289: How to Make $200 an Hour Playing with Kids: An Intro to After School Programs
May Najafabadi earned $12,000 in 8 weeks -- working just 1 hour a day. Her side hustle? After school enrichment classes teaching crafts and jewelry making. Note: Click here to download May’s top tips for creating and running after school classes from this episode. As a long-time entrepreneur in the e-commerce space, May was used to enrolling her son in these classes to buy herself an extra hour...
33m Jun 28, 2018
33m
288: What I've Learned and Applied for 49 Awesome Entrepreneurs - Part 5
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-ish interviews. This has become an annual tradition on the show, and we just passed 5 years and 5.5 million downloads! If you like this short-and-...
26m Jun 21, 2018
26m
287: Choose Financial Independence: A Case Study in Audience Building
Note: Click here to download Jonathan’s top tips for starting and growing a podcast, blog, and online community from this episode. 10 months! Just 10 months after starting his side hustle, Jonathan Mendonsa was ready to quit his 6-figure job and take the business full-time. What's the hustle? A podcast called Jonathan co-hosts with this partner Brad Barrett ChooseFI. “You need to either be firs...
45m Jun 14, 2018
45m
286: How to Become a Loan Signing Agent and Earn $100 an Hour Part-Time
“It’s the best-kept secret in the real estate industry,” Mark said, talking about becoming a loan signing agent. You can make $100 an hour as a part-time, and the only real requirements are that you know what you’re doing, and you have a notary license. (A loan signing agent is the person who walks you through the giant stack of forms and contracts you have to sign when you close on a new home ...
33m Jun 07, 2018
33m
285: The Passive Income Service Business
“I set up a big business just selling somebody else’s stuff,” Wes said. Wes runs TheSalesWhisperer.com and is the host of The Sales Podcast which started around the same time as The Side Hustle Show back in 2013. He’s an Air Force vet, a father of 7, and has built up an interesting side hustle that on the surface looks like a typical consulting business but is done in such a way that it’s set u...
38m May 31, 2018
38m
284: From Active to Passive Income: From $25 an Hour to 6-Figure Launches
When Abbey made $8000 from her 1000-person email list, she knew she was on to something. Over the last several years, Abbey Ashley has gone from earning $25 as a virtual assistant, to coordinating monster 6-figure launches of her own product. I actually met Abbey at the bar during Traffic and Conversion Summit. Her “Virtual Assistance Is My Jam,” t-shirt caught my attention and I had to know mo...
45m May 24, 2018
45m
283: Your Copy Sucks! Website Reviews from a Professional Copywriter
You've got less than 3 seconds to make a first impression online. Is your website turning would-be customers away without you even knowing it? Your site and the words you use -- your copy -- could either be making you money or costing you big time. I invited copywriting pro Laura Belgray on the show to do some live "copy audits" of listeners' sites. Laura is a professional copywriter with nearl...
1hr 9m May 17, 2018
1hr 9m
282: How to Build a $60k a Year Part-Time Blog
FoodTruckEmpire.com generates $60k a year on the side from Brett Lindenberg's marketing consulting job. Why'd he start a blog about the food truck industry? “I started the blog at a time in my life when I was looking at just a whole bunch of different business ideas,” Brett said. Originally, Brett wanted to start his own food truck. While researching how to start a food truck business he discov...
46m May 10, 2018
46m
281: How to Start a $1000/Month Freelance Writing Business in 60 Minutes a Day
In his first 3 months, he'd booked more than $4000 worth of work. “I’ve never been very good at working with people, so I wanted something that was flexible,” James said. Sound familiar? These are the words of someone who was not happy being a shoe salesman and wanted out. James was looking for that location independent lifestyle, and when he was approached to ghostwrite a book for $300 he knew...
43m May 03, 2018
43m
280: How to Start a Bounce House Rental Business (Investing in "Inflatable" Real Estate)
Corey Jeffreys turned an $800 investment into $3k in the first year and has been growing his business and adding more automated processes each year. His entrepreneurial adventure began by exploring the world of real estate investing, when he happened upon a slightly different rental business model: inflatable bounce houses. Note: Click here to download Corey’s top tips for starting and growing ...
30m Apr 26, 2018
30m
279: SEO for Bloggers: The Simple Way to Get More Free Traffic From Google
Note: Click here to download Matt’s top SEO tips for writing and ranking epic content from this episode. “Go big or go home, that’s kinda my whole philosophy with SEO,” Matt said. And his results speak for themselves. It’s been more than 200 episodes since we last heard from Matt Giovanisci. Back then, Matt was explaining how he was growing his authority site SwimUniversity.com with epic conten...
50m Apr 19, 2018
50m
278: Selling an Amazon FBA Business: My $425k Exit ... and the Guy Who Bought It
A $425k exit on a 2.5 year old business!? Recently a friend of mine posted about how he sold his 2.5-year-old Amazon FBA business for over $400k, which I thought was incredible. The twist was it turned out the buyer was a familiar face as well. Spencer Haws of NichePursuits.com was the seller, and Ace Chapman of AceChapman.com was the buyer. They are both previous guests of the show. Spencer wa...
42m Apr 12, 2018
42m
277: How to Set Up and Sell a Group Coaching Program
Paul Brodie is a former special needs teacher turned 11-time Amazon bestselling author. What started as a side hustle writing about his own weight loss journey turned into a string of bestselling titles on Amazon, $3000 paid speaking gigs, 1-on-1 self-publishing coaching, and ultimately the group coaching program I invited Paul on the show to share more about. Why go down the group coaching rou...
39m Apr 05, 2018
39m
276: 27 "Weird" Productivity Hacks You Can Try Today
What are the quick, simple, and maybe a little "weird" productivity tricks entrepreneurs use to get more done? Well, I'm always curious about that myself so I decided to ask 26 of my most productive and successful friends for the "hacks" and tools they use every day. (And I added in one of my own to round out the list.) This episode was a ton of fun to put together and I owe a huge thank you to...
55m Mar 29, 2018
55m
275: The Tactical Triangle: How to Double your Business in 30 Days
It's such an elegantly simple -- yet powerful -- way of looking at what really matters in your business. Perry Marshall's "Tactical Triangle" identifies the 3 primary levers in any business as: Traffic Conversion Economics And even more powerful, there's an 80/20 Pareto Principle inside each of those. Start tweaking a few of the most important variables and you start to see some serious impact ...
41m Mar 22, 2018
41m
274: The Middleman Method: A Real-Life Example of Turning Trash into Treasure
John made $1614 before 11am the day we recorded this episode. His business model? Buying industrial byproducts, the kind of stuff that’s used for shipping like pallets, cardboard boxes, crates, and so on, and selling them on for a profit. John Wilker started out buying or being given pallets free by businesses that had no need for them and selling them to pallet yards. Realizing the pallet yard...
36m Mar 15, 2018
36m
273: High-Touch Affiliate Marketing: How to Get Paid to Play Matchmaker in Your Niche
Getting paid to turn away work? Being in the position to turn away work as a freelancer or consultant is an envious place to be in, but being in the position to turn away that work AND get paid for it? Even better! John Doherty had spent years working in the digital marketing space, both as an employee and a freelancer. As his SEO consulting business crew, he reached the capacity of how much he...
39m Mar 08, 2018
39m
272: How the New Tax Law Impacts Entrepreneurs and Side Hustlers
How much will you save from the new tax law? It turns out that while there are some great "gives" from Uncle Sam for entrepreneurs, there are several potentially costly "takes" as well. Death and taxes, right? To help talk through how some of the most important tax law changes will impact your bottom line, I invited Josh Bauerle from CPAonFire.com back on the show. You might remember Josh from ...
35m Mar 01, 2018
35m
271: Brilliant Blogging, Ruthless Productivity, and Guaranteed Success: 20 Questions with Nick
It’s time to dive into the ol' listener mailbag and answer a few questions in this week’s edition of The Side Hustle Show. I’ve had quite a few interesting questions come in since the last Q&A episode, and picked 20 to talk through in today’s show. Like this format? This is the 5th installment of "20 Questions" so feel free to go back and binge on the older ones too: 245: Network Marketing, Imp...
39m Feb 22, 2018
39m
270: How to Systemize Your Business with Marketing Automation
How would you like to add thousands of dollars a month to your bottom line, on autopilot? Sounds pretty good, right? Greg Hickman of System.ly has achieved this for his own 6-figure a month business and does the same for his clients using marketing automation and effective sales funnels. If you're wondering what marketing automation is, in Greg’s own words it's, “How to use technology to enable...
49m Feb 15, 2018
49m
269: How to Set Up and Sell a Paid Mastermind Group
Women pay up to $2000 a month to hang out with Natalie Eckdahl for a few hours. The mother of 3 has turned her BizChix podcast (which started as a side hustle) into a thriving business based largely on paid mastermind groups. She curates groups of high-performing female entrepreneurs – and gets paid handsomely to do it. Is this a revenue stream you could add to your business? Note: Click here t...
41m Feb 08, 2018
41m
268: Blogging ROI: From $18 to $100k a Month in 2.5 Years
Could a part-time blog really bring in that kind of cash? Rosemarie swears she only works 20 hours a week! Yes, The Busy Budgeter is back for her 3rd round on The Side Hustle Show, and it's a good one. If you missed the first two: In episode 142, Rosemarie Groner's blog was about a year old and earning $5k a month. She shared a step-by-step system for generating massive traffic from Pinterest, ...
53m Feb 01, 2018
53m
267: The Hustler’s Mindset: The 10 Traits of Successful Side Hustle Entrepreneurs
This should probably be episode 1, not 267, but if I'm being totally honest, I probably wasn't in a place personally or professionally to record it as episode 1. I’ve avoided doing a “mindset” episode for almost 5 because I didn’t think it was necessary. I thought if people are seeking out business information, entrepreneurship information, they’ve already got the right mindset. They know what’...
26m Jan 25, 2018
26m
266: The Simplest Side Hustle Ever? How to Earn $30-50 an Hour Picking up Trash
Brian Winch calls it “America’s Simplest Business.” What started as a side hustle way back in 1981 has now grown into a $650k a year operation. So what does Brian do? His company picks up litter from parking lots. Sadly, it's still an essential service (boo litterbugs!), but has very low startup costs and Brian says you can earn $30-$50 an hour doing this on the side. Note: Click here to downlo...
31m Jan 18, 2018
31m
265: Instagram Marketing – How to Get More Followers and Customers on Instagram
With a user base of 800 million people, there are enough potential customers for everyone on Instagram, regardless of your type of business. Instagram is the first app I check in the morning, but I don't really use it for business. To help school me on this massive social media channel, I invited Allie McAdam on the show. Allie is an Instagram strategist and the host of the Passion in Business ...
47m Jan 11, 2018
47m
264: Challenge Marketing – How to Explode Your List and Revenue with Free Challenges
"I teach women how to get dressed in the morning." That's how Kelly Snyder from AdoreYourWardrobe.com introduced herself to me at FinCon. (The more "official" tagline is that Adore Your Wardrobe teaches women how to confidently dress their unique bodies through the principles found in math and science.) There's a niche for everything, right! It’s a really cool business idea that sits firmly out...
42m Jan 04, 2018
42m
263: The Top 3 Amazon FBA Private Label Product Research Strategies for 2018 and Beyond
It's no secret that Amazon FBA is one of the hottest side hustles going right now, and it shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. FBA is Fulfillment by Amazon, the program that allows you to list your own products for sale on Amazon, tap into their giant audience of customers, and have them handle all the shipping when orders come in. The trick is figuring out which which products to sell,...
49m Dec 28, 2017
49m
262: The Most Common Website Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)
Is your website guilty of these common sins? How secure is your site, really? WordPress is like the new toy you unwrap on Christmas morning -- you know it's going to be awesome, but there's some assembly required. To break down some of the most common website mistakes, I invited my friend Anthony Tran on the show. Anthony runs MarketingAccessPass.com, a web design and development agency, as wel...
48m Dec 21, 2017
48m
261: Health and Fitness for Busy Entrepreneurs - The Most Overlooked Productivity Hack?
I felt gross. I was tired from chasing a toddler around, out of shape, and fighting a series of frustrating injuries. And I realized it was hurting my output at work. Building a business takes real energy and real brainpower, and I wasn't performing optimally because my body wasn't performing optimally. I knew I had to do something about it. A friend introduced me to Rob Dionne, a certified per...
49m Dec 14, 2017
49m
260: From Flipping Textbooks to $4 Million in Sales: How to Scale Your Amazon FBA Retail Arbitrage Business
A lot has changed in Ryan's "buy low, sell high" business built on Amazon's FBA program. This week’s episode is a “where are they now?” show as I catch up with Ryan Grant from OnlineSellingExperiment.com. Ryan first appeared on the show back in 2014 on episode 61. Back then he had just quit his $50k a year job to sell online full-time using retail arbitrage. (He’d started out flipping textbooks...
46m Dec 07, 2017
46m
259: YouTube Roundtable: How 3 Video Creators Built an Audience and a Business on YouTube
This week’s show is a roundtable episode on the topic of YouTube, and specifically how 3 different channel hosts have gone about growing their presence and profits on the YouTube platform. My esteemed panelists are: Jon Shanahan from The Kavalier, a men’s style / men’s fashion channel. Pete Sveen from DIY Projects with Pete and DIYPete.com, a home improvement channel and website. Matt Tran from...
53m Nov 30, 2017
53m
258: 20% Cash on Cash in Mobile Home Park Investing? The Real Estate Side Hustle You Probably Hadn’t Considered
It's like owning a parking lot, Jefferson Lilly explained. And you can earn 20% cash on cash returns too. That got my attention, though those returns are coming from a surprising real estate niche: mobile home parks. Jefferson Lilly is a mobile home park investment expert, educator, and industry consultant who has been featured in the New York Times, Bloomberg Magazine, and on the ‘Real Money’ ...
42m Nov 23, 2017
42m
257: Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers: How Michelle Makes $50,000 a Month Selling Other People's Products
You might know Michelle Schroeder-Gardner from her super-popular blog MakingSenseofCents.com where she gets hundreds of thousands of readers and makes 6-figures a month. Around $50k of that monthly revenue (or more) comes from affiliate marketing. Note: Click here to download Michelle’s top tips for maximizing affiliate revenue from this episode. Michelle’s online journey started in the summer ...
38m Nov 16, 2017
38m
256: Bootstrapped Business Idea Brain Dump: 8 Business Models You Can Borrow w/ Zero (or Better than Zero) Startup Costs
In my annual member survey, one of the 3 most common obstacles I hear is the money needed to start a business. As in, "I don't have enough money to start a business." (The other 2 are time and ideas.) It's kind of a chicken vs. egg problem: you need money to start the business and you need the business to earn the money! But the truth is that most side hustles these days don't take a ton of cas...
24m Nov 09, 2017
24m
255: Finding Your Sweet Spot: How Talking About Air Conditioning Turned Into a 5-Figure a Month Side Hustle
By day, Bryan Orr helps runs an air conditioning company in Central Florida, and by night he’s a father of 9 -- yet somehow he's found the time to build his HVAC School podcast into a 5-figure a month business in less than a year. And it might sounds like an overnight success, but Bryan's actually been side hustling for quite a while, mostly in the podcasting and freelance audio production spac...
44m Nov 02, 2017
44m
254: Freelance to Freedom: From $30k a Year to $30k in a Day
“You have a skill, but you’re not using it correctly." That the tough love advice Vincent Pugliese's father gave him. Vincent was working what he thought was his dream job as a photojournalist. He'd just won the most prestigious award in his industry (International Sports Photographer of the Year), and he and his wife Elizabeth had a baby on the way. Yet the newspaper job didn't pay well. With ...
49m Oct 26, 2017
49m
253: Your Escape Plan: How to Make Early “Retirement” a Reality
Quit my job? “That’s stupid,” Kim Anderson said. But she eventually did, and it turned out to be a really smart move. Together with her husband Cressel, they paid off $93k in debt in less than 2 years, setting themselves up for a life of “financial flexibility.” They did it through a combination of conscious spending, creative side hustles, and having a clear goal in mind. And perhaps what’s mo...
44m Oct 19, 2017
44m
252: Facebook Ads Arbitrage: How to Drive Consistent Profitable Traffic to Your Blog
Would you trade $1000 for $2000? How about $10,000 for $18,000? If you're anything like me, I'll make those trades all day long! Well, Deacon Hayes is doing exactly that every month through his blog, Facebook ads, and affiliate marketing. Note: Click here to download Deacon’s top tips for running profitable Facebook ads from this episode. Although he'd been blogging for years, his traffic and r...
41m Oct 12, 2017
41m
251: When a Side Hustle Fails - Lessons, Pivots, and Next Steps from a Less-Than-Successful Side Project
Dustin Lien from StrategicSauce.com reached out to me with an interesting pitch for an episode. Dustin had experienced a side hustle failure and wanted to know if the Side Hustle audience would be interested in hearing his story. I threw the idea out to the Side Hustle Facebook Group and received an overwhelming amount of feedback saying, “Yes,” they wanted to hear the “other side” of a side hu...
38m Oct 06, 2017
38m
250: Bitcoin 101: Side Hustle Opportunities in the Cryptocurrency Revolution
Ravinder Deol was a popular guy at a recent Side Hustle Nation meetup in Seattle. Why? He's a Certified Bitcoin Professional and everybody wanted to learn more about the red hot cryptocurrency market. Whether you think Bitcoin is a passing fad or a fundamental shift toward a global borderless currency, it was becoming (for me at least) a trend too big to ignore. Ravinder has fully immersed hims...
41m Oct 05, 2017
41m
249: SaaS Case Study: How Snappa Bootstrapped Their Way from Idea to $33k MRR in 2 Years
The holy grail of side hustle business models is software, right? Built it once and sell it over and over again for almost zero incremental cost! Having built the online graphic design tool Snappa to $33k in monthly recurring revenue in 2 years, Christopher Gimmer rounds out our "recurring revenue" theme for the month. The software as a service aims to help bloggers and content creators make pe...
38m Sep 28, 2017
38m
248: Scaling Up a Service Business: From Idea to $400k in Monthly Recurring Revenue (in Under 3 Years)
Three years ago Design Pickle didn't exist. It wasn't even an idea in founder Russ Perry's head yet. That's why it seems crazy to me that today the unlimited graphic design service is doing $400k in monthly recurring revenue! Back in 2014 Russ was running a creative agency, but he started to hate everything about it. “I felt like I was in a prison of my own creation,” he said. By January 2015, ...
44m Sep 21, 2017
44m
247: How To Shortcut Your Financial Freedom with Short-Term Rentals
Zeona McIntyre is earning $12-18k a month through her portfolio of vacation rental properties and her "co-hosting" service for other property owners. All this has afforded Zeona financial independence at a very young age, as she built her operation largely by piggybacking on the growing popularity of Airbnb (get $40 off your first trip!). Note: Click here to download Zeona’s top Airbnb tips fro...
41m Sep 14, 2017
41m
246: How to Start a Subscription Box Service: From Spare Bedroom to $15k in Monthly Recurring Revenue
From the spare bedroom to $15k in monthly recurring revenue, Sam Gonzalez has grown the subscription style service UrbaneBox.com (affiliate link) all on the side from his day job as a police officer. He noticed his wardrobe was getting pretty outdated and with family and work life, he didn’t have any time (or desire, really) to go shopping. So he decided to do something about it and create an o...
38m Sep 07, 2017
38m
245: Network Marketing, Imposter Syndrome, My Side Hustle Mistakes, and More: 20 Questions with Nick
It’s time to dive into the ol' listener mailbag and answer a few questions in this week’s edition of The Side Hustle Show. It’s been 6 months since the last Q&A show I did (where does the time go??) and I’ve had quite a few interesting questions come in since then. I picked 20 to talk through in today’s show. Like this format? This is the 4th installment of "20 Questions" so feel free to go bac...
39m Aug 31, 2017
39m
244: Merch by Amazon Marketing: How to Drive Traffic and Sales to Your T-Shirt Designs
Chris Green is one of the foremost advocates for the side hustle lifestyle. He has 10+ years’ experience as an Amazon seller, author, software provider to others involved in the Amazon ecosystem, and most recently as a t-shirt designer selling shirts on the Merch by Amazon platform. Chris calls Merch by Amazon “the best side hustle out there right now.” With no upfront capital, no shipping or r...
44m Aug 24, 2017
44m
243: Side Hustle Coaching: I've Got Some Traction, Now What?
Sarah Miller is still in college (and plays soccer for her school) but that hasn't stopped her from starting a pretty cool side hustle: painting custom pet portraits. She's done 300 paintings so far! But the business isn't without its challenges. She'd like to raise her rates, expand her marketing efforts to land new clients, and figure out how to make her work less of a time-for-money tradeoff...
49m Aug 17, 2017
49m
242: Amazon FBA Europe: The Next E-Commerce Frontier
John Cavendish of FBA Frontiers started his Amazon FBA business three years ago and has become an advocate for the e-commerce and FBA scene in Europe. If you already have experience with Amazon FBA in the US, expanding into Europe is easier than you’re probably thinking and opens up a much wider customer base. John says that Europe is about five years behind the US in terms of growth so it’s on...
35m Aug 10, 2017
35m
241: Reverse Engineer your Dream Job: How a Struggling Songwriter Built a Multiple 6-Figure Business Doing What She Loves
Over the last decade, Cathy Heller has earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from her music and helping other musicians license their songs. In fact, you've probably heard some of her music without realizing it. Songs of hers have been featured in ads for huge brands, like McDonald’s, Walmart, Kellogg’s, as well as many popular TV shows. Note: Click here to download Cathy’s top tips for rever...
43m Aug 03, 2017
43m
240: Why a Facebook Group Should be Part of Your Marketing Strategy
Teresa Greenway is a mother of 10 who went from working part-time in a bakery to making $5k a month doing what she loves – baking and teaching others how to bake. More specifically, she teaches how to bake perfect sourdough bread. Teresa has built a really cool business around this niche at NorthwestSourdough.com. In the past couple of years, her main revenue driver has been Udemy courses, to t...
32m Jul 27, 2017
32m