From hating photo booths to seeing an opportunity in the market and taking her photo booth side hustle to 6-figures in 18 months…

That’s the story of today’s guest, Cat Bloch.

Cat told me you would never “catch me dead” using a photo booth at a party.

That was until she came across a modern photo booth, and it completely changed how she looked at this popular wedding venue and Gala attraction.

Cat saw a gap in the market for an upmarket, modern, photo booth. Something that does much more than you’d expect from a photo booth, such as being used for corporate branding, immersive virtual experiences, and more.

Starting with one photo booth out of her front closet, Cat and MDRN Photobooth Company now operate 20 photo booths in multiple cities all across Canada.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

Full Show Notes and PDF Bonus: 6 Figures in 18 Months: Building a Photo Booth Rental Business

Can you really make money flipping phones?

To find out, I sat down with pro cell phone flipper Jeff Duhon from the Smart Flippers Facebook group. In a typical week, Jeff resells 20-30 used iPhones with a target profit of $100 per flip.

If you did half that volume, you could be earning $1000 a week.

Flipping phones for profit can be a lucrative side hustle or grow into a full-time income stream, but, like any business, there are some pros and cons.

The used cell phone industry is already huge, and growing bigger all the time. Estimates project the global market for secondhand phones to be worth between $39 and $52 billion by 2025.

Here's how to carve out your piece of that massive pie.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

After all, being able to go out into the world and find profit is a skill to recession-proof your life.

Full Show Notes and PDF Bonus: $1K/Week: How to Flip Phones for Profit

Struggling to come up with a side hustle or business idea?

To help get the creative idea juices flowing, I’ve invited Joel Hansen, a member of the founding team of Kern.al on the show.

Kern.al is kind of like Reddit or Product Hunt, but for business ideas that don’t exist yet.

Just a few minutes on the site definitely sparked some creativity for me so I encourage you to check it out.

In this episode, Joel and I bounce some different business ideas back and forth that are free for you to run with and should be enough to get the cogs turning on your own ideas.

Tune in to this episode of The Side Hustle Show to hear 16 business ideas that are free for the taking, including:

Full Show Notes: 16 Business Ideas You're Free to Run With: The Business Idea Giveaway Show

Like it or not, we’re all marketers.

Whether we’re selling ourselves in a job interview, pitching our product or service, or trying to get people to pay attention to our content — we’re all marketers.

And you should know this is one of my all-time favorite topics.

So, how do we solve the awareness problem?

How do we position ourselves so the right people can find us — and the wrong ones leave us alone?

To spark some inspiration and maybe breathe new life into your own marketing efforts, I asked members of Side Hustle Nation to share what’s working for them right now.

Tune in to this episode of The Side Hustle Show to hear 16 of the best marketing wins and tips, including:

Full Show Notes: 16 Marketing Ideas from Side Hustle Nation to Grow Your Business

At the end of nearly every episode of The Side Hustle Show, I ask my guests for their “#1 tip for Side Hustle Nation.”

There’s always a great variety of responses, and I wanted to take some time today to go through some of my favorites from the past 50-ish interviews.

This has become an annual tradition on the show, which is now almost 8.5 years old and recently passed 17 million lifetime downloads.

If you like this short-and-sweet meta-style show, be sure to check out the others in this series:

Full Show Notes: What I’ve Learned and Applied from 49 Awesome Entrepreneurs Part 8 

Where there’s pain, there might also be profit…

That was the case for today’s guest, Pete Mockaitis. Pete was seeing some traction with his podcast, the HowToBeAwesomeAtYourJob Podcast, but was struggling to keep up all the off-air tasks — the show notes, the editing, the social media.

For Pete Mockaitis, that pain turned into AwesomePros.co, a niche drop-servicing company that he co-founded with Brian Kearny and is now doing $10k a month in recurring revenue.

This is something that will work in just about any niche where you can outsource tasks remotely, and in this episode, Pete and Brian break down exactly how they grew their business.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

• how Pete and Brian took this from an in-house solution to a $10k/mo business
• the tactics they’ve used to grow their client roster
• how you can figure out niche and pricing if you want to replicate this in another vertical

Full Show Notes: Online Drop Servicing - Building a $10k/mo Niche Productized Service Agency

One challenge that most new businesses face is the awareness problem – nobody knows you exist.

To help erase this problem, I’ve invited Dustin Lien from JumpXmarketing.com back on the show.

Dustin first appeared on episode 251 back in 2017. Back then, he was just ramping up JumpX after shutting down his own physical product business.

Since then he’s grown it into a 6-figure operation and built it in such a way that it only requires part-time attention.

What’s been his key driver?

Partner workshops, which are essentially virtual lunch-and-learn sessions where he can showcase his expertise and build his client roster without ads or bidding for work.

This works in just about any niche and in this episode, Dustin breaks down his exact process so you can go out and apply it in your own business.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

Full Show Notes: 6-Figure Growth Hack: Partner Workshops

Ever thought about turning your expertise in an everyday subject or topic into an online business?

For Delilah Orpi, her expertise was on taking care of her curly hair — and starting as a side hustle, she turned that into an online business earning around $8k a month at HolisticEnchilada.com.

Delilah has some interesting strategies she used to grow her audience, build her email list, diversify her multiple income streams -- all of which can be applied to a topic of your choosing.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

Full Show Notes: The $8k a Month Curly Hair Blog

There are tons of ways to make money online — the root of all of them comes down to helping people.

Two common ways entrepreneurs help a wide audience is by packaging up their knowledge and experience into an online training course or a membership program/community.

But which model makes the most sense for your business?

To find out, it’s time for another Side Hustle Showdown.

For the debate, I’ve invited back two Side Hustle Show favorites:

Tune in the week to learn:

• how Jacques and Shane approach creating content for their businesses
• the differences in business models between memberships and courses
• the time commitment involved for both business models
• tips for pricing and increasing conversions
• and more

Full Show Notes: Memberships vs. Online Courses: Which Business Model is Right for You?

We’ve been on a bit of an audience building kick lately in our conversations with Dickie Bush about Twitter, with Tori Dunlap about TikTok.

Today you’ll meet a long-time listener of the show who built her audience on Facebook.

Chantal Lavergne is the founder of FunSensoryPlay.com, which started as a Facebook page in early 2020 — and that’s important because that’s years after the supposed death of organic Facebook page reach.

Since then she’s grown the page to nearly 80,000 followers using some specific and proven engagement strategies, and turned that following into a business with multiple revenue streams.

Tune in to The Side Hustle Show interview to learn:

Full Show Notes and PDF Bonus: Zero to 50,000 Followers in 12 Months: How to Build and Monetize an Audience on Facebook