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.

2015 Annual Review and Q4 Progress Report: What Was Awesome, What Sucked, and What’s Next

December 3, 2020January 11, 2016

Last year I published my first annual review, and have been doing quarterly progress reports since then.

Overall, I felt happier in 2015 than I have in a long time. I think that’s the result of a lot of factors coming together, including lower stress, fun projects, and a growing comfort as to what’s “enough.”

This is my recap of what went down in Q4 and in 2015 overall, plus my wins and losses for the year and my top 10 articles and podcast episodes.

153: Zero to $20k a Month in a Year: 5 Ways to Completely Dominate Your Niche, with Jon Haws

January 8, 2024January 7, 2016

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 masterfully experimented with 5 different avenues and built up a huge email list. All told, these different channels — that didn’t even exist a year and a half ago — are earning more than $20,000 a month!

If you’re looking at a niche or authority business and need some new ideas on how to serve your audience, this is a can’t miss episode.

152: Finding Your Slight Edge

October 15, 2018January 1, 2016

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 beyond.

150: 5 Steps to Turn a Hobby Into a Business

May 24, 2023December 24, 2015

Three years ago, Bryn and her business partner Brooke had each made less $500 from photography — 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 conversation I think will apply to any freelance service-based side hustle.

9 Free WordPress Plugins to Make Your Site Leaner, Meaner, and More Profitable

March 25, 2018December 21, 2015

The universe of free plugins is one of the most important benefits of WordPress. If there’s some functionality you’re looking for, odds are someone else has already built it!

Now I’ve been called — and this is true — a bit of a plugin junkie in the past. And there is a dark side to all this delicious free software; installing too many plugins can slow down your site, break some functionality, or even put you at risk for security breaches.

Here are a few I think you should consider, organized by functional area.

149: How to Start and Market a Subscription Box Service

August 25, 2023December 17, 2015

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 coffee subscription box service.

148: 7 Houses at 27: Building a Real Estate Empire on the Side

November 6, 2021December 10, 2015

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 investment is not without risks and Elizabeth joked that I just have easily could have called the episode 27 and $1.1 million in debt.

147: Rob’s $30,000 Side Hustle: Flea Market Flipping

July 3, 2025December 3, 2015

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.

My First Pay What You Want Pricing Experiment: $692.27 in 4 Days

October 15, 2018November 30, 2015

In October, I wrote about how I built a membership site on the cheap. Today I want to share a little more about what was “behind” the membership wall and how I found my initial beta testers. I created a curriculum for a 30-day challenge to help people earn their first side hustle income. I … Read more

145: Amazon Ranking Secrets for Books and Physical Products from SEO Pro Dave Chesson

July 15, 2024November 19, 2015

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 it works for both books AND physical products (for all you FBA sellers out there).

Usually Hustling, Occasionally Social