Your 'Side Hustle'
The 'new and improved' second job
I started my 'first business' with a mate back when we were 15 years old. We came up with the innovative business named Scott & Trent's Lawn Mowing Services. Straight to the computer we did up our pricing and flyers and as soon as they were printed, off we went on our pushies and delivered them to the neighbourhood letterboxes.
Almost straight away we received a phone call. Someone wanted us to mow their lawn! 'How easy is business?!' we thought. So we organised a time for the next weekend and began dreaming about how we were going to each spend our $15 for mowing, $15 for edges. The beauty of being young and naive is you have no shame or recognition of silly assumptions. We used our respective parents mowers and whipper snippers and advised them that we needed them to get us more fuel. Never once contemplating the concept of the costs nor the wear and tear of this to our parents. We even had some clients who let us use their equipment (and fuel!).
This experience provided me with some great memories and life lessons I've carried on in my career to this day.
Back then we just called it a job. Nowadays it's called a 'Side Hustle' and it's surprising many more people don't do it.
Your Side Hustle is as much about earning a few extra dollars as it is about getting a taste for working for yourself. It's also an exceptional way to work on a past-time you're passionate about and doesn't make huge financial sense.
As long as it's not a financial drain, of course.
Examples of Side Hustles include: Freelancing (graphic design; IT work; computer programming); having an online shop; getting actual casual employment or even putting in a little more effort into your hobbies and heading to the local markets. It's about putting your spare time to work for you and making a few dollars doing something you love (or are great at). Another noble activity is volunteering. Definitely a great candidate for your Side Hustle.
Having a second job isn't for everyone. For some it's because of financial necessity. For others, they value their future over TV shows, their nights out or perhaps shopping time. It's only for those people who have an appreciation for the concept that life isn't meant to be easy and if you want nice things, you need to get off your backside and #makeithappen.
Here are my ideas and reasons for why you should consider a Side Hustle:
- You get to work on something you love!
- You can dip your toe in the self-employed waters, relatively risk free. It's a kind of 'Try before you buy' scenario (I see so many businesses fail because they jumped in the deep end with no proof of concept)
- You will meet other amazing like-minded people and expand your network
- You will gain an appreciation of other local small businesses' trials and tribulations
- You might discover you have a highly desirable (i.e. valuable) set of skills that earn you great money!
So get out there and give it a go! What do you have to lose?
(Originally published DUO Magazine September 2018)