November 05, 2019

How to Find the Right Side Hustle | Nick Loper from Side Hustle Nation

46 minutes

In today’s episode, you’ll hear from the side hustle king Nick Loper from Side Hustle Nation.

Nick got an eye-opening opportunity in college and knew he had to be his own boss.

He would eventually work three years in the corporate world. During that time he was building his side hustle.

It was quickly covering his expenses and he never looked back.

Listen and learn all about side hustles and let us know what you think.

Episode Summary

He started paying attention to money when he started realizing how expensive things were

Things such as renting a tux for prom

His parents didn’t let on that they had the money that they didn’t

It wasn’t that they were rich but they did well

His first memorable job was through a program called College Works

They pitch entrepreneurship, sales, and customer service

You don’t know what the job is until the pitch is over

It turned out to be house painting

They gave him an area of responsibility and taught him several skills

He was in charge of hiring, firing and solving customer issues

They warned Nick that he may never be able to work for someone after this experience

Nick mentioned how important this experience was to applying his education

He would go on to work for three years in corporate America

Nick’s 1st Side Hustle

Nick built his first side hustle at 22

It was a comparison shopping tools for footwear

Every day he’d come home and work on the side hustle from 7-10pm

At his normal job Nick was making ~$50k per year

Before long the shoe site began earning enough to cover his expenses

At this point, Nick was ready to take the side hustle full time

What really flipped the switch for Nick was a quote from a conference

It was “Work on your business, not in your business”

Nick took this to focus on growing the business and less of the day to day grunt work

That lead to the next side hustle which was a yelp type site for finding a virtual assistant

Choosing Your Side Hustle

Nick recommends finding two areas you’re in the top 50% in

Then find a way that those two things intersect

He also suggests trying out things to experiment

You’ll often find your true golden idea once you get started on a project

If you begin to dread the work, it may be time to stop working on that side hustle

Tiers of Side hustles

Nick says side hustle fall into three categories: Service, Product, Audience

For Services, Nick really recommends branding fragmented services

He gives the example of building a maid service that has great customer service and ease of booking

For Product he recommends a “buy low, sell high” model like print on demand shirts

Then for an audience, you can sell clicks to ads or affiliate links

Also once the audience gets large enough you can sell something like an ebook or course

Key Takeaways

Expertise not required: Nick’s first side hustle was comparing shoes and Nick knew very little about shoes

Be better, not necessarily different: It’s more important to provide a great experience than something that’s never been done

Think in scale: When building a side hustle focus your energy on how it will scale. Remember work on the business not for the business

Call to Action

Go check out Nick’s giant list of Side Hustles and find a few today

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Learn more about Nick

Via his blog at Side Hustle Nation

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By Cody Berman and Justin Taylor

4.8

296296 ratings