Starting a side business from nothing may be challenging, particularly if you have no expertise. If you put in the effort and commit yourself to your new venture, it may be worth it.
Choose one thing to concentrate on.
It is essential to have a clear understanding of your capabilities before you embark on the process of developing a side hustle. This is the point at which the majority of individuals make a critical error: they fail to branch out of their comfort zone and instead refuse to experiment with anything novel.
Simply stating, “I’m skilled at making cakes,” is not sufficient evidence. You need to expand your thinking beyond that because if you want to build an online business around the sale of baked goods, there will be plenty of other bakers who aren’t afraid of competing with each other for the attention and financial support of customers. If you want to succeed, you’ll need to think bigger than that.
Consider, rather, what other activities, aside from making cakes, you take pleasure in performing (or whatever your hobby might be). It’s possible that working with technology is one of your favorite things to do, or that assisting others in finding solutions to the challenges they face in their everyday lives is what drives you. Later on in this chapter, we’re going to get even further into the process of establishing your specialization!
Create something from your concept.
Now that you have decided that you want to pursue a side hustle, it is time to create the concept that you have in mind. There are a few things to think about before doing anything, so have them ready. The first thing you need to do with your new side hustle is figured out what your primary objective is for doing it. Is your primary goal just to supplement your income? Or do you hope that this new endeavor will be something that will help you go farther in your career? These considerations will play a role in the specifics of how you go about establishing and carrying out your strategy.
Next, take a look at the market demand for whatever kind of product or service you are thinking about selling. There has been an explosion in the number of online businesses thanks, in large part, to services like Shopify. These services make it possible for anyone (with a minimal amount of technical knowledge) to build their own eCommerce store without the need for any coding skills or pricey software licenses.
If there is a need for a product or service similar to the one in question, then there is a significant likelihood that someone already has one of those products or services operational.
Last but not least, you should consider whether there is an opportunity for automation. If so, that’s fantastic; if not, don’t even bother getting started unless it’s something that’s very easy to do (like selling handmade crafts).
Understand your target audience.
The first thing you need to do in order to develop a successful side business is to get to know your ideal customers. You have to have an understanding of who they are, what their requirements and preferences are, where they spend their time online, and how much they are prepared to spend on your goods or services, and where they spend their time online.
At first glance, this may seem like a daunting endeavor; however, it is really much simpler than you might imagine.
If you want a side hustle that will give you real results (and not just help pay some bills), then it should be something that appeals specifically to a niche group of people—not everyone in the world! First and foremost, if you want a side hustle that will give you real results, then it should be something that appeals specifically to a niche group of people.
Second, members of this demographic have the propensity to spend an above-average amount of time on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This is due to the fact that websites like Facebook and Twitter have emerged as the new method for businesses to market themselves online and communicate directly with customers in a manner that has never been seen before.
Define your objectives and get a game plan together.
Find out what you want to accomplish with your side hustle. If you don’t know what you want to achieve with your life, how can you expect your side hustle to be successful? Before you get started on your side hustle, you need to have a crystal-clear picture in your head of what the finished product will be like. It is essential to keep in mind that if it is something that has never been attempted before, there will be challenges along the way and things may not go as smoothly as intended at the beginning.
Make a strategy: The next thing you need to do is make a plan outlining how you intend to accomplish those objectives. What are the necessary actions that need to be taken in order for this item of yours (which you may not even have thought of yet) to finally get off the ground?
Carry out some research on other firms or products/services that are comparable to your own, and look for any patterns or trends that could be able to assist in guiding your decision-making around things like price, marketing channels, etc.
Check to see whether it’s feasible, and avoid putting yourself in a position to fail by setting expectations that are too high.
For instance, selling cupcakes at school during lunch could seem like a simple way to generate money, but if reality sets in (the kids won’t buy them because they’re too busy chatting), what happens after that?
You leave home disheartened because the experiment you tried didn’t turn out the way you hoped it would, and you realize that the time you spent working on recipes was a complete and utter waste.
Create a rough estimate of how much time you’ll need to spend on it.
The next thing you need to do is calculate how much more time you’ll need to devote to your new side business.
Burnout and overcommitting yourself are two things that may be avoided if you take the time to calculate how much time you will be able to spend on your new endeavor.
Take a look at your agenda right now and consider the many other commitments that are currently vying for your time, such as your job, your responsibilities with your family, getting enough sleep, etc.
and maybe even one more supplementary source of income (hello there!).
It is also essential to think about the potential amount of extra labor that will be necessary in order for the company effort to be successful: Will there be opportunities for meetings? Deadlines? Do you have any upcoming deadlines? Organizing supplies? Even if it may be difficult to make predictions regarding these elements at first—after all, it is contingent upon the particular kind of endeavor that you select—the more detailed you can be, the better!
For example, if I make the decision that my side hustle will be an Etsy store selling handmade jewelry from my studio apartment in Brooklyn on weekends when I’m not busy working at my day job as a copywriter for an advertising agency in Manhattan during the weekdays, then I know that this could quickly add up to hours upon hours spent trying (and failing) to not only make jewelry but also run errands like going shopping for supplies or managing social media accounts during those same p.m. hours. This could
If, on the other hand, I decide to do something that requires less effort, such as working as a freelance writer for businesses that post writing jobs on Upwork, then the amount of organization that is required will be much lower. This is because the majority of the work will be done online, and communication with clients will take place primarily through email. This means that the work can be done at any time of day or night.
Recognize that there is a good chance that not everything will go according to plan.
Don’t get your hopes up that everything will go according to plan. Things do not always turn out the way you had hoped they would, and it is always possible for things to take much more time or be far more difficult than expected.
There are certain things that, regardless of how much research you do or how many discussions you have with members of your target audience, you just won’t understand until you actually get started doing whatever it is that you’re going to be doing.
Therefore, you should prepare yourself for the possibility that certain things may not go exactly as planned; after all, if everything worked out perfectly, then every firm would be successful.
However, keep in mind that even if something doesn’t turn out precisely as planned, there are always methods to adjust it in such a manner that it may still be beneficial to the organization as a whole (and remember too: the most important thing is to learn from your mistakes).
Find individuals who are able to assist you on your journey.
Finding individuals who are able to assist you along the path is the next step, now that you have devised a strategy and are prepared to put it into action.
I’m not talking about your family and friends, who will tell you what they believe is best for your side business even if they don’t really know anything about it. Nor am I talking about those who provide advice despite having no experience or success in their own lives.
I’m referring to genuine industry professionals here: those that already operate lucrative side businesses, have created successful companies from the ground up, and make a living off of selling items online.
They are already engaged in the endeavor that you want to launch (or expand) on your own at some point in the future; hence, why not take advantage of some of their expertise right away?
Find someone who is successful in a field that is comparable to what you want to do, whether it be photography, writing, or coaching, and ask them if they would be willing to share their knowledge with you by answering questions that you send them via email, text, or Skype calls. This could be someone who is an expert in something similar to what you want to do.
Inquire if they made any mistakes along the way that you should try to avoid doing yourself so that you can learn from their mistakes and avoid making the same ones!
Failure is a necessary part of the learning process, so you shouldn’t be afraid of it.
I am unable to reveal the number of times that I have been unsuccessful in a certain endeavor. After completing a five-kilometer race for the first time, I did it in forty-seven minutes and said to myself, “I will never do this again.”
When I first tried to sell my photography services and discovered that people do not want to pay for pictures of their food on Instagram, I broke down in tears while talking to my mother on the phone and questioned why she had ever thought it would be a good idea for me to be an entrepreneur in the first place.
Failure is an inevitable part of life, and if you want to be successful, you need to learn from your errors so that you may keep making progress toward the things that are most important to you. When we are unsuccessful at anything, we often want to give up because it seems like such a waste of time and effort. However, failure is really an opportunity waiting to be taken advantage of.
Failure indicates that we attempted something but it did not go according to plan; as a result, we now have additional knowledge to add to our toolbox; thus, the next time we try something new, it will be even more successful than it was before!
