200: Side Hustles: Part-Time Entrepreneurial Ideas, The Sharing Economy, and Just-in-Time Learning with Nick Loper

Robert Plank 0:00 Robert Plank Show, episode 200 side hustles, part time, entrepreneurial ideas, the sharing economy and just in time, learning with Nick Loper. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Robert Plank show, where we talk about building an online business and making money. We're here with Mr. Nick Loper, and we're gonna talk about, I guess, whatever comes to mind with us. Mr. Nick Loper talks about these things called side hustles, where you can earn more money, pay off debt, learn new skills, use free time more productively, escape the rat race and more so. Mr. Nick How are things today?

Nick Loper 0:35 Doing? Doing? Well, we just learned that. You know, we're only an hour apart over the hill from you here in California, yeah.

Robert Plank 0:40 What are the odds? And you might be my most high profile guest so far, and we're on episode number 200 so, I mean, it was meant to be in a lot of different ways. And so episode

Nick Loper 0:48 200 Congrats, man. I just hit 200 for for the side hustle show.

Robert Plank 0:53 I mean, we're hitting, we're hitting just coincidences, left and right. And so I know that you have a pretty high profile podcast, a pretty high profile blog, but I don't know much about you. I don't think our listeners know much about you. So could you tell us about who you are and what you do, what you have going on? Well,

Nick Loper 1:07 that's very flattering, because I don't really think of myself as high profile at any of those things, just just to kind of try to do, do the work, you know. So the side hustle Show podcast is different, part time business ideas every week. So been, you know, like you said, We're 200 episodes deep, so lots and lots of gold in the archives, lots of really try and dive into the tactical stuff from Been there, done that. Entrepreneurs like, Hey, how'd you get started? You know, how do we reverse engineer this if we want to apply this to our own business? And then the side hustle, side hustle nation blog is, you know, a lot of case studies and reports on, kind of my own experiments and, you know, ups and downs on the entrepreneurial journey as well. Awesome.

Robert Plank 1:53 So, lots of fun experiments to kind of jump into. So out of all the side hustles that you've done yourself, or you've, you know, interviewed people about, I mean, what sort of stands out? I mean, what's the most like, interesting kind of thing on your mind so far? Oh

Nick Loper 2:10 my gosh, in so like in the archives, the episodes that have performed best are the ones that are like, the most compelling or most accessible story. So I met a guy in the very early days of the show, who earned enough money on Fiverr, which is the marketplace where everything is like, $5 who earned enough money on Fiverr to buy a house in his first year on the platform. And I was like, Wait, how did that work? You know, because I've only used Fiverr as a buyer before, but never as a seller. Because you figure you get $4 after the sale and like, what after the platform takes a cut and like, what would you possibly sell? But he went on it, like, look, you know, it's the marketplace of goods and services starting at $5 Nick. Nick, it's all about the upsells. Like, okay, okay, you know, told me. So he's like, Look, your $5 thing has got to be all, you know, something you've already created. You know, you can create once, like, a, you know, audio file, PDF file, you know, you deliver it two takes two seconds. If people want your actual time, they can buy that in the upsell. So he was, like, kind of a copywriter, PR guy, and gave the example of like this, you know, I'll send you the seven secrets to, you know, a killer, like autoresponder sequence or something like that would be his $5 thing. And then the I will write message number one for you, I will write message number two for you. It would be in the upsells, so you broke it all down. Was a very fascinating one that was really popular. And I met another guy who, like, makes a full time living just buying and selling stuff on Craigslist, and he's got like, five kids, and just like these ones, because they're like, like, everybody's got a Craigslist in their town, like, they're, you know, accessible to to everyone. So those ones kind of do do well for me. You know, one of the most interesting side hustles, like, I love self publishing. I love, you know, I've done some freelancing of, you know, made the bulk of my money from affiliate marketing for years and years, you know, now, people are sponsoring the podcast, which has been fantastic. What else is going on? Like online courses, and you've seen people do, like T shirt sales and just trying to, you know, piece together different side hustles all under this umbrella. Cool. So,

Robert Plank 4:13 I mean, it sounds like, it sounds like there's money to be made everywhere, right? Like T shirts, self publishing, Fiverr, Craigslist, all these places and so, I mean, out of all these people that you wouldn't you've talked to, I mean, what's the commonalities? I mean, why do some people do really well on like Amazon, or you do me, and then other people just kind of only dabble, or maybe you're spread too thin. I mean, what's the difference between the people that you know can pay off or can buy a house from Fiverr in the first year, versus people who kind of just fail at it. I mean, is there a commonality there?

Nick Loper 4:47 Well, I'm sure there is. I don't know if I've fully, you know, unearthed what that is. There are a few themes of the show, and, you know, with specifically, like the Fiverr guy and the Craigslist guy and even the t shirt sellers. It's like treating it. As a business. So I had somebody who, you know, has done really well selling T shirts on Teespring, which is kind of a print on demand t shirt service where, you know, UK, if you don't sell, you know, however many you say you want to sell in this campaign, like you don't meet your minimum campaign goal, kind of like kick Kickstarter, except for T shirts, right? If this campaign doesn't sell 10 shirts, it's not going to print. Nobody's going to get charged. Nobody's going to get their thing. Um, he said it took 22 failed campaigns or something, where he was, like, spending money on advertising, you know, trying different design ideas before he found one that hit. And I was like, I don't know if I would have the stomach to keep at it on that 22nd losing campaign, you know, to keep pumping money into this. But he's like, you know, I I just got to crack the code, you know, I gotta find something that that works here. And, you know, you kind of had the persistence to stick at it. So one of the common themes just in all of those examples, is like, Hey, here's a pre existing marketplace, right? Here's a marketplace of buyers, and, like, Amazon, like, if I'm searching on Amazon, it's because, like, I'm looking for a solution to my problem. Probably, you know, if I'm searching on eBay, like I'm expecting to spend some money and buy something. If I'm searching even on Craigslist, yeah, there's a free section, but it's like, hey, you know, it's a marketplace of buyers and sellers. It's just as Fiverr is, like, people are expecting to spend at least $5 when they go on there. So utilizing those platforms as, like, mini search engines, is probably a common theme, because, like, you know, competing with the entirety of Google for attention more and more difficult with each passing day. And sure, these platforms are competitive too, but it's like, it shrinks. It a little bit like I was, like, I went to school at the University of Washington in Seattle. Undergrad population, 30,000 people. 35,000 people. My freshman orientation leader was like, Look, you're gonna have to find a way to shrink the university, otherwise just gonna get swallowed up. I think it's the same way online, like trying to find these, you know, these smaller marketplaces, these smaller platforms, where it's a little bit easier to get discovered, to get noticed. So I talked to a designer who sells on zazzle.com recently, and she was doing, like, Baby Shower invitations, wedding shower invitation. It's like, if you Google baby shower invitations, Zazzle is on the first page. And once somebody's on Zazzle, they can discover my stuff. If I was trying to create my own website and rank for that, like I might be on page 15. Like it would be a battle for discovery that I would probably lose. But, you know, because, you know, I can, I can tap into these, you know, other engines that already exist. Like, it's a way for me to get discovered interesting.

Robert Plank 7:24 And I've kind of noticed that too, that it seems like a lot of these, these marketplaces have cropped up where, as before, you could kind of make a website and hope to be discovered, but now there's these marketplaces where, like, you said, like, there's a lot of built in traffic already, and that's the The upside to it, but then the downside is that, well, it's competitive. But then, on the other hand, what's good about all these marketplaces, at least, what I've seen like, whether it's, you know, Udemy, five or whatever, like, it's competitive, but at least you can kind of see where you're at right like, you can kind of see like, for use Zazzle as an example, which I've never used, but you can, you know, plug into this, this kind of site, and see, like, Okay, I'm ranked on page 15. And then you do a few things, and maybe you can, you know, push yourself up in the ranking. So, so, I mean, I totally agree with you that that it's, it's sort of like a shortcut to get on these marketplaces. But then it's, it's crowded. But then the sort of, The upside to the downside is that you can sort of see where you're ranking. Is that right?

Nick Loper 8:24 Yeah, you can even something like iTunes, right for podcasts, and it's like, you know, you know, podcasts are free to download, but it's in there are more podcasts today than there were yesterday, but it's like an order of magnitude less competitive than, like, starting a blog, right? If there are, whatever the statistic is, 300,000 podcasts in the world, there's, you know, 300 million blogs, at least, you know, one for every person in the United States. So, you know, I heard John Lee Dumas, from Entrepreneur on Fire, give a talk a couple years ago. He's like, if you Google entrepreneur, I'm on page 17. But if you search it in iTunes, like, you know, ranked number two is, like, you know, people were, you know, discovering, you know, his show through the through that medium instead.

Robert Plank 9:06 And there's your, your shrink in the universe thing, yes, once again, there. And so, so, you know, you do these side hustles, and you see people who do side hustles. So, is there like, a sort of magic number because, I mean, like, I mean, should someone, like, throw all the rigs in one basket. Or, you know, should they be, like, doing things in parallel? I mean, have you, have you seen like, a good, a good, like, path for someone to take if someone had nothing going on? Like, I mean, how, I guess, how, how split should someone's focus be? Should it be, like, all in one or should it be a handful of things? Or, like, what are your what's your opinion there? It's definitely

Nick Loper 9:40 like a do, do as I say, not as I do. It's like, I've got, you know, eight or 10 different projects going on at any one time. But I think when you're starting out, I think it's important to focus on one thing to the point, at least to the point of validation, like, so, you know, hey, this is going to work, or this is not going to work. Um, reason for that is, you know, if you're trying to do three different things. At once, and you kind of like, you know, kicking the can down the road for each of them, you know, you're not going to be able to necessarily use the lessons learned from project one on project two until it's too late, if that makes sense. So we don't want to, you know, focus on the one thing at a time until there's, you know, till you have an answer, until you know, you know, I can make some money on this, or I'm bored with this, you know, whatever that is, because you're trying to do three things at once, probably going to not do a great job at either of them. So we can talk about, kind of like the three, you know, maybe the fat, the three fastest ways to get started, or the three kind of most common ways that I see people getting started having some success. Yeah. First would be Yeah. So the first would be kind of tapping into, like the the peer to peer economy, the sharing economy, right? And so this would be like the Ubers of the world, the Airbnbs of the world, the dog vacays of the world. Is like Airbnb, but for dogs, your friend sent me a note. It's like, I'm gonna make 10 grand this year, like pet sitting on dog vacay. I was like, That's nuts. Like, that's awesome. And he's like, I love He loves dogs. It's like a perfect side hustle for him. Another guy I reached out to for the recent book launch buy buttons. We was having some success on a platform called turo.com t u, r O, and it was like a peer to peer car rental service. So instead of going to hertz, he would go to Turo, and he put, he started putting out his like, wife's Mazda, like SUV on the site. And it was booked up, like, all the time. It's like, hey, you know, I travel a lot for work. We rarely need two cars. So, you know, this was, you know, something, an experiment to test out. After he saw some success on that, he was like, crap, I need more inventory. So he like, took out at least on two new Chevy equinoxes. He's like, man, I was a little nervous because I've added 500 bucks a month to our, you know, monthly expenses, but the cars are bringing in 1500 bucks a month in in rental rates. And he's like, we drive to the airport, you know, once a week to meet people renting this thing. And it's like, turned into a really cool side hustle. It's got this whole, like, mini fleet, so I think, you know, and there's a sharing economy app for like, any asset. That's the premise, right? We have underutilized assets in our lives. You know, it's our from our car to our spare bedroom to even like, different platforms for money, like, I'm a participant in a platform called prosper.com which is like, peer to peer loans, like, so I'm lending, you know, I take fractional ownership in these loans, like, for people starting a business or paying down debt, or, you know, financing their wedding or whatever. So it's kind of fun to participate in that way as well. So that's sharing economy stuff. Like, I don't know, do you play around with any of this stuff? You ever drive for Uber or something like

Robert Plank 12:40 that. I've never driven for Uber, but I've played around with Fiverr, my business partner, I think, I think in the past year, he's generated like, an extra 50,000 just from voiceovers, just from, like, you know, getting hired for, you know, three minutes for, you know, 20 bucks and, and, I mean, yeah, and crazy stuff, and, and it sounds like, from all this, like, there's, there's just like, like, opportunities everywhere. And you know what kind of, what I thought of maybe six months ago was like, I'm sure someone out there has, like, Matt, like, figured out a way to max out on all the sharing economy apps. Like, imagine if someone like air bean beat their house and then just parked their garage while doing a dog vacay, you know, and, like, an Uber and entero, their their car at the same time, or something, right? Like, I bet, I bet someone out there is, like, plugged into the all the apps at once or something.

Nick Loper 13:32 Yeah, you what if we, if we stack everything on top of the other Plus, I'm doing, you know, online tutoring and voiceover acting and all this stuff. I mean, I mean, I talked to another guy in New York who was like, we kind of threw a listing up on Airbnb, almost on a whim, like to see if there would be any demand. It was like an air mattress in the living room of his one bedroom Manhattan apartment for 80 bucks a night. And he was like, honestly, we he was like, I'm blown away by the demand. We didn't expect people to be staying with us like every night. And so he actually dialed it back and said, No, okay, now we're gonna just gonna rent when we're on vacation. So he and his girlfriend were, like, taking a trip to Costa Rica and like, hey, for those 14 days we were gone, you know, the apartment was rented out, paid for our whole trip. I was like, Dude, that's awesome. He's like, man, we just rented like, a safe deposit box, you know, to put all the valuables while we were away. And it's like, and that's awesome, like, free vacation, and, you know, earning some money. So that was pretty fun. You mentioned the voiceover thing, so let's talk about that for a second. So the downside to the sharing economy stuff is, you know, a lot of these, a lot of these platforms, like, don't have much you in them, like you're a commodity, so, like you're an Uber driver, specifically, right? Like they've continually cut rates, and every time they argue that it's better for drivers, you're, you know, we're trying to increase demand. You know, overall, your fare is going to go up. Like, there's very little evidence that that's actually happened, right? And you know now they're even test driving like a fleet of driverless cars, like there's no question where. They're where they want to go with that, right? And it's the same thing with, like, all these, like, delivery services and stuff, if it's something that anybody can do, it's something that anybody will do, and that naturally has, like, a downward pressure on, you know, how much you can earn, where there's probably more opportunity is with the or more upside opportunities, like, where you have some unique skills, like, so like, I did voice over work on Fiverr and made 50 grand. Like, that's awesome. I met another gal who was doing voice over work on, like, voices 123, or voices.com and, you know, didn't take long, you know, she was putting in her auditions and stuff. But she's landed clients like REI, clients like Disney World. And I was like, what, you know, what was the best gig you ever got? And she was like, Well, I made 3000 bucks for like, 45 minutes of work one time. And I was like, Are you kidding? Like, that was an amazing hourly range like that. That's not typical. And I was just, you know, I was like, I got a microphone. I can read, I can talk. She's like, No, no, you don't understand. It's acting. So I was like, trying to, she's really trying to play up that the acting side of it, but you're trying to find those platforms that have your unique skills, or at least give you an opportunity to use your unique skills. So platforms like Fiverr, platforms like Upwork, you know, platforms where you can kind of command a rate that that you that you have some control over versus, you know, just kind of accepting whatever the Uber fair is. So that would probably be tier number two. Tier number three would be kind of like the business model. And we can call tier two like freelancing. And so tier number three, or step number three, would be kind of like the the age old business model of buy low and sell high. This is what, this is exactly what the Craigslist guy was doing at the, you know, the beginning of show. Like, buying appliances of all things. Like, you imagine something like bulkier to to transport, but that was his specialty, buying appliances as low as you could and then reselling them for a higher price. Like, this is the same model that Amazon uses, that every store in the history of stores use. But like, Amazon is an interesting example of that, because I learned that close to half of the inventory on amazon.com isn't owned by Amazon, like, it's a giant consignment store, like, it's owned by individual sellers and small businesses like you and me, where they're essentially, like, crowdsourcing their inventory and you and letting you kind of tap into their like, logistics network, which is, like, awesome. So what I've done, and haven't done it too much this year, because we had a baby, but like, used to go to, actually, we went to Babies R Us because we're making lots of trips there. And like, you can use the Amazon Seller app on your phone and like, scan stuff, like, from the clearance section at Babies R Us, at Walmart, at Home Depot, and like, see what it's worth on Amazon. And sometimes the spread is big enough where you're like, well, shoot, I should buy this and send it in and sell it on. Let them sell it on my behalf. So people are doing that, making good money, doing that, and kind of the next level beyond that would be like, you know, having your own products manufactured. So I've seen some people do well in a whole different variety of niches there, like trying to find something that's, you know, selling well on Amazon, you know, creating your own competitive product, or creating something with a little tweak to it, that that you think will sell,

Robert Plank 18:13 and that's cool. And for a few years ago, we were playing around with some Amazon FBA stuff too, like we, we got our own magnesium fire starters for camping cream, and send those in it. And but, and so, but with that, I mean, we, especially with like, like, Amazon in particular, and, you know, fibers, kind of in some of the categories, it's kind of going this way. Like, have you noticed that some, some of them sort of implode a little bit like, you know, maybe get like, like like, you mentioned a little bit about, like, Uber sort of screwing, screwing over people a little bit. But even, like, with Amazon, like, we've noticed that, like, the fees have kind of gone up and up, and some of the categories have been become more competitive. So like, have you noticed, like, within some of these platforms, like, sometimes they kind of just, they kind of collapse on people. Have you ever seen that where like, or maybe it's like, outlived its usefulness, or kind of is not really like, economically feasible anymore?

Nick Loper 19:07 Yeah. And I think you'll find that with with Uber is a good example, right? Like, the average tenure of a driver is probably six months or 12 months, where it's like, okay, this is not worth it anymore, and so they kind of continually have to run new driver incentives. Amazon is a good example of that where it's like, you know, we're gonna let you tap into our audience of buyers that we've been building for 20 years, and we're gonna let you tap into our logistics network, and, you know, utilize kind of this fulfillment system that we have built out, but at the end of the day, like, this is still our customer, and this is still our platform, right? So there's always going to be kind of like that platform risk if you don't control the process start to finish. So like Udemy is another good example of that, right? Like Udemy is online, kind of peer to peer education platform where you can upload your own courses and sell those something like 12 million students. On on there at this point. And this year, they kind of made some wholesale changes to their pricing structure and the promotion structure. And at least so for me, I'd kind of been earning consistent 345, bucks a month from Udemy, and that immediately got cut, you know, 60% to 100 and or $200 a month. Like, it was really pretty significant decrease. And thankfully it wasn't like, you know, I'm not relying on this as my sole source of of income. But like, just goes to show when you when you don't control the platform, there's always gonna be some risk there. So, like, that's what I'm seeing people do on Amazon, like creative, like, warranty registration cards, you know, trying to get people onto their own platform, you know, building their own online store where they can save on the fees and they can, you know, do their own, you know, marketing, you know, drive their own traffic and stuff like that. So I would look at these platforms as kind of like a like a jump start, like you can use that as an accelerator, you know, to get eyeballs onto your product or service quickly. But ultimately, you know, it's always gonna be a safer bet if you can, if you can stand alone,

Robert Plank 21:07 okay, yeah, fair enough. And it sounds like, like you said, people can kind of use one platform to jump start, and maybe if the platform either becomes too competitive or becomes too restrictive or shoots themselves in the foot somehow it sounds like either, either you can move to some other platform, or kind of just take things that, like the next logical iteration. So like, if someone was, like you said, if someone was selling on Amazon, Amazon becomes too locked down, they can move to say, like a Shopify store or something,

Nick Loper 21:36 right? Yeah. And then there's a whole host of, you know, other challenges in in doing that, but ultimately, yeah, if you can drive your own traffic, you can hold better margins. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of advantages to doing that, too.

Robert Plank 21:50 And so we've kind of been been talking about and stepping through a lot of the these different side hustles, I mean, like Uber, Airbnb, Udemy, five, or stuff like that. And so, you know, when you do your your side hustles, I mean, I'm actually like, what is, what is a side hustle versus, like, a whole business, like, are we talking like, you know, like, like, part time only, or, like, a limited number of hours or, I mean, you know why side hustles as opposed to just some regular business building?

Nick Loper 22:17 Well, I think of it as a lower risk brand of entrepreneurship, right? So you don't have to quit your job, but if you have an extra 510, 20 hours a week and you want to do something productive with that time, like, think of it as, like, for profit hobbies, right? My friend, you know, loves to play golf, and he's become a really good golfer, but the odds of him ever making the tour and making money off that hobby, aside from, like, you know, betting his friends per hole is very, very low, whereas, like, my wife had a, like, a photography hobby, and, you know, she got pretty good at taking pictures. Like, I'm probably a little biased, but I think she's pretty good at what she does. And, you know, it's turned that into a side business. And it's like trying to use that, use that free time more productively. So I don't know. I think of it as like a lower risk. It's like a way to taste, taste the entrepreneurship world, which I believe actually makes you a better employee, because you kind of get to think like a CEO, even if it's just on, you know, your own 510, hour a week business and without, without necessarily having to worry where rent is going to come from next month, where groceries are going to come from next month. And kind of can give you a way to ease into that, okay, and, and,

Robert Plank 23:23 I mean, do a lot of your, your your crowd, your community, do they? Do they just stick with, like, the side hustle on the side, like they have their, like, their their day job, or the remaining income and the thing on the side. Or, like, do these, these a lot of times that they turn into full blown businesses, or like, I mean, what, what usually happens with your people after they they take on some of these side hustles for a while. Some

Nick Loper 23:45 people are like, I love my job. I would never want to get out of there. But no, for most people, it's like, I'm looking at this as a potential escape route. Like, if I can build up my income to a certain level, I am out of here, I would love to be on my own

Robert Plank 23:58 fair enough. And I mean, what are your thoughts on that, by the way, like, where, if someone is, like, in an employee in a nine to five kind of situation, and they want to use one of these side hustles. I mean, do you have any like, advice you could give your past self in that sort of sort of situation? Like, it's as far as, how to, how to, you know, find a time for both things, how to make sure your family life doesn't suffer. I mean, what are your thoughts on that whole thing, on the transitioning from the day job to full time with the side hustle as sort of the bridge in the gap.

Nick Loper 24:29 So have a number in mind of what you want to be bringing in on the side, right? So for me, it was like, I want to be able to, you know, cover my fixed expenses for like, a period of six months or 12 months, or 12 months. Like, I want to have that kind of track record of earnings. And some people will be like, they won't even want that much. Like, if I can get halfway there in 10 hours a week, just imagine what I could do with extra 40 hours a week. And they'll make that leap. And, you know, build that parachute on the way down. Goes a little bit more conservative on that sound. But like, you know, have have a number in mind. Have a. Target in mind. So you know, kind of what you're shooting for, as far as, like, you know, work life, balance and productivity and all that stuff. One thing that I found effective is, like tracking your hours in not even, not necessarily, like your working hours, but like trying to figure out, look, we're all dealt the same 24 hours in a day. Where does the time go? And, like, just by documenting that. So I just use, like, Google Docs, like, or Excel spreadsheet go, where did I actually spend my time? And you'll find that it kind of gamifies it a little bit. And you'd be like, I can't believe I just spent 25 minutes on email. Like, where did that get me? And all of a sudden, I think you'll be able to unlock some some extra hours for that, and move things forward a little bit quicker. What I don't know, any favorite productivity hacks.

Robert Plank 25:48 I mean, at least for me, I kind of, I like to do four things every day. I like to do one thing that's like a 10 minute task, and usually it's, it's something like, you know, sending an email to my list, like a broadcast email or updating social media. And then I like to do three other tasks that are 45 minutes each. That way I'm not falling into sort of that trap that you mentioned, where, you know, you sit at the computer and next thing you know, you're like, I've been here for three hours just playing on Twitter, checking on email. So that's, like, my biggest thing is, I like to do four tasks every single day.

Nick Loper 26:19 Yeah, that's a, that's a good breakdown. And,

Robert Plank 26:23 and have you noticed, like, at least in your experience, when you were, when you were transition, so you did transition out of a day job, right? Yes. So would you, did you you prefer that, that method, or Would you have preferred, like, maybe if you had been, like, fired or laid off, and then, and then you would have had, maybe, like, the scarier financial situation, but more time. And which you prefer? Would you prefer, like, driving, the driving off the cliff that you mentioned, or did you prefer the slow transition? Well,

Nick Loper 26:55 I think it would have been a lot scarier. Yeah, I would rather be in charge of my own destiny, fair enough, rather than, rather than having it, having it forced upon me. Although there's something to be said for that, where it's like, you know, I've actually talked to a lot of people like, Oh, I got laid off, or I got, you know, so it kind of used that time, or use that period of unemployment to say, hey, you know what? You maybe you don't need to get another job. Like, maybe there's, maybe there's, maybe there's an alternative path. So I've definitely seen people do it both ways, which is, I don't know, like that would be scary for me, but, but

Robert Plank 27:28 if someone is kind of forced in that way, then it could be like a blessing in disguise for them, I guess. Yeah, I think so and so. I mean, we mentioned a lot of different types of side houses and lots of different sort of ideas. And I mean, have you ever either come across or created or thought about something where someone could even sort of like, take a test and narrow down, like, which thing they should do? I mean, have you thought about that? Or does something like that exist, like a sort of way to decide what to do and what platform to use?

Nick Loper 27:56 I had a quiz on the site for a while. I don't know if it's still there. I don't know it wasn't very good. I used the quiz, or saw Q ZR software to, like, you know, make this little quiz like, you know, answer these questions, and it'll strip back out. You know what, what type of side hustle is, is right for you. But I don't know. Really, the biggest challenge is, like, you know, picking one thing that sounds interesting or sounds doable, that you think you'll actually take action on and execute on, and then, you know, once you see some results from that, I think you'll be kind of addicted to the process, you know, whether or not you want to stick with that thing. I think earning those dollars and seeing those results that kind of like is the empowering moment, because all of a sudden it's not you're no longer defined by what it says on your business card or by your job title. It's like, hey, look, I have, I have worth outside of my job. And I think that's like a really empowering moment, right?

Robert Plank 28:50 And it's a good way to kind of shut up the haters, right? Like, if, if you're just that guy that everyone laughs at, worthy you're playing around on internet, that's one thing. But if you can say, well, I made X number of dollars, or I made enough to quit my job, then anyone who's kind of being a naysayer doesn't really have much of a leg to stand on,

Nick Loper 29:07 yeah, and I like to set it up as, like, you know, maybe mini targets, like everybody wants to, you know, be able to pay their rent with their side hustle. But it's like, what if you start, you know, ridiculously small, like, what if you could pay for your cell phone bill, or what you could pay for your car insurance or your groceries, or, you know, whatever it is, like, you know, kind of working your way up the snowball that way it lets you celebrate, kind of like the mini the mini wins, right? Like, Oh, I, I sold, you know, a gig on Fiverr, and that pays for my dollar shape club membership or something, you know, something dumb like that, right?

Robert Plank 29:41 And I like that, because that way it's just those, those small, attainable milestones, like you're taking the stair steps up, as opposed to hoping that you'll, you'll win the lottery, and sort of along those lines, have you come across with any of, any of the people that, that you've, you know, talked to, or whatever, where, where maybe they, they. They're like, have some, some of that fear of success where, like, they're they get all, like, almost to the money making point and then stop. Or have you seen any people who maybe they've been trying, been trying, and when they make that first little bit of money, they kind of get discouraged and quit. I mean, have you come across that at all?

Nick Loper 30:16 I don't know. I think I talked to a lot of hustlers. They're ready to take it to the next level. I mean, one guy who comes to mind, who will remain anonymous, like, he runs a really engaged, like, email business, I guess, email service where He sends out like a daily message, like, you hear the top three articles in this industry every day. I'm like, Dude, you know what kind of open rates you see? He's like, Oh, you know, probably 50, 60% like, that's unheard of. Like, you've ever really engaged list? Like, you know, 1000s and 1000s of people get these messages every day. Like, how are you not, you know, selling sponsorships in this? How are you not promoting affiliate products in this? Like, how are you not, like, even just, like, having a Book of the Week and linking it to Amazon or something. Like, it was, like, you're, I don't know, there's, you know, sometimes you see stuff like that, and you're like, man, if this was my business, I could be making some money with that. But with that. But I think most people are pretty good about seizing those opportunities in a way that makes sense for them, because, you know, there's also some there's probably also something to it, like, you know, if you wanted to go down that path, like you already would have, you know.

Robert Plank 31:17 But do you think that, I mean, these people who are during their side houses. Do you think that they could all sort of benefit from either a coach or, like, that outside perspective, like you're saying, where someone who's maybe not so deep into that business can sort of see the see the flaws, or see the opportunities, or, like, see the things that, if only they would kind of do this one thing, it would just explode their business. I mean, do you see like, a need for that? Yeah, that? Well,

Nick Loper 31:43 absolutely, you know, I've definitely seen value from mastermind groups, from even, like, listening to other podcasts as as kind of mentorship where it's like, oh, I never thought about that. Or, you know, I can even though this guy's business was unrelated, like, I can apply XYZ to my operation. So, yeah, absolutely.

Robert Plank 31:59 And what are your thoughts? So along those lines of, like, you know, like, I mean, we all hear that, you know, we should, you know, try different things and be like, always reading and always listening. But, I mean, what are your thoughts on, on just on being more focused and on not being so scatterbrained, like a lot of those entrepreneurs are.

Nick Loper 32:18 Again, this is going to be like a do as I say, not as they do thing, I'm trying to get better about practicing that just in time, learning, which is actually a phrase I first heard from one of my podcast guests. And he was like, Look, I don't even have a website because it doesn't matter yet, you know, I'm just, I'm trying to practice just in time. Learning, when I need one, I'll build one. But like, you know, at this point, you know, I'm getting clients without it. So, you know, why bother? Whereas other people are like, I gotta make a logo, I gotta incorporate I gotta, you know, get business card, I gotta build this website. And they end up kind of like putting off the hard thing, which is actually getting a customer for all this stuff that, you know, they think is important, but it's really just like kind of an excuse to procrastinate.

Robert Plank 32:59 And you know what, along those lines, like, I can definitely relate to that. And I think that what really hit home for me, as far as, like, those two extremes, like, one is, you know, I don't need to know this until I actually need it, as opposed to people who kind of plan their whole life ahead, like, I used to work with someone, I used to have a business partner where, where he would do that, that last scenario you just described, like, he would get super excited about a project and and we would name it, and then he would make this list of things that he needed to do, and he would go and pick off the fun or the easy tasks first, right? Which sounds at first, like, when you before you do it sounds like a good idea, like, Oh, of course, I'll get the graphics made, right? Of course, I'll get the domain name, of course, to get the business card made. And then what I noticed with this particular person was, after he did that those handful of things, he kind of felt, felt sort of sort of satisfied and also tired and like accomplished when he had just done all he had done all of the unimportant things and none of the important things. So I could, I could totally relate to that, and I can totally relate to sort of sort of pushing yourself towards, towards the side of the just in time, learning where, where, I think a lot of people, I've seen, so many people just kind of falling on that trap of plan out the whole next six months and then kind of cherry pick the things that they want to do, where they've done all they put in All this time, maybe spent some money, and have nothing, as opposed to if they had just done the bare minimum to get up and running, then they would actually be further along than choosing the wrong things, if that makes sense.

Nick Loper 34:32 Yeah, and I've totally been there right where it's like, you know, somebody will send you an email and be like, come to my webinar on Thursday. And I'd be like, Well, that sounds interesting. I should totally do that. And it's like that really had nothing to do with my number one goal for the week. It's like, it's kind of a distraction. And like, I'll keep it in my inbox, like, I'm sure you know if, especially if, there's a recording, and eventually I want to learn about whatever the topic that is, like, that could still be a good resource for me. But it's like. Like, okay, is this relevant to me right now, or is this, like, relevant to what I'm trying to accomplish right now? And if it's not, you know, me, let's, it's still gonna be there, or it'll happen again, you know, right?

Robert Plank 35:09 It'll, it'll find its way to me again, if it's that important. Yeah. And so, so that that sort of bright, shiny objects. I mean, do you think that is that, like, the number one biggest mistake you see happening with all these people trying to do their side hustles, or is there something even bigger that the people keep coming across that they should be fixing?

Nick Loper 35:32 I don't know. Like, I'm not, I don't know. That's a good question. Like, I don't know what's really, you know, the biggest like, failure point. I mean, to get, like, really technical. The biggest failure would be, is always cash flow. Or, you know, why do businesses fail? They're not bringing in enough money, they're not making enough sales. That's probably the biggest point, you know, where I think what gets people, you know, what prevents people from getting started, is kind of like the trifecta of time, money and ideas. It's like, I don't have enough time, I don't have the right idea, and I don't have enough capital. Get this thing off the ground. It's like, you know, realistically, you how much do you really need to get started like you, if you carved out an hour a day, if you carved out half an hour a day, like could you make some meaningful progress? If you just made a date with yourself on the calendar to, like, just get this done every like, I think at the end of the month, you would look back and like, well, you know, each half hour individually probably isn't that big. But like, you know, to do that can for 30 days, 30 days consecutively, all of a sudden you made more progress than you thought you might. So it's the same thing with, like, you know, going to the gym. It's like, you ever read what's the book? Even read The Slight Edge? No, hurt. I really like, I really like that one, because it was like, you know, these, these daily habits, you know, that on the surface, aren't going to make a lick of difference one way or the other, right? Like, go to the gym. Don't go to the gym today, right? You're not going to get a six pack, and you're probably not going to die of a heart attack. Of a heart attack, you know, you could skip it, or you could go, it's not going to make any difference. But like, the habit of continually going all of a sudden, you know, you start to see, like, kind of the cumulative effect of doing that, and likewise, the cumulative effect of not going, and you start to trail down into obesity and all these other things. So it's like, there's so I'm trying to be more conscious of, like, you know, what are the you what are the slight head habits, slight edge habits, you know, in my day? And, you know, I think something like writing, I think something like putting out the podcast every week, you know, continually, you know, be being consistent on some of those things you know, have been really important for

Robert Plank 37:39 me. And I think that's really good advice. I think that anyone who is an entrepreneur or pursuing some kind of side hustle should definitely pay attention to that. I think that sort of So, sort of like, what, what I'm sort of, what I'm hearing a lot of, is like, maybe, maybe the people who are failing are super impatient, and those of us that are are succeeding. I mean, it wouldn't say us entrepreneurs are patient, but we know that we have to to keep at it right, and we have to build that muscle. And I mean, use that example of, of going to the gym where, like, you know, if you, if you go just to the gym one time, well, nothing's really going to happen. But if you make it a habit, you don't even have to really do that much. But just make it, you know, part of your your everyday thing, and just go a little bit at a time. And what I also like about that way of thinking is, is okay, like, maybe you go to the gym, maybe you get in shape, but if you miss that one day in the gym, it's okay because you have all those other days, right? Sort of like, if you, um, if you pig out one day, if you eat a whole box of Oreo cookies, well, you're not going to suddenly gain, gain a bunch of weight, but if you do that every day, then then you will, right? So it's sort of like you can build up this, this machine, especially like with your business like, and especially with one of these sorts of so platform, these side hustle, sorts of platforms, they can build up this whole machine that, just like, has all this momentum. And, you know, like both, we're two guys with 200 episodes of the podcast, someday we'll have 1000s of episodes. And it's not just like we stopped at one episode, because one episode doesn't mean much, right? Or, like, you know, you could put out a Kindle book that's making, you know, $1 a month, $5 a month, not much there. But if you do that every day, and you have hundreds of Kindle books, then it that adds up to a lot. And I'm same thing with everything we're talking about, right? With Fiverr, Airbnb, like, it's like, the the sum of all these little transactions.

Nick Loper 39:23 Yeah, Kindle is a good example, too, where it's like, kind of this portfolio business you have, you had Steve Scott on your show? Nope,

Robert Plank 39:30 should I

Nick Loper 39:32 he's a pretty prominent Kindle author, but it was like maybe his 40th book that was, like his big hit, like his big breakthrough. And of course, he made sales, and was making a living off of his portfolio prior to that. But that's like, really what put him on the map. Started earning 10s of 1000s of dollars a month from this one title. And you know, if you weren't in love with the process of writing, there's no way you would have gotten to 40 titles, you know, and kind of kept. At it all that you know, as in which each one is platform grows his, you know, his email list grows. And

Robert Plank 40:07 I like that little hidden gym in there too. Is that, that there needs to be some sort of, like love for the thing itself. It sounds like like, maybe, you know you have to love writing or love doing your podcast or or even to some extent, like love doing that, that Uber driving. But it sounds like, in order to get through that, that difficult growing period, like it sounds like you've gone through with some of these side houses that some of your guests have gone through. It sounds like in order to get through sort of that initial rough patch when it hasn't quite picked up steam yet, you have to have that, that love for the thing you do,

Nick Loper 40:42 yeah, like, so my original side business was a footwear comparison shopping site. It was called shoe sniper.com and so the slight edge in in that business was kind of like the daily inventory management. So this was footwear, and so it was a lot of seasonality to it, and so we would lose, or we would turn over one to 2% of the database every day. As you know, products would go out of stock, and new inventory will come in. And so we're driving a lot of paid traffic, a lot of AdWords traffic to the site. And so, you know, you could let that go one day, two days. You know, 1% of your ads are going to be ineffective, 2% of your ads are going to be ineffective, probably still going to be profitable, not a problem, right? But, you know, leave that for a week. All of a sudden, 7% of your inventory it's out of stock. You leave it for two weeks. Now, almost a sixth of your inventory is out of stock. And so it's kind of like the daily habit of going in, updating the ads, maintaining this database, like, really is what you know, allowed that thing to keep keep spinning and keep growing.

Robert Plank 41:38 Awesome, I mean. And so we've talked about a lot of stuff on this show, and I don't want to keep you too long, but sort of, as we're winding this down today, I mean, out of all these side hustles that, um, that you've come across, is there one that's just, like, super weird and super goofy and out there, but still makes money,

Nick Loper 41:55 super weird, a super weird Side Hustle. So in the book, in buy buttons, there are some really random ones. It goes through, you know, 300 different platforms and in marketplaces, kind of like we've been talking about some of the random ones that I came across. Probably the weirdest one was a site called cuddle up, which is like a peer to peer marketplace for cuddling. It's super creepy. My wife was like, You're gonna have to delete your cookies. Now this is, like, I saw rates from like, $95 I'll come over and cuddle with you. And then I saw a rate of zero, and I was like, I don't know which one is creepier.

Robert Plank 42:31 Oh, geez. Or what would be even worse is, like, negative, like, if they paid you to cut right? Yeah, you're

Nick Loper 42:38 right. That would be worse trying to think of, like, you know, different ones from archives, weird ones. I met a guy who had a vending machine business, which was, like, you say, I bought this vending machine off a dude on eBay. It was 36 bucks. I filled it up with gumballs from Sam's Club. And, you know, just went door to door in this little strip mall until I found a karate student. Found a karate studio to host. Or, you know, Hey, can I put the gumball in the corner of your studio? And went back a couple weeks later and was filled up with quarters. And he's like, Oh my gosh, it was my first taste of, like, passive income. And he's just like, you know, quarters are flying all over the floor. And so I parlayed that in the next vending machine, and then that went into the next and just like, built this empire up, you know, really slowly. So I really like that story. I met another dude who was a raw land investor, which sounds just kind of crazy. He had a whole system where he's, like, I'm targeting specifically out of state landowners, which I guess this is public record. So you can go on to, like any county in the in the country, and find out you know who owns these parcels. So he's looking for out of state owners who owe back taxes. So those two criteria, and sending them offer letters like, hey, you know you owe whatever $3,000 on this parcel. I'll, I'll make that go away for you, plus give you however much you know whatever his offer is for the parcel and then tries to turn around and resell that. And he was like, for somebody who doesn't want to deal with, you know, tenants and toilets, and you all the difficult, you know, things that normally come with being a landlord. You know, here's a way to, you know, make money off of real estate without having to do any of that. I was like, man, there's so there's just a million different ways. And I love it. It's, it's really exciting to talk to people who are making it happen and try some of the stuff now myself.

Robert Plank 44:26 It sounds exciting. It sounds awesome. And I mean, I knew of a few of these sort of goofy new ways of making money. But, I mean, you really opened my eyes to just how, how crazy it's become, in a good way of like, there's all these, you know, all these things people can pursue and just, and just try them out really quickly. I mean, I think that even just as you were describing, like the sharing economy on these different platforms, I mean, and side hustles in general. I mean, people don't have to completely quit everything else through and they can just, you know, try something for 30 minutes a day, for an hour a day. And sort of see how it goes. And if it's not for them, drop it and try something else. And if it works well, then they can make those additional steps to kind of see where it goes and grow the business and see if that's, um, that's something more that they should, that they should go and pursue. And so you've mentioned this, this buy buttons book, and you've mentioned your side hustle, podcast and blog. So can you tell us about about those things and about your websites and stuff like that?

Nick Loper 45:25 You bet the book is at buy buttons book.com that'll redirect it over to Amazon. It's the Fast Track strategy to make extra money and start a business in your spare time. It really kind of goes into this marketplace theory, the theory like, if you want to make extra money, go where the cash is already flowing, and lists, you know, just hundreds of these different marketplaces where you can do just that, the blog or the podcast you can find at side hustle nation.com, and lots of fun in the archives. I think you'll, you'll have a good time, you know, all the I'll send Robert some links with some of the episodes that we mentioned

Robert Plank 46:00 awesome. So buy buttons, book.com, and side hustle nation.com, and, man, this is one of the, the most fun podcast interviews we've done on the show so far. And I'm glad that this was the big rounds 200 because I don't we definitely heard about, I mean, lots of just, just low impact, just fun ways and sometimes weird ways like that. That cuddle up site. I don't think I'm going to join that, but I'm definitely gonna, I'm definitely gonna look at the website out of curiosity, because that just seems super crazy that you know there's, there's all these new ways of making money. So thanks for for sharing some of that stuff with us, Nick, and thanks for opening our eyes up to to these new possibilities. And thanks for hopping on the show and sharing your time.

Nick Loper 46:43 You bet, man, thanks for having me

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