The Side Hustle Show

“Everyone is researching a product, I’m telling you to research a problem,” Chad told me.

Chad Rubin runs ThinkCrucial.com, a profitable e-commerce business that he’s built by selling products that solve a pain point for people. Every product follows a direct-to-consumer strategy that lets him source and sell in-demand products efficiently and inexpensively.

Chad’s story began when he was laid off from his job on Wall Street. He started helping out at his parent’s vacuum shop, selling some of their inventory online.

He came to the realization that the profit margins were being eaten up by intermediaries along the supply chain, so he decided to get closer to the manufacturers to make more profit per sale, while still selling at a competitive price.

His first products, starting with what he knew, were vacuum filters. Once he had the blueprint down for selling at a higher margin than his competitors, Chad started sourcing new products to expand his product line, and he has an interesting and unusual way of finding product ideas.

Tune in to hear Chad’s unique take on product research, what he calls the “anti-Amazon opportunity,” and some sneaky ways you can connect with expert manufacturers.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Direct to Consumer Product Research - How to Find Your Next Profitable Product

He'd just gained 3000 subscribers and made $8000 in a matter of days, but Chris Ritter's first virtual summit didn't deliver the result was looking for.

As a personal trainer for swimmers, he was looking for more clients to coach online.

Not a single one signed up.

Still, the summit was a serious turning point in his business--one that turned into a 6-figure side project in its first year. He started serving an entirely different set of customers, and went from working one-on-one to one-to-many.

His multi-year journey includes in-person personal training, seeking online clients, writing blog posts, selling an e-book, hosting a hit virtual summit, and more.

Listen in because you’ll pick up some tactics and ideas you can apply to your own side hustle as this is one that’s ripe for replication across different niches.

It’s a story about leveling up your reach and impact and income, and evidence that opportunities start to appear once you’re in motion.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: The 6-Figure Pivot: How Shifting Your Customer Can Dramatically Shift Your Results

There's a topic that no one really talks about in entrepreneurship or online business, and that's the unfair advantages someone had starting out.

Behind every killer case study, every income report, every "overnight" success, there's a backstory you don't always hear.

The truth is, no one ever really starts from scratch. We bring our own history, perspectives, and baggage to the table.

We also have the advantage of learning from everyone who's gone before us. Like Newton said, we "stand on the shoulders of giants."

In this episode, I'll share some unfair advantages that undoubtedly helped me, and offer up some you probably have working in your favor as well.

Full Show Notes: Unfair Advantages: How to Find Yours—and 10 of Mine

Kimberly Gauthier has been running KeepTheTailWagging.com since 2011, but things really started to take off when she niched down her focus to raw feeding for dogs.

Raw feeding is basically the paleo diet for dogs -- attempting to mimic their ancestral diet.

Her blog had than 2 million page views last year -- almost entirely from organic search in Google, and she’s monetized the traffic with a few different income streams.

Tune in to hear how Kimberly arrived at his niche, what drives content and marketing today, and how the business makes money -- all on the side from her day job.

Full Show Notes: The Raw Truth About Blogging - How a "Dog Mom" Built her Online Business on the Side

WTF man!?

Are you willing to fail!

Let that be your new mantra.

That's the rule Brian Scudamore -- the founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK -- lives by.

What started with a $1000 investment (Brian's life's savings at the time) has turned into a home services empire that does $1 million in sales on any given day.

Brian's come a long way since that beat-up pickup truck going door-to-door that first summer.

His portfolio now includes house painting, moving services, and home detailing--all under the umbrella of Ordinary 2 Exceptional Brands. He’s formulated some unique and effective ways to build teams of passionate employees that share his goals and has leveraged the franchise model to grow his businesses and revenue from $0 to $444 million and beyond.

Tune in to hear how Brian started the junk hauling business as a soon-to-be college student, his thoughts on marketing and hiring, and how you can apply nearly 30 years of his own successes and failures to your business.

Full Show Notes: The Junk Hauling Business: From $0 to $300 Million and Beyond

A few years ago, a side hustler named Brock McGoff reached out to me with a guest post pitch.

The post detailed how he was making, at that time, $4,000 a month, from his blog about men’s fashion, on the side from his day job.

Since then, Brock has turned TheModestMan.com into his full-time focus, into a 6-figure income, and into a media empire that expands well beyond the blog itself.

In this episode, Brock talks me through how he generates content ideas, how the business makes money, where he’s focusing his energy for the best results, and how he’s taken his site from a side hustle to a full-time business.

Don't have a website of your own yet? Check out my free video series on how to get up and running in no time.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: A Look Inside a 6-Figure Online Business: Traffic, Monetization, and More

Roberto Chavez started his raw land flipping side hustle a little over a year ago, and with persistence, has already built it into 5-figure of monthly revenue.

This is a business model that was first introduced to me by Mark Podolsky, from TheLandGeek.com, in episode 108 of The Side Hustle Show.

He called it "the best passive income model" because it avoids "the 3 T’s" of traditional real estate investing: tenants, toilets, and termites.

How the model works is you:

This is where the passive income comes in as you collect monthly payments for a period of 3-7 years, or whatever terms you agree on.

For example, buy a $10,000 parcel upfront for $2,500, and resell it for $199 a month for 5 years. In that scenario, your total payments collected would be almost $12,000, and you'd breakeven on your initial investment after about a year.

Where the persistence comes in, is the initial seller outreach. It’s very much a numbers game, as you’ll hear Roberto explain. I think that’s what separates those who have success in it from, those who don’t.

Tune in to learn how Roberto finds parcels to buy for 25 cents on the dollar, how he figures out how much to offer, the due diligence that goes into these deals, and how he re-sells them for profit.

Full Show Notes: Land Flipping Revisited: From Zero to $10,000 a Month on the Side

Note: Roberto is actually a student of Mark's. When I told Mark we were recording this episode, he offered his Land Investing Launch Kit (normally $97) free for Side Hustle Show listeners. I'm also an affiliate for his paid program; use code "sidehustle" for $500 off.

"Growth isn't the byproduct of success," Paul Jarvis told me. "Or at least it shouldn't be. The byproduct of success should be freedom."

Paul is a talented writer and designer who’s made a living--and a name for himself--by often taking the counterpoint to the conventional wisdom, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship and business growth.

His latest book, Company of One, caught my attention. It’s about why building a better business doesn’t necessarily mean building a bigger business.

In this episode Paul talks me through:

Full Show Notes: Get Better, Not Bigger: On Growth, Freedom, Online Marketing, and "Enough"

As we’ve mentioned, “scaling” a service business can be one of the biggest challenges with this business model. In fact, it’s a sticking point that keeps a lot of people away from freelancing altogether.

But if your goal is to get big or even to just avoid trading time for money your whole life, there are lots of ways to scale a service business.

If you'd like to learn more about starting a service business and connecting with your first clients, check out this in-depth interview with Abbey Ashley (Episode 328).

Abbey's claim to fame is she booked enough virtual assistant work during her maternity leave that she didn't have to back to that job she hated when her leave was up!

Abbey also put together this killer free training on how to launch and grow your freelance business.

In the meantime, here are the 7 Ways to Scale a Service Business from this episode:

Enjoy!