Nick Loper, Master the Art of Side Hustles to Create Lasting Freedom | Entrepreneurship | YAPClassic

Eager to use his spare time productively, Nick Loper started his first side hustle, ShoeSniper.com. Throughout the decade he spent running the footwear comparison site, he consistently experimented with other income streams, including freelancing, affiliate marketing, and self-publishing. But when his business hit one of its lowest points, Nick found himself asking, “What do I truly want to be known for?” While having dinner with his boss one night, he managed to beat the nerves and summon the courage to quit his job. Then, he poured his energy into building Side Hustle Nation, a community helping millions of people find freedom through side hustles. In this episode, Nick shares practical advice on how you can start and grow a profitable side hustle of your own. In this episode, Hala and Nick will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (02:35) Side Hustles That Stick (03:16) Breaking Your Comfort Zone (04:59) Nick’s First Side Hustle (08:05) Side Hustle or Second Job? (09:17) Why Millennials Love Side Hustles (11:00) Digital Tools That Make Side Hustles Easy (12:25) The Three Laws of Side Hustles (16:49) Simple Ways to Test Your Business Idea (20:28) Side Hustles You Can Start Right Now (24:23) Turning Niche Skills Into Big Cash (26:52) When Should You Quit Your Job? Nick Loper is the founder of Side Hustle Nation and the host of The Side Hustle Show, one of the top podcasts for entrepreneurs. His journey started while juggling a corporate job and building a footwear comparison shopping site on the side, which eventually led him to full-time entrepreneurship. Nick is the author of bestselling books like Buy Buttons and $1,000 100 Ways, offering actionable insights into building sustainable income streams. His work has been featured in Forbes, CNBC, and Entrepreneur, and his Side Hustle Nation community is a hub for thousands of hustlers worldwide. Resources Mentioned: Nick’s Podcast, The Side Hustle Show: https://apple.co/4fhvMCg Sponsored By: Airbnb - Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host Found - Try Found for FREE at found.com/profiting Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at youngandprofiting.co/shopify Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new All Show Keywords: Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship podcast, Business, Business podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side hustle, Startup, mental health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth mindset. Career & Entrepreneurship Career, Success, Entrepreneurship, Productivity, Careers, Startup, Entrepreneurs, Business Ideas, Growth Hacks, Career Development, Money Management, Opportunities, Professionals, Workplace, Career podcast, Entrepreneurship podcast

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hala Taha?

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• 0:45Hala Taha?

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• 1:35Hala Taha?

  Yep, gang, gang, gang. Earlier this week, we aired my latest interview with Mr. Side Hustle himself, Nick Loper. In that episode, we talked about his very first appearance on the show. That was episode 10, when he was one of my first ever guests. I was a baby podcaster in this episode. Well, now's your chance to experience that conversation as well in this Yap Classic episode. Now, this was recorded back in 2018, so it may sound a bit different than the podcast does today. But this is so much more than just an interesting archive exercise. And that's because Nick shares some solid gold nuggets of wisdom that are still useful today. You're going to hear Nick talk about his very first side hustle, what he calls the

• 2:18Hala Taha?

  three laws of side hustle physics, as well as which personality types do especially well when it comes to side hustles. So if you're considering a new side hustle or looking to expand an existing one, then why not prime yourself with a double dose of Nick Loper this week? You won't regret it. Without further ado, I bring you Nick Loper. So I thought that we could get started with getting acquainted, so an icebreaker, if you will. I was on your website and I saw this list of 25 facts about yourself, one of which I found really interesting. You took a cold shower for 500 days in a row. Can you tell me about that? Why on earth did you do that?

• 3:01Speaker 01

  I know, it sounds awful now. So this was kind of in the 2014 to 2015 timeframe, started actually with a guest of mine on the Side Hustle Show, who was talking about, you know, taking cold showers, starting out as a fat burning hack, like to boost your metabolism for the rest of the day because you're going to expend calories, like heating your body up long after the shower is over. But then what he found was it was effective for that, but what he also found it was effective for just like motivation. And he's like, if this is the hardest thing that I have to do today, and some days it's really hard because it sucks, you just, you feel like you're ready to tackle anything. And I kind of found the same thing. And I said on air, I was like, you know what? That sounds awful, but let me give it a shot. And some good things started happening.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  It might have been totally placebo, but you know, at that time, started to get more coaching clients, like traffic started to pick up. I don't know, like for whatever reason, I was into it. And so I did it for, for over a year. I guess it was effective. Maybe it was what I needed at that time.

• 4:01Hala Taha?

  Would you recommend it to others?

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Get out of your comfort zone a little bit, do it for 30 days. Or even maybe the baby steps way to do it would be to end your showers cold, which is kind of what I tend to do today because that's less, for some reason, less jarring than just like jumping straight into the cold water.

• 4:18Hala Taha?

  That's funny. That sounds horrible. So, so how did you become the chief side hustler at Side Hustle Nation? Tell us about yourself, your journey, you know, how you got started with it all.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  My original side hustle was, when I was working corporate, was a footwear comparison shopping site. It was called shoesh sniper.com. And it would aggregate the product catalogs from Zappos and Amazon and all these other online footwear retailers and tell you where you can find the best price on your next pair of shoes. And it earned money as an affiliate. So, you know, if somebody went and bought that pair of shoes through Amazon, the site would get a commission. And while I was running that, and the site had a, almost a 10-year run, we were always looking for stuff on the side. And it was kind of like during one of these lower points of that business, doing some soul searching, be like, well, what do you want to be known for when people Google you? What do you get excited about talking about?

• 5:15Speaker 01

  And it was that prospect of lower risk entrepreneurship. You know, how do I build a business on the side? How do I make extra money? That, you know, really never gets old and still doesn't get old because there's a million and one creative ways that people are doing it. And that's kind of where the Side Hustle Show and the Side Hustle Nation blog kind of were born from.

• 5:36Hala Taha?

  So, right now, are you a side hustler? Like, how many side hustles do you have?

• 5:40Speaker 01

  A lot of them overlap. And so my days of experimenting with a lot of this stuff are kind of limited. So I used to do some freelancing, used to do some e-commerce experiments with like Amazon and eBay. And I still do a little bit of that, but that's kind of taken the back burner. The Side Hustle blog has

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Kind of become in the podcast, they kind of become the main focus. But there still are a dozen income streams related to that and not related to that through self-publishing, through affiliate marketing on the site and on a couple of other sites that I still run. Sadly, the shoe site no longer exists, but some other sites that were started during that time are still around, starting some experiments in the investing world. And it all, you know, it all adds up versus trying to rely on one source of income, having like a single point of failure.

• 6:30Hala Taha?

  Yeah, so to that point, why do you prefer or recommend having side hustles over a nine to five job?

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Well, not necessarily a preference one over the other, but the ultimate freedom, right, is control over your calendar. How do you spend your time? How do you spend your days? And if you can piece together an income on your own terms rather than on somebody else's terms, you're more likely to have that freedom. So that's kind of where it came from for me. And I would definitely advocate focus first, simplify first, and then diversify second. So, you know, try and get one thing, one business, one income stream off the ground before going crazy and trying six things, you know, with an unfocused effort, because I think that's harder to see results from.

• 7:11Hala Taha?

  Why don't you give some context to our listeners about Side Hustle Nation? So like, what is Side Hustle Nation?

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Basically, just a blog and podcast for people trying to make extra money outside of traditional employment. At the very low end of that, it could be like babysitting, walking dogs, delivering pizzas, like, I think all of those count as side hustles. There's a connotation that a side hustle has a little bit more of an entrepreneurial upside, where maybe you're not directly trading hours for dollars, or maybe, maybe there's this vision, this hope, this dream, that it could become something bigger, as, as it definitely did for me with the shoe business.

• 7:47Hala Taha?

  I have a little trouble distinguishing a side hustle from a part-time job or a second job. How do you personally define what a side hustle is?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Probably the textbook definition would be that, that upside potential, like that, you know, it's something that you have ownership over. Maybe it's an asset that you own versus, okay, I drive for Uber, or I'm delivering pizzas, or I'm... You know, doing Instacart deliveries or something like that, right? Like that's that absolutely counts as a side hustle in my mind. But at the same time, like you're limited on how much you can do by, you know, your hours in the day versus with you starting the podcast. It's all of a sudden from a single mic and two people having a conversation. You could reach thousands and thousands of people. And that is really powerful. It becomes a little bit more leveraged and I think there's a lot more upside. Even just like starting a freelancing business like I'm gonna do freelance writing.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  I'm gonna do freelance podcast editing, whatever it is.

• 8:42Hala Taha?

  So I was doing a bit of research on the show and I found out that more Americans are working a side hustle than ever before. And to be exact, there are 44 million Americans with a side hustle today. Why do you think the motivations to start a side hustle are so much stronger than they were in the past?

• 9:01Speaker 01

  That's a weird, it's a weird time, right? It's a weird statistic because on the surface, the economy is great. Unemployment is at record lows. Yet why are 44 million people feeling the need or the desire to go out and make extra money? So I think part of it is reactive, right? Housing, education, insurance or healthcare, like all of those costs have grown way faster than real wages. So that's a driving factor, like just the straight up cost of living and people feeling the crunch to make ends meet and pay down student debt.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  That's maybe the negative way to look at it. And the more positive way to look at it is like I have the ability and the desire to, you know, start something that scratches a creative itch, that is something that I have control over, that I'm interested in, that I'm passionate about. That's probably driving some of that as well. And those are kind of the people that are more interesting to talk to than the people like, wow, I need to make rent next month. That's you're approaching it from a completely different standpoint.

• 10:05Hala Taha?

  Yeah, and from my perspective, I really think it's all about the digital innovation that's going on. Like there's so many different digital platforms where people can do freelance work, whether it's Fiverr, Upwork and mobility, you know, like you can just make money off your phone now while you're on the train, you know? I used to do that years ago, but I just feel like it's easier. There's so much more space to play because we've got the internet now. And there's just so much more that you can do with your free time to monetize it. So I think it's also like digital impact too.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that word play that you just used is really key in approaching it that way. Saying, look, this is going to be a fun experiment. I'm going to see what happens. I'm going to put some content out there. And approaching it that way, you know, lessens the sting of failure and kind of puts you more into a scientist role where it's like, okay, this is my hypothesis. I'm going to test something out. If it works, great. If it doesn't, okay, on to the next thing.

• 11:01Hala Taha?

  I also read that half of millennials report having a side hustle. So this is really big for the younger millennial generation. Why do you think it's so attractive to younger millennials specifically? Most of my listeners are younger millennials.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's that, you know, cash strapped nature, you know, look, we're dealing with a debt load, we're dealing with a higher cost of living in most cases. And it's just, okay, how do I make ends meet? And the way I approached it was like, I was just looking for a way to use my free time more productively. When I was first starting the shoe business, like I moved across the country for my day job, didn't have any friends like outside of the office, really. And so I had a lot of free times, nights and weekends. It was like, well, I could play Xbox with my buddies back home or just sit there and watch TV. But so, you know, how can I be more intentional, be more effective with these hours that I've been given and try and make something worthwhile out of it?

• 11:55Hala Taha?

  Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. Yap, bam. These days, it feels like I'm starting a new LLC every month. In fact, I recently bought a commercial property that has tenants and I wanted to keep that venture separate from Yap Media and my personal assets, which means another LLC. So of course I turned to Northwest Registered Agent. That is my go-to for business formation and registered agent services. I can get an LLC application started online in less than 10 minutes and their filings have been super quick. Northwest also helps you build your complete business identity. They give you a business address, operating agreement, website, professional email, phone number, and built-in privacy.

• 12:37Hala Taha?

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• 13:08Hala Taha?

  What's up, Yap gang? So, I recently caught a really bad summer cold at the worst possible time. It was right before my interview with Gary Vee. Everything turned out okay, thankfully, but it did remind me how quickly getting sick can throw off your plans, especially when you're running a business. So I've been taking my health routine way more seriously. And one habit that I'm sticking with, it's AG1. It's a daily nutritional drink with 75+ ingredients, including vitamins, minerals, adaptogens, pre and probiotics, and superfoods, all in one scoop. I just mix it in with cold water every single morning. Plus, AG1 Next Gen is backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials with key nutrient levels improving within three months of consistent use. There's also AG1 Pro, designed to support performance and recovery.

• 13:52Hala Taha?

  It includes 5 grams of creatine for muscle strength, CAH and B for muscle protection, and zinc carnosine for gut health. I can't control when a cold hits, but I can keep my morning routine consistent. For a limited time, visit drinkag1.com/profitting and get a free immune support bundle, including omega-3 fish oil and vitamin D3K2 with your first subscription of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drinkag1.com/profitting. What's up, Yap fam? If you're building a personal brand, you already know how hard it is to stay consistent with content when you're also trying to actually run your business. I love creating content, but realistically, I'm not trying to sit in front of the camera every single day. I need time to work on my business. But the problem is, consistency matters.

• 14:37Hala Taha?

  The more people see your face and hear your voice, the more familiar you become. That's why HeyGen has been such a great tool for me. You can record just 15 seconds of footage, create an AI avatar of yourself, and use it to make videos on demand. So instead of constantly filming from scratch, you can create more content, stay visible, and keep showing up without making your entire life be about generating content. And you guys know I'm always looking for tools that give entrepreneurs more leverage. HeyGen is definitely one of those tools. 30 million people already use it, from solo founders to 85% of the Fortune 100. Your first three videos are free at heygen.com/profitting.

• 15:18Hala Taha?

  That's H-E-Y-G-E-N.com/PROFITING. Heygen.com/profitting.

• 15:32Hala Taha?

  You mentioned that you have a blog. It's a very cool blog. That's actually how I found you. I was looking for ways to monetize my podcast and came across one of your blogs.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Oh, nice.

• 15:41Hala Taha?

  And one blog that I saw that I thought might be interesting to kind of recap for our listeners is this three laws of side hustle physics. Do you mind explaining what those three laws are?

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, these will parallel Newton. So if somebody wants to get nerdy and talk about physics. So law number one is like this inertia and momentum law where you might remember from physics, right? An object at rest is going to stay at rest and an object in motion is going to stay in motion until acted upon by an external force. And we see this over and over again with people who are on the sidelines, looking to get into the game. Like, there has to be some motivating factor to get you to move, to take action, to register that domain name, to put up your profile and up work, to try and get that first client, to put yourself out there. And maybe that's a meeting with your boss

• 16:36Speaker 01

  that doesn't go as well as you planned. Like, one of my favorite moments on the show was a photographer, a journalist I had on the show. He had just won International Sports Photographer of the Year, or something like his highest award in his industry, goes into his boss for his annual review. And his boss is like, man, I fought for 4%, but I could only get you a 3% raise. And he's like, you gotta be kidding me. And he's making like 30 grand a year doing this. And he's like, this is not gonna work. And so that was the motivating factor to kind of get him off the sidelines and start thinking seriously about starting his side hustle. So that's kind of the first law. And it goes both ways.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Like, once you're in motion, and we see this over and over again, ideas start to pop up that you never would have had just based on conversations that you have, or things that you come across during your research. And it's really powerful, like this inertia and momentum law. Law number two is this law of force and impact. And so this is Newton's law of acceleration. Acceleration of an object occurs, you know, based on the force that was applied to it. So the smack of that 3% raise after winning the highest award in your industry, that was a pretty hard smack. And so it motivated Vincent to take off in a hurry. He told me he would have been happy with 10%. And so like, that wouldn't have been a big enough impact to really change his life.

• 18:00Hala Taha?

  I just want to pause here for a second because I love that. For me, rejection is such great motivation, you know? And it's like, every time I've ever been rejected, it's been when I've like pivoted to something that is like a life achievement for myself. So I think that if you get rejected, if you feel like you've been let down, it's the best time to put that negative energy into something positive and do something different and impactful for yourself.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, this was kind of like hit home. We were at this like beach vacation this summer and, you know, you're at the pool all the time. And you're like, man, I really should hit the gym more because I see all these people who are super fit. And so like, maybe that's a motivating factor. You could see it in health, you could see it in business, you'd see it in relationships. It happens all over the place. And then the third law is this action and reaction, you know? So for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And so we're recording this on election day and somebody just posted like, whether you vote or not, that's a vote. And so that got me thinking about this, you know, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And even if nobody theoretically reacts to your stuff, because I wrote a personal blog for years and years and years

• 19:12Speaker 01

  that nobody really read outside of my friends and family. Well, that was a reaction. It was, you know, a reaction that told me that, hey, you better write about stuff that people care about. And it wasn't all for waste because it was practicing skills of writing online and learning WordPress and learning all this other stuff. But it can be depressing when on the surface, it's like, yeah, there was no reaction.

• 19:35Hala Taha?

  What kind of side hustles do you write about on your blog?

• 19:39Speaker 01

  The big three for the site right now are freelancing, like we talked about, e-commerce and kind of like a blogging and podcasting, content marketing types of businesses where you're like, okay, I'm going to set up an online presence to talk about this subject matter that maybe I'm an expert in, maybe I'm not, maybe I'm learning this subject matter. And, you know, monetizing through ads, through affiliate relationships, through digital products.

• 20:03Hala Taha?

  And do you think that there are certain personality types that thrive in this side hustle role?

• 20:09Speaker 01

  I've seen it work across introverts, extroverts, young, old. It's really a matter of figuring out, okay, what's my offer going to be? And how can I get that in front of my target customers?

• 20:21Hala Taha?

  Let's say I'm a millennial and I have this idea for a side hustle. How can I test the idea and make sure it's a good one before I either quit my day job or spend a vast amount of time on it?

• 20:33Speaker 01

  This is good. Let's dive into this a little bit more. So what's the hypothetical business that you're thinking about testing?

• 20:39Hala Taha?

  Let's say selling something on Etsy.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Okay, perfect. So if we're looking at Etsy, where I would start is the existing listings on Etsy and the existing listings on eBay, Amazon, Redbubble, you know, some of these other similar marketplaces where people might be buying this stuff. If there are other people making sales, like that's a fantastic sign, right? There's money in that market. The second thing that I would probably do is Etsy costs like, I think, 20 cents to put up a listing. It's almost free. So you create your listing very affordably. And so if it's a handmade product, I would just create one of those so you can take nice pictures and put up that listing for 20 cents. Etsy has on-platform advertising that you can use to drive traffic on top of their,

• 21:24Speaker 01

  you know, listing optimization tools and keyword tags and stuff like that. But one thing that you probably want to do before paying for traffic is to land some social proof on your Etsy page, which is like, you know, the number of likes on this page, the number of sales that you've made. So you can seed that with some initial reviews from friends and family. You might even just give these away and say, I'd really prefer if you ordered this through Etsy to help out my appearance on that platform. And you find that kind of a similar strategy, not just on Etsy, but on iTunes. Hey, can you review this podcast? On Udemy, hey, could you review my course? On Amazon, hey, could you review my book? Like, just to kind of seed the platform with a little bit of social proof so the algorithms start to work in your favor.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  And so people, when they do land on that page, they say, okay, this isn't a ghost town. There is actually, you know, there's something to this.

• 22:14Hala Taha?

  Isn't that so funny how you could have thousands of listeners? And the best personal feedback, but if you have no reviews, like you ain't shit.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and maybe that's feedback too. Like if nobody wants your thing, like if you can't get your friends and family to buy it, that's probably a sign that it's not the best business to go into.

• 22:32Hala Taha?

  And I know a lot of people are thinking about these days, starting a podcast, starting a blog. Do you have any advice for those folks?

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm still really high on podcasting specifically because I forget the latest stats, but it's probably something like 40% of the population even knows what a podcast is. And so that leaves a huge chunk of the pie like left to go out and grow over the next five, 10, 15 years, like as people discover on-demand audio and they're probably going to react like I did, like this is amazing. How did I waste so many years listening to nonsense on the radio when I could listen to stuff that is gonna help me grow personally and professionally? Like really excited about that. The key then is, okay, how can I reach those people in the 40% that already do know about podcasts? How can I reach those people in a way that is either helpful or entertaining?

• 23:22Speaker 01

  A friend of mine kind of gave me, this was five or six years ago at a conference, gave me the rule of the internet, which I quote all the time. It's, you know, people are only ever online for one of two reasons. You know, number one, to be entertained. And number two, to solve a problem. And you can think that's Facebook and that's Google, you know, to be entertained or solve a problem. And the podcast may bridge the gap there. Some friends have called it infotainment, where you know, you're providing educational content, hopefully in an entertaining way, but you know, putting the listener first. And it's a practice, it's a craft. Like the first 50 episodes of the Side Hustle Show, awful. You know, I'm embarrassed to go back and, and listen to those. But it just took a while to hit my stride as a host. And I don't know, you're like a

• 24:08Speaker 01

  radio professional, so you're doing great right out of the gate, but it's a practice.

• 24:12Hala Taha?

  Yeah, yeah. I read that the average side hustle only makes $200 a month and $600 a month if you're really knocking it out of the park. But to me, that doesn't really sound like a young and profiting type of stuff. That sounds like we could do better.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I definitely wouldn't leave your job if you're at that $200 to $600 a month level. What I would like to see is a track record of earnings history. You know, six to 12 months, and other people will be more aggressive than this, of replacing not necessarily your day job salary, but at least your monthly expenses. So you know you're not going to be dipping into your emergency fund, your savings, to try and get to that ramp up period. The exception to that has been from folks where the day job really is the bottleneck. And you say, hey, if I had an extra 40, 50, 60 hours a week, in some cases, I know I could get this thing to the next level where it could support me, where it could support my family.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  That's when it might make sense to make the leap where it looks on paper prematurely. It has to align with your goals too, right? Some people have no intention of leaving their day jobs. Hey, I love my work, but I just, I do this stuff on the side because it's fun, because it's interesting, because it provides play money, you know, for whatever reason. You know, it's building my skills, it's exercising, you know, a different side of my brain. So not everybody is out to quit their day job.

• 25:37Hala Taha?

  We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. What's up, Yap fam? If you're building a personal brand, you already know how hard it is to stay consistent with content when you're also trying to actually run your business. I love creating content, but realistically, I'm not trying to sit in front of the camera every single day. I need time to work on my business. But the problem is consistency matters. The more people see your face and hear your voice, the more familiar you become. That's why HeyGen has been such a great tool for me. You can record just 15 seconds of footage, create an AI avatar of yourself, and use it to make videos on demand. So instead of constantly filming from scratch, you can create more content,

• 26:19Hala Taha?

  stay visible, and keep showing up without making your entire life be about generating content. And you guys know I'm always looking for tools that give entrepreneurs more leverage. HeyGen is definitely one of those tools. 30 million people already use it, from solo founders to 85% of the Fortune 100. Your first three videos are free at heygen.com/profitting. That's H E Y G E N dot com slash P R O F I T I N G. Heygen.com/profitting.

• 26:54Hala Taha?

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• 27:37Hala Taha?

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• 27:57Hala Taha?

  Yap fam, I have an expensive confession. I need an outfit for practically every interview. And I love designer clothes, so you can imagine what that does to my budget. And after talking to Haley Sachs, who's a financial expert, I was unfortunately reminded that I can't just assume that every outfit is a business expense. You guys know that I love hosting live streams and webinars, and I love selling. So I'm planning on opening up a pre-owned designer shop on Whatnot. Whatnot is a live shopping app where you can show off products, interact with buyers in real time, and turn shopping into a fun, interactive experience. And you absolutely do not need designer clothes to get started. People sell everything from sneakers and beauty products to sports cards, Pokemon cards, and collectibles. All you need are your products and your phone. Whatnot handles payments and provides shipping labels.

• 28:42Hala Taha?

  So I recommend you take a shopping trip through a few live shows, see how it works, and maybe you'll be inspired to start selling too. Search "Whatnot," W-H-A-T-N-O-T, in the App Store. Download and start selling right away.

• 28:58Hala Taha?

  I personally feel like side hustles have a negative appeal to some people, especially like the older generation, that you should be more traditional, you should have a regular job. Have you faced any of that negative judgment?

• 29:11Speaker 01

  That's an interesting one. So the negativity comes from a couple of places. The first is that you kind of economic macro positioning that we talked about, where it's like, you know, what a sad state of affairs that 44 million people feel the need to side hustle. Like, why can't it be like the old days, right? That's maybe one angle. The other angle is just like, maybe the word hustle like has the connotation of like, I'm gonna scam people or something like that, not recognizing, it just means your effort, like control what you can control, work as hard as you can, when you can, and be smart about it. And so actually, Side Hustle Nation comes from a quote from an old baseball coach of mine. He's like, "Look, you're gonna have bad days at the plate, you're gonna have bad days in the field, but hustle never slumps." And I was like, "Okay, I really like that." That stuck with me.

• 29:56Hala Taha?

  Yeah, it is catchy. And what side hustles today, like this very moment in time, would you recommend to our listeners?

• 30:03Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. So we talked about the freelancing consulting stuff. If you have a skill that's in demand, absolutely understand that your boss, your company is probably taking a large percentage of your value. A friend of mine was a tutor for Kaplan or, you know, one of these big tutoring companies. He was making 18 bucks an hour, which was awesome for him, like in his early 20s. The company was turning around and charging the parents like 100 bucks an hour. And he was like, "Wait a minute. If I have this skill, I could go out and sell that directly to my customers." So I like that freelancing marketplace. Perfect first side hustle as a way to get your feet wet, understand that you have value outside of your business card, outside of your paycheck. My wife and her business partner on the side from her job started a photography business, completely unrelated to her engineering job.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  So it doesn't have to be, "I'm an accountant by day, so I'll do accounting, you know, at night." We talked about the podcasting stuff. We talked about kind of like the online authority business, blogging, content, marketing businesses. I continue to see and I continue to be impressed by some of the numbers that these guys are... Posting, I just talked to a guy this afternoon who was selling forty five thousand dollars a month worth of a online course that teaches you how to start a microgreens farming business and grow this stuff in your garage and sell it to the farmer's market and to local restaurants. It just blew my mind that there was that much demand in a niche I had never even heard of. And I'm really excited by stuff like that, you know, people having this new ability to kind of monetize these

• 31:33Speaker 01

  little skills, hobbies, interests that, you know, they might be able to put out there.

• 31:38Hala Taha?

  Yeah, I feel like courses are getting more and more popular and so in demand because people just want to learn. And if it's unique content that they can't find anywhere else, you can package that up and monetize it, you know, so.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, make it easy for me, make it step by step, absolutely.

• 31:54Hala Taha?

  And how about blogs? Like, is there a way to really monetize blogs these days? Because it seems so oversaturated.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was my initial reaction too, but I keep getting proven wrong, you know, people starting, you know, relatively new sites. Again, another guy I talked to today started a mattress review blog in the UK. So like just a even a tiny little island where apparently fifteen thousand people are finding his site every month and clicking on his affiliate links to go buy these mattresses. But because the price point is high enough and the commission is high enough, he's able to make a full time living doing that. So, you know, the, on the blogging front, the trap I want people to avoid is like, okay, I'm going to start a personal blog and expect that that makes money. You know, the ones that I see doing well are the

• 32:42Speaker 01

  blogs that have content that solve specific problems. As you're creating every piece of content, think, okay, how is somebody going to discover this? Usually it's going to be Google, usually it's going to be Pinterest, but like thinking of these user to content platforms, that's a term from Rosemary Groner who runs the busy budgeter.com. It's like a, you know, personal finance budgeting site where it's gone crazy. You know, how are people going to discover this? And if, you know, if it has some nonsensical clever title that only makes sense to you, you know, probably nobody's going to click on that. Probably nobody's going to come and read that. And it's like, you're going to pour your, your heart out. You're going to pour hours into creating this stuff. Like make sure that you're setting yourself up for success. It's something that somebody is looking for and, you know, you're giving them the best chance to find it.

• 33:26Hala Taha?

  Okay, so we're going to close out with one last question. Tell us about the day that you quit your nine to five job. And what made you officially decide to start your side hustle career?

• 33:41Speaker 01

  The day that I quit, I was out to dinner with my boss. And this has been, this had been kind of on my mind for, for months, really. Cause you know, I was building the shoe business on the side from this corporate gig. So I went to dinner with my boss and I'm like, okay, this is the day. I'm like, I'm going to break, I'm going to break him the news. Like I'm out of here, I'm going to get my notice. It still took me like a couple beers deep into this dinner to like build up the nerve to, to do it. Because it's like, is it, is that allowed? Can I cut my own paycheck? You know, I went to school. I, I have these obligations, like is this actually going to work? And I had, you know, several months of earnings history at that point. So it wasn't, you know, completely, you know, you might've heard the definition of, oh, an entrepreneur is somebody who jumps off a cliff and is going to, you know, figure out how to build their parachute on the way down.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Like that was, that was not me and it was still super scary. But after I told him, it was like this huge weight off my shoulders. And I was just like, okay, this is real. Like let's go, let's go do this.

• 34:39Hala Taha?

  And for millennials who are working a side hustle, when should they, you know, decide to make that move?

• 34:44Speaker 01

  I would say, once you have at least six months of earnings history to cover your expenses from the side business. So, you know, you're not, you're not jumping without a parachute. You know, you've got something that you know is working and you think you can get to the next level if you're going to free up some time.

• 35:02Hala Taha?

  Awesome. Well, I really enjoyed this. Before we go, can you let our listeners know where they can learn more about you and Side Hustle Nation?

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Hit up sidehustlenation.com/ideas for a constantly updated laundry list of part-time business ideas that you can start today and no opt-in required. And of course, would love to have you tune into The Side Hustle Show, available in iTunes and pretty much every other podcast player app as well.

• 35:30Hala Taha?

  Perfect. Thanks, Nick.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  You bet. Thanks for having me.

• 35:51Hala Taha?

  Hey, Yap fam. If you're growing an audience on social media but struggling to turn those followers into actual customers, I've got a podcast recommendation for you. It's called Build Your Tribe, hosted by social media expert and entrepreneur Brock Johnson, right here on the Yap Media Podcast Network. Brock shares practical strategies to help entrepreneurs and creators grow their online presence and turn engagement into revenue. Whether you're trying to create content that gets noticed, grow your email list, launch a digital product, or figure out how to monetize your audience, Brock breaks it all down into simple, actionable steps you can start using right away. Because growing a following is one thing, building a profitable business around it, that's a whole different game. If you're ready to grow your audience and turn that attention into something bigger, check out Build Your

• 36:36Hala Taha?

  Tribe. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen or watch podcasts.