The Side Hustle Show

In episode 108 of The Side Hustle Show last year, we met Mark Podolsky, a real estate investor specializing in raw land. He called it "The Best Passive Income Model," because there are no products to build, no tenants or toilets, and you can start without a huge upfront investment. This year, I wanted to feature a couple of listeners who took action based on that episode. The first is my friend Jo...

We first heard from Robert Farrington back in 2013, on episode 10 of The Side Hustle Show. At that time, he was earning $3-4k a month from a portfolio of different sites, and looking to expand his online empire. This week, we catch up on what’s changed since then. Robert’s doubled down on his main site, TheCollegeInvestor.com, narrowed his focus, and roughly tripled his earnings. Oh, and he’s stil...

Kenny Azama has worked with massive global brands like Nike, Samsung, Apple, Chevrolet, and Coca Cola, but he's not an ad agency or a top secret marketing mogul. He's a professional brand ambassador, "someone who is temporarily hired to represent a brand in a positive light, and provide consumers with a memorable face-to-face experience." I think this in an interesting side hustle, and one we have...

Gina Horkey has come highly recommended by a number of listeners, and I’ve seen her work what seems like “all over the Internet” for the past couple years so I’m excited to finally connect and bring her on the show. She’s a freelance writer extraordinaire, but also a virtual assistant, and someone who now helps others follow in her footsteps. Gina successfully built her freelance writing and virtu...

Do you know Jon Dykstra from FatStacksBlog.com? I've been following his work since last summer and have been really impressed. Jon is a former attorney turned full-time entrepreneur, and he’s the master of building high quality niche blogs and monetizing them to $10k-20k per month in record time. (Sixty days to $10k in one case.) Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Build a 6-Figure Blog...

Voiceover acting may be -- at least in my mind -- one of the most universal side hustles. I mean, almost all of us can speak, right? My guest this week, Carrie Olsen, assures me there's a little more to it than that, but also says it's a business with low startup costs and low barriers to entry. Carrie went from her first audition to quitting her job in a span of just 4 months. Full Show Notes and...

Parenthood has got me thinking, every BIG victory is built on the back of a ton of mini victories. You don't wake up one morning and win the Super Bowl. You win it one quarter at a time, one possession at a time, one down at a time, one yard at a time. We all want the BIG win; quit our jobs, passive income, early retirement, location-independence, whatever it is. But what's the next mini win to he...

A couple months ago, Matt Bochnak sent me a note about his motorcycle repair side hustle. As someone who is, shall we say, less-than-savvy when it comes to mechanics, I was impressed. But Matt shared that the passive income from this service business now actually exceeds his revenue from "turning wrenches." Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: From Active to Passive Income with a Service Busine...

Teaching online is a fantastic way to earn money from your experience, skills, and expertise Phil's built up a HUGE library of more than 50 online courses and teaches more than 130,000 students. While he now focuses on his business full-time, he hit the 6-figure income mark before leaving his day job. In this episode we chat about how he comes up with course ideas, how he structures his content, a...

I'm happy to introduce Greg Mercer, who is the go-to guy for Amazon product research. His own ecommerce empire has grown to $400k per month in revenue -- yes, per month -- and he's the founder of the popular Jungle Scout software tool that helps make the product research process faster and easier. In this call we dive into his specific sales criteria and next steps in evaluating a product's profit...

Assad's a Finance Director by day so he's got some street cred when it came to offering consulting, and quickly built that business up to around $1000 a month. In April, he mentioned he'd also started selling products on Amazon FBA using the clearance arbitrage model Travis Scott shared on the show. Nine months later, that little experiment had grown into a six-figure side hustle. Check out our co...

When it comes to your side hustle, the words you use matter. In so many businesses, our first impressions with customers often come from a website, an email, or a product description. Are you sending the right message? Is it unique and powerful enough to stand out from the crowd? Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Copywriting Tips for Side Hustlers

My guest this week, Brian Swichkow, is a viral marketing pro, having achieved outsize results on several different projects. Having one viral hit could be considered a lucky fluke, but to be able to do it again and again, and you start to recognize a repeatable, learnable pattern. That's what listeners can look forward to in this episode; how you can apply Brian's tactics to your own side hustle t...

Jonathan Stark says the key to side hustle success -- for consultants, at least -- lies in finding an expensive problem, and solving it. Jonathan's a pro at finding these expensive problems, having run a successful online consulting business for several years, focusing on mobile-ready web development. At the recommendation of two-time Side Hustle Show guest, Kai Davis, he dropped by to share some...

We've heard of niche sites seeing success with AdSense or Amazon Associates income, or even with selling private advertising, but Jon Haws took a completely different approach.  Since last November, Jon has: Released more than 150 podcast episodes. Written nearly 3 dozen Kindle books. Created the definitive course on pharmacy medications. Built a nursing test-prep app that gets 100+ downloads a da...

What separates the 5% of fulfilled, successful people from the 95% rest of the population? Author Jeff Olson argues it's The Slight Edge. Successful people have harnessed the power of relentless incrementalism, the daily practice of making progress toward their goals -- even if imperceptible at the beginning. Today is a brief solo show to discuss how you can find your slight edge in 2016 and beyon...

Three years ago, Bryn and her business partner Brooke had each made less $500 from their photography hobby -- far less than they'd spent on equipment. Fast forward to this year, and they shot more than a dozen weddings and booked top-line revenue in excess of $40,000. Listen in to hear what happened in between. Remember, every professional starts as an amateur, and there are parallels in this conv...

Recurring revenue models are all the rage these days, and for good reason. You can make a sale once and continue to earn from it as long as you keep your customer happy. There are quite a few recurring revenue business examples from The Side Hustle Show archives, but today I'm excited to introduce Ross Simmonds, a side hustler turned full-time entrepreneur, and the founder of Hustle & Grind, a cof...

Elizabeth Colegrove and her husband are budding real estate moguls. So far they've acquired 7 houses, and neither of them are 30 years old yet. Between their 7 properties, they're earning around $1800 in cash flow every month, and their tenants are paying off $1650 in loan principal. But real estate side hustles are not without risks and Elizabeth joked that I just have easily could have called th...

This week I'm excited to welcome Rob Stephenson to The Side Hustle Show. Rob is the "Flea Market Flipper" and he's got an interesting take on the age-old Buy Low, Sell High business model. In fact, it earned him $30,000 last year working just 10-15 hours a week. This is on top of his day job as a real estate inspector. Full Show Notes: How to Make Money Flipping Items

We've covered Kindle publishing in a variety of ways on The Side Hustle Show in the past, and it's one of my favorite side hustles. But one area of frustration, at least for me, is that for all the effort put into writing, editing, publishing, and launching the book, it's still tough to sustain sales for long periods of time. My guest this week has a way to keep moving units month after month, and...

This is my attempt at a Q&A show, based on some questions of the interesting questions that have hit my inbox or the Facebook group over the past couple weeks. It actually stems from a new inbox "trick" I've been playing with lately. Maybe I'm a super-latecomer to this game, but I just created 2 new "labels" in Gmail: one for Questions and one for Testimonials.

If you've ever been frustrated with the products in your life, and thought "there's gotta be a better way!," this conversation is sure to hit home. Jeremy Michael Cohen and Fred Perrotta created Tortuga Backpacks after an awesome trip to Europe -- and a less-than-awesome experience with their luggage. They resolved to create a better travel backpack, and did it, starting as a side hustle of course...

Rosemarie Groner is a former state trooper turned blogger and stay at home mom. In the last 12 months, her site The Busy Budgeter has grown from zero to 400,000 page views per month. More importantly, Rosemarie earned $5000 from the site last month while working on it part-time. Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: $5k per Month Blogging Case Study Want to start a blog of your own? My free vide...

It's a special Friday-before-Halloween edition of The Side Hustle Show! Today we're diving into some of the scary moments in my business and some frightening tales from Side Hustle Show listeners. Even though we're told to "punch fear in the face," I think it's something that will be a constant in our lives. There's always something to be afraid of.