Starting Your Side Hustle

Key points
 Starting Your Side Hustle

What is a minimum viable product/service?

A minimum viable product (MVP) is a concept from Lean Startup that stresses the impact of
learning in new product development. Eric Ries, defined an MVP as that version of a new product
which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with
the least effort. This validated learning comes in the form of whether your customers will actually
purchase your product.

A key premise behind the idea of MVP is that you produce an actual product (which may be no
more than a landing page, or a service with an appearance of automation, but which is fully
manual behind the scenes) that you can offer to customers and observe their actual behavior with
the product or service. Seeing what people actually do with respect to a product is much more
reliable than asking people what they would do.
 Starting Your Side Hustle

1) What do you like doing/can do right now?

a. With COVID-19 can you work as a grocery stocker? Or work for Amazon? Or Wal-
Mart?
i. You are not above any of these jobs so go find out if you can work for
them and make some money
ii. If one of your family members are high risk then don’t do this
iii. However, don’t sit around! You need to be learning skills!
b. Try to focus on creation versus consumption.
i. For example, instead of writing “watching Netflix” think of maybe
something like “editing videos”
ii. Examples: photography, dog walking/training, editing photos/videos,
teaching another language, house sitting, fixing things around the house,
etc…
iii. If you need more ideas, get your phone out and visit upwork.com and
scroll down on their homepage
1. For in demand jobs go to Upwork.com or Fiverr.com
iv. Examples below
 Starting Your Side Hustle

2) Circle items above that you think someone (maybe yourself) is willing to pay for
eventually
a. We say eventually because when you first start off, you will be pretty bad and you
should do it for free
b. Write down below the skill/passion/hobby above that you want to pursue
Starting Your Side Hustle
 Starting Your Side Hustle

3) Choose the item circled above that you think you could start doing in less 30 days
a. We want to focus on something that we can start soon after building some skills
i. Skill building should take less than 30 days
ii. It’s best if you have some knowledge in this area even if it’s just a little bit
of knowledge
1. For example, if you want to start coding then knowing if then
statements and for loops is the minimal amount of knowledge or it’s
going to be really tough to start making money off of this in 6
months
b. The item chosen should still bring you joy and happiness
i. You have to like what you’re doing or you’re going to quit at the first road
block

4) Where can you learn more about this skill?

a. Try to focus on places on the internet so you don’t have to necessarily go
somewhere to take lessons. However, if you do have to go somewhere to take
lessons, that’s not bad either but it’s much easier if you can learn from home.
i. Building the skill will take a small investment but with the internet the
investment should be small
 Starting Your Side Hustle
5) How can you start getting clients?
a. You will start offering your services for free
i. Use Upwork.com or Fiverr.com
ii. Use your own network of friends/families to see if anyone needs help with
what your offering
1. Does anyone you know need video editing services?
b. After 6 months of doing it for free, if you’re good you can begin charging
i. You don’t have to charge at all. Building the skill is valuable in of itself and
can be used to get other jobs, build your network, and invest in yourself.
ii. Don’t focus on solely making money.
iii. Your focus should be on making yourself better and helping others. If you
help others, eventually someone will pay you for your service.
 Starting Your Side Hustle

6) If someone were to ask you these questions, you should have an answer ready to
determine if you are ready to start your side hustle:
a. Why are you pursuing this as your side hustle?
b. How will this side hustle make you happy?
c. How are you already set up for success on this side hustle?
d. What skills will you need to improve on for this side hustle?
e. What are your anticipated start-up costs?
i. You want these to be as low as possible to reduce the risk