The Four Kinds of Side Hustles

Ah, the side hustle.

I've become somewhat of a (self-proclaimed) expert at doing random side things over the course of my life.

In the last decade I've created Udemy courses, launched a self-published book (under a fake name – not proud of this one), done marketing consulting, launched an email course (with a paid back-end), Airbnb’ed my apartment, bought a condo and put it on Airbnb, wrote a book (an actual good one), bought a business (and now another one), put affiliate links on my site, given paid talks, written book summaries, and built an affiliate site for a basketball dribbling course (also not proud of this one).

Heck, even my current company began as a side project.

And those are just the ones that worked! I've tried tons of other things – buying motorcycles on Craigslist and flipping them across the bay, starting an affiliate site for people with eyebrow dander (like myself), building an email course for people interested in nootropics… the list goes on.

I've seen firsthand how freeing it is to make even $1-2k a month on your own.

It’s a complete game changer, waking up with more money than you had when you went to sleep. For too long, I'd start my day by refreshing Udemy’s instructor dashboard to see how much I'd make. Then the Traction Amazon page to see our sales, then Airbnb...

Making money via side businesses (or side hustles) gave me the confidence to quit Rackspace and go out on my own 4 years ago. Having a few thousand a month coming in on autopilot gave me the freedom to charge premium rates as a growth consultant, as I knew I'd be okay if they said no.