Nick Loper

Nick Loper is a side hustle expert who loves helping people earn more money and start businesses they care about. He hosts the award-winning Side Hustle Show, where he's interviewed over 500 successful entrepreneurs, and is the bestselling author of Buy Buttons, The Side Hustle, and $1,000 100 Ways. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Forbes, TIME, Newsweek, Business Insider, MSN, Yahoo Finance, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Hubspot, Ahrefs, Shopify, Investopedia, VICE, Vox, Mashable, ChooseFI, The Penny Hoarder, GoBankingRates, and more.

168: The Best Passive Income Model: Raw Land Investing Update (Part 1)

October 14, 2024April 14, 2016

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 listeners who took action based on that episode. The first is my friend Josh Brooks, an Army Battalion Commander and founder of The Enduring Charity Foundation.

State of the Nation: 2016 Member Survey Results (Plus How to Run a Survey For Your Audience)

January 10, 2023April 4, 2016

One of the best ways to figure out how to better serve your customers or your audience is to, well, ask them.

So I set out to create my (annual?) member survey and see if I could get some insights into where readers and listeners are at in their side hustle journey, what types of businesses you’re working on, and what your biggest challenges are.

I also wanted to find out about how you were interacting with the Side Hustle Nation content; the blog, podcast, and email newsletter.

166: $10k a Month Blogging Part-Time

September 25, 2023March 31, 2016

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 still working full-time too.

165: How to Earn an Extra $1000 a Month as a Brand Ambassador

November 6, 2021March 24, 2016

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 haven’t covered on the site before, because as Kenny explains, there are always gigs nearby, they’re fun, and they can actually pay pretty well.

15 Things To Do When You’re Broke, Angry, and Feeling Trapped

March 31, 2025March 21, 2016

Last month I received an email from a reader I didn’t really know how to respond to. It was about growing up in poverty and what he could do to lift himself out of a bad situation.

I think an important thing to remember is that every expert was once a beginner, every champion was once a rookie, and that with a few exceptions, most successful/wealthy individuals weren’t born that way.

They all took incremental actions over time to build their knowledge, skills, network — and eventually their net worth.

But I was curious what advice the Side Hustle Nation community had for this reader, and wow, did they come through big time.

164: $4k a Month within 6 Months: Marketing and Growing a Freelance Side Hustle, with Gina Horkey

September 25, 2023March 17, 2016

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 virtual assistant business to be earning several thousand dollars a month; enough to quit her day job and go full-time.

Quora for Bloggers: How to Accelerate Your Authority, Audience Growth, and Traffic

May 1, 2024March 14, 2016

On December 7th, 2015, I started posting answers on Quora.com every day.

By the beginning of March — less than 3 months later — my answers had been viewed more than 500,000 times. This has more than doubled traffic to my blog, 10x’d my email sign-ups, and resulted in an increase in book sales.

This post explores my tactics for using Quora to re-purpose old content, accelerate your authority, and rapidly build an audience.

163: How to Build a 6-Figure Blog in Less Than a Year, with Jon Dykstra

September 25, 2023March 10, 2016

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.)

We’ve covered niche sites in the past, but the type of sites Jon focuses on are a different animal. In a way, he sets out to build an authoritative brand in a particular space.

The $7620 Blog Post (Plus, my First Real Facebook Ads Experiment)

December 27, 2021March 7, 2016

In January I published a post called The 134 Best Udemy Courses for Entrepreneurs, Freelancers, and Side Hustlers.

The post was a pretty blatant affiliate play, and I made a point to admit that at the very top. Still, it performed very well, earning $7620 in January.

After the first couple days, I realized I was on to something and it only made sense to try and drive more traffic to the page, even if it meant paying for it. So that gave birth to my first real experiment with Facebook ads.

162: Voiceover Acting: How to Earn up to $3000 an Hour With Your Voice

July 3, 2025March 3, 2016

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.

Usually Hustling, Occasionally Social