Use the Skills You Already Have
Don’t go back to college; use what you know now. The people featured in this chapter’s stories used a skill they already had to make extra money—sometimes a lot of it.
Yoga Teacher Cleans Up with Home Organizing Business
Houston Beekeeper Creates Multiple Swarms of Income
Brooklyn Photographer Gets Paid to Throw Confetti at People
Excel Spreadsheet Guru Earns $3,500 a Month
British Man Builds Terrariums for Fun and Profit
Rocket Scientist Launches Herbal Side Income
Oncology Nurse Creates Products to Regrow Hair
Animal Lover Breeds Rabbits to Pay for College
YOGA TEACHER CLEANS UP WITH HOME ORGANIZING BUSINESS
NAME
LOCATION
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
STARTUP COSTS
$2,200
INCOME
$4,000/MONTH
WEBSITE
This Seattleite found a new passion in helping people declutter their homes—but little did she know it would make $4,000 a month and touch the lives of hundreds of refugees.
Lisa Holtby has built an entire career around side hustles. Since 1993, she’s been teaching yoga, writing books, running seminars, and hosting weekend health retreats, all while being an active mom. But toward the end of 2016, she decided it was time for a change.
She’d always had a penchant for helping people organize their spaces, and doing it never felt like work. As Lisa herself says, “It’s how I play.” So after attending a Seattle taping of Gretchen Rubin and Elizabeth Craft’s Happier podcast, she went home and felt like she was born to be a home organizer.
While getting set up, Lisa also began to volunteer as an English as a Second Language teaching assistant at her local Refugee Women’s Association. After meeting some amazing and courageous people, she felt the need to help these women and their families transition into America. That’s when her two passions collided to form the perfect side hustle.
Lisa would offer decluttering services to her clients, and donate the unwanted items to the refugees who needed them. She would essentially become a modern-day Robin Hood—only without stealing from anyone. It would be as fulfilling as it would be enjoyable, and Lisa got straight to work.
She began her home organizing business with a $2,200 investment from her savings account. Two designers helped her create a website and show her how to modify and optimize it for search engines for $1,400, and $300 went into the site itself, which she hosts through WordPress, using the StudioPress Genesis Framework. The remaining costs were liability insurance, business cards, and a signature red bucket that she takes to every client’s home.
Lisa began promoting her services through the network of people she’d built through her previous side hustles. She was met with an enthusiastic response. They loved the idea of improving their own well-being and donating stuff they weren’t using to people who would benefit from it. The concept itself helps Lisa create a lot of word-of-mouth marketing.
Lisa offers every potential client a free one-hour consultation to talk through her process. After that, her services are priced at $65 per hour, with a three-hour minimum. She’s able to charge a good hourly rate partly because of a unique system that she’s developed that she calls SPACE. It stands for Sort, Pare Down, Assign, Contain, and Establish. The system is designed to coach clients through the process of decluttering.
During the first year of the project, Lisa earned an average of $3,000 per month, which increased to $4,000 a month a bit later. A quick glance at her testimonial-filled website shows why: in short, her clients love what she does and speak highly of her work. One of Lisa’s clients, an attorney, had her organize most of her 4,000 square foot home and all of her daily working processes. This made her feel lighter and more focused, which she credits largely to Lisa’s work.
While her clients gain clarity, the resettled refugees gain items and essentials that they couldn’t otherwise afford. For example, an Iraqi family split up and fled their homes after refusing to join ISIS. Somehow, they found safe passage to America, were granted refugee status, and were reunited to build a new life. Expecting a child in the coming months, they came to Lisa for help finding a crib and some baby clothes.
Using donations from her side hustle, she put together a box that included a portable bassinet, baby blankets, diapers, almost-new infant and toddler clothes, picture books, baby toys, and a leather diaper bag. Because of her new work, she’s able to make a donation like this almost every weekend.
If you’re thinking of doing something similar, Lisa says that research and preparation are vital. Going into someone’s home to help them declutter is a deeply personal experience and should be handled with care. It’s also important to get written reviews from clients that you’ve worked with that can be shared on your own website, as well as third-party sites like Yelp, Google, and Nextdoor. This can be a big driver of web traffic, and it helps to back up your services with social proof—a powerful factor in converting someone to a customer.
Lisa hopes to find volunteers to help her distribute the donations door-to-door to reach more families and better manage her own workload. In her words, “This is the work I was born to do.”
“Know your limits. For instance, I don’t have the training to effectively serve clients who have hoarding disorders, so I refer those inquiries to another Seattle organizer who’s an expert in the field.” —Lisa
FUN FACT Lisa has taught over four thousand yoga classes in her life, and has worked with everyone from cancer sufferers to veterans with PTSD.
CRITICAL FACTOR
The pain of a messy, cluttered house is real for everyone, but Lisa’s financial success can be traced to her decision to focus on wealthy homeowners. In addition to having larger spaces to organize, they’re also more easily able to spend money on services like hers.
HOUSTON BEEKEEPER CREATES MULTIPLE SWARMS OF INCOME
NAME
LOCATION
HOUSTON, TEXAS
STARTUP COSTS
$5,000 FROM SAVINGS, $13,500 RAISED THROUGH INDIEGOGO
INCOME
$7,000/MONTH
WEBSITE
After multiple career moves, this Texas woman found her dream job as a beekeeper and cheesemonger. What’s all the buzz about? Keep reading…
The landscape of Houston, Texas, America’s fourth largest city, is known for Beyoncé, NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and an impressive number of monster truck rallies—but until recently, it was not known as a thriving hub for bees. In fact, there was no beekeeping service anywhere in the city, and this was a crisis.
Why is this fact so buzzworthy? Well, honeybees play an important role in the environment. Among other contributions, our food supply is dependent on the pollination they provide. Even small towns typically have at least one apiarist collective, but the Texas metropolis was a beekeeping laggard.
With this service, a beekeeper is essentially a property manager of bees. Similar to a landscaper or swimming pool service, the beekeeper visits the beehives regularly, removing honey for sale while inspecting the bees to make sure their hive is humming along.
That’s where Nicole Buergers, our Queen Bee, enters the story. Nicole discovered beekeeping while working as a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist and a cheesemonger. Through her job as a cheesemonger, Nicole had seen customers turn up their nose at honey varietals that just weren’t local enough. She also knew local beekeepers that were giving their honey away because they didn’t know how to market it.
She started an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign called Bee2Bee Honey Collective, with the mission to provide a healthy, sustainable habitat for honeybees while promoting urban beekeeping.
This isn’t just a mission or an unusual hobby: it brings in a lot of sweet cash, especially during the high season. I asked Nicole to “show me the honey” and tell me more about how it worked, and she said, “Mind your own beeswax.”*1
So I had to dig into the hives myself.
Her income varies depending on season and number of clients. Clients pay a set fee of $600 for a new hive and starter set of bees. They also pay a monthly fee for Nicole to visit and care for the bees. During the visit, Nicole withdraws the honey, which she splits with the client (taking 35 percent for herself). She then resells the honey to local retailers, distributors, and customers in her own “Honey of the Month” club. In other words, she’s created multiple swarms of income.
At the time we last spoke, she managed more than seventy hives. From all the different ways this busy bee gets paid, she earns more than $7,000 a month.
All of that income takes the sting out of the startup costs. Nicole withdrew $5,000 from her retirement fund to get going, and her Indiegogo campaign raised an additional $13,500.
She’s quick to point out that her work is not all about eating cheese and honey—though that would be awesome—but she also has to do accounting, scheduling, and manage the real risk of being stung by those ungrateful bees she’s trying to serve. Still, she loves being able to go outside each day to do something for the environment, while raising interest in protecting the local honeybee population.
Because one side hustle is not enough for people like Nicole, she’s also busy with several other projects. She rents out a room in her apartment on Airbnb, she’s helping a professor friend launch a tabletop game, and she does events for a local cheese shop.
If you’re bumbling about, searching for your side hustle hive, let this story serve as inspiration.
“Most beekeepers only maintain a hive once or twice a month, but I do it every day. By teaching others, my skill set has greatly increased.” —Nicole
FUN FACT One time, about thirty of Nicole’s bees snuck out of a hive that was resting at her feet and swarmed up her overalls to her midsection. The only solution was for her to slowly disrobe, being careful not to disturb the bees as she gave them an escape route. This all happened while she was facing a busy street, in front of a new client. Fortunately, the client was able to grab a towel to shield her from public viewing—and the bees got out without a single sting.
ACTION PLAN
1. Identify an unusual (yet important) need that’s currently underserved in your local area.
2. Learn how to meet that need—in this case, beekeeping.
3. Tell your story! Use crowdfunding to raise funds and recruit supporters.
4. Hunt for landowners who will allow you to install beehives on their property.
5. Collect the honey each month, sell it to wholesalers, and deposit your sweet profits.
CRITICAL FACTOR
Bzzzzzz! Beekeeping services are good for local areas, and Houston didn’t have a well-coordinated one until Nicole traded part of her retirement fund for an apiary.
BROOKLYN PHOTOGRAPHER GETS PAID TO THROW CONFETTI AT PEOPLE
NAME
LOCATION
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
STARTUP COSTS
MINIMAL
INCOME
$15,000 IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF 2018
WEBSITE
A former graphic designer turns a ninety-day personal challenge into a growing photography brand.
A graphic designer by day, Jelena Aleksich specializes in creating presentations for startups and other companies. But for the past two years, she’s devoted much of her spare time to the Confetti Project—a photography series that profiles its subjects doused in confetti, all while asking the question, “What do you celebrate?”
From as far back as she’s been working, Jelena has had a side hustle. Her first job out of college was being a startup’s first hire as lead graphic designer and project manager. After roughly a year, she began freelancing and continued that on the side until she found herself longing for something new.
The Confetti Project began as a three-month challenge to find new opportunities. Jelena tackled her own limiting beliefs about whether or not she could truly become a full-time photographer, publish a book, or even see something through from start to finish. Since she started, she’s now profiled over two hundred people, and has seen it transition from a passion project into a moneymaking brand with multiple revenue streams.
How do you get inspired to launch such a project? It all began when Jelena began immersing herself in lifelong, creative hobbies. Then, a series of random events happened. After getting glitter-bombed at a party, and taking home some confetti in her pocket after a concert, Jelena found herself fishing around in the pocket of her leather jacket on a particularly sad day. She pulled out the confetti and immediately dove back into the nostalgia and emotions that the confetti held.
Following a bit of quick research, she decided to do fifty photo shoots with her fellow Brooklyn creative entrepreneurs, design a book, and make it a best seller. Although she didn’t meet all of her ambitious goals in the initial three-month deadline she set, she laid the groundwork for a successful side hustle. Once she completed the shoots with her friends, Jelena introduced her first revenue stream: paid photo shoots featuring confetti. These shoots started at $200 and are now $350 per session, bringing in $1,000 to $4,000 per month after expenses like studio rental (and confetti!) are covered. The income fluctuates so much because demand varies month to month.
On the surface, Jelena isn’t doing anything groundbreaking: she’s taking photos, telling stories, and throwing confetti. But when it’s put together in her unique way, that’s where the magic happens. The two hours she gets to spend with each subject is where she’s most in her element.
Next, she plans to completely transform the Confetti Project into a brand with more individual shoots and charity campaigns, and to finish the coffee-table book she started in her initial three-month challenge.
“There are no rights or wrongs on the side hustle path; you just have to take action. The Confetti Project didn’t make money at first, but now it’s a growing brand.” —Jelena
FUN FACT Confetti was first used in Paris in the early 1800s. The word confetti comes from an Italian confection with the same name, and it was originally a small sweet traditionally thrown during carnivals.
CRITICAL FACTOR
Jelena had a fun idea and expressed it with passion. Since the project is so visual, getting a few initial shoots done with her friends helped with recruiting paid participants.
EXCEL SPREADSHEET GURU EARNS $3,500 A MONTH
NAME
LOCATION
NEW DELHI, INDIA
STARTUP COSTS
$200
INCOME
$3,500/MONTH
WEBSITE
An IBM employee in India creates a series of Microsoft Excel tutorials, earning hundreds of dollars per sale and thousands of dollars each month.
For over three years, Sumit Bansal worked as a marketing manager at IBM in New Delhi, India. His work in data analysis and client presentations required him to use a lot of Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint. Naturally, he got really good at it.
Sumit started a blog—which is now his full-time job—because he wanted to share answers to questions his colleagues were asking him about spreadsheets. When he got a positive response from those colleagues and a few friends, it gave him more confidence that his blog was useful.
Then he began to write tutorials and create videos every week. He signed up for Google AdSense, where he would get paid when website visitors clicked on ads. This wasn’t an immediate gold rush: his first few months, he earned only a few dollars a month.
Traffic grew and the payouts increased, but not by much. It wasn’t until a year and a half after starting the blog that he found a real way to make money: by creating online courses. Within an hour of sending the email announcing his first course, he got five sales. The course title was as basic as they came: he called it “Excel Course.” Yet as basic as it was, it was clear that he was on to something.
Those first few sales affirmed his faith in the blog he’d worked on all this time. He celebrated by taking friends to dinner, he bought himself a few books, and then he got back to work.
That was four years ago.
Sumit now has three courses for sale: that basic Excel course (which sells for $127), an Excel Dashboard Course ($297), and a Visual Basics for Application course (also $297). The courses don’t all sell every day, but more often than not, at some point during the day he’ll get a notification that either $127 or $297 has arrived in his bank account.
Not only that, he often gets positive feedback on how the courses are helping people do better work. He recently read an email from one of his students who mentioned how he used the techniques shown in the course to create a dashboard. That employee received a standing ovation in a department meeting. Another student emailed him to say that the course helped her move from contract employment to a full-time job.
One of the reasons why Sumit’s courses work so well is because he’s intentional about what goes in them and what doesn’t. Many similar training programs don’t cover all the necessary topics, or they end up overwhelming the student. Sumit took a lot of time to make sure his are structured in a way where he includes the essentials without adding anything unnecessary.
From revenue of around $4,000 each month, he now makes about $3,500 in net income—a large amount of money in India. He has $700 in monthly expenses, including rent at his coworking space, some important subscriptions, and his email marketing tool.
Next, Sumit is focusing on creating two new online courses. He’s also been able to start a different project with a friend, using earnings from his blog to get it started. Check your formulas: the spreadsheet hustle is thriving.
“People often share how my work is making a difference in their life, and I keep these emails saved in a separate folder. I feel blessed to be in a position where I can work with freedom, passion, and commitment, and see the real difference it makes in people’s lives.” —Sumit
FUN FACT A few years after Sumit started his blog, some of his readers asked him to change the name because they thought it sounded political. He even had a few people offer to buy the site soon after the 2016 US election, but he decided to keep it.
ACTION PLAN
1. Identify a tool or resource that your colleagues spend a lot of time using—preferably one that can be tedious or difficult.
2. Learn shortcuts, tips, and strategies for improving workflow or saving time.
3. Write down what you’ve learned in a logical, orderly manner. Focus on what’s essential and don’t try to pack in everything.
4. Decide on a format to share your ideas: online course, blog, product, video series, or something else.
5. Package the lessons and offer them for sale.
BRITISH MAN BUILDS TERRARIUMS FOR FUN AND PROFIT
NAME
LOCATION
LONDON, ENGLAND
STARTUP COSTS
£500 (ABOUT $642)
INCOME
£600/MONTH (ABOUT $800)
WEBSITE
An avid plant collector makes the most of temporary unemployment by launching an online terrarium store from England.
Twenty-five-year-old Adam Shafi has always loved plants. Born and raised in the concrete jungle of London, he sought out all things green wherever he could. When he was a child, he was fixated on cacti, and usually had several with their arms raised in salute around the house. As a teenager, he moved on to carnivorous plants, collecting Venus flytraps and displaying them on his windowsill. Then in his twenties, he migrated toward the more peaceful tomato plant, at one time cultivating twelve different varieties. His house is now filled with one hundred of those tomato plants, in addition to bonsai trees and other treasures.
In the teenage years, while researching how to tend his plants, Adam had come across terrariums: geometric-shaped mini-greenhouses that people use to display their plants and decorate their homes. They’re fairly popular now, but back then, they were much lesser known. They looked more like reptile tanks or clear plastic pots. But they achieved the same goal: improved humidity for growing the plants.
Fast-forward to three years ago: Adam had just graduated with a master’s degree, but was initially unable to find work because of a turndown in his industry. In the downtime in between applying for jobs, he was also looking for a terrarium to hold his plants.
He had seen so-called geodesic domes online and in shops. Researching further, Adam learned that you could make your own glass dome using precut glass triangles and silicon filler. It is called the “Tiffany glass technique,” and it uses copper foil to create three-dimensional stained glass shapes. Adam’s interest was piqued, and—with extra time on his hands—he decided to attempt making one.
After about a month of toying with different approaches, he succeeded. His friends were so impressed by his creation that they encouraged him to sell the terrariums online. He tried his luck by posting one on Etsy, and after a few weeks, much to Adam’s surprise, “a nice lady from across the ocean in the United States sent a message and put in an order.” It was a transcontinental match made in heaven, or at least an exchange of PayPal funds. Adam wrapped the finished product in layers of bubble wrap, and sent off his first sale.
He celebrated with a pint at the pub and a trip to the nearest stained glass shop to buy some new tools. He was already set up on Etsy, where his first customer—and soon many others—found him. He now invested about £500 ($642) for materials and tools, and created a website using Shopify.
Adam offers customers something a bit different from the mass-produced offerings by providing terrariums that are soldered rather than metal plated. He uses lead-free solder, and is constantly changing his methods and materials to perfect the finishing on his containers. To reflect this attention to detail, his handmade products cost slightly more than those that are mass produced, typically ranging from £35 ($45) for small ones to £90 ($115) for large ones.
After that brief time of unemployment, Adam was able to find work and now has a 9-to-5 job as a marketing assistant. He enjoys his job, and he has continued to work on Geodesium in his spare time. So far, he’s sold over one hundred terrariums, averaging about £600 ($830) in monthly income. Though he uses Facebook and Instagram to feature his products, most of the current traffic comes from Etsy.
He’s also making some changes. With each terrarium taking between three and four hours to complete, the project can be time- and labor-intensive. With an eye on the future, he’s expanded to sell kits for filling terrariums, which include soil, gravel, activated charcoal, and moss. The kits have since become his bestselling items on Etsy—and they take far less time to make than the terrariums themselves.
A future goal is to expand to craft markets throughout London. Let’s see what sprouts next…
“Getting started on Etsy is simple. The key is taking really good photos and creating a story around your shop. As long as you enjoy making handmade goods, it can work well—although I would recommend something a bit less labor-intensive than terrariums!” —Adam
FUN FACT Geodesium’s priciest terrarium was made up of eighty different triangles of glass and cost £135 ($174).
CRITICAL FACTOR
Adam’s love for plants and skill at craftsmanship complement each other well. By selling online, he can extend his local reach beyond the United Kingdom and serve customers worldwide.
ROCKET SCIENTIST LAUNCHES HERBAL SIDE INCOME
NAME
LOCATION
DENVER, COLORADO
STARTUP COSTS
$5,000
INCOME
$1,200/MONTH
WEBSITE
Herbal medicine isn’t rocket science, but this NASA scientist discovers a side hustle when she turns to nontraditional remedies to treat her immune diseases.
By day, Lisa Akers is a real-life rocket scientist. She frequently travels from her home in Colorado to build spaceships, most commonly at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Her side hustle is more grounded: she promotes the message of herbalism, working with private clients suffering from autoimmune diseases and other chronic conditions.
The project stemmed from Lisa’s own personal health struggles. As a result of the long hours, high stress, and “not so nontoxic” chemicals (as she calls them) used in spaceship building, she found herself with some systemic health issues that doctors couldn’t figure out. She spent the better part of a year going to various experts, specialists, and even some nontraditional practitioners to try to find a solution—but it wasn’t until she found an herbalist that she was able to figure out what was happening and work to improve her health.
While she was healing her body, Lisa decided to learn more about herbal medicine. She worked to get her master herbalist certification, and eventually completed postgraduate education in nutrition. As a busy scientist, Lisa was happy to be able to complete many of her certifications through distance learning. She’d download the lessons on her phone and do coursework while waiting for appointments, traveling, or during her lunch breaks.
At first, Lisa hoped that herbalism would become her main gig. She hired coaches, found mentors, and took classes, all in hopes of following an herbal dream. But she was making those decisions while recovering from serious illnesses of her own, so she wasn’t in a great frame of mind to see how she could change her workflow at her day job to feel better. After starting down this frustrating path, she realized she could both keep her day job and have an herbal business. This is the Side Hustle School way!
Lisa’s first offering was a group program, and it completely sold out. She soon realized, however, that group programs are difficult for health practitioners to manage. Keeping confidential health information private was difficult in a group situation. It was challenging to tailor the content to meet the participants’ needs while protecting each person’s privacy.
She now prefers one-on-one consults, where she can speak more directly and customize suggestions for individuals. The cost is $450 for an initial appointment package, and $250 for follow-ups.
Lisa works with clients in six areas: nutrition, sleep, movement, environment, stress, and joy. This approach helps them build a foundation of good health before working to restore their energy and specific nutrients in their bodies as well as to build resilience. For example, in one of her programs, she’ll do a personalized review of lab blood tests and give her clients detailed insight into their results. This is much more informative and empowering than the call from your doctor where all you hear is “Your lab work is fine.”
When working with clients, Lisa makes sure to tell them to see their physician if there’s a situation outside of her ability to manage. She’s not a doctor, so she can’t diagnose or prescribe treatments. She sees herself as an educator, offering information and insight to help people find a healthier lifestyle, based on her own experiences with plants, food, and supplements. Lisa also has access to a larger herbalist community where people share their tough cases and get insight from one another.
To promote her programs and consultations, Lisa does talks and web classes, reaching out to people interested in learning more holistic approaches to their health situation. She also goes to groups where people who have autoimmune diseases gather, both in person and online, to participate and build relationships. When appropriate, she’ll let them know what she does and opens the door to future conversations.
It cost her about $5,000 in educational expenses to get certified. She’s now bringing in a minimum of $1,200 a month, with a goal of increasing it. Her work in building spaceships ebbs and flows—sometimes she’s busy with assembly and testing, and other times she’s not. She schedules appointments when she’s got time and mental capacity, and starts a waiting list when necessary in order to avoid overcommitting.
While she’s helping spaceships take flight, she’s also helping people get well and building an asset for herself.
“Being able to work with people and see their health change radically with a few recommended changes is very inspiring. It’s also a bit scary because of the self-doubt that people like me seem to face so often, but seeing that change happen is the best part of my day.” —Lisa
FUN FACT Lisa is a winner of the Silver Snoopy award, which is given by NASA astronauts in recognition of significant contributions to crew safety and mission success.
CRITICAL FACTOR
Lisa’s personal story and “double life” as a rocket scientist gave her authority as she transitioned to the world of wellness.
ONCOLOGY NURSE CREATES PRODUCTS TO REGROW HAIR
NAME
LOCATION
HOUSTON, TEXAS
STARTUP COSTS
$1,500
INCOME
$45,000/YEAR
WEBSITE
After kicking cancer to the curb, a Texas oncology nurse discovers the power of essential oils for hair regrowth.
Tanieka Randall’s story is all about growth—growth she’s experienced in her personal life, in her professional career, and even with her hair. Tanieka, or Tee, as she’s more commonly known, started a side hustle selling natural hair products that promote healthy hair while also stimulating follicle growth.
Tee brings professional and personal experience to this venture. She works as an oncology nurse, often pulling twelve-hour night shifts from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. A self-described “healthy hair junkie,” she had begun experimenting with making her own products after being less than thrilled with everything else on the market. Those products were full of lots of questionable chemicals like parabens, sulfates, formaldehyde, and artificial colors. Not only that, the results were unimpressive.
She wanted more natural products for her hair, and she also enjoyed putting these products together. Her experimenting was put on hold, however, when a bone marrow test revealed that Tee had leukemia. She was a fighter, and pulled through the treatments cancer free—but five rounds of strenuous chemotherapy left her completely bald. Dismayed but victorious, she began to research the best ways to naturally regrow her hair.
That’s when she discovered the world of essential oils. Much more so than artificial ingredients, the right recipe of essential oils made an immediate difference in her hair’s regrowth. She tried a series of combinations before settling on her own unique recipe.
Naturally, Tee shared her newfound knowledge with her friends and family so they could benefit from all her research. As her hair regrew, people kept asking what her secret was—how did she get it to grow back so thick and healthy after chemo?
One day, it dawned on her that she was creating products that others may actually want to purchase themselves. Better yet, her target audience was right there on Facebook. On a whim, she decided to take the plunge and began accepting orders.
The response she received was overwhelmingly positive, and she knew that she’d be outgrowing her impromptu Facebook sales page before long. With this in mind, Tee went online to do what she does best—researching—so that she could put this positive momentum to work. She set up an LLC (limited liability company), and the next month she attended an event as an official vendor.
That event was a local women’s networking group. As she describes it, “I made a few hundred dollars at that first event. While that’s nothing to some people, to me it was a lot.” More than just making some money, she saw that there was a real market for her products.
Tee took that first few hundred dollars in revenue and put it right back into her business. In total, she spent $1,500 to get going. Around $800 went to buying ingredients and supplies directly related to creating her products. Another couple hundred went to registering her business, and the rest went toward flyers and business cards. She also set up a website so that she could officially take orders on her own instead of just through Facebook.
The investments paid off. In her first year in operation, Tee cleared more than $20,000. Aside from spending a few thousand dollars on additional ingredients to prototype potential new products, she had very few expenses.
One thing she did invest in, however, was business coaching. She spent $3,000 to get some help learning how to run her own shop. While it’s the single largest thing she’s purchased in relation to her business, she said it was worth every cent.
From that business coaching, she learned to focus on what her customers were asking for, which led to introducing some new products as well as bundling existing products into sets.
Tee also learned more about connecting with potential customers. When she picked a name, she had grabbed accounts on most major social networks, and then set about establishing a presence on many of them. Tee also joined networking and entrepreneurial groups in her area.
Through all these efforts, she cleared $80,000 in sales in her second year. In her third year, she wasn’t able to focus on the business as much, but still cleared $45,000.
Tee is continuing to grow her presence on social media, and is now working on being more targeted. She says that until recently she was a bit all over the place, trying to be everywhere at once. Now she’s narrowed her focus so that she can be consistent in a way that combines promoting her products, teaching, and sharing more about her own journey.
She eventually hopes to turn this work into her full-time income. She’s already put much of her profits toward payment on a house for her children to grow up in. There’s no splitting hairs: as someone who moved from apartment to apartment growing up, this was a tremendous accomplishment.
“I’m simply amazed at all the people from all over the world that I’ve been able to meet through this business. Having a positive impact on their lives has been both humbling and inspiring.” —Tee
FUN FACT One day, Tee was tired and didn’t notice that instead of putting water in the microwave and a mix of wax and oil on the stove, she did it backward. When she lifted up the hot container, it melted and everything spilled all over the stove and herself. She says this is the kind of lesson you only have to learn once.
CRITICAL FACTOR
As Tee’s hair grew back thick and healthy, her friends and family wanted to know how she did it and what products she used. When they started asking if they could buy the products she was using, she realized an opportunity was right in front of her.
ANIMAL LOVER BREEDS RABBITS TO PAY FOR COLLEGE
NAME
LOCATION
WILMINGTON, OHIO
STARTUP COSTS
$300
INCOME
$8,400/YEAR
WEBSITE
An enterprising teen learns to breed rabbits, pocketing an extra $500 per month and eventually paying her way through college.
When Leah Lynch was sixteen years old, she was juggling a retail job around her high school studies. Like so many teenage jobs, the work was boring. Making minimum wage was better than nothing, but this was hardly her dream job. Still, what else could a teenager do?
One day while researching alternatives, she stumbled across a peculiar breed of rabbits called French Lops. As Leah discovered, they weren’t just bred for pets, they were bred for shows too. These are some talented rabbits, she thought, and she decided to try her hand at breeding them. She’d been an animal lover her whole life, so it seemed logical enough.
Looking at local listings, she found a breeder in her part of Ohio. Then, armed with money she’d saved from her retail job, Leah hopped in her car and bought the best rabbits she could find. If she was going to do this right, she had to start with the best “partners.”
Her new trio of rabbits—one male, two females—cost a few hundred dollars.
Luckily, there was no need to register as a breeder or apply for a license, so she could begin building up her rabbitry straight away.*2 She did this while working around two other jobs and eventually her college studies, learning along the way about what it took to breed these rabbits safely and to a show-quality standard, then selling them for a profit to responsible buyers.
To build up the business, she attended local shows and spoke with other breeders, companies, and attendees to make them aware of her rabbitry. And she used the Craigslist pages of the three largest nearby towns and cities to share the rabbits she had for sale. Sure enough, they began to fly off the shelves…or perhaps out of their cages.
Here’s some math: for a show-quality rabbit, you can expect to sell (or buy) one for anywhere between $35 at the lower end and $200 at the higher end. In other words, the better your litter, the more money you stand to make.
When Leah started, there was a joke in her family that these rabbits would pay for her college tuition. Little did they know that joke would become reality. She graduated debt free, while also making a few thousand dollars each school year in spending money.
Leaping forward, Leah has stayed with her rabbitry alongside her new job as a test proctor at a local community college. And just like her rabbits, she’s multiplied into new income streams. Her website, Busy Gals Homestead, teaches people how they, too, can raise rabbits to generate a side income. Although her site was around through college—it was originally titled Leah’s Lovely Lops—it really took life when she added a blog and began to charge for coaching, as well as offering herbs and natural remedies for rabbits.
She’s also invested more time and effort into learning how to market her products to people all over the country, leading her to make an additional $500 a month on top of the rabbit riches.
Leah is a rare breed of person…taking advantage of every hopportunity that comes her way.
“Think ahead about all the potential issues that could come up, and decide how you will respond to that situation before it happens. This will help you when you are dealing with a difficult customer, or when you have to make the call on what actions to take if something unexpected happens.” —Leah
FUN FACT Did you know there are an estimated 6.1 million pet rabbits in the USA alone? Even celebrities like Clint Eastwood, Sienna Miller, and Michael Jordan have all owned rabbits.
CRITICAL FACTOR
When Leah decided to breed rabbits, she took the time to talk to everyone she could find who knew something about the industry. She then got the word out about her new rabbitry through those same people, in addition to posting free ads on Craigslist.
PR CONSULTANT LAUNCHES “RESTAURANT WEEK” FESTIVITIES
NAME
LOCATION
LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA
STARTUP COSTS
LESS THAN $100
INCOME
$20,000/YEAR
WEBSITE
A California publicist earns an extra $20,000 a year producing an annual “Restaurant Week” that brings together chefs and new diners.
Elizabeth Borsting wears many hats. Based in Long Beach, California, she’s a public relations consultant representing hotels, restaurants, and destination venues. She’s also a travel writer with nine books to her name, as well as numerous articles for the Los Angeles Times, National Geographic Traveler, and other publications.
A few years ago, she took on yet another role: producing the city’s annual Restaurant Week. For one week each February, restaurants produce, at a discount, special value-oriented menus reflecting their culinary style.
Lunch menus are available for $10, $15, and $20 per person, while three-course dinners are offered at $20, $30, $40, and $50 per person. The idea is to introduce diners to new restaurants, allowing them to sample from a range of featured items without breaking the bank.
It’s called Dine Out Long Beach, and it didn’t exist until Elizabeth made it happen.*3 Plenty of other cities have similar events, but for some reason no one had ever done it in Long Beach before.
The event was ideal for her—it taps into her natural strengths, experience, and the connections that she’s built while handling PR for many restaurants in her day job. The fact that she enjoys good food doesn’t hurt either.
Funding comes largely through sponsorship. Elizabeth is constantly networking, so most of her sponsors continue to be part of the event year after year. Startup costs were minimal, and the annual profit is around $20,000.
Since she runs her own PR firm, Elizabeth’s workday involves touching base with different clients, some of whom happen to be restaurant owners. Elizabeth promotes the event through a large billboard (which includes sponsor logos) at a very busy intersection. She estimates that it garners around 450,000 impressions. Additionally, the event is featured on morning shows in Los Angeles, as well as on LA’s number one radio station. This press coverage benefits the restaurants and helps to bring diners in.
Managed properly, Restaurant Week can be a win-win for everyone. Diners love trying new places at a fixed price, restaurants love getting new customers that they hope will return after the promotion is over, and the person who runs the operation gets paid. Bon appétit!
“Be prepared to be the salesperson, marketer, trainer, problem solver, and your own cheerleader. Once you make a public announcement, there’s no turning back.” —Elizabeth
FUN FACT Long Beach is home to the only restaurant in the United States that serves Chianina beef, an Italian breed of cattle. The restaurant, Chianina Steakhouse, also breeds and raises its own herd.
CRITICAL FACTOR
Elizabeth was a connector and already knew many of the restaurateurs she’d need to rely on to make the inaugural year a success. By working with them—and leveraging her PR connections for press coverage—she was then able to build relationships with even more decision-makers.
“Don’t follow your passion, follow your skill.” This recommendation can take you far, or at least get you on the right path to side hustle success.
So how do you know what your valuable skills are? I firmly believe that everyone’s an expert at something. Whenever I meet someone who says they have no marketable skills, a three-minute conversation usually proves them wrong.
To get started, make a list of things you know how to do. What did you learn in school, college, or university? What have you learned in the workforce? What comes naturally to you that other people seem to struggle with?
All these answers will point to valuable skills. You may also want to ask your friends and coworkers. Sometimes the people who know us may have ideas or insights that we haven’t considered ourselves.
Next, you need to think about how to apply those skills in a different way than you would in a traditional career. That’s what many people in this book have done—but it all starts with a valuable skill.
For more, visit SideHustleSchool.com/skills.