The Side Hustle Show

If you’re looking to turn LinkedIn into a money-making machine, you’re in the right place. Joe McKay has taken his LinkedIn ghostwriting side hustle from zero to a multi-six-figure business, generating millions of impressions along the way. And he's here to fill us in on how to make money on LinkedIn this year. We broke down the 3 types of posts you need to make money on LinkedIn, how to navigate the platform as a side hustler, and the most common (and costly) mistake people make. Listen to Episode 651 of the Side Hustle Show to learn: the 3 LinkedIn posts every side hustler must use why building connections strategically changes the game how to avoid the costly mistake most people make Subscribe to Joe's The Thought Follower newsletter for more LinkedIn tips and solopreneur strategies. Full Show Notes: How to Make Money on LinkedIn New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Airbnb — Discover how much your home could be worth and find a professional co-host today! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Indeed – Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! OpenPhone — Get 20% off of your first 6 months! Gusto — Get 3 months free of the leading payroll, benefits, and HR provider for modern small businesses!

Do you know how much cash flows through your hometown on a monthly basis? In this episode we explore how to get some of that cash flowing toward you! I'm joined by Nick Huber, co-founder of Storage Squad and host of The Sweaty Startup podcast. Storage Squad, a student storage service, has grown to over $3M in sales since starting it as a little part-time project back in 2011. I invited Nick on The Side Hustle Show to help walk us through his "sweaty startup" framework. That is, how you can start a low-risk, low-overhead, local, service-based business, set it up for success, and let that be the vehicle that drives you away from a lifetime of cubicle slavery. Tune in to hear Nick’s thoughts on generating service business ideas you could start today, evaluating the market and competition, and scoring your first customers. That’s why I think this is pretty exciting -- it really doesn’t take many customers to begin to make a meaningful income here. Full Show Notes: The Sweaty Startup: How to Start a Local Service Business New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Airbnb — Discover how much your home could be worth and find a professional co-host today! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Indeed – Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! OpenPhone — Get 20% off of your first 6 months! Gusto — Get 3 months free of the leading payroll, benefits, and HR provider for modern small businesses!

How do you come up with a business idea? Aspiring entrepreneurs often get stuck in the business idea phase — that is, they’re confident they could run a killer business, make a ton of money, and live the good life — if they could only come up with the right idea. If that’s you — the idea seeker — I’ve got good news for you: coming up with new business ideas is actually pretty easy. It’s what comes next that’s hard! But today, let’s go through some of the proven methods you can use to come up with your first (or next) business idea. Full Show Notes: 7 Proven Ways to Generate New Business Ideas, with Real-Life Examples New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Airbnb — Discover how much your home could be worth and find a professional co-host today! OpenPhone — Get 20% off of your first 6 months! Gusto — Get 3 months free of the leading payroll, benefits, and HR provider for modern small businesses!

Mike Ettenberg spent 10 years as a firefighter, but was constantly losing or breaking his sunglasses on calls. Frustrated, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Frontline Optics makes durable sunglasses for first responders with a no-questions-asked replacement policy. Despite having "no business experience," the Side Hustle Show listener took Frontline from side hustle to full-time venture, selling over $1M worth of sunglasses along the way.  Tune in to episode 649 to learn: How Mike found his first customers The "microinfluencer" strategy that generated consistent sales When he felt comfortable quitting his firefighting day job His plans for the future Full Show Notes: This Firefighter's Side Hustle Grew to $1M in Sales New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Airbnb — Discover how much your home could be worth! OpenPhone — Get 20% off of your first 6 months! Gusto — Get 3 months free of the leading payroll, benefits, and HR provider for modern small businesses!

I want to introduce a concept I call The Side Hustle Snowball. If you’ve heard about Dave Ramsey’s “Debt Snowball” framework, this may sound familiar. Here’s how The Side Hustle Snowball works: You itemize out your expenses and then aim to come up with side hustle income to cover them, starting with the smallest and working your way up. Once you reach the bottom of your list, you don’t need your job anymore! The reason I like this framework is setting out to replace your income with a side business can be a daunting task. The Snowball approach breaks it down into mini-victories and lets you celebrate your progress along the way. And just like a real snowball, it picks up steam, size, and momentum as it gets rolling. Let’s look at some real-life examples of how you can make extra money. What follows are some of my actual monthly expenses*, and how we mentally zero them out with job-free income. Full Show Notes: The Side Hustle Snowball: How to “Erase” Your Expenses with Extra Income Streams New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Airbnb — Discover how much your home could be worth and find a professional co-host today! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Gusto — Get 3 months free of the leading payroll, benefits, and HR provider for modern small businesses!

The end of the year is upon us, which means it's time to reflect back on the side hustles that stood out — the ones that got people talking and that I was most excited to share. "Best" is always subjective. But what marks a good episode is when I hang up the call, thinking, "I need to drop what I'm doing and go do something else. I should totally do that." And I try and exercise some level of discipline and restraint because the shiny object syndrome is real. But when the shiny object shines for me, I know it's going to be a hit episode. So here are the top 10 side hustles for 2024. (Here is the Spotify playlist to make it easy to go add that to your device: Best Side Hustles of the Year 2024) Full Show Notes: The 10 Best Side Hustles of the Year New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Airbnb — Discover how much your home could be worth and find a professional co-host today! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Gusto — Get 3 months free of the leading payroll, benefits, and HR provider for modern small businesses!

Why should your first online business be a directory? This is one of the most overlooked yet potentially lucrative side hustles out there. I've got a little bit of experience in this space (I actually built a virtual assistant directory years before), so this is something close to me. But my experience is nothing like John Rush’s from JohnRush.me, who is a master at quickly building and marketing these little side projects. He has launched 30 directories in just the past year, managed to monetize 10 of them, and even sold one (AllGPTs.co) for a sweet five-figure exit. (If you want more resources, check out John’s full Directory Guide or his no-code builder at Unicorn Platform.) Tune in to Episode 647 of the Side Hustle Show to learn: Why directories are a great starter side hustle How to pick the right niche The tools and strategies to build your directory Full Show Notes: How to Start an Online Directory as a Side Hustle New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Airbnb — Discover how much your home could be worth and find a professional co-host today! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Gusto — Get 3 months free of the leading payroll, benefits, and HR provider for modern small businesses!

If you create content online, sell anything—whether it’s in person, over the phone, or on a website—and want to make stronger connections, reach more people, and ultimately grow your income, here’s something to help you learn how to do it by speaking directly to the 9 types of buyers. To help us is Melanie Warren, a professional copywriter and the author of The 9 Buyers System. She has helped sell millions of dollars worth of products and services, and she has graciously agreed to stop by and give us the goods for free today. Let’s break it down, starting with a closer look at these nine buyers and how you can tailor your content to meet them where they’re at. Tune in to Episode 646 of the Side Hustle Show to learn: How to identify the 9 types of buyers Strategies to tailor your content to connect and convert effectively Expert tips from Melanie Warren on emotional and logical selling Full Show Notes: The 9 Buyers: The Key to Stronger Connections and Easier Sales New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Airbnb — Discover how much your home could be worth and find a professional co-host today! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Gusto — Get 3 months free of the leading payroll, benefits, and HR provider for modern small businesses!

Building a remote cleaning side hustle from scratch. How crazy unique is that? Skyler helps homeowners get the help they need while also helping on-the-ground professional cleaners get the work they want — and still makes a margin in the middle. And the most interesting part is he’s running this $60k/month operation in less than two years — all while keeping his day job. Tune in to Episode 645 of the Side Hustle Show to learn: How Skyler landed his first customers and cleaners How to market a remote cleaning business in today's world Exact tools and strategies he uses to scale a service business Full Show Notes: The $60k/mo Remote Cleaning Side Hustle New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Airbnb — Discover how much your home could be worth! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Gusto — Get 3 months free of the leading payroll, benefits, and HR provider for modern small businesses!

If you’re looking to add some time-leveraged cash flow to your bottom line, two of the best options are investing in rental real estate and buying small businesses. Both are viable options, and to help you figure out if either or both of these investment options are right for you, it’s time for another Side Hustle Showdown. For the debate, I’ve invited back two Side Hustle Show favorites: Chad Carson is the owner of over 100+ properties and the author of Retire Early with Real Estate. Codie Sanchez is the owner of several so-called “boring” small businesses, including a laundromat and a podcast production service. (In Chad's first appearance, we covered several low-cost real estate side hustles. With Codie, we explored how to grow and monetize an email newsletter.) Tune in the week to learn: what kind of portfolios Chad and Codie have built up how you can get started buying real estate and small businesses some of the creative financing options available the mistakes they made along the way and more Full Show Notes: Side Hustle Showdown: Buying a Business vs. Investing in Real Estate (Greatest Hits) New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Found — Stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Gusto — Get 3 months free of the leading payroll, benefits, and HR provider for modern small businesses!

Would you believe there's a marketplace of millions of buyers eager for digital products for teachers — and it's not Etsy? Rob is a high school math and personal finance teacher at fieducator.com. He's built an impressive side hustle selling lesson plans and resources online at fieducator.store. Through the popular platform Teachers Pay Teachers, Rob has turned his passion for financial education into a growing business that regularly brings in $2,000 a month — and it’s been growing 40% a year. Tune in to Episode 644 of The Side Hustle Show to learn: How to find your niche on Teachers Pay Teachers Rob's $2k/month digital product business Rob's process for launching new products on FB groups Full Show Notes: $2k a Month in Semi-Passive Income on the Side New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Found — Stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Gusto — Get 3 months free of the leading payroll, benefits, and HR provider for modern small businesses!

It's that time of year again—Thanksgiving! What's particularly fascinating about this year's collection is the blend of traditional services reimagined for the digital age alongside completely novel business ideas. This is the 7th installment of the series, so I encourage you to check out the previous episodes if you like this format, make sure to grab the full playlist here. Here are the past editions if you want to see them individually: 10 Creative Side Hustles Part 1 – 2018 10 Creative Side Hustles Part 2 – 2019 10 Creative Side Hustles Part 3 – 2020 10 Creative Side Hustles Part 4 – 2021 10 Creative Side Hustles Part 5 – 2022 10 Creative Side Hustles Part 6 – 2023 Let's talk about this year's most innovative money-making ideas! Full Show Notes: 10 Creative Side Hustles That Make Real Money New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Found — Stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Airbnb — Discover unique stays and unforgettable experiences – find your dream getaway today!

I'm always looking for ways to work smarter and more efficiently, and to that end I took a recent inventory of my online business "toolkit." Of course many of these will be obvious to you, but hopefully you discover some helpful new resources as well. The good news? Many of these are free or at least have a free version! And if you're looking for the definitive guide to online resources named by top entrepreneurs, check out the full collection in my book, Work Smarter. One important note is I didn't start here. I've cobbled together this toolbox over the last 10+ years, and added expenses only as the revenue justified it. Start scrappy, start lean, and then invest where it makes sense! There are also a ton of great suggestions in the comments below! Full Show Notes: 50+ Tools and Apps to Work Smarter and Get More Out Of Your Side Hustle New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Found — Stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Airbnb — Discover how much your home could be worth!

It’s time once again to dive into the ol’ listener mailbag and answer a few questions in this week’s edition of The Side Hustle Show. I’ve had quite a few interesting questions come in since the last Q&A episode, and picked 10 to talk through in today’s show. Click here to join Side Hustle Nation for free! We're covering everything from building audiences in today's digital landscape and even how to compete in what some are calling a "no-click world. This is the 17th installment of this series, so feel free to check out the older ones: 616: Lifestyle Creep, Luck, and Why Every Podcast Guest Has an Online Course: Q&A w/ Nick 585: Giving Away Ideas, Getting Great Guests, Growing Your Business, and More: 20 Questions With Nick 556: Pricing, Podcasting, Permission to Quit, and More: 20 Questions with Nick 498: Profitable Podcasting, Getting Clients, and $50k/mo in Passive Income: 20 Questions with Nick 451: Affiliate Marketing, Early Retirement, and Side Hustle Shifts Over 8 Years of Podcasting: 20 Questions with Nick 431: Fear of Selling, Protecting Ideas, Podcasting and More 412: Side Hustle Ethics, Charging Your Friends, the Side Hustles I’m Most Excited About, and More 365: Market Saturation, Mind Mapping, Miracle Mornings, and More 346: The Con of the Side Hustle, Beanie Babies, Affiliate Marketing, and More 320: Multiplying Money, Morning Routines, and $100k Side Hustles 291: Email, Ebooks, Platforms, and Conferences 271: Brilliant Blogging, Ruthless Productivity, and Guaranteed Success 245: Network Marketing, Imposter Syndrome, My Side Hustle Mistakes, and More 219: Growing Traffic, Monetization, List-Building, a Day in the Life, and More 198: Blogging, Branding, Book Writing, and Finding the Right Side Hustle for You 181: SEO, Affiliate Marketing, Self-Publishing, Udemy, and More Plus, I'll share what keeps drawing me back year after year at FinCon. Let's dive in! Full Show Notes: Starting Over? Podcasting, Newsletters, Competing in a “No Click” World, and more (10 Questions with Nick) New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Found — Stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Airbnb — Discover unique stays and unforgettable experiences – find your dream getaway today!

How do you make extra money in a low-risk way? And one method I keep coming back to is the idea of starting a consignment business. So you're selling other people's stuff and just taking a percentage. They get paid, you get paid, and you've got no upfront inventory risk like you'd have with a traditional physical product business. Sarah McAffry of Statemint Consignment earned over $10,000 from her first consignment event and has continued to grow from there. She has been crushing it in this space for the last 10 years, and it has now expanded to 23 locations across the country. Tune in to Episode 640 of the Side Hustle Show to learn: How Sarah got her first 50 sellers to trust her with their inventory Her marketing strategies to get buyers in the door How you might start something similar in your own area Full Show Notes: Get Paid to Sell Other People’s Stuff: Starting a Consignment Side Hustle New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Found — Stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Airbnb — Discover unique stays and unforgettable experiences – find your dream getaway today!

Looking to make extra money for Christmas? You’re not alone! The average American spent over $900 on Christmas last year. In this episode, I'm joined by Allison Baggerly from Inspiredbudget.com and we’ll share our top side hustle picks to make extra money for the holidays. These side hustles are easy to start and have no to low startup cost so you can earn what you need for the holiday season. Ready? Let’s do it. Full Show Notes: 30 Ways to Make Extra Money for the Holidays New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Found — Stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Airbnb — Discover unique stays and unforgettable experiences – find your dream getaway today!

More than 150,000 women have completed Tiffany "The Budgetnetista" Aliche's Live Richer Challenge. The roughly 30-day challenge participants step-by-step instructions on how to get their financial lives in order, get out of debt, and start saving money. Collectively, Tiffany's tribe has saved $17 million and paid off $1.5 in debt! I first heard Tiffany tell the story of how she started the challenge and how that's turned into a thriving business at FinCon last year, and am excited to share it with you this week. This year, The Budgetnetista expects to bring in more than $500,000 from speaking, book sales, sponsors and affiliate relationships, and a new private membership academy. I think her model can be replicated across a number of different niches and industries so you can apply these same strategies and tactics in your business. Tune in to hear how the former preschool teacher came up with the idea for the challenge, the innovative way she grew her tribe, and how giving it all away for free turned into a very profitable venture. Full Show Notes: How a Free Challenge Turned Into a $500,000 a Year Business New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Found — Stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free! Indeed – Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! Airbnb — Discover unique stays and unforgettable experiences – find your dream getaway today!

Happy Halloween! It’s the perfect time to explore some creative and spooky-themed side hustles that can bring in real money. I sat down with Jared Bauman of 201creative.com and host of Niche Pursuits Podcast to talk about 10 scary-good side hustles that could add a little financial excitement to your Halloween. Tune in to Episode 638 of the Side Hustle Show to learn: how to turn hobbies or unique skills into profitable side hustles why holidays and niche markets offer huge earning potential unconventional ideas that lead to real money-making opportunities Full Show Notes: 10 Scary-Good Side Hustles That Make Real Money New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Found — Stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! OpenPhone — Get a powerful business phone system that works on all your devices!

It’s always inspiring to reconnect with longtime friends of The Side Hustle Show, and Debbie Gartner aka the Flooring Girl is one of them. Over the last few years, she’s turned her love for simple, creative projects into a $4,000-per-month digital product business on Etsy. What started as a personal outlet has grown into a scalable, semi-passive side hustle. Tune in to Episode 637 of The Side Hustle Show to learn: how to build a $4,000/month Etsy shop selling digital products keyword research, customer loyalty, and bundling to increase sales on Etsy how AI tools can streamline and help scale your side hustle faster And be sure to check out Debbie's free Start Your Etsy Shop Challenge to kickstart your own digital product journey. Full Show Notes: $1000 a Week Selling Digital Products New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Found — Stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! OpenPhone — Get a powerful business phone system that works on all your devices!

There have been a few requests for a Progress Report update, so wanted to take some time this week to give a behind-the-scenes look at the last year or so of the business of Side Hustle Nation. Inside you'll learn more about: what I’ve been working on / through some of my biggest challenges, wins, and projects what's been on my reading list Ready? Let's do it! Full Show Notes: Is Business Coaching Worth It? A Look Inside the last 12 months of Side Hustle Nation New to the Show? Get your personalized money-making playlist here! Sponsors: Found — Stop getting lost in countless finance apps and try Found for free! Indeed — Start hiring NOW with a $75 sponsored job credit to upgrade your job post! Mint Mobile — Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month! OpenPhone — Get a powerful business phone system that works on all your devices!