Many freelancers in Side Hustle Nation eventually grow their business into an agency that no longer ties their time to their income. What that looks like in practice is often bringing in other team members to deliver the work.
The business ideas and case studies featured in these archives are generally a little “bigger” than a traditional freelance business, even if the actual work offered is the same.
What separates a service business from a freelance business is a matter of scale. No longer are your hours directly tied to your income, and you may not even be directly responsible for doing the work; that’s what your team is for.
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.”
As I reached my front door, too tired and uninspired to honour my previous arrangement to meet my friend for dinner, I decided that something had to change.
Sound familiar?
Fast forward six months and I had a service business running profitably, I was getting to the office at 7:30am to have client calls (for the side hustle) and then working at home until 11pm on marketing campaigns.
I’m excited to introduce you to John Rouda, an IT manager near Charlotte, North Carolina. He’s built a variety of non-job income streams on the side, while still working full time.
In fact, we recorded this session from his office at work!
John calls his side businesses for-profit hobbies, which I think is a great attitude to take. He has a handful of books on Amazon, dozens of apps in the app store, is a part-time professor, and runs a local IT/computer maintenance service business.
Tyler Zey turned his web development side hustle into a full-time business, but not without a few twists and turns along the way. Tyler’s actually a classically trained musician (clarinet), but now runs EasyAgentPro, one of the leading marketing services for real estate agents — despite having no background in real estate.
What he lacked in real estate knowledge he made up for with hustle.
A viable startup business in 7 days … sound to good to be true?
Dan Norris is the co-founder of WP Curve, a service that offers unlimited 24/7 WordPress support for small jobs for $79 per month. He went from idea to paying customers in less than 7 days.
Based on his experience, Dan penned the bestselling book The 7 Day Startup, and stopped by The Side Hustle Show to share some of his insights.
Cassandre went from $0 in side income on May 18th to a total of $2230 by July 30th.
While $2230 isn’t a remarkable amount of money, it’s helped her pay down a significant amount of student debt in a very short amount of time, starting with zero money invested and zero experience.
This is her story.
Dayne Shuda runs GhostBlogWriters.com, a done-for-you blogging service that commands premium prices, and oversees a team of 20 part-time writers to deliver the work for clients around the country.
But like most businesses, Ghost Blog Writers came from some pretty humble beginnings. In fact, Dayne started it as a side hustle with $0 upfront investment.
One of the biggest “side hustle trends” of the last few years is tapping into the growing “sharing economy” or peer-to-peer businesses. We’ve seen some fun examples related to platforms like Airbnb and Uber, and I believe tapping into these existing marketplaces can be a really fast way to begin earning job-free income. A few … Read more
Here’s a guy who built an online business, and had the courage to up and move to Cozumel, Mexico — with his wife and 3 young daughters.
It’s not your typical single-23-year-old-dude digital nomad type of story, though Sean’s business itself is simple enough to be replicated.
This is a fun chat about hustling for business and building a lifestyle on your own terms. I think you’re going to like it, even if you have no desire to move abroad.
So there I was in my entry-level job earning barely enough to cover car, gas, home, and all the necessary stuff, yet my friends were out 3 nights a week without me.
Frustrating.
My income just wasn’t good enough for my lifestyle.
I started coaching youth soccer, pulling from my playing experience (not coaching) from college, and I was getting a side-stream of income.