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“Just get started. I feel happier and even healthier now that I'm running my business on the side.”
In this week's First $1,000 segment, we hear from Rachel just outside Toronto. By day she works for a large ecommerce company that encourages employees to side hustle, as long as it doesn't interfere with the job. Familiar with social media and sales, she started consulting with small brands and solopreneurs to handle their social.
To stand out — and to protect her time — she built a clear system. For a monthly retainer (typically $1,000 to $3,000, depending on business size), she writes all the social content, reviews it with the founder, and schedules it, checking in through the week. What she doesn't do is respond to everything constantly; that's where the client comes in. Defining that scope keeps expectations realistic.
She landed her first client within a couple of weeks — a single mom running a natural medicine shop who found her through her work. Her main challenge is keeping her side hustle separate from her day job, so she's careful not to recruit from those contacts.
Rachel now has three clients and $4,000 a month in retainers. She doesn't want to grow too much, since the business can't scale without hiring — and she likes both her day job and her night job. Her encouragement: just get started.
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