How to Find a Side Hustle that Pays – In Just 7 Minutes with Nick Loper

Resources/Links:

• Wanting to amplify your earning power starting this day? Get your creative juices flowing through Nick’s list of different part time money-making ideas by visiting https://www.sidehustlenation.com/ideas now!

Summary

Are you one of those people who aren’t really the type who hate their day jobs but are just really wanting to spend their free time more effectively?

Have you been thinking about exercising your creativity through doing something productive after your work ends for the day in order for you to earn extra money?

Do you want to have a side hustle that pays but you have no idea on where to start your amplifying journey?

Nick Loper helps people earn money outside of their day job. He’s an author, online entrepreneur, and host of the award-winning Side Hustle Show podcast.

In this episode, Nick unravels the secrets on how you can find a side hustle that pays and is worthy of spending your free time in so you can earn extra money. Here, he discusses why it’s a mistake that people usually find the perfect business idea that has never been done before instead of going for the safer choice of doing something that has already been proven market-worthy, and shares tips and resources you can look out for that can help you start your side hustle journey.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:16 – Nick’s ideal client: “Ideal client for me is rather an ideal listener or reader of the podcast or blog. Somebody who is reasonably tech savvy, who have got a little bit of free time and are wondering some productive ways to make some extra money with that time.”
• 01:55 – Problem Nick helps solve: “Problem on the reactive side is somebody who needs to make money. ‘I can’t– I got to make rents next month.’ You know, ‘I’m struggling.’ On the proactive side was like ‘I was never the person who necessarily hated the corporate job, hated my day job, but I still wanted to use my free time more effectively.’”
• 02:49 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Nick: “The stereotypical way that it hits somebody is they’re 10-15 years deep into their career – maybe even earlier than that – and say like ‘I did what I was supposed to do. I went to school. I got a good job. I – maybe – have a house, a relationship. I have kids – maybe. Is this it? Is this all that there is?’”
• 04:07 – Common mistakes that people make before they find Nick’s solution: “One of the most common ones is this paralyzation of analysis; they try to find the perfect business idea. The other thing that gets people trapped up is just ‘I don’t know where to start.’”
• 05:25 – Nick’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): “I call this the ‘what sucks method’. And so, you have to kind of put on your pessimist hat for a few days or a week of doing this. I just have a Notes app on my phone and I’m going to note down everything that sucks over the course of the day, over the course of the week.”
• 06:20 – Nick’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Get your creative juices flowing through Nick’s list of different part time money-making ideas by visiting https://www.sidehustlenation.com/ideas now!
• 07:05 – Q: What’s the favorite book I’ve read recently? A: Undaunted Courage.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Keeping track of the what sucks in your life often leads to business ideas on the other end.” -Nick Loper Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Welcome everyone to another edition of Marketing The Invisible. My name is Tom Poland beaming out to us always from little Castaways Beach in Queensland, Australia joined today by Nick Loper. Nick, good day, Sir! Very warm welcome. Where are you hanging out?

Nick Loper 0:23
Good day! Good morning! Good afternoon in sunny Livermore, California. Good morning to you.

Tom Poland 0:28
And then you have a pretty hot summer over there.

Nick Loper 0:31
Yeah, we’re a hundred today which is 33 or so.

Tom Poland 0:35
Wow! Yeah, that’s starting to cook.
Folks, for those of you who don’t know Nick, he helps people earn money outside of their day job. What a good idea. He’s an author, online entrepreneur, and host of the award-winning Side Hustle Show podcast, and he’s even – for this podcast appearance – wearing a t-shirt that says podcast. If you can’t see the video, if you’re listening to this while you’re running, this man is in the moment.
Nick, our title today – and thanks so much for rocking up; I appreciate you sharing your wisdom with folks – “How To Find A Side Hustle That Pays” and Nick’s going to tell you how to do that in just seven minutes.
Nick, our time starts now. Question number one, Sir. Who is your ideal client?

Nick Loper 1:16
Ideal client for me is rather an ideal listener or reader of the podcast or blog. Somebody who is reasonably tech savvy, who has some extra time – nights, weekends, evenings, mornings; we see people do it on their lunch breaks – who wants to make extra money, who wants to figure out how to start something to exercise their creativity that may be something that eventually eclipses the day job income, but they’ve got a little bit of free time and are wondering some productive ways to make some extra money with that time.

Tom Poland 1:47
Oh! I got tingles. It sounds like a great plan; great strategy. Six and a half minutes left. What’s the problem you solve? How do you define that? That’s question two.

Nick Loper 1:55
Yeah. Problem, you know, on the reactive side is somebody who needs to make money, right? “I can’t– I got to make rents next month.” You know, “I’m struggling.”

Tom Poland 2:04
Right.

Nick Loper 2:05
On the proactive side – which is a little more kind of where I was approaching him from – was like “I was never the person who necessarily hated the corporate job, hated my day job, but I still wanted to use my free time more effectively and I have no desire to climb the corporate ladder.” So, he’s looking for a way out, and it was an online business in my case that let me do that.
So that’s going to be the problem that we solve, like “I need or want to make extra money.”

Tom Poland 2:30
Right. For whatever reason, that’s the motivation. Thank you, Sir.
The question three – five and a half minutes left – some of the typical symptoms of someone who is listening to this and thinking “Yeah, I need to find out more about what Nick’s doing.” What’s going on in their life or their business that they think “Yeah, I need to get into the side hustle thing”?

Nick Loper 2:49
I mean, the way that, you know, the stereotypical way that, you know, it hits somebody is, you know, they’re 10-15 years deep into their career – maybe even earlier than that – and say like “I did what I was supposed to do. I went to school. I got a good job. I – maybe – have a house, a relationship. I have kids – maybe. Is this it? Is this all that there is?” You know.

Tom Poland 3:13
Right. “Is this as good as it gets?”

Nick Loper 3:14
And I find a lot of people– “is this as good as it gets?” And the answer- it didn’t have to be. The answer could be like oh, there’s an alternative path here and I think there’s a lower risk brand of entrepreneurship versus– I think it’s the Reid Hoffman quote from LinkedIn: “Oh! An entrepreneur is somebody who jumps off the cliff and figures out how to build the airplane on the way down.” That sounds terrifying to me.
So, there’s a lower risk way and that’s to start something small – start something on the side. And it’s kind of if you find yourself in that symptom of, well, is this as good as it gets? Is this all there is? Not necessarily; there is maybe an alternative path there.

Tom Poland 3:51
Wonderful. Thank you.
Four minutes left, Sir. What are some of the common mistakes that people make that, you know, clients have come in, they’ve done well working with you, but they said “You know Nick, before I met you, I tried this and it really was a bad mistake.” What are a couple of those that people might look to avoid?

Nick Loper 4:07
Oh my gosh. One of the most common ones is this, you know, paralyzation of analysis. Analysis paralysis, like trying to find that perfect business idea because you know, something that’s never been done before. I think that’s kind of risky place to play; where instead, if you can find something that has been done before and maybe put your own unique spin on it, do it slightly differently, target a slightly different market, I think that’s a little bit safer place to play because there’s some proven demand there.

Tom Poland 4:36
Right.

Nick Loper 4:36
So that’s one thing that really gets people caught up. They try to find the perfect business idea.
The other thing that caught and gets people trapped up is just “I don’t know where to start.” They think, “I got to figure out, you know, how to climb the whole mountain” or just, you got to figure out the first couple steps, you got to figure out the side hustle sidelines and into the game because opportunities become visible once you’re already in motion. And I’m totally that person who wants to plan everything out; I totally get it.

Tom Poland 5:05
Right.

Nick Loper 5:05
But sometimes, you can just kind of take that first step and realize choosing what’s next doesn’t mean choosing what’s forever.

Tom Poland 5:11
Well, that brings us nicely to question five, and three minutes left. The valuable free action – if you like; the one step that someone could take to start. It’s not going to solve the whole thing but it might take them a step in the right direction. If you got a– like a top tip someone could– an action item.

Nick Loper 5:25
Yeah. So business ideas are often found on the other end of pains or problems, right? You could sell pain pills or you could sell vitamins – a lot easier to sell pain pills, solve somebody’s problem. I call this the “what sucks method”. And so, you have to kind of put on your pessimist hat for, you know, a few days or a week of doing this. And so, I just have a Notes app on my phone and I’m going to note down everything that sucks over the course of the day, over the course of the week.

Tom Poland 5:47
Very clever.

Nick Loper 5:48
Like, we’re moving house this month. And so what’s– there’s a lot of things. It’s like, I got to clear out all this other stuff I don’t want. I got to find a mover. I got to find a truck. I got to find boxes. Lots of potential business ideas and lots of businesses that already exist to kind of solve that pain, but keeping track of the what sucks in your life often leads to business ideas on the other end.

Tom Poland 6:09
Nice. Thank you sir. Question six; just under two minutes left. A valuable free resource we could direct people to. A landing page or website somebody can go to go “I need to find out more about this.”

Nick Loper 6:20
So, one place that is a good place to check out would be https://www.sidehustlenation.com/ideas. This is just to get your creative juices flowing, my constantly updated laundry list of different part time money making ideas.
My hope is- there’s like 100 and something items on this page. My hope is by the time you get down to the bottom, you’ve got eight or 10 different browser tabs open, like “Oh! That sounds interesting. I want to learn more about this.” That’s kind of what it is meant to be; just kind of a smorgasbord – a sample, a platter – of what might be out there.

Tom Poland 6:52
https://www.sidehustlenation.com/ideas. Thanks, Nick.
Last question – question number seven. We got a whopping 63 seconds left. What’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t?

Nick Loper 7:05
It’s kind of a tough one. One, you could ask what’s the favorite book that I’ve read recently, and that would be called Undaunted Courage and I forget the author, but this is the story of the Lewis and Clark adventure which is exploring the American West.

Tom Poland 7:22
Wow.

Nick Loper 7:22
If your audience is familiar. This was a– like, let’s go backpacking, but this was like let’s go backpacking for like two-ish years – two and a half years. We don’t know how long it’s going to take. We’re going to go to the Pacific Ocean and back, and it was just a miracle. It made me really grateful for the conveniences of modern life. Imagine trying to make this trek in the early 1800s.

Tom Poland 7:42
And the name of it was, did you say Undaunted Adventure?

Nick Loper 7:46
Undaunted Courage.

Tom Poland 7:47
Undaunted Courage. Thank you. Go get it.
Hey Nick, 10 seconds left. Just enough time to thank you very much for your wisdom and your insight.

Nick Loper 7:55
Well, we did pretty good.

Tom Poland 7:56
We did great. Thank you.

Tom Poland 07:58
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.