Self-Publishing Success: Stay at Home Mom Shares Her Kindle Story
The self-publishing world has changed quite a bit in the last couple years. Amazon is constantly changing the rules and rewards for authors, and more and more writers are entering the fold. In today's show, I'm joined by Jyotsna Ramachandran, a "stay at home mom entrepreneur" and best-selling author. She shares candidly how she built her Kindle empire to more than 50 titles in less than 2 year...
36m Oct 29, 2015
36m
Building Multiple Income Streams with For-Profit Hobbies
I'm excited to introduce you to John Rouda, an IT manager near Charlotte, North Carolina. He's built a variety of non-job income streams on the side, while still working full time. In fact, we recorded this session from his office at work! John calls his side businesses for-profit hobbies, which I think is a great attitude to take. He has a handful of books on Amazon, dozens of apps in the ap...
29m Oct 22, 2015
29m
Authority Site Case Study: How an Air Force Flight Surgeon Took His Side Hustle Full-Time
I first met Ryan Gray at New Media Expo in 2014. He introduced himself and when I asked what he did, he said he was a doctor. Turns out that Dr. Gray, along with his wife (also a doctor), was building MedicalSchoolHQ.net, a resource for med school and premed students. It's another perfect example of building an authority site around a particular area of expertise.
30m Oct 15, 2015
30m
Free Press Exposure: Your Fast-Track to Customers and Credibility
The battle for attention is one that almost all new businesses find themselves mired in. You may have the greatest product or service in the world, but if no one knows about it, how will you get paid? You can write the best blog articles, guest pitch big sites, and tweak your SEO until you're blue in the face, but despite all our new media channels, it's still hard to trump the pull and power ...
32m Oct 08, 2015
32m
How a Part-Time Blog Turned Into an 8-Figure Business
Brian Clark has been content marketing since before the term even existed. In fact, he left a miserable corporate job and built several successful businesses using these effective new marketing techniques. Then he started this little side project called Copyblogger to share some his findings, tactics, and ideas with the rest of the world. Fast forward 10 years and Copyblogger is now Rainmaker ...
33m Oct 01, 2015
33m
Brainstorming a New Affiliate Site from Scratch
I've had an idea for a new affiliate site kicking around in my head for a while now, so I thought I'd do a live walk-through of my thought-process and analysis of whether this is an opportunity I should pursue or not. The idea? A comparison and review site for meal delivery services like Blue Apron, Plated, Hello Fresh, Gobble, and others.
14m Sep 25, 2015
14m
Growing a Blog to 70,000 Visits a Month in One Year (and More Importantly, Turning it into a Business)
Tyler Zey turned his web development side hustle into a full-time business, but not without a few twists and turns along the way. Tyler's actually a classically trained musician (clarinet), but now runs EasyAgentPro, one of the leading marketing services for real estate agents -- despite having no background in real estate. What he lacked in real estate knowledge he made up for with hustle.
30m Sep 24, 2015
30m
How to Accelerate Your Side Hustle with Webinars
Jon Schumacher is a side hustler turned full-time entrepreneur. In fact, when we met at Podcast Movement this summer, he'd punched the clock for the last time just a few weeks before. He mentioned he'd been side hustling for years, and finally had hit on a business and marketing plan that worked. His target was $5k in monthly income before he quit, which he achieved this year and made the leap.
35m Sep 17, 2015
35m
7 Days to a Profitable Business
A viable startup business in 7 days ... sound to good to be true? Dan Norris is the co-founder of WP Curve, a service that offers unlimited 24/7 WordPress support for small jobs for $79 per month. He went from idea to paying customers in less than 7 days. Based on his experience, Dan penned the bestselling book The 7 Day Startup, and stopped by The Side Hustle Show to share some of his insights.
31m Sep 10, 2015
31m
Building an App Empire: From $0 to $70k a Month
Is there still an opportunity in smartphone apps? Carter Thomas thinks so, and shares some interesting and insightful ways to take advantage of the 3 giant app marketplaces (Apple, Google, and Amazon). Carter and his company are app-production machines, pumping out a crazy 1500 new apps in 2 years (mostly 2013 and 2014). Nowadays, the strategy has shifted somewhat to creating fewer apps and p...
36m Sep 03, 2015
36m
How to Create Massive Influence and Profit with Virtual Summits – Even If You Have No Audience
Navid had been blogging and podcasting about lifestyle business topics, but wrote one epic "round-up" post that went viral on the subject of personal branding. Sensing he was on to something, and noticing the success of virtual summits in other industries (like health and fitness), he decided to put together The Branding Summit. At the time, Navid had a modest list of 1000 email subscribers. ...
51m Aug 27, 2015
51m
Why You Should Quit Your Side Hustle (and What You Should Do Instead)
Should you quit your side hustle? My guest this week says you should, and argues that what you should do instead is find an apprenticeship. Taylor Pearson is the author of the bestselling The End of Jobs, and one of those super-smart individuals we should all pay attention to. The book is largely a historical perspective on where our economy is today and where we're going; and it's at once te...
29m Aug 20, 2015
29m
Building a 6-Figure Online Store on the Side
I met Steve Chou at New Media Expo this spring, and was fascinated by his story. He's built three different six-figure businesses, all while still working a day job in Silicon Valley. In fact, I was really surprised to find out he's still working TODAY, despite all this side hustle success. Those businesses are an ecommerce store at BumblebeeLinens.com, his blog and podcast at MyWifeQuitHerJo...
32m Aug 13, 2015
32m
Side Hustle Coaching: When to Pause
How do you know when it's time to step back, take a "time out," or stop the hustle? There's no spreadsheet or matrix or formula to give you the answer, but I think you know it in your gut. And even then, there's probably a part of me that wants to say, no, this is just "the dip" -- keep pushing. If you've been following along with my public coaching series, you know that Wellington has been ...
14m Aug 07, 2015
14m
$120k in Pre-Sales in 6 Months – With No List
John Logar is the king of pre-selling software. As one of The Foundation's top students, he's broken all their records and even broken the mold on some of the methods they teach. In fact, he sold $120k worth of software within his first 6 months of joining the program. Since he was already a consultant, doing idea extraction and finding pain points for businesses was second nature. He just kn...
36m Aug 06, 2015
36m
$4k a Month on the Side with Amazon FBA Clearance Arbitrage
I was really excited to sit down with Travis Scott from StuffParentsLike.com to share his success with the Amazon FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) clearance arbitrage business, and also to get his insight since I just started playing around with this side hustle myself. Travis has seen impressive results with Amazon, netting $25,000 so far this year through July, in addition to his full-time job and ...
30m Jul 30, 2015
30m
What I’ve Learned and Applied from 50 Awesome Entrepreneurs – Part Two
At the end of nearly every episode of The Side Hustle Show, I ask my guests for their #1 tip for Side Hustle Nation. There's always a great variety of responses, and I wanted to take some time today to go through some of my favorites from the past 50 interviews. (I first did this for episode 50, which was my first-ever solo podcast recording.) If all these really smart and successful people ke...
29m Jul 23, 2015
29m
Time Hacking for Side Hustlers: How to Get More Hours, Clarity, and Results
If you're looking for ways to squeeze more out of your limited side hustle hours, this is the episode for you. I'm excited to introduce Julie Sheranosher, host of the Time Hackers podcast. Julie and I met at World Domination Summit in 2013 -- she flew in all the way from Israel -- and she is one of my favorite people and true time management pro. I feel like my productivity has improved over ...
39m Jul 16, 2015
39m
How to Re-Purpose Content Into Multiple Income Streams
This week, I'm joined by fellow online entrepreneur and freedom-seeker, Natalie Sisson. Natalie is a masterful marketer, blogger, podcaster, and speaker, and on this call she breaks down how a blog post idea became a major turning point in her business, and was eventually re-purposed and repackaged more than a half-dozen ways -- all ringing the cash register in some unique fashion. The breakt...
32m Jul 09, 2015
32m
An Engineer’s Approach to Building a $1500 per Month Side Hustle
Tim Johnson is a man of many hustles. In fact, when he applied for my Inner Circle Mastermind last year, I had a hard time keeping them all straight. Between his day job as a product engineer, his awesome self-publishing business, his Amazon FBA activities, and an upcoming brick-and-mortar project -- and twin 2 year old boys -- there's no doubt he's keeping busy! On this call, we focus on his...
34m Jul 02, 2015
34m
Side Hustle Coaching: 10x Thinking and Standard Operating Procedures
I was able to catch up with Kathryn, one of my public coaching volunteers who’s starting a gluten free baked-goods company in Portland, Oregon. Where we left off, things were going pretty well. She’s been pounding the pavement doing some good ol’ fashioned cold calling to land her first clients, focusing on coffee shops in the local area. She had 2 recurring clients and around $250 a month in...
39m Jun 26, 2015
39m
Side Hustle Coaching: What it REALLY Takes to Build a SaaS Business, with Special Guest Dane Maxwell
It's been almost 2 months since we last caught up with Wellington, one of my public coaching volunteers. Where we left off, he was working on a smartphone app for travel hackers and kicking around the idea for a software business in the home renovation estimating world. Our last session was a rough one. Wellington had just broken his foot and had his app repeatedly rejected from the app store...
59m Jun 25, 2015
59m
Yes without Regret; No without Guilt; Maybe without a Doubt
Can I make a confession? I'm a little indecisive. Maybe more than a little. Bryn calls me slow. (I prefer "methodical.") This episode is about making decisions -- or not making them -- without regret, guilt, or doubt. Have you heard the quote, "If it’s not a HELL YES, it’s a NO!"? I believe this is attributed to Derek Sivers, and actually is a pretty handy decision-making tool.
24m Jun 19, 2015
24m
The Fastest Path to Side Hustle Cash Flow?
One podcast I've been following for a really long time is the Empire Flippers show with Justin Cooke and Joe Magnotti. It's been fun to watch their evolution from building tiny Adsense sites, running an outsourcing company in the Philippines, selling WordPress themes, and now really focusing in on their website brokerage business. Consider this: it's MUCH easier to buy an existing cash flow th...
36m Jun 18, 2015
36m
Getting Started in Ecommerce
Travis Marziani is the co-founder of BDancewear.com, an ecommerce store specializing in dance-clothing handmade in the US. On this week's show, Travis joins me to talk about why ecommerce is such an awesome business model, especially for side hustlers, and the story behind the dance site -- since he is clearly not the target demographic. He's got some innovative content marketing ideas for on...
36m Jun 11, 2015
36m
Monetize What You Know: Proven Course Creation Best Practices
Ankur Nagpal is the founder of Fedora, an online course-hosting platform with more than 4000 instructors. From his unique vantage-point, he's got some insight into what separates top-selling courses from the rest of the pack. Ankur gives some innovative ideas on how to use free distribution platforms like YouTube and even Udemy to build an interested audience and drive them to your premium cou...
28m Jun 04, 2015
28m
How to Build and Monetize a Blog from the Ground Up
I first met Melinda Fleming at an Affiliate Summit conference in Las Vegas in 2013. At that time, all she had was an idea -- no website, no online business, and no social media presence. She was working in Hollywood as a freelance writer and voice over talent, but could see the direction of the entertainment industry was toward hiring cheaper and cheaper alternatives. Should the trend continue...
33m May 28, 2015
33m
Earning $3000-$4000 per Month on Kindle in Just 6 Months as a “Professional” Author
Last year, Lise "came out of nowhere" as they say, and published 13 books in 6 months, and now earns between $3000 and $4000 a month in author royalties. Of course the truth is she didn't come out of nowhere at all; she came out of New Zealand and had already built a successful freelance writing business. However, the hustle of delivering work for clients all day had her seeking a more time-le...
39m May 21, 2015
39m
The 3 C’s of Side Hustle Happiness
Creation, connection, and contribution are the 3 C's I believe everyone needs to live a happy healthy productive life, whether that life contains a side hustle or not. In this episode I share the audio from my TEDx talk, which breaks down the 3 C's and why they're so important. The idea for this episode came from an email I wrote last week in response to the statistic that only 30% of workers...
21m May 15, 2015
21m
How to Make Money as a Freelancer – Without Competing for Jobs on Elance or oDesk
Freelancing or selling some useful service is one of the fastest ways to earn more money. It may not be as sexy as "passive income" but it does come with instant gratification. Make deals, deliver awesome work, and get paid. In today's show, I'm excited to welcome back Daniel DiPiazza from Rich20Something.com. You may remember Daniel from Episode 35, where he talked about how his "marsupial m...
44m May 14, 2015
44m
Monetizing Your Art and the Path to 1000 True Fans
On this week's show, I'm joined by Steph Halligan, who runs ArtToSelf.com. She's a talented cartoonist who began a daily blog and email newsletter with inspirational and affirmational art -- all created by her. The site is 100% supported by donations from her followers, and even though it's very early in the journey, I think there's enough validation to say she's on the path her 1000 true fans...
38m May 07, 2015
38m
Public Coaching Update: Rejected by the App Store!
Where we left off with Wellington, he was facing some quality control challenges with his app developer in building the Getaway Geek travel hacking app. There was some back-and-forth after some testing and a lot of bugs that needed to be fixed. Since we spoke, those had been reasonably buttoned up and Wellington submitted the app to the App Store for approval. Unfortunately, it's been rejecte...
45m May 01, 2015
45m
The Best Passive Income Model?
I was very excited to sit down with Mark Podolsky, The Land Geek, to talk about his side-hustle-turned-full-time-biz of investing in raw land. In fact, he was able to replace his day job income and quit his job only 18 months after starting. Mark calls it the best passive income model because you don't have to worry about building a website, building a product, dealing with tenants, dealing w...
33m Apr 30, 2015
33m
Side Hustle Coaching: The Sales Process and Delivering the Goods
In today's installment of my public coaching series I'm catching up with Kathryn, who’s starting a gluten free baked goods business out of her home in Portland Oregon. When we last spoke, she’d just landed her first customer and sold her first $20 worth of product. Now she's up to two recurring clients and is also contracting to make gluten-free granola for one of her customers.
42m Apr 24, 2015
42m
Stand Out: Build Your Unique Authority and Get Paid
Dorie's latest book is called Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It, and it is the perfect companion to anyone trying to build a personal brand, an authority website, or an audience-based business. This episode is a little different from other Side Hustle Show episodes because we actually don't talk much about Dorie's personal story or experience at all,...
42m Apr 23, 2015
42m
How to Retire in Your 30s
I've been medium-obsessed with the idea of early retirement ever since I discovered this little blog called Mr. Money Mustache a couple years ago. The basic formula goes like this: once you have 25x your annual spending in invested net worth, you can theoretically live off growth/interest/dividends in perpetuity. On today's episode you'll meet Jeremy Jacobson, who retired at 37 and now spends...
34m Apr 16, 2015
34m
How to Find and Validate Your First Import Product
Four months ago, Andy Slamans gave us a detailed look at Amazon FBA product selection, working with manufacturers, and bringing those products to market. But the most common question I get from listeners is how to find that first product to import. How do I find a profitable product? How do I measure the competition? How do I validate the demand and the pricing? In today's episode, I sit down...
40m Apr 09, 2015
40m
Public Coaching Update: App Development Headaches and Brainstorming a SaaS Business
In this episode we're catching up with Wellington, my public coaching volunteer in New York. Where we left off, he was working with an outsourced app developer to finalize a beta version of his travel hacking app for the app store. He shared that he'd previously only ever made $0.07 online, but has the goal of earning $2500 a month by the end of 2015. One of the biggest challenges for Wellingt...
31m Apr 03, 2015
31m
Zero to $50k a Month: Email Marketing Hacks for Entrepreneurs and Audience Builders
Dan Faggella sent me an email last month that essentially said, "Hey Nick, I'm a fan of the show. I have some expertise in email marketing, and I know many of your listeners are working to build their online presence and their email lists. Would it make sense to do an episode on some list building and email best practices?"And then he added the kicker: "I'm making $50k/mo selling martial arts t...
42m Apr 02, 2015
42m
Public Coaching Update: Kathryn Lands Her First Customer and Talks Next Steps
In this episode we're catching up with Kathryn, my public coaching volunteer in Portland. Where we left off, she was starting a gluten-free cottage bakery out of her home. The ultimate goals were to be able to leave her less-than-awesome day job and figured with a net monthly side hustle income of $1500, she'd be able to lease some commercial kitchen space and scale up her operations. When yo...
29m Mar 27, 2015
29m
Behind the Scenes at Side Hustle Nation
This week my friend Alex Barker co-hosts and interviews me on my entrepreneurial beginnings, my first side hustle, and the origins and future of Side Hustle Nation. We also go through a few listener questions as well. I realized I've told some of these stories only in bits and pieces on the show and on the Side Hustle Nation blog before, despite having mentioned them on several other podcasts....
40m Mar 26, 2015
40m
Ideas are Worthless? Nate Earned $300,000 in Passive Income From His (An Intro to Product Licensing)
Nate and his brother earned $300,000 in passive income by licensing one of their ideas to Mattel. They didn't have to design it, produce it, or sell it. But they found someone who could, and they cashed the checks. And to be fair, Nate will be the first to tell you these kind of results aren't typical -- but he's proof they ARE possible. Nate's actually a dentist by day, but a pretty serious ...
41m Mar 19, 2015
41m
From $100 to $30,000 in Nine Months
John Corcoran is well-known in online business circles for being "the connections guy," but I was more curious in how he's built his own online business than networking tips. Today he sells his own premium course on Connecting with Influencers, plus earns money as an affiliate for other high-dollar, high-value online products. In January, he earned $30,000 in one month, through sales of his o...
52m Mar 12, 2015
52m
Public Coaching Kickoff: Introducing Our Stars As They Begin Their Quest
"Gun to your head, what would you do to earn an extra $500 in the next 30 days?" By far the best response I received to this question came from Mike Greig: "I go Bruce Lee circa 1970 on the guy holding the gun. Quick chop, headspin roundhouse kick...now I've got the gun. I'd leave the assailant alive but immobile, take the gun and pawn it to make my $500."
59m Mar 05, 2015
59m
Essentialism and Finding Your ONE Thing
In Hawaii and on the plane home I read two books with very similar themes: The ONE Thing by Gary KellerEssentialism by Greg McKeownBoth titles share the common message of FOCUS -- de-cluttering your day, your work, your mind, and your life. They came at a good time because I was starting to feel overwhelmed with projects and wanting to pursue new ideas and opportunities as they came up.
25m Feb 27, 2015
25m
$10k from a Single Sale … on Fiverr
Twenty months and 90 episodes ago, I was introduced to the incredible story of AnarchoFighter, the Top-Rated Fiverr seller who earned enough cash on the platform to buy a house. That episode convinced me to give Fiverr a shot as a seller myself, and it's turned into a fun side hustle income stream. Since we last spoke, Fiverr has implemented a bunch of changes, including the option to create c...
51m Feb 26, 2015
51m
Tax Saving Tips for Side Hustlers
It's tax season, and I think it would be foolish to give Uncle Sam more than you're legally required to. This week I'm joined by Joshua Sheats from RadicalPersonalFinance.com and the host of the Radical Personal Finance podcast. He explains there are 2 tax codes: the personal tax code and the business tax code. As a business owner, even as a side hustler, there are a number of distinct tax ad...
51m Feb 19, 2015
51m
How to Start and Scale a Service Business to Quit Your Job
Dayne Shuda runs GhostBlogWriters.com, a done-for-you blogging service that commands premium prices, and oversees a team of 20 part-time writers to deliver the work for clients around the country. But like most businesses, Ghost Blog Writers came from some pretty humble beginnings. In fact, Dayne started it as a side hustle with $0 upfront investment.
43m Feb 12, 2015
43m
Building a Location Independent Business of Freedom and Travel — Even With a Family
Here's a guy who built an online business, and had the courage to up and move to Cozumel, Mexico -- with his wife and 3 young daughters. It's not your typical single-23-year-old-dude digital nomad type of story, though Sean's business itself is simple enough to be replicated. This is a fun chat about hustling for business and building a lifestyle on your own terms. I think you're going to lik...
39m Feb 05, 2015
39m
Rapid Product Creation, Book Launch Tactics, and Turning a Book into a Business
This may surprise people, but I'm a pretty slow writer. I have a challenging time writing in "rough draft" mode. You know, where you just brain dump onto the page and clean it up later. That's one reason I wanted to have Chandler Bolt back on the show; because he's got a cure for that I'm anxious to try out. In this episode, we talk about his 3-step writing process to quickly create a new boo...
40m Jan 29, 2015
40m