Six-week countdown from launching my drop ship side hustle

In my quest that in five years or less, I want to be my own boss, earn at least what I making now at a corporate job, work less and have more fun, I decided to give myself a birthday gift six months ago of buying a course to do drop shipping.  Read about that here- https://thesidehustlejourney.wordpress.com/2zmf

Almost two months ago, I wrote about my experience ~½ way through the course here- https://thesidehustlejourney.wordpress.com/z9m2

I think I am about six weeks away from launching my drop ship side hustle so I thought it was time for another update. I saw in my first blog about this venture (above) that I had hoped to be up in running by the end of August. It’s now late September and I’m shooting for an early November launch. I am trying not to be discouraged by the delay but just accept it that it takes longer to do things sometimes than you think it will and I want to do it right. Oh, also, it’s 2020 so we should all give each other a break as sometimes just getting out of bed in the morning this year is an accomplishment. 

When I left off my on last blog, I had just completed my “fake” website at www.homeofficewellness.com. It was time to start looking for suppliers because, if I don’t have any products to sell, I don’t have a business. As I have mentioned in prior blogs, I am following a course by Anton Kraly called Drop Ship Lifestyle.

Anton says that there are three levels of suppliers: Gold, Silver, and Bronze. He defines them as the following:

• Bronze (don’t go with them)
  • Will accept everyone who applies
  • Do not enforce MAP (minimum advertised price)
  • Bad customer service (more about making money from being a middle man)
  • Charge for access to products (middleman)
• Silver (they are good- they will make up most of your business)
  • Don’t sell directly to the public 
  • Review all of potential retailers (they will check out your website- he suggested a phone call with them)
  • Enforce MAP policy (if you break it, they will turn you off)
  • Good/great customer service 
• Gold (probably won’t approve you from day 1)
  • Don’t sell directly to the public 
  • Work with a small number of select retails (5-10)
  • Enforce MAP policy
  • Excellent customer service (may have a dedicated rep)
  • Refer business to their retailers

Back in June, one of the modules in the course required research on suppliers for your market so I already had a list. Anton says that you need to find a niche with at least 20 suppliers and the goal is to sign up five. The treadmill desk niche has about 11 suppliers so I decided to “niche up” by going up a level.  This means that I have decided to expand my product line from just treadmill desks to bike desks, treadmills, exercise bikes, stand up desks and treadmill bases.  By nicheing up, I added another 17 potential suppliers to my list.

Since early August (about seven weeks ago), I have stopped listening to the course because I have been trying to secure suppliers. Anton said that you should pause the course until you have five suppliers. This is part of the reason that I am pushing back my launch. I only have ~1 hour a week before or after work to call them or weekends to email them so it’s a slow process and most attempts result in leaving messages or sending an email. 

Anton gives lessons on how to make the calls and gives you a whole script to use. I’ve been in sales my whole life and even I was a little nervous about contacting the suppliers. I realized that in my job I am always working for someone else but now I’m starting my own company and it’s personal so it makes it a little scarier. 

I always try to call instead of email because, even though emailing is easier, calling is more personal and shows that you will make the effort to talk to someone in person. I shortened the script for initial calls to be, “Hi. My name is Julie Hickey, and I’m with http://www.homeofficewellness.com and I want to be an online retailer for your company, can you let me know the steps to get approved for a wholesale account?” 

The person who answers the phone will usually get you to someone in their reseller program if they are a big company or the owner or someone in sales if it’s a smaller company. When I get the next person on the line, I use the same script to start out and then listen to what they say.  You can usually tell in the first few minutes if they are interested in your company and want to talk more. If they are not interested or ask you to try again when you are more established, try to get the person’s full name and address and send them an email follow up as you never know if they will change their mind. 

When I did my calls (over the last nine weeks because time was limited), I found one supplier was out of business, two said on the voicemail that they are not answering the phones and you must email them, one I talked to said they were no longer accepting reseller applications, another said I should contact them after I have been up and running for at least six months and ~five more I left several messages, filled out a reseller page on their website and/or emailed with no luck. I have one company who is considering me and the sales manager said he’ll bring me up at the next sales meeting. 

There is some good news in all of this. The supplier that we actually own a treadmill desk from (and bought it ~seven years ago) will take me on as soon as I get my state reseller number.  Another supplier hadn’t gotten back in touch with me and then I noticed my cousin in Utah posted something on Facebook about introducing a new product from this company. I messaged her and it turns out she works there. I told her I had not been able to get anyone to call me back and she put me in touch with their sales director, we had a great call and he is going to sign me up. Even though that’s only two confirmed suppliers and Anton suggests five, I am going to keep moving forward and start back on the courses. 

I got a little derailed this week when I saw a company called The Hot Yoga Dome is selling inflatable hot yoga domes, which I thought was brilliant and could fall under a “home office wellness” category. I spoke to the owner. He is really nice and said the company is growing like gangbusters. They are not really looking for resellers and I’d have to buy 30 up front at a 15% and hold the inventory and ship them myself (at $1,000/each- ouch). That isn’t in line with my model but he said he can create an affiliate link where I can post it on my site and it gives my customers a $25 discount and I get $50 per sale. Not a huge money maker but I think it’s an interesting product so I may put a link on my site. I had a little fun with that but now I need to get back on track and focus on my core business.

One of the suppliers who is going to send me up asked about my reseller certificate so I had to research it. I put a note on the private Drop Ship Lifestyle Facebook page (which you get access to when you buy the course) and several folks said they use Tax Jar to help figure out the tax issues (it costs $20/month). I went on their website and scheduled an appointment  I had a call with Lindsay from Tax Jar and here is what she said I need to charges taxes and can do that on Shopify. She asked about my Nexxus and I didn’t know what that meant.

She explained what Nexxus is:

1. Your physical Nexxus- where you are & where any location where the product is stored- if you own the business- I am required to collect taxes only in California even though I will work with suppliers in other states.

2. Your economic Nexxus- the volume of sales in a giving state in a 12 month period (states do the 12 months in different ways).

She said TaxJar can help customers with the e-commerce piece of sales and make taxes easier. They integrate with Shopify, which is a plus for me, and they can automatically file in the states that I have nexus- called autofile 

I only need to register in California and then they track all states and let me know when I need to register- usually at $100k or more (but could be transactions). They don’t help with resell certificate- I need to go to California and work with them. I signed up here- https://app.taxjar.com/sign_up

For the reseller certificate, I have to work with my state (California on that). This has proven to be a bit of a pain and I started the process three weeks ago and haven’t resolved it yet.

When trying to apply for my California reseller certificate, I tried to fill out the application at 

cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/cdtfa230.pdf, it asked me for my sellers permit number. I had to apply for my sellers permit number at cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/faqseller.htm with The Ordinary Mom LLC. It said I should get security code in 10 business days in the mail to log in to check the status. That was three weeks ago and I haven’t gotten it in the mail. I need to spend some time and try to figure it out as I’m stuck with my suppliers until I can get the California reseller certificate. 

I hope hearing about my journey helps you think about your own side hustle journey. I still hope to launch in ~six weeks so I’ll keep plugging along and do another blog when I have more information. Thanks for joining me on this journey,

Updates from 1/2 way through my dropping shipping course for my new side hustle.

As I talked about in my last post, for my birthday in May I bought myself a present- a course to learn how to start a drop shipping business (see my post at https://thesidehustlejourney.wordpress.com/2zmf). 

I had published a blog back in January talking about how I was thinking about drop shipping as a possible side hustle and in May I decided to go with Anton Kraly’s Drop Ship Lifestyle course (see more information at www.dropshiplifestyle.com (see this post at https://thesidehustlejourney.wordpress.com/jdlt)

Starting in mid-May, I now get up 45 minutes earlier on weekday mornings to take the drop shipping course.  Luckily, since I’m not traveling for work due to Coronavirus (although the fact that we have Coronvirus/COVID is not lucky) and my kids don’t have to get up early for anything, I can wake up 45 minutes early and it’s not the crack of dawn. I feel like the pace that I am taking the class is that I’m a tortoise that may or may not win the race but I am slowing but surely making my way through the class and I just need to stay consistent and focused. 

Anton is very thoughtful and methodical about the course and I appreciate that.  One of the first lessons was on ethics and he states clearly that he won’t have unethical people be part of his community. Way to go.  He also gives some basic business lessons.  While most of this was a review for me, it’s always good to get a reminder on how profit margins are calculated and what you’ll have to make on each sale to be profitable.  

He spent nine videos on niche selection.  Although a video might just be 15 minutes, with the homework that is involved in niche selection, it might take you an hour (or more) to complete a video.  He made start with 50 possible niches (I ended up coming up with over 100) and then funneling them down to just a few by going through a series of questions about them to make sure they will be profitable businesses.  I went in hoping that treadmill desks would make the cut and, although I was open to other things and had a long list to start with, I did end up deciding to move forward with selling treadmill desks.  I spent almost two weeks on niche selection and made sure I followed his process as this is the most important step- deciding what to sell. 

I spent another few weeks on market research.  It was important to see what demand is out there and what my future competitors are doing.  There doesn’t seem to be too many competitors in the treadmill desk market so I’m hopeful about that.

The next ~month was spent on building my website. Anton’s sister, Laura Kraly, who is a web designer did a great job with this.  The website platform they use is Shopify and I had created two websites (and paid a designer for another) in Word Press so Shopify was new to me.  It is easy to use and I think it does make sense for an e-commerce site.  

I just completed my fake website so check it out at www.homeofficewellness.com.  Email me at julie@theordinarymom.com if you have any thoughts or feedback.  Once I sign up with suppliers, I’ll put real pictures and products on the site but their philosophy is that you need to have something to show potential suppliers, which I agree with. 

I’m now working on the modules about getting suppliers.  I haven’t reached out to any yet but that is the next step.  I’m a little nervous that none will get back to me or sign me on but that’s a risk I have to take.  If I had to pivot and pick a new niche, I wouldn’t have to go back square one but it would be disappointing and time-consuming.  Wish me luck.  I’ll update you soon as to my progress and, hopefully, I form relationships with multiple suppliers and I can kick off my drop shipping business soon.

I’m diving into drop shipping as a side hustle

I had a birthday last month and I bought myself a present- a course to learn how to start a drop shipping business.

I had published a blog back in January talking about how I was thinking about drop shipping as a possible side hustle and I was looking into some courses (see my blog at https://thesidehustlejourney.wordpress.com/jdlt). After researching options, I decided that I would go with Anton Kraly’s Drop Ship LIfestyle course (see more information at https://www.dropshiplifestyle.com/).

I had listened to a free webinar about the Drop Ship Lifestyle course in January, which was a quick teaser about it. At the end, Anton offered a discount for those who signed up right away.  He said the value is $10,000 but if you sign up the day of the webinar, you’ll get it for $1,495. I know this sales tactic of “act now or lose it” but I thought it sounded like a fair value at $1,495 if it does what he says it does, which is teaches you how to create a profitable drop shipping business. When I listened to the free webinar in January, I wasn’t ready to pay the money nor did I have the time or energy to start this side hustle so I emailed Anton (which is actually one of the many people he has working for him) and asked if they would consider extending the offer until the end of May. I wasn’t sure if May was the right date but it’s my birthday month and I often make a big decision or commitment/resolution during that month. They didn’t promise to extend the offer but they said they would try to.

Fast forward four months and the whole world had changed. Coronovirus was spreading like wildfire around the world and especially in the U.S., people were losing their jobs at an alarming rate and the country was divided on many things (and this was before George Floyd was murdered). In April my company furloughed a large portion of its employees for 3 ½ months and, even though I wasn’t furloughed, my pay and hours were cut by 20%.

My wife wisely mentioned that this might be a good time to start this process while I’m still employed so that if I get laid off I would be ahead of the game and not have to start a square one. So when my birthday rolled around in May, I decided it might be the time to act on starting this side hustle. I emailed my contact at Drop Ship Lifestyle and said I’d sign up immediately for the course if they would honor the $1,495 price from January. They did honor it and so I signed up two days before my birthday.

My life was busy with a full time job (even though I was only getting paid for 80% time, I was still working hard ~4.5 days a week) and three kids who were doing distance learning at the time but I knew I’d have to make time to take this course and then take this side hustle seriously. I decided the only way I could do this was to wake up 45 minutes earlier during the work week to do my online classes. One advantage of the pandemicI was that I was working remotely 100% of the time so I didn’t have to commute other than from the bed to my home office so I thought there might not be a better time to do this.  

Since mid May I have kept the commitment of getting up 45 minutes earlier 5 days a week to take Anton Kraly’s Drop Ship Lifestyle class. I won’t give away all of his secrets but here is the overview of what I have done/learned. 

There are 7 modules with 9-13 lessons within each module. I really like that in the first module he had a lesson on ethics and had three rules he expects his students/members to follow:

• I will not disrespect any members
• I will not steal the work of others.
• I will not falsely represent myself or my business.

He follows it up with a mission statement and core values. I won’t put them all here because you can take the course to see it but I was happy that Anton had been so thoughtful about thinking through ethics and values and that he states that he expects all of his community to follow his well thought out code of conduct.

I have always been ethical in business (and I’m in sales, no less) and so I really appreciated that Anton spelled out up front that you have to do business ethically to be part of the Drop Ship Lifestyle community. Thank you, Anton, for making ethics a priority for your community. 

I have my MBA and ~30 years in business so I didn’t know what I would learn but I have learned a lot and really like the way Anton lays out his classes. I am new to the drop shipping business (and have never had my own business) and found the way that Anton goes step by step on how to set up your own drop ship business very helpful. It is a very practical course to teach you exactly how to set up your own business and you have to complete one course/step before going onto the next. The lessons are ~5-30 minutes long and sometimes there is homework to do between lessons.

By looking at the overview of the modules, I think I’m about a ⅓ of the way through the course and I’m almost exactly one month into it. My goal is to be up and running by the end of August and I think I can do that if I stay with my waking up early five days a week to take the classes.

With the help of my consultants (i.e. my family), I just decided on a URL/business name which I’ll buy today. I’ll report more later but so far I am happy with the Drop Ship Lifestyle training class and I hope it will be worth the investment. If I do get laid off at work in the next 6 months, I hope that I will have a solid foundation around the drop shipping to see if it has any legs to pursue as a full-time opportunity or if it was a good idea but not something I could do full time to pay the bills. Too soon to tell but as my mom always says I’ll have to “keep on keeping on” to find out.

Should my next side hustle be to dive into drop shipping?

I started this side hustle journey 18 months ago.  After I spent the summer of 2018 bing listening to podcasts about side hustles, I came up with 9 ideas to pick from to pursue.  Here was the list:

1. Sell non fiction ebooks on Amazon

2. Create an online store and do drop shipping

3. Create a website and blog

4. Do podcasts 

5. Start an after school enrichment class

6. Become loan signing agent (notary)

7. Be a virtual assistant (VA)

8. Teach English to kids in China via video chat

9. Create online videos to sell about anything you know to sell i.e. teaching, tutoring, parenting etc.

Since then I have done #1 with my ebook Everything I learned about sales I learned from my dog  & #3 with my blogs on my The Ordinary Mom and The Side Hustle Journey websites. I have had so much fun unleashing a creative side of me that’s been bottled up for too long due to working in corporate America, kids, kids activities bills, life, more kids activities and exhaustion due to all of the fore-mentioned things. 

For the last year and a half, I have been doing those passion projects and loving it.  However, the sad reality is that often passion projects are not money makers. I believe in slow and steady so I will continue to write and I hope that ebook writing and blogging will pay off someday but I’m not anywhere near quitting my day job because of them. 

The one thing I have been thinking about as a potential money maker from my original list is drop shipping.  In a nutshell, drop shipping is where you sell someone else’s product on your website, when you get the money from the customer, you order it from your supplier at a discounted rate and then supplier ships the product directly to the customer.  The beauty of this method of selling is that you don’t create or build the products and you never have to carry any inventory.

To me this sounds like an interesting business and one that I could hopefully be successful at with my business background. For a lot of my career in Silicon Valley, I worked at a big software company and dealt with resellers and retailers who would sell our products for us.  I always thought that was an interesting business model as they were riding on the tail of our product and brand. Not that they didn’t work hard- they did- but they didn’t have to worry about coming up with product ideas, creating the product or shipping the product. They could just focus on marketing, sales and customer service. 

My biggest hesitation about drop shipping is that I don’t know if I’d be passionate about it.  I’m currently allocating 2 hours a week to my side hustles so I don’t know if I want to take that precious time away from my passion projects of writing books and blogs and put it to something that might actually bore me.  I think the business part would be fun i.e. researching a niche, building a website, learning SEO etc. but I fear that I’d be selling something I thought was boring and just adding another job to my life.  

That said during my summer of binging podcasts on side hustles in 2018, I ran across Anton Kraly.  He has a brand, course, passionate followers etc. called Drop Ship Lifestyle (https://www.dropshiplifestyle.com).  I have been on his mailing list for a while and occasionally read his emails. Recently I saw that he had a free introductory webinar and I decided to sign up for it. 

The bottom line of his free webinar is that he gives a quick teaser of his program and how you can make money drop shipping.  At the end he offers a discount for those who sign up right away. The thing is, his program is expensive. He says the value is ~$10,000 but if you sign up on the day of the webinar, it’s ~$1,500.  We’ve all been to time share talks to get a free trip and know the pressure sales pitch of “you’ve got to buy it today or the deal goes away”.  

From listening to the webinar, I do believe he has a tried and true system to help you set up a drop shipping business.  His philosophy is to sell expensive products so you have good margins, find products that people are already buying, develop relationships with high quality domestic suppliers and market to people who are at the bottom at the sales funnel (i.e. those who are ready to buy a specific product).  For someone who has never set up and run an e-commerce site, I think I’d find value in the support he offers (8 modules to teach you the business, support through a closed Facebook group, monthly group calls with Anton, templates to use to create a website and emails with the right call to actions etc).  I know you can probably get the same information by researching it yourself for free but I’m trying to think if a ~$1,500 investment would be worth it if I could really make this a profitable side hustle and, eventually, my main job.

I went online and researched Anton and his course and saw a lot of mixed reviews.  Basically, what I want to know is this…is he a charlatan or is he the real thing?  As a sales person, I can say he’s an excellent sales person. He’s got his business of selling his course down to a science.  He sends emails to his list every few days with teaser titles like “Last chance- 50% off”, “1 order for $8k, is it a fraud?” or “last month Adam made $102k”.  His teaser titles get you to click the email and read them (or at least I do when I’m intrigued).  

It was the email that said, “$24k with just one sale” that got me to click and then sign up for the free webinar.  Once I signed up, I got the confirmation email with the webinar details and what looked like a personal email from Anton’s assistant, Anna, saying she had just talked to Anton and he was excited that I signed up for the webinar. There was a photo embedded with Anton next to a computer that said, “Welcome Julie!” on the screen. Then I got 4 other confirmation emails with titles like “Webinar starts in 1 hour” and a text from “Anton” saying that he saw I registered for the upcoming webinar.  As a salesperson, I know that these are all generic emails that get customize based on the person’s name but wow, he does a great job making you feel they are excited that you signed up for the webinar. The webinar was also too polished and smooth to be live so he must be pre-recorded it but would say things like, “Type yes if you agree” and then say, “I see a lot of yes’s so I guess you agree”. The beauty of that is that he can run this webinar as many times as he wants and only had to do the really hard work of recording it one time.  Brilliant. I look at this as if he is this good at making you feel great about signing up for and attending his webinar, he probably has a well thought out and effective drop shipping program.

After I got off the free informational webinar where he finally shared the shared the cost at the end (a bit of sticker shock there and I’ll make you wait a bit like he made us wait), I decided to research him online.

Here are some reviews of his course:

• https://drews-review.com/drop-ship-lifestyle-review/
• https://randi.io/dropship-lifestyle/
• https://www.ippei.com/dropship-lifestyle/
• https://www.imrhys.com/drop-ship-lifestyle-review/
• https://www.ecommerceopinion.com/dropship-lifestyle-review/

They vary in whether or not they recommend him but the themes are:

• It’s expensive so not everybody can/should buy it
• He has done his homework and the class is extensive
• It’s a good step by step for people who haven’t done e-commerce before 
• He doesn’t spend enough time on product niche selection or SEO

I am still thinking about what to do.  I do believe the same information is out on the web if you want to learn it and I also believe that there are cheaper courses out there.  

Here are a few alternatives:

• http://www.whatisdsd.com/ds-domination/
• https://elitedropshippers.com/
• https://ecomelites.com
• https://ecomturbo.com/

My current thinking is that I am going to put some serious thought into diving into drop shipping but I am not going to make any decisions for a few months.  If I do end up buying the Drop Ship Lifestyle course it will put me out ~$1,500 (yikes!) and I need to make sure I have the time and the energy to take the course and take starting this side hustle seriously.  I’m currently putting two hours aside a week for my side hustles. I don’t want to give up my passion projects of writing so I need to decide if I could put aside another hour or two a week and, if so, how I would allocate that time between writing and drop shipping.

Stay tuned and I’ll update you in the next few months on what I decide to do.  If you have any experience with drop shipping or have paid for any drop shipping courses, drop me a line (bad pun, I know) at julie@theordinarymom and let me know what you’ve learned.

P.S. I took myself out for Sushi for a working dinner to write most of this blog.  When I got the bill, they gave me a fortune cookie and the fortune was, “The only way to find yourself is to play hide and seek alone”.  I’m not exactly sure what that means but I’m taking that fortune as a sign for two things 1. It’s good to take myself out for a working dinner sometimes and 2. I should keep on this side hustle journey until I can be my own boss.

P.P.S. Growing up, whenever we ate chinese food, my dad would read his fortune and then turn it over and say, “Look.  On the back scribbled in pencil it says, ‘Help, I am trapped in a chinese cookie factory”. All five kids would do the obligatory laugh and then we’d roll our eyes behind his back.  If you have ever eaten at a chinese restaurant with me, you know that I have carried on that tradition. I can’t help myself, it’s just ingrained in me. Please make sure that if you ever eat chinese with me in the future, when we get to the end of the meal and I turn over the fortune cookie and say that stupid line, make sure to do obligatory laugh and then roll your eyes where I can’t see it. 

Links:

• My 2018 blog about top 9 side hustles:

How I spent the summer binging podcasts about side hustles

• My business ebook: https://www.amazon.com/Everything-learned-about-sales-dog-ebook/dp/B07Y5VQJ6Z/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=julie+hickey&qid=1579746416&sr=8-1
• The Ordinary Mom website: 
• http://www.theordinarymom.com

https://theordinarymom.com

• The Side Hustle Journey website:

https://thesidehustlejourney.wordpress.com/

How I spent the summer binging podcasts about side hustles

I’m on a side hustle journey.   I don’t know where it will go but I’m enjoying the ride.  My first attempt was to think about starting a propane delivery service.   See that experience in my blog at https://thesidehustlejourney.wordpress.com/2019/02/19/the-first-attempt-propane-delivery/.  After researching what it would entail to start a propane delivery service, I decided it was too much work with too little margins and I didn’t think I could do it as a side hustle while keeping my day job and my sanity.

I stepped back to regroup and realized that I had a blank slate and didn’t know what I wanted to do.  I searched the internet for good side hustle resources and came across Nick Loper’s website called The Side Hustle Nation (https://www.sidehustlenation.com/).  He has great information on it and tons of podcasts.  What he says and his style of sharing information (both his successes and failures) as well as his podcast guests who have done successful side hustles really resonated with me.  I liked his question and answer interview style approach and felt that both Nick and his guests were being real and transparent and offering a wealth of information for someone like me who was trying to figure out what my niche should be for a side hustle or three.  

For my day job in educational publishing, I drive a lot to visit my Northern California customers, which are school districts. I’m in my car up to 20 hours a week and usually use that time listening to music, having phone meetings, listening to books on tape or just thinking.  I decided to binge Nick’s podcasts and spent most of my driving during the summer of 2018 listening to side hustle podcasts.

By my count, I listened to 33 podcasts over the summer.  I just saw a note that I had written that said at some point during August, I had listened to 12 podcasts in 17 days.  Wow- I was a true side hustle podcast addict. I tried a couple of other side hustle podcasts but kept coming back to The Side Hustle Nation (www.thesidehustlenation.com) as the most informative.  I listened to topics ranging from blogging, 3D printing, Merch by Amazon, renting bouncy houses, Afterschool Enrichment, to Knife Sharpening.  Even if the show didn’t seem relevant at all to me (like the Knife Sharpening business), I always took at least 1 thing away from it. Even if the actual side hustle didn’t seem relevant, everyone had common themes such as building a website, acquiring customers, figure out the correct price point etc.  

At that point, I didn’t know what I wanted to do as my side hustle so I was really trying to be open minded about listening to what others were doing and see what resonated with me. I was also trying to tease out what I’d be passionate about to make sure I would have fun as no one was making me do this. This was all about adding more creativity in my life and having fun.  Some of the podcasts that were making folks money such as renting bouncy houses or a traveling knife sharpening business sounded downright painful to me so I knew those wouldn’t make my short list.

About this time, one of my work friends needed to relocate for family reasons and so she needed to find a new job.  I told her about my side hustle journey I was on and sent her the following email with these ideas that I can come up with based on my podcast binging:

1. Selling non fiction ebooks on Amazon.

I signed up for this $10 course and it walks you through it

https://www.udemy.com/kindle-launch/?couponCode=HUSTLERSUNITE

How to find ideas for non fiction ebooks:

• Look at resume and see what you are good at
• Write down your interests

This started my thinking with my ideas on creating The Ordinary Mom brand.  The Facebook page is my first test to see if there is any “there there”.

2. Create an online store and do drop shipping.

Check out —  dropshiplifestyle.com/hustle

This guy created an online store and sells bouncy houses- he nets ~$30-40k/year

www.bouncehouse.com

Paid ads first, google searches later

Google ads and then organic searches

Check out notes with more details

rene delgado

3. Create a website and blog.

• Put affiliate links on your website to drive traffic there (like you are doing on the formula site)
  • Amazon associates program
  • Check any website (i.e. Target) and see if they have an affiliate program

https://www.sidehustlenation.com/online-business/blogging/

www.blogstartercourse.com –free

4. Do podcasts (ideally do this with #3- I would love to do #1, #3 & #4 as my next phase with my The Ordinary Mom Brand)

See link below to learn how:

Search

12 Ways to Monetize a Podcast – Plus My Actual Results

5. Start an after school enrichment class.

This woman, May, created a craft class (she wasn’t even crafty!) and started an afterschool enrichment class at her son’s school 1 hour a week.  She has does it ~5 days a week and makes ~$200/hour per class and now has multiple class a day so she has people working for her. She then created a course of how to do it and is selling that too so I think she is making good money now.

289: After School Programs: How to Make $200 an Hour Playing with Kids

6. Become loan signing agent (notary).

This one is a great one to do in addition to 1-2 others because it’s pretty much a guaranteed $100/hour.  If I’d got laid off, I’d do this first as I was ramping up 1-2 of the others because it is quick and consistent income.  You take this class: Loansigningsystem.com  and it will tell you how to get your notary license and how to tap into loan signing (which is needed for anyone who is buying a house).  There are now signing service businesses- like uber- where they text you if someone needs a signing agent in your area and you can accept it or not.  The host says to assume it is ~2 hours for each appointment (includes drive time, set up, signing etc). If you did 5/week, that’s only ~10 hours total for $500/week (or $2,000 month).  Or you could do this 1/2 time (say 10-15 signings at~20 hours/week) and make $4,000-$6,000/month–$48k-$72k a year for ~20 hours a week)

How to Become a Loan Signing Agent and Earn $100 an Hour Part-Time

7. Be a virtual assistant (VA).

You are way too experienced for this but I heard this woman, Abbey,  talk about how she started as a VA, then started her own VA company and then made training videos about being a VA.  She’s now making between $200k-$300k selling her video courses. You could copy that path but you’d probably have to do a little VA work first to figure it out.  It would be a longer term plan but you can pick your own hours so you could do this for ~10/week just to learn the business.

284: From Active to Passive Income: From $25 an Hour to 6-Figure Launches

8.   Teach English to kids in China via video chat.

Minimum 6 hours a week

Teach through Qkids

https://qkids.teachpart-time.com/?cid=10274438a44be8df99766f64d96510&aid=1364&geo=US&utm_source=Adbloom&utm_medium=cpa&utm_campaign=1364

9. Create online videos to sell about anything you know to sell i.e. teaching, tutoring, parenting etc.

This one is wide open but would take more time and money than the others but I think it has a huge potential.  You could do try to do 3 at once—1 quick money maker like #6 #7 or #8, one medium money maker like #1-#5 and then work on this as your long term money maker.

As you can see, all of my information was coming from Nick Loper’s Side Hustle Nation.  I have never met Nick so I’m not promoting him for any other reason than I found his site and podcasts super informative and helpful (Thank you, Nick!).  He takes the approach that he has done well with his side hustles and part of his business model is to help others find their passion and start side hustles too (of course he makes money doing it but he is helping others in the process).  

At the end of the summer, I decided to narrow down what my ideas were.  One of my main takeaways that almost every side hustle guest said was “just do it”.  You can sit around for years trying to figure out the perfect side hustle or you can just do it and then tweak it or ditch it and try another one but time marches on and you want to use that to your advantage.  Stay tuned for the next blog post where I actually narrow down my options and actually “just do it”.