First Thing’s First
You probably need your full-time job, so unless you’re very financially secure, you should understand that developing any business takes time. It will take more time when you’re working a full-time or even part-time job, so don’t think that you can press a magic button to turn your side hustle into a profitable business overnight. It takes a lot of work and a lot of time, but if you have the tenacity and a real passion for your side hustle, it can be well worth it.
Imagine Your Hustle… But Bigger
To turn your side hustle into a business, you need to first establish your business aims. What level of business will you be happy with before you can quit the day job? It can be helpful to use this formula when you’re setting your aims:
(Full time + Average Side Hustle Earnings)/Average Side Hustle Earnings
The number that you are left with is the minimum amount you need to grow your hustle by for you to quit your day job. For example, if you earn £100 a week on average from your side hustle and £350 from your full-time job, you need to grow your business by 4.5 times. You will also need to calculate your startup costs and factor these in so you don’t run out of cash due to unforeseen circumstances.
How can you do that?
List the different ways that you can make more money from your side hustle. The typical avenues are: selling more products, getting more clients, upselling clients, and cutting your costs.
Market Research
Once you know how you can make more money from your side hustle, you need to take a look at the market you’re currently in. How likely is it that you’re going to successfully increase your side hustle’s monetisation? You need to know the number of potential customers at your disposal and do an in-depth analysis of these customers.
It’s highly unlikely that you’ve exhausted the clients that fill your side hustle niche, so focus on mastering that niche and that specific customer segment. You’re lucky enough to have existing clients or customers, something that’s incredibly valuable. Talk to as many of them as possible – ask every question you can think of that will help you to decide how likely it is that you can successfully make money from each avenue. Flat-out ask them if they would be interested in other products/services or if they would recommend you to their friends. Get some promises if you can – you want to be as secure as possible. If the interest is lacking, explore other avenues – you should be very sure you have a market for your growth.
Action
Once you are sure that you have the customers that you need for your growth, you can take action. Incorporate a company, pop open some sparkling wine and celebrate. It sounds too simple to be true, but remember that 70% of startups fail, and 42% of the time, that failure is because there’s no market need – i.e., no customers. It can take a long time to accumulate the customer base you need to do your side hustle as a full-time job, but push through the frustration.
While you are accumulating customers, don’t sit still. Learn as much as you can about marketing and accountancy – if you want to run a profitable business, your accountancy needs to be spot-on. If you run a business like an eCommerce store, it can be hard for you to get that market confidence that’s needed before action. That’s why you should start marketing while you are building up a potential customer base. There’s a lot of digital marketing that you can do for free (or very little money); learn and practice SEO to help support your customer acquisition.
Once you have that customer base, have incorporated the company, and have dedicated your full-time attention to what was your side-hustle, know that there is still a lot of risk – you will need to constantly tend to your customer base and try to grow as much as you can, as steadily as you can, giving yourself the support you need in case customers drop out along your journey.
Image by Corinne Kutz
