.
And if you don't have the book, I'm gonna take you through some key steps here along with activities, examples, and of course it's all free. So today's episode comes from day 11. Last week we were talking about creating an origin story. This week is all about assembling the nuts and bolts. Basically, we were talking about getting your business basics in order.
What do you actually need to operate this business? How can you get those basics in order? I'm gonna give you an essential setup checklist in the second part of this episode. But to start here, our learning objective is learn what essential systems and tools you need to start your business. And key point, what you can safely ignore for now.
Because if you've been listening for a while, you know starting a business doesn't require an MBA, doesn't require complex systems, but you do need some basic foundations in place. So you wanna help you focus on, again, what is essential without getting bogged down. And just think about preparing to cook a meal. So if you're gonna cook something, you need to understand basic tools and ingredients. What are those tools you need for the kitchen?
What are those ingredients? You need a clean workspace, and you need a recipe to follow. So what do you not need? Well, you don't need a professional kitchen. You don't need expensive equipment.
Again, you just need those essentials. So for your business, if we apply that analogy, we could say the essentials typically include a separate bank account for business income. A simple way to track money coming in and going out. A basic system for delivering your product or service. So when customers pay, how do they get what they have ordered?
And also a clear way for customers to pay you. So you wanna make that simple as possible as well. Some things you don't need, a formal business plan, an LLC or corporation, expensive software, a fancy website, business cards, a logo. Now, just to be clear, some of those things might be needed at some point, and they might be helpful to you at some point, but I wanna encourage our listeners to move forward as quickly as possible without getting bogged down, and people tend to get bogged down on all of those things. So as an example, in the book, I tell this story about Sarah who started a successful candy business.
It was a seasonal business around Valentine's Day. This turned into a six figure side hustle that only took a month or two of operations each year. And when she started, even though this business was really growing, she kept it so simple. She used a free spreadsheet to track orders. She set up that separate checking account that took less than an hour than it was done.
She created a basic payment link for customers, and she focused all of her efforts on fulfilling orders well so that customers would continue to come back the next year and talk about it. She avoided getting distracted by things like, designing those business cards or making the website fancier than it needed to be. And by focusing on essentials, she could start making money right away while adding other elements as needed. The other reason for avoiding those distractions is you don't know that any particular idea is gonna work. So why would you spend all your time building the elements for an idea that's not going to succeed?
It's much more enjoyable to say, wow, this business is working, it's making money. What can we do to level up here? How can I make it look nicer? How can I get those business cards? Not nearly as much fun to be in a situation where you've done all that stuff and then the business doesn't work and you have to kind of regroup.
Okay, so let's take a quick break. When we return, setting up those business basics, what is this essential setup checklist that you can follow? [Music]
Success comes from having the right tools in place without over-complicating things. So let's focus on what you actually need. Again, we use that analogy of cooking something, you need to have the right tools, ingredients, and so on.
So for your side hustle, what is your essential setup checklist? Money management includes separate bank account, as noted, a simple spreadsheet for tracking income and expenses, and some sort of record-keeping of business-related purchases. And it really could be any kind of system that works for you. Customer systems, you need a basic way to communicate with customers. It could just be a Gmail account, you know?
I mean, it could be more complicated than that, but it could just be a simple email account. What is a simple process for taking orders or bookings? Just like Sarah had a payment link. That's all she needed. You might be able to have a system from a platform like Shopify or Etsy or PayPal or many others, whatever it is, you just need a simple process for taking those orders.
And then, of course, you need a reliable method for delivering your product or service, whether it's physical or digital or a service that you actually provide. You need some means of getting that service or product to the customer. And then finally, the last thing on your essential setup checklist is payment processing. So you need that simple way for customers to pay you, which may be the same as the process for taking orders or bookings. It could be different or it could be the same.
And if you are performing a freelance service, you might need a system for sending invoices as well. If it's e-commerce or something where people just go and pay, then you don't need to worry about invoices, but some people will need to do that. So you'll notice this is really basic, right? We're talking about money management, customer systems, and payment processing, something that works for each of those things. Of course, the notes page for every weekend workshop includes an action exercise.
That's at sidehustleschool.com/workshop. And this one is to create your startup checklist. List everything you need to deliver your product or service, whatever those nuts and bolts are. Identify the systems you'll use for basic operations. So that's a list of the providers or companies or platforms.
Again, keep it as simple as possible. And then as part of your checklist, you want to make sure you set up these essential accounts and tools. This might take a couple of hours. It could take a little bit more, but hopefully not much more than that, especially for an all new small side hustle. All right, you can always add more sophisticated systems later.
That's what Sarah did. That's what I've done for different businesses. But start with the basics that allow you to serve customers well and keep track of your money. Finally, it's better to have a simple idea. You can start soon than a brilliant idea that never launches.
That's the whole principle of Siduswell School. Thanks for joining me today. Day number 11 of the weekend workshop series. Be back again in a week, but of course I'll be back tomorrow with a new episode. Episodes continue a pace seven days a week, always completely free.
My name's Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Siduswell School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
