Side-Side Hustling

Many thriving small businesses have grown out of side hustles.

A side hustle is a job or business that someone takes on in addition to their main job to earn extra money or explore a passion. But what happens when you finally make the leap, your side hustle becomes your main focus, but the cash flow hasn’t caught up yet?

As a small business owner, committing to another full-time job isn’t an option, so maybe it’s time for a side-side hustle—a small, manageable income stream that complements your business while giving you some financial breathing room!

I’ve had side hustles since I started gigging at seventeen. I’ve taught lessons, worked retail, been an administrative assistant, and one of those annoying people who call you at night asking for your opinion on a new juice brand.

I believe a side hustle needs to have three key characteristics:

• You must enjoy it (at least a little bit - hopefully - if you can. I did not enjoy market research but I was a teenager so I had to suck it up)

• It needs to have at least some flexibility

• It has to pay (otherwise what’s the point?)

So how do you find yours?

The easiest way is to take your main hustle (the one that was originally a side hustle itself) and think about the non-traditional ways you can monetize those skills.

Examples:

Do you love creating promotional photography, videos, and graphics for your fashion design business? Maybe you could help other designers with theirs, for a fee, advertising your skills locally and on Upwork or Fiverr.

If you’re a photographer who isn’t making quite enough shooting events, you could teach amateur photography classes or sell prints on Etsy or stock photography sites like Shutterstock. You could design local photography tours of beautiful scenic sites and advertise to tourists.

If you run a retail store, you could host pop-up events with local artists or musicians to increase foot traffic. Corporate gift boxes might work well with your products, or you could offer service-based add-ons, such as product personalization, alterations, or consulting. If you’re a clothing retailer, you could offer styling sessions or a home goods store owner could offer interior design consultations.

For yoga teachers, offering both classes and private sessions is a no-brainer. But if your roster is still growing and you need to bring in some extra cash, maybe you could approach larger local businesses about offering lunchtime yoga for their employees, or you could write a yoga blog and use affiliate marketing to earn money while you promote products you love.

A florist might teach flower arranging classes, provide preservation services for saving flowers from large events like weddings and birthdays, or rent your store as a location for photo shoots.

The goal is to assess what you’re already doing and recognize the skills you've developed along the way—skills you may not have realized you’ve acquired while learning to run your business.

Identify how these skills can be offered to others or think of creative ways to modify your current services to attract a different audience. It’s all about leveraging your strengths in new, profitable ways that complement your existing business.