Are you trying to start a side hustle?
If you are, then let’s look at the essential things you need to get your side hustle off the ground, especially if you have a full time occupation of some kind and don’t have a whole lot of time.
If you aren't trying to launch a side hustle right now then let’s explore why you might want to consider launching a side hustle.
Why should I start a side hustle?
Living through the Covid-19 pandemic has confirmed that there is no such thing as job security. There’s something to be said about the value of exploring your entrepreneurial potential, not least being the ability to create your own income earning opportunities.
Anyone in a 9-5 job knows the demands of waking up each day to show up at your job and deliver to earn your paycheck at the end of the week or month. If you’re fortunate to be in a job that engages your creativity and challenges you, you’re still faced with the reality that you need to show up to earn.
A side hustle offers you an opportunity to carve an income stream while you chase your paycheck. By focusing on the essentials behind a successful side hustle, you’ll attract opportunities for your income stream as predictably as a leaf is attracted to and follows the current of a river.
That is perhaps the most important reason to start your side hustle today if you haven’t already... A side hustle represents more than just another income stream. It’s the path to trading a life of chasing income for a life of attracting income.
I’m keen to start my side hustle, so what are the essentials to get things going?
In this overwhelming world of ours anything that's going to stick has to pass the simplicity test. Anything that fails the test will languish at the back of our minds alongside all the other ‘things’ we want to get to one day.
So what are the three simplest things you need to get your side hustle going?
1.
A target customer. It’s tempting to think of your idea, or your dream business as the starting point of your side hustle, and while that’s important.. it ain’t the place to start. Your side hustle, as with any business, has to deliver value to a customer if that person is going to exchange money in return for your offer. Defining your customer first, forces you to focus on their wants or needs and work backwards to figure out what you’ll offer to meet those.
Launching a side hustle without defining who you’re trying to serve puts you at risk of ‘chasing’ problems to match your solution to. That’s essentially like putting yourself back in a job again, with the only difference being that this time, you’re working for yourself.
2.
A clear value proposition. Any business, from the tiniest lemonade stand, to a multinational global corporation, runs on the same rules of value exchange. To launch your side hustle, you have to dial in on what you’ll offer that provides such value for money that your customer will happily pay for it.
3.
A predictable path to cash. There is a moment where your side hustle goes from an idea to a fully fledged put-a-badge-on-it side hustle... and that moment is when you attract your first paying customer!
How you create predictable ways to reach customers and earn cashflow is the third and last key step to launching your side hustle.
I already knew this. I need to figure out how to shift from knowing to doing
If you already know WHAT you need to do to launch your side hustle, then odds are you haven’t launched it because you lack certain key resources (e.g. time, money, energy) to do it.
These are real and understandable obstacles. That said, launching your side hustle is going to fall into one of two buckets: 1) the “it could/should happen” bucket, or 2) the “it must happen” bucket. If your side hustle falls into the first bucket, then whatever you feel you need to have before you can commit to making your side hustle happen is an obstacle you need to figure your way around, and much as I hate to say it. I can’t help ya there.
IF your side hustle falls into the second bucket, then you have no choice. You have to figure it out and find a way to set aside the lack of resources, and redirect your energy and focus on finding a way. This requires a mindset shift from resource-thinking → resourcefulness-doing.
Being resourceful often requires taking a different perspective on things and asking yourself: “what if?..”. Being resourceful is also about recognising when your lack of confidence, self-belief, procrastination etc... is slowing your progress, and getting out of your own way.
A proven way of achieving all three of these things (mindset shift, different perspective, getting out of your own way) is to find someone who’s willing and able to share a different perspective, explore possibilities with you and hold you accountable to getting past your excuses.
