The Side Hustle Show

What's the story of your first job-free income?

To celebrate the 4-year anniversary of The Side Hustle Show, the Side Hustle Nation community joined me in creating a really fun episode.

I asked people to tell me how they first started making money on the side, and got 25 different voicemails!

In this episode, you'll hear first-hand the steps your fellow listeners took to put themselves back in the driver seat of their own financial well-being. And no matter how you shake it, that first sale is a powerful one.

Full Show Notes: How 25 Side Hustlers Made Their First Entrepreneurial Income

Steve P. Young is a side hustler turned full-time entrepreneur. He has hosted more than 500 episodes of the AppMasters podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping app makers get more downloads and sales of their apps.

Steve was working full-time when he decided to start his podcast interviewing app developers and putting out content for the app community.

Using lunch breaks, early morning, and late nights, Steve found the time to put out two episodes a week and start building up authority and an audience in the app space.

Within four months he had his first consulting client, and within seven months he was handing in his notice at his day job as AppMasters became his full-time business.

Tune in to find out how Steve built up several income streams around his podcast:

You'll hear the hacks he used to grow his audience in a short time period, and how interviewing influential people in the app space helped double sales on his own apps.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How a Part-Time Podcast Turned into Multiple Streams of Income

Kamila Gornia is the “Blow Up, Scale Up” Marketing Strategist who helps entrepreneurs blow up and scale up their businesses to become true leaders online.

And often that means helping them reach a broader audience on Facebook.

If you’re a freelancer or blogger, Facebook Ads could be a way to grow your business faster. With the social network closing in on 2 billion active users, no matter what you're selling or where you're selling it, odds are your target customer is on Facebook.

Whether you’re new to Facebook and setting up a business page from scratch, or you’ve run ads before, Kamila shares tips and advice to help you turn your ad campaigns into a positive ROI.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Facebook Ads 101 for Freelancers and Bloggers

Don't you just love a good outsmarting the casino story? Bring me an Ocean’s Eleven, bring me a Bringing Down the House -- I’m all about it.

Colin Jones is a professional card counter whose blackjack teams won almost $4 million, and he earned over $500k himself.

Now a father of 6, Colin's playing days are mostly over, but he's turned his unique skill into a profitable online business at BlackjackApprenticeship.com.

Did you catch the Holy Rollers documentary about the Christian card counters? Yeah, it was about Colin and his team.

When we met at a Side Hustle Nation meetup in Seattle over the holidays, Colin explained that card counting -- though glamorized by Hollywood -- is "a hard way to make easy money." He also pointed out that the math involved is elementary-school level, and done right, it really can be seen as an investment and not a gamble.

Today, his Blackjack Apprenticeship site has more than 500 members and in this episode, you'll hear how he's grown this business, how he's priced his different offerings, and how he keeps customers sticking around for more.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How a Professional Card Counter Beat the Odds in Online Business

Scott Voelker is the host of the super popular Amazing Seller podcast, where he’s recorded more than 300 episodes about the Amazon FBA business model.

He's a family man and a serial hustler, having been involved with a number of businesses ranging from construction to photography to ecommerce.

His latest project is the 1k FastTrack Challenge, where he takes a group of students through the paces of making their first $1000 selling online.

One of the biggest challenges people struggle to overcome is deciding on, or even finding a side hustle they can start and take those important first steps.

In this episode of The Side Hustle Show, Scott takes you through the 5-steps he uses when guiding his students to earning their first $500 online in just 7 days.

He also shares some powerful words of motivation and some success stories he’s been part of, helping you to see just how easy it really is when you follow these 5 simple steps.

"You’re probably sitting on a few hundred, if not thousands of dollars in your possession right now that you’re not even aware of," Scott explained.

Tune in to find out exactly what Scott is talking about, and how you can start your own challenge today to earn $500 in the next 7 days. No investment needed, no prior experience selling online, just the motivation and willingness to stick to a deadline.

Sound good? Join the free SH Nation Facebook group and look for the #7daychallenge thread to post about your results.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: Earn Your First $500 on the Side in the Next 7 Days - No More Excuses!

Dr. Kenyon Meadows MD is a practicing Radiation Oncologist by day, but by nights and weekends he’s a self-proclaimed alternative investment enthusiast.

His new book is called Alternative Financial Medicine: High-Yield Investments in a Low-Yield World, and you can find out more about Dr. Meadows and his adventures outside the world of traditional stocks and bonds at AlternativeFinancialMedicine.com.

In this episode of The Side Hustle Show, Dr. Meadows and I dive into three different areas of alternative investments:

1. Turnkey Rental Properties
2. Real Estate Private Lending
3. Business Lending

Dr. Meadows explains why turnkey rental properties are a becoming a popular investment vehicle right now, and a couple platforms and markets to consider. He shares how he evaluates the numbers on each deal (he now owns 7 turnkey properties) and what search criteria he uses.

(Am I the only one who can't read "turnkey" with thinking "turkey"??)

He also explains why real estate private lending is perhaps less risky than peer-to-peer lending, the sites he uses to find opportunities, and how you can get a 10-14% return on 6-18 month loans.

Business lending has also been a profitable alternative investment for Dr. Meadows, netting him an average yield of 14.5% over the last 2 years on one platform. He shares the sites he uses to find investment opportunities along with tips to help you find lower risk investment opportunities.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: High-Yield Investments in a Low-Yield World

Derek Murphy's book portfolio is bringing in $5k a month. He's is a world traveler, book cover design extraordinaire, and the author of a dozen different books, mainly in the young adult fantasy genre.

A lot of the self-publishing content and interviews on the Side Hustle Show has been related to non-fiction books, and to me, it's a more straightforward process: help someone solve a problem.

Fiction is a bit of a different animal, and something Derek covers in detail over on his site at CreativIndie.com.

Derek started out editing books and designing book covers while completing his Masters and PhD in literature. Having an interest in reading fiction and wanting to get away from client work, Derek started writing fiction books.

He explained there's a lot more demand for fiction than non-fiction, and because of that it can be easier to make more money.

It’s not as competitive as you may think either. Although there are literally millions of fiction books available, when you cut through to the books that are being marketed and targeted to the right audience, Derek says it’s not that difficult.

Tune in to hear how Derek starts by finding keywords and researching what the readers want based on what's already selling, then testing the market for demand before committing to a series of books.

He also shares the methods he used to grow an email list of more than 32,000 as well as advice on how to launch a book with an email list of zero.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: $5k a Month as a Self-Published Author - in Fiction

Jacques Hopkins is a former full-time engineer who turned his passion for playing piano from a side hustle into a full-time business at the end of 2015.

With more time and energy to devote to Pianoin21Days.com, the business continued to reach new heights.

It was after reading the entrepreneurial handbook that’s inspired a generation to start side hustles – The 4-Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss – that Jacques knew he wanted to start "something on the side that could make money."

That was back in 2007, and after several failed ventures, each of which has played a part in getting him to where he is now, Jacques is crushing it with his YouTube videos, ebook sales, and online course.

Tune in to hear how Jacques realized there was a market for teaching “regular people learn to play modern songs on the piano in as little time as possible.”

You'll hear how he used YouTube to generate lots of free traffic and build his email list, how he doubled his conversions by picking up the phone and talking to potential customers, and how he now lives the lifestyle wants and spends his time promoting the business.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: How to Turn Your Hobby into an Online Business

Chad Carson is a 30-something semi-retired real estate mogul, who together with his business partner, oversees a portfolio of 90+ rental units.

In fact, he and his wife are in the middle of an exciting adventure — a year abroad in Ecuador with their two daughters.

But of course he didn’t start there. Fresh off the football field at Clemson, Chad’s real estate career started more modestly by “bird dogging” and house hacking — two of the tactics he shares in this week’s show.

You can learn more about Chad and his real estate business at CoachCarson.com, where he writes about using real estate investing to retire early and do what matters.

In this episode, Chad walks me through 5 real estate side hustles you can start on the cheap. Tune in to hear:

Chad proves that you that you don’t need a large down payment to get started in real estate. You can even learn “how to do one of the more important parts of the rental business on someone else’s dime” if you’re smart about it.

This episode is packed with actionable advice to help get you started with a side hustle in the real estate market, as well as some long-term options to set you on the path to building long-term wealth.

Full Show Notes and PDF Highlight Reel: 5 Real Estate Side Hustles You Can Start on the Cheap

Dan Meadors is one-half of TheWholesaleFormula.com. He and his partner Eric Lambert began selling on Amazon as a hobby with an original investment of only $600.

They would work nights and weekends buying products on clearance at local retail stores and selling them on Amazon for profit.

It took only a few months before they saw the potential to turn this hobby into a business and they both left their day jobs to sell on Amazon full-time. Since then they have been able to generate over $13,000,000 in total sales on Amazon.

Most of Side Hustle Nation will be familiar with the Amazon FBA program, but Dan's strategy is a bit different from the retail arbitrage and private label strategies we've covered in the past.

In Dan's case, he's buying inventory at wholesale prices from a brand or manufacturer, instead of trolling the clearance section at Walmart or having a product built specifically for him by a manufacturer. Then, like the other Amazon FBA business models, it's on him to list and sell it through Amazon.

In this episode, Dan talks me through everything you need to know to get started with wholesaling on Amazon, including how to target potential products and brands to sell, and how to reach out to them in a helpful way.

Full Show Notes and Full Highlight Reel: Wholesale on Amazon: From Part-Time Hobby to $13 Million in Amazon FBA Sales