Book Review: Side Hustle
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I read a pretty fun book this weekend. It’s called Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days. It takes you step-by-step through actions you can take to turn your idea for extra income into some actual money in 27 days (like the title says). I’ll be the first to tell you I am typically very leery of books like this. A book that promises a seemingly simple fortune in a short period of time sounds like a scam to me. I thought this was one of those books but was pleasantly surprised when I dove in.
The book works like this, first, you have an idea that you think could be sold to make some extra cash– homemade pillow shams sold on Etsy, pop-up clothing shops, dog walking, the idea can be anything you think could work. Then the book leads you through 27 days worth of action steps to turn your idea into extra income, one of which is figuring out if your idea is actually good enough to sell. The key here is you have to have a decent idea. Honestly, there are a lot of good ideas out there that can make some side money and the author tells plenty of stories about people who start a side hustle doing something they just love doing.
This book took me back to a few years ago when my wife and I worked our own side hustle selling some hand-painted canvases on Etsy. My wife and I are polar opposite in a lot of ways. I am a huge extrovert, she loves her alone time; She scores off the charts on empathy, I exist somewhere below where the chart starts; She loves to craft as a hobby, I break out in hives at the sight of a Michael’s Craft Store; I see everything happening around our home as a potential side hustle, she says things like, “I can believe anyone would pay me to do that”.
We found ourselves working our way out of student loan debt and I saw an opportunity for what I thought could make us some extra cash. To test the idea I signed Nicci up for a craft sale on Small Business Saturday, she sold out of canvases and we made about $300. Not bad, right?
Well, my next move was to open an Etsy shop that sold the same stuff we had at the craft fair. I uploaded photos of each piece and offered customization. Over the next year, we sold $12,000 worth of canvases and took home $10,000 in profit. It was really fun to work on something together that was a financially successful side hustle and helped us pay our loans off!
If I had read this book back then we probably could have done a little better. There are a lot of practical steps we didn’t even try because we just didn’t know we should. So, if you’re the type that always has a business idea I recommend this book as a place to get you started moving your idea toward income.
Comment below with your side hustle stories!
Thanks for reading and have a great week.
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