“Side hustle” seems to be the new buzzword on everyone’s lips, and I bet you know someone who has one. A side hustle is generally an income stream that someone has alongside their main paid job. It can vary in the amount of time required, what the side hustle is and how much money they make from it. For some, the side hustle is there to pursue a passion outside a job they don’t totally love, but others may be using their side hustle to test the market on whether they can do it full time.
In a recent survey done by Finder, it was discovered that kiwis really are a nation of hustlers. One in three New Zealanders have some kind of side hustle to supplement their income. With the rise of the gig economy and the connectedness of technology, more people have the means to start a side hustle. If you’re an amazing crochet artist, you can easily take your products to market with an e-commerce store. If you’re an awesome cleaner, you can advertise online and pick up cleaning gigs in your spare time.
What’s so great about a side hustle?
1. Flexibility to live the life you want
The best part about having a side hustle is that you get to choose how much time you put into it. If you’re working full time, you may only have a small amount of hours to dedicate to it each week. And that’s totally fine, because it’s your side hustle. You can decide how much you want to earn on the side based on your personal availability outside of your main income stream.
It may be that you only want to work during school hours, or after the kids are in bed at night. Or maybe you want to be home for a pet and so you only want to work when someone else is home with them. Maybe you want to be able to take your pet with you! It can be helpful to sit down and write down your non-negotiables when it comes to your lifestyle and fit your side hustle around those.
2. Anybody can have a side hustle
Yep, you heard me right. There’s no special skills needed for starting a side hustle. If you have a product or service you can offer people, you can start a side hustle. It can be helpful to learn a bit about marketing and other complimentary skills for running a business, but ultimately you can start a side hustle with no experience in running one.
The key to a successful side hustle is solving a problem for someone. The world is full of problems and full of people willing to solve them, so if you’ve got a solution to a problem, you’ve got a side hustle!
3. You don’t need to invest much upfront
Starting a side hustle usually requires minimal investment - rather you’re leveraging your existing skills or experience to provide a product or service to customers. Maybe you’re converting a hobby into income, or offering freelance services similar to what you do in your main job. While you may incur some costs (such as a website or other marketing costs), largely you can get started with very little.
4. You can do something you love and make money from it
For many people, their main job is their primary source of income, not their primary source of inspiration. When you have a side hustle, you can do something you love AND make a little extra money on the side. If your job isn’t lighting your fire but you really need the income from it, having a side hustle that you love can really help you feel more motivated at work. You’ll see the job that you don’t love that much as a means to an end, looking forward to the time you get to spend doing what you love.
Our 3 top tips for starting a side hustle
So this all sounds good and you want to start your own side hustle? Awesome! Here are our top tips for getting started.
1. Look for opportunities
Opportunities are all around you, the key is spotting them. When talking to friends and family, listen for the day to day problems they face. Maybe a friend of a friend is struggling with the load of running a household and is looking for help with their housework. Most side hustles are born from solving a problem for someone you know, so they could be your first client!
2. Find a side hustle that works for YOU
You’ll see a lot of great ideas or side hustles that look like they’re “get rich quick” schemes. The truth is, you’ve got to find a side hustle that works for you. If you’re going to have to spend hours doing something you hate to get your side hustle off the ground, there’s not much point in pursuing it. Ideally you’ll find something that lights your fire or is based on existing skills you have.
It’s important to find something that works with your lifestyle, not the other way around. You want your side hustle to fit in with your other commitments in life, not to be having to work your life around your side hustle.
3. Don’t over-hustle
This one is super important. If you don’t have the time to start a side hustle, it’s best not to. There’s only 24 hours in the day, and while you’ll read a lot of “inspiring” posts about “you sleep x hours, you spend x hours on the toilet, what are you doing with the rest of the 24 hours?” the truth is you need time to just be.
Burnout is a very real thing, and you can fast track your life to burnout city if you’re burning the candle at both ends. Set firm boundaries for your life if you decide to start a side hustle, making sure you reserve time for you, for your family or for whatever you need to do to prevent yourself burning out.
Are you ready to start your own side hustle? List your cleaning services on Kept and start getting customer bookings today! Kept is totally flexible, so you work the hours you want to work. Simply set up your profile, choose the hours you want to work and your profile will be live on the app.
