Too Many Side Hustle Ideas? Here are 10 Questions to Help You Choose Your Best Option


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Half the people I talk to are still looking for a side hustle idea. The other half have too many to choose from.

If you fall in the second camp, how do you pick which to work on? How do you prioritize your limited time for the maximum impact and result?

A reader (who wished to remain anonymous) sent his decision formula recently, and I really liked it.

Here’s how he put it:

“My partner and I keep a running list of potential business ideas, we then baseball score them (single, double, triple, home run) on several criteria.”

For the sake of this exercise, I’ll assign a number score 1-4 for each of those hits, with 4 or home run being the best.

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1. How Excited Are You About the Idea?

Motivation is temporary!

If you’re not excited about the idea, how likely are you to give it the effort necessary to achieve liftoff?

Rate your side hustle ideas or options 1-4 on how exciting they are to you, with 4 being the best.

Maybe the niche email newsletter is a 2, vending machines are a 3, the YouTube channel is a 4, and the freelance service is a 2.

2. Is There a Clear Path to Your First Customers or Sales?

Do you already know your potential customers?

Are people already asking you for this service?

Or is there a more murky path on how you’ll actually monetize?

In this case, the freelance service might be a 4, and the niche newsletter might be a 1.

3. How Much Time Will it Realistically Take to Get Off the Ground?

Speed can be a weapon, and making meaningful progress creates a positive feedback loop that helps you keep going.

In the case of my shoe shopping site, it took months of development before we even had a semi-functional version of the site I could begin to market.

Is there a quick-and-dirty version of your product or service you could launch quickly? Is there a way to presell something?

4. How Much Capital Will it Realistically Take?

This is the startup cost question.

Of your side hustle ideas, which are the most inexpensive to launch? Those would score a 4.

But this is only part of the equation — just because something has higher startup costs doesn’t mean it should automatically be eliminated from consideration.

5. What’s the Revenue Potential?

If the business works reasonably well, how much could you be making in 3-5 years?

We tend to focus on the downside risks — and it is important to minimize those — but what if it works?

Would that be a win for you?

If you’re not playing for a big win, my fear is your motivation will run out before you get there.

6. How Easy is it to Operate?

Is the business operationally simple or complex?

How many steps are there in your sales funnel?

A simple solo freelance service would probably score a 4. An e-commerce business with physical inventory maybe a 1 or 2.

7. How Easy is to Automate or Delegate?

It’s probably never as easy as you think, but is the model you’re considering ripe for automation or delegation?

For example, a service business like power washing could be delegated (but not automated).

A digital product business can by highly automated.

8. How Easy is it to Scale?

When I think about scale, I think about the ease of adding an additional customer.

For example, if I have a YouTube channel or a podcast or an email newsletter, those are extremely easy to scale. It costs zero or almost zero to add that incremental viewer / listener / subscriber, and your production costs are the same.

It costs the same to produce an episode that 10 people listen to or 10,000 people listen to.

9. How Easy is to Stop Operations if it’s Not Working?

This is the shut down question. 

If you need to quit, how easy is it to pull the plug?

For a website, you can just stop updating and cancel your hosting and it’s done.

For a physical product business, you might have inventory to liquidate or warranties you need to honor.

In this case, a score of 4 would be the simplest business to shut down.

10. Is the Business Something I Could Sell Down the Road?

You’re probably not starting a side hustle with the intention of selling it, but it’s an important question to consider.

If a business sells for 2-5x annual earnings, it could be a substantial wealth-building event.

And operating it as a sellable asset will probably make you a better business owner as well.

Using the Side Hustle Selector

Now here’s the fun part.

When you total up the scores for each idea, the Side Hustle Selector will give you a clear, mathematical winner.

You can’t argue with math, right?

side hustle selector matrix

To personalize this exercise, you can add in your own questions, or remove ones you don’t care about. 

And here’s the thing: if the one you wanted to win didn’t come out on top, that’s a great gut reaction to go start that one instead!

Again, you can download a blank version of the matrix here: 

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Your Turn

The most important thing is to start something.

Picking what’s next doesn’t mean picking what’s forever and you’ll find the best opportunities are only visible once you’re in motion.

Have you used a similar decision matrix to help choose between business ideas? Any other questions or criteria you’d add? Let me know in the comments below!

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Nick Loper

About the Author

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, The Financial Times, Bankrate, Hubspot, Ahrefs, Shopify, Investopedia, VICE, Vox, Mashable, ChooseFI, Bigger Pockets, The Penny Hoarder, GoBankingRates, and more.

12 thoughts on “Too Many Side Hustle Ideas? Here are 10 Questions to Help You Choose Your Best Option”

  1. Awesome article Nick! Some people have chronic lack of ideas, some seem to have the opposite. But both can be just as paralysing.

    I think also having a “personal enjoyment” rating, because I found with my own side hustles there were certain activities that would get very boring very quick (e.g. promotion on pinterest, data entry etc.) Maybe consider previous work experience and think about what kind of activities you enjoyed to give you a rough idea. Although on a side note, those activities could later be outsourced so that’s where all the other ratings would come into play.

    Reply
  2. With the awesome power of the internet, it’s always a good feeling to know the side hustle is here to stay. It gives hope to aspiring people seeking to go from employee to entrepreneur and take control of their lives financially.

    Reply
  3. I like asking people “Why do you care about this?” followed by “What do you really want to do?” It seems to always get people to refocus their energy (and time) on what’s most important to them.

    Reply
  4. I have always wondered about this but I feel like too many people don’t act. Having a nice little roadmap is fine but action is what works.

    Not to mention, this is all self based which means certain things are more or less “guesses” until you do.

    Good post.

    Reply
  5. Patrick,

    What you just said is very true about people knowing and not acting on the side hustle opportunity. The real reason why people don’t act on the side hustle opportunity is because they’ve become complacent in their cushy jobs. Downright lazy!People get so comfortable that they don’t want to make changes nor get out of their comfort zone.

    And then they have the nerve to complain about financial problems when situations arise concerning money. I’m like this. As long as it’s legitimate and requires me to make healthy entrepreneurial changes in order to capitalize from the side hustle business opportunity, I’m game for doing what’s needed to make good things happen in business. Are you getting what I’m trying to tell you and others? :-)

    Reply
  6. While some of it is true with the above statements, a lot of people do not start businesses because the lack of support. (i.e spouse) and that causes strife within the relationship. if some spouses would support their significant other, you will be amazed of how much confident he or she will have in making their side hustle work.

    Reply
  7. Article is great, thanks for your ideas
    and I tthink you are missing the most important question ;)

    From my experience the first question to start with is to figure out WHAT IS THE END goal of that particular side hustle idea/project

    I mean thee are million possible answers: just to test, just to earn “first” capital, to go from zero to hero etc and so on. That answer was hugely important for me because it helped to clarify the goals and strategies and TIME I’m willing to invest for that

    Thanks again and hope my 2 cents make sense)

    Reply
  8. We chose drop shipping and my wife has been able to grow our ecommerce stores to over 7 figures in revenues and 5 figures in monthly profit all while working around our kids activities. She manages a remote team and the vast bulk of our sales come while we’re asleep.

    All this is to say, it can be done! Great stuff Nick!

    Reply
  9. When I early retired I was already FI so earning money was a secondary consideration. I only wanted to work a couple of days a week or maybe two days spreadout over three or four actual days. I did know me enough to know that if I didn’t make at least $100 per hour then I’d lose interest. I ended up with five side gigs that total about 16-20 hours a week and pay from $100 to $250 per hour that are based on my skill set which is fairly unique. It doesn’t scale at all since there is just one me and I don’t try to market because I don’t want to work more than I already am but it is fun and keeps my withdrawal rate at zero. I know it is outside your target demographic but for slightly early retired guys who can craft a consulting gig that focuses on things they like and find mentally challenging I think what I’m doing is perfect. It is way inferior to what you are teaching because it has an earning ceiling but it is OK for people who aren’t looking to make their fortune because they already have more than enough.

    Reply
  10. I like to give a weighting to each factor when making a decision, so that the score can be a true reflection of what is important to me!

    Reply

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